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Chapter Text

She suspects that there must be a raven, or at the very least a large crow, that makes its home near to the main window. On occasion, the natural light flickers and a slight shadow will briefly fall across the floor of the reception room. The shadow is much too large to be that of a common sparrow, and therefore must belong to the corvidae family. She will have to keep this in mind when she ventures outside. It’s not that she dislikes the large, ominous black birds but simply that a life time of superstition had taught her to be wary of them; ravens bring death with them wherever they go.

Sweating profusely, and dying slightly from the oppressive heat, she wanted to take a break. A cup of tea sounded lovely just about now. Unfortunately, that would require that she opened the boxes that had finally been delivered this morning. Her new home was full of boxes, still packed from the move. Last night -- her first night in her new home -- had been hellish to say the least; while the furniture had been delivered yesterday, all of her basic amenities – the pots and pans, the kettle, the teapot, bedding, even her toiletries – had been brought later by a friend that lived not too far away. In hindsight, she realised that her personal items should have been the first to arrive.

A move such as this, a life decision, well it was difficult in the best of circumstances. Uprooting one’s self after an era set in stone was far from enviable. Siuan Sanche was certainly not in the best of circumstances for this massive change at this point in time, but better now than another twenty years down the line.

Cairhien was a small town, originally erected in the 14th century, that was visually a step back into Victorian streets, located just outside of Tar Valon. In the summertime, the rolling green fields surrounding the little village glimmered with mystery in the early dawn; water droplets shone on the grasses like sparkling diamonds. In the grand light of day, the wild flowers that dotted the country side gave the village a feeling of antiquity. And when the night came, the stars shone like pinpricks of perfect blue-white light; the very essence of pure magic. The very first time that she had witness it, Siuan knew that Cairhien could become a home to her. It would be the perfect place to start anew.

Covered in the dust that had accumulated in the Victorian homestead that had been closed up for several years before she assumed ownership, Siuan pushed a few wayward curls back from her face. The sweat in her hair line was absorbed by the garish blue scarf she’d tied around her head to keep the curls at bay. The house was beautiful; the hardwood floors appeared to be original, and a simple oiling would return their walnut coloured gleam. But first the dust had to be cleared out.

Upon second thought, the dull surface of the hardwood floor gave the home character; a tie to its past. Or maybe Siuan just didn’t much feel like rubbing lemon oil into the ancient wood at the moment. Maybe she could get Leane to come and help her one weekend.

The new owner of Sunriver Manor – and Siuan much wondered about the house’s name because there was no water of any sort on the property – pushed the pile of dirt from the front door with the broom. She decided to leave the front entrance of the house open wide (along with many of the windows on both floors), the house could use the blast of fresh air. It was musty and slightly damp from the pouring rain the night before. Besides, the light summer breeze would cool the stuffy rooms, if only a little. She was going to have to look into having central air conditioning installed into the Victorian manor. For now the few standing fans that she had would do the trick.

Resting the broom handle against the wall, Siuan shrugged off the work gloves that she’d been wearing, and glanced around herself. The home already looked better; a simple sweeping had livened up the drab interior. Sunriver definitely had its potential.

A few coats of paint here and there would make a world of difference, and the lemon oil – if she ever got to it – would vastly improve the hardwood floors. Soon the house would be gleaming like it had in its glory days.

Sunriver had been closed up for years; the people that Siuan had bought the house from had owned it for some time, having lived there for only a matter of months. Originally it had been in the wife’s family since the 1920s, and though it had been lived in up until the early 2000s, it had never felt like home to the couple. They had left Cairhien in 2008, almost as soon as they could. They had boarded up the manor house and left it behind, forgetting it like a book on a shelf.

Siuan had fallen in love with the regency era home the moment she first laid eyes upon it; the manor house itself was a gorgeous late 18th, or very early 19th, century home. Large enough by modern standards, at the time it had been considered more of a large cottage rather than a manor.

