My Darling Dreadful Thing

It’s a dangerous thing, to try and give someone everything. One day, you might find you’ve given away things you should’ve kept. Some parts of us must remain inviolate if we are to survive as a person.

There’s a reason the word ‘haunting’ is rarely used in a positive way. To never be free of someone, well, that’s not always a comfort.

Spirits like her are not drawn to the happy and carefree; they want salt, be it blood or be it tears.

I would bear anything and everything for love of you. Now, does my love mean so little to you that you would not suffer for it as I have for yours?” “Must love be about suffering?” She looked at me with eyes so black, I wondered how she could even see. “How else does one show the strength and sincerity of one’s love if not through suffering and sacrifice?

I suppose I was, and continue to be, a hungry thing.

I was never a happy child. I think that, if I had been, things would have gone very differently with me. For one, I don’t think Ruth would have become my constant companion. Spirits like her are not drawn to the happy and carefree; they want salt, be it blood or be it tears.

. . . there’s something missing from my life, something dreadful, something darling.

To draw blood is just another kind of passion, isn’t it?

You must be careful with that, Roos. It’s a dangerous thing, to try and give someone everything. One day, you might find you’ve given away things you should’ve kept. Some parts of us must remain inviolate if we are to survive as a person.

The question everyone wants answered is this: Was I or was I not actually possessed? But it is not so simple as that.

What I felt for Agnes was right and true, yes, but it was not selfless. Perhaps love never is.

Darkness lies ahead, yes, but so do joy, solace, and, above all, love.

After a while, Peter came inside. He was bejewelled with raindrops. They had caught most beautifully in the mold at his throat. He regarded us for a little while, then came over and squatted next to us, his joints popping like green wood in a fire.

Left alone in the dark, this secret festers, until everything around it is infected with its rot and it has become impossible to ignore, forcing us to witness the most depraved sides of humanity.

So you were possessive of Mrs. K— in the same way a collector of shells or butterflies is?” P: “No. Those are objects. I never saw A— [Mrs. K—] as such. I was just… I wanted to eat her up and drink her in. I was hungry for her touch and her words and her love. That’s very different from collecting shells or butterflies.

You said you never let another spirit in. Why make an exception for Ruth?” P: “Because she was mine and I was hers.

How else does one show the strength and sincerity of one’s love if not through suffering and sacrifice?

To be Gothic means to refuse to be easily defined. That being said, Gothic novels generally have, at their heart, at least one secret so gruesome it has been dropped down a well, locked away in the attic, or buried somewhere in the garden.

She smells like autumn--that is to say, like wet earth and leaves sweet with the first touch of rot.

It’s no small thing, to be allowed to keep one’s dignity.

You were also intensely lonely and starved of love and affection by your mother. Freud tells us that we all crave our mother’s love. Mama couldn’t give you what you needed, so your mind created a mother who could: Ruth.

Never had she looked more beautiful. Never had she felt so far removed from me.

Around and around my thoughts went, ever deeper, ever darker, until I couldn’t stand it anymore. What use was it, this chewing over all the ways things could go wrong? Being caught in my own head was exhausting. Worse, it was useless, and I despised being useless.

It's no small thing, to be allowed to keep one's dignity.

You’re kind and funny and smart, and so much more besides. He couldn’t take that away from you. He might’ve tried, but he couldn’t because you’re stronger than him and stronger than what he did to you.

Do not seek to correct what you don’t understand,

Some spiritualists say that a person who dies a violent death is shackled to the earth.

Happy. Such a funny little word, don’t you think? Perhaps not so hard a state to achieve, but nearly impossible to maintain, and different for everyone.

What use was it, this chewing over all the ways things could go wrong? Being caught in my own head was exhausting. Worse, it was useless, and I despised being useless.