Despite the size being enough to alienate her at times, and possibly harp upon her inevitable loneliness, it also offered safety and a feeling of being only one person on the face of an ever changing planet; someone, something that honestly didn’t need to have any true bearing over the world. The interior of the home was an eclectic mix of eras; the furnishings of one period bleeding over into the next. Some rooms still offered the ghosted memories of the days when Sunriver was first built; others were a distinct throwback to the roaring 1920s. Further still were the few modernized rooms in the house; the upstairs privy, the kitchen with modern amenities and marble counter tops, and the master bedroom.

The master bedroom was itself painted a medium grey-blue colour; according to Behr’s colour palette, the colour which was closest to it was called “French Court PPU14-4”. Like the other bedrooms, the crown moulding was white, likely used to brighten the room. The wall separating the bedroom from of the next bedroom was divided halfway up; the lower half was narrow wood paneling that had also been painted white. The hardwood floor, like the rest of the manor, was an earthy walnut.

Siuan lay in her bed, it was only little passed eleven o’clock, but she was tired from a day of cleaning and unpacking. Her muscles ached slightly from the constant strain of taking weird positions to clean the deep corners of the home’s rooms. Still, she did not regret the choice to take the task upon herself as opposed to hiring a service to clean it up before she arrived. This way she felt the house was definitely hers.

The window over her head was open; the curtains fluttered every once in a while with the occasional waft of night air. The moonlight, silvery like a mirror, flooded over her as she lay in bed. Her body was exhausted, but her mind was still running through what she knew had to be done the following day; she needed a proper trip to the grocery, and after that she needed to start setting up her new studio. Staring at the wall, Siuan tried her best to turn off her overactive mind, and drop herself off to sleep. But every time she came close to it, something brought her back into reality; a new item for her shopping list popping into her head, or a sudden curiosity about the location of one of her possessions.

As she nestled back into her mattress once more, the floor around her popped and creaked as the house settled. The ancient hardwood floors in the lower level squeaked slightly, and the old stair case groaned softly under an imaginary weight. Siuan’s eyes started to droop closed, her mind finally giving way under the rhythmic white noise produced by the house. The shadow of a bird flittered through her bedroom one last time as Siuan finally fell asleep.

She felt completely peaceful.

Awakening in the morning, the peaceful nature of the night before was completely gone; Siuan awoke to the wretchedly loud crowing of whatever large corvid that was making its home outside of her home. It startled her, and she registered, vaguely, that the house felt heavier than she remembered it the night before. She wrote it off as the headache that was setting in. Damn that raven.

Thursdays in Cairhien meant the village market was in full swing. The villagers set up kiosks in the town square, and sold whatever wares that they had; produce was bountiful, as was fresh cuts of meat from the local butchers. The local family of florist offered the best arrangements and the freshest flowers to last through the following week; Cairhien specialized in lavender.

Thursday meant that Siuan could finally stock her home with much needed groceries, and help to cut through that damp and musty scent with fresh cut flowers.

Thursday morning was beautiful and sunny; the ivy growing on the outer stone façade appeared to be a brilliant green against the grey stone surface. Outside, the birds were happily singing in the cover of the triple rowan trees. The town rested no more than two kilometres from the house, but the way was slightly twisting and winding. But the pathways and untraveled back route was quiet and peaceful when Siuan walked it.

Her dark curls covered her shoulders, and the top of her back; wearing a denim jacket with a pair of blue leggings and her sandals, she carried with her a wicker flower basket. It was deep enough to carry produce, without fear of overloading it and crushing the vegetables and bruising the fruit.

Siuan breathed in a deep breath of the sweeter-smelling country air; it filled her lungs and brightened her mood; alleviating the headache that she’d awoken to. Cairhien, despite its almost isolated position in the country, had been the right choice. She knew already that here was where she could flourish once more. Here her art would grow and expand; she could test her limits.

Closing the door of her home behind her, and locking it with a key, Siuan set off down the fine gravel driveway and towards the main footpath that lead into the town; it ran parallel to the only slightly wider dirt road. Long grasses swayed in the soft breeze on either side of her walkway, and Siuan ran her hand through them; the leaves were cool to the touch, and still slightly wet with the dew of that morning.

Lost in a world of her own, Siuan barely noticed the sound of twigs snapping nearby her. Her shoulders tensed minutely as she listened; she swore she could feel another person drawing upon her. She didn’t mind; it was a public walkway, but it still caught her off guard. Siuan chose to ignore it, not bothering to turn and look to see who was on the path with her; she didn’t know anyone in the town yet.

The person seemed to keep pace with her, but only for so long; she knew that someone was there with her. As she walked, meandering and strolling calmly through the meadow spotted with wild flowers; the person finally caught up to her. Eyes closed for a brief moment to enjoy the warmth of the sunlight, Siuan could sense the person walking quickly at her side; keeping pace. She could faintly hear their feet on the gravel pathway.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and turned to greet her companion. But as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight once more, a strange truth greeted Siuan; there was no one walking with her. Brows furrowed, she hummed slightly to herself as she glanced around. There was no trace to be found of another person on the path with her, and while it was strange and unexpected, Siuan didn’t put much thought into it. Brushing it off as nothing more than a slight breeze, Siuan continued into the village.

She carried on with her trip into the village; under her feet the old cobble stoned streets of Cairhien. Glancing about, she noted a few others shopping for their weeks’ worth of fresh, organic, produce. They noticed her; she was the newcomer to Cairhien, and while most of them greeted her with smiles and nodded heads (which Siuan returned as she stepped up to a farmer’s stand full of romaine lettuce), one woman in particular left a different impression.

Standing on the other side of the farmer’s stand, picking up her choice of romaine hearts, was a woman with dark red hair. Easily in her middle forties with faint lines dancing around her eyes and her mouth, she looked up when she heard Siuan’s approach. The redhead smiled brightly, her happiness reaching her grey toned eyes. But as fast as the cheer had washed over her, it shifted. Her grey irises flickered, looking just passed Siuan’s cloud of curls; the smile faded from her lips instantly, as the colour started to drain from her face. “You must have come from Sunriver…” the statement seemed to carry a doomed weight too it.

“I did…” Siuan’s brows knit tightly together, trying to decipher the sudden change in the woman and what had inflicted it. Had she been to blame? Wondering what the woman had seen that had caused her to slip from cheer to apprehension, Siuan moved to turn and look over her shoulder, when footsteps coming up behind her stopped her dead. Clat, clat, clat… on the stone surface of the street. They were soft, but sure. Normally Siuan wouldn’t have thought much about the presence of another person walking through a public market behind her, but the redhead’s sudden change and the minor knot forming in the pit of her stomach; the reminder of the unseen presence she’d felt on the pathway leading into the village, all together it told Siuan to stop. Freezing in place and just barely peeking with her peripheral vision out from behind her curls, Siuan strained to hear more than just footsteps.

Humming; she could hear a soft tune, one that was familiar to Siuan, despite her being unable to place it. It was close now, so close that she knew the woman had to be standing just behind her; her body tensed as she felt light warmth against the back of her shoulder and the hair at the nape of her neck started to stand on end. Her curls fluttered; the humming, the soft breath, the distinct aroma of both fresh and dried lavender, it was centred right beside her ear. Any closer… she could almost feel the brush of lips against the shell of her ear.

Siuan felt frozen in time and space.

An arm reached over her, reaching for the produce in front of which she was standing. Barely breathing, Siuan’s stomach flipped when she realised that she could feel the woman’s arm just above her shoulder while she leaned forward, but could not see her.

The redhead that had been standing on the other side was just as petrified as Siuan herself; her eyes were locked on the space just to the right of Siuan’s right ear; where she could hear the mellifluous humming. The woman’s eyes were wide, focused, locked, on that place. With a dismayed epiphany, Siuan realized that the woman could see the other woman, while she herself could not.

It set her on edge, and Siuan quickly gathered and bought what she wanted from the market. Loaded with fresh produce, and cut local lavender, she hurried back along the path to her home. Long strides and repeated hurried glances around herself carried Siuan back to the property that Sunriver Manor sat upon. Her heart raced the entire way.

Throwing herself through the door of her home, Siuan noticed the immediate change of atmosphere; inside seemed lighter and less oppressive than it had that morning. Safe, and contented that she was so, Siuan set about washing the produce and storing it in the large, stainless steel, fridge. The lavender she separated into three equal bundles. Each bundle was placed into a vase, and set within Sunriver. One sat on the butcher’s block kitchen table, a second in the main living room/reception room, and the third in the upstairs bathroom. The flowers would liven up the place, calm her nerves, and hopefully start to dispel the musty, closed-up, smell of the previously sealed manor house.

Siuan pushed the strange experience from the market out of her mind, and set to further unpacking her belongings.

More than a week later, she rolled back and forth in her bed; despite her body being exhausted and wanting nothing more than to fall into a blissful sleep, she just couldn’t shake the strange feeling that had settled over her.

It had started days previous, the night following the encounter in the market, but she had tried her very best to ignore the ominous feeling; with a large corvid living somewhere near her home she was on edge; especially after her first trip to the market. Some might call her superstitious, but Siuan knew enough not to poke Death in the face. A raven, or even a crow, was a symbol, an omen, for the Horseman.

Since the day she moved in, Siuan had felt as if someone had been watching her; at first she thought it had to do with her previous background in entertainment. And when it became clear that the people of Cairhien either did not know who she was, or simply did not care, that thought was surrendered. Besides, if the woman really concentrated on the feeling, she knew she felt it more often within her new home than when she was outside. Perhaps it was the electrical wiring in the Victorian manor house; Light knew it was last wired in the mid-20th century, and for all intents and purposes, Sunriver Manor likely needed a complete electrical over haul. It wouldn’t have been beyond all rhyme and reason that faulty old wiring was giving off a high electromagnetic field, and causing the sense of paranoia.

It wasn’t overpowering, but Siuan wasn’t happy with the subtle feeling that there was another being “living” in her home. She’d been looking for a house with character, not a house full of “ghosts”.

Unsure of herself, four days after she’d finally come to the conclusion that it had to be the ancient electrical system in the house, Siuan rang up an electrician. When the young man came to call, he barely paid her any attention; seeking out the electrical boxes immediately, he inspected the home and the system.

“It’s outdated, rather spectacularly so.” The sandy haired thirty five year old leaned against the doorjamb as he folded his arms over his chest. Siuan unwittingly mirrored his movement as she lifted her jaw in order to look him in the eye. “Sunriver was wired, at least last I heard, in the 1920s. Codes have completely changed. I’m surprised that you’ve not had a fire, Ms. Sanche.”

Her fine brows furrowed together in a mixture of worry and annoyance. “That should have been mentioned when I bought the house.”

“You didn’t have a home inspection?” The electrician blinked.

“No…” Siuan shook her head; her mass of feral curls swayed lightly with the movement.

He gave her a reproachful look.

“I expected to do repairs when I bought it. Still, if it’s 1920s electricals, they should have told me, should they not have?”

“I suspect that there’s a fair bit that they didn’t tell you.” The electrician’s eyes flickered, glancing over Siuan’s shoulder towards the stairway that lead up to the upper floor of the building, as he thought for a split second.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” her brows furrowed more tightly together as her voice leaked from her in a flat tone.

The young man shook his head lightly, “Nothing, honestly. I just meant that if they didn’t tell you something like this than they probably didn’t tell you a lot of things. Not necessarily bad.” He shrugged his shoulders easily.

Siuan sighed, long and low. “So what has to be done?”

“Well, see the thing is Ms. Sanche.” He shuffled his folded arms slightly. “It’s not just that the wiring is putting out massive electromagnetic field, and giving you the creeps – prolonged exposure too that sort of a condition can lead to health problems. After sometime I imagine it’s not so good for the electrical impulses that run your body. On top of that there’s the simple fact that it does cause a feeling of dizziness and paranoia. Even forgetting the EMF readings, the wiring is old and it’s starting to split and fray in some places; one day it’s going to catch fire. I would rather see it rewired and you safe, than find out you were cooked alive in this big old stone house. It’d be like an oven.”

Siuan shuddered at his choice of words, but realising his candour she knew there was no getting around this expense. “So you’ll need to pull out all the old wiring, and redo it all?”

“Unfortunately, yes. It will require opening up parts of … well… most of the walls, honestly.”

She flinched, closing her eyes as if struck. She breathed softly, keeping herself calm, for a moment. “But it will fix all of the problems I have? The fire hazard and the paranoia that I’m being watched?”

The electrician nodded his head in agreement. “Everything from A to Z; it will be completely new wiring; it won’t hum, or spark, or give off a feeling of dread.”

Siuan hummed in agreement, before holding out her hand to the man; he shook it.

Considering what had been required, Siuan was amazed that it only took five days to complete the electrical work, and putting her walls back together. During the out time, Siuan found herself using the library in town to check her emails. When the electric work was finished, Siuan wasted absolutely no time. Paying the final bill, and waving the men out of her front door, Siuan closed the door behind them. Without pausing, she headed for the stairwell, and flew up it, heading into one of the many multiple rooms.

On the first day that she had laid eyes on Sunriver Manor, Siuan had fallen in love with the medium sized third bedroom; right away she just knew that it was meant for her studio. With the work finally finished, and her wall rebuilt, Siuan moved on to making the room hers; properly.

The walls, she started painting them. Tossing newspapers and a cheap plastic drop cloth onto the floor to protect the hardwood, and covering the white moulding around the floor, window, and ceiling with painter’s tape, Siuan pried open a bucket of brilliant blue paint. Pouring it into her tray, and immediately pushing the roller through it, she started on covering the walls of the studio with the thick, cornflower blue, paint. Not bothering to prime the walls first, the paint already had it mixed in.

It took her a few hours to do all of the walls, and by the end she was nearly just as covered with paint as the room was, but she finally stepped back and examined her work. She was happy, and proud of herself; nodding. The paint would take several hours to dry properly. Tomorrow, when the latex paint had turned hard and dry, she would come in and pull up the tape and reveal her crisp edges around the white mouldings. Tomorrow she could start to further make the space her own.

Body tired, and shoulders sore, Siuan crawled into the upstairs bathroom (a previously retrofitted bedroom) and turned the shower on. She pealed the clothing off of her body slowly; careful of her aching shoulder, and in no great rush. Outside the window, the night had set in some hours before; it was pitch darkness outside, and the sudden crowing of the bird caught her off guard. Swearing slightly to herself, Siuan calmed down, and pulled herself under the hot spray.

She relaxed for a long moment, just letting the water wash over her, before starting to scrub the coloured paint from herself.

When she re-emerged, she wrapped her hair up into a towel as she pulled on a loose pair of women’s boxers and a thin camisole to sleep in. Untangling her hair from the towel, Siuan ruffled out her curls as she walked from the steam filled bathroom back into her bedroom.

The air in the bedroom was cool; the window still open as she hadn’t been able to install a Central Air Conditioning system yet, due to the electricians that had arrived to rewire her home. The window allowed enough airflow, for now, that it meant she was cool at night. Siuan laid her towel across the back of a chair that sat by her bed to allow it to dry. Pulling herself into bed, her stiff body now pliant after the hot shower, Siuan assumed she’d quickly fall asleep for the night.

The moment she lied down, she noticed the unmistakeable feeling that someone was watching her.

She was instantly awake; a sense of terror settling over her. The new electrical work in the house was supposed to stop the paranoia caused by the EMF radiating from the wiring.

Her eyes opened immediately; the old hardwood floors were creaking. But rather than the popping and settling that she thought she had grown used to, Siuan heard what seemed to be footsteps. It sounded liked boot heels clicking against the wooden floors, slowly moving throughout the main floor and heading for the stairs. Siuan held her breath, straining to hear the intruder, and struggling not to whimper in terror.

She couldn’t tell if there was actually someone in her home, or if it was the ghost of years long passed.

All said and done, she didn’t know which option scared her more.

Agonizing moments passed; the boot steps continued to make their way towards the ancient stairwell. Siuan’s heart was beating a tattoo beneath her breast. Where once the white noise that she believed to be the Manor groaning with age had soothed her, it now ignited her fears.

The stairs began to groan; under a weight that Siuan knew could not be there. Despite realising that she was safe in the country, it had been somewhat of a habit for her to lock her doors and windows if she was retiring for the night. With that knowledge, she knew it wasn’t possible for there to be a flesh and blood intruder in her home. This meant that Sunriver had to be haunted, in some manner of meaning.

Finally reaching the top of the stairs, the boot clicks picked up their pace; their owner had quickened their movements. Siuan held her breath, straining to hear over the hammering of her heart. She started to relax as the footsteps seemed to move down the hallway away from her bedroom. She couldn’t rest, not completely; part of her still feared that there was a living being in her home; the other part of her knew it wasn’t possible.

Pushing aside all thoughts of what could be happening in her home, Siuan tried to close her eyes and settle down to sleep. Her eyelids sagged as she started to drift off after a long moment of pure silence. A soft sigh of relief escaped her lips as her body totally conformed with the mattress.

.Click. Click. Click.

Siuan froze in her bed.

Click. Click. Clickity-click-clack-click.

The footsteps were increasing in speed and force as they stormed down the landing from the far end of the house and back towards the master bedroom.

Her eyes snapped open and she scrambled, sitting up in her bed; beads of sweat rolled down her neck as she stared towards the closed door. Heart producing a thunderous cacophony in her ears, she could barely hear the figure drawing ever nearer.

In a moment it was in front of her door; Siuan swore that the air around her chilled. Her stomach was knotted; she could feel the spirit reaching for the door knob, and she could swear she could feel hoarfrost forming in her veins from pure terror. Her breathing was laboured; ragged. But she remained quiet.

A pause came; a moment of silence, of terror; what was surely only seconds seemed to drag on for a lifetime.

The tension suddenly lifted, and the hard-soled boot steps retreated from her door, back towards the staircase. Striving to hear their final location, Siuan listened as the stairs creaked loudly and quickly; like a person jogging down them.

Tension snapped and lifted, Siuan was exhausted. She laid back down, and found herself asleep within moments; dreaming of a looming darkness settled over Sunriver Manor.

Chapter Text

Morning came, and a mild sense of depression had settled over Siuan; though she had slept, she had done so poorly. Every noise put her on edge. Her dreams had been dark and disturbing. The light of day was not much better; it was an overcast day in Cairhien, and the heavy cloud cover bathed :Sunriver in shadows.

Gathering her curls back, and pulling on a lurid pair of wellies, Siuan stepped out of her new home dressed in a denim shirt, and worn out old jeans. For now her studio was forgotten; today she was going to tackle what used to be the gardens. She couldn’t stay cooped up inside after last night.

The garden was going to be a huge task, especially for a singular person. Eventually she might hire landscapers to keep it tamed, but for now she was content to toil on her own.

Siuan shielded her eyes from the dull sunlight as she stepped out of the door of her home; her gaze flickered between the three ancient rowan trees that stood silent sentinel over the manor; searching for the nest of the great black bird which had troubled her time in Sunriver. She couldn’t find a trace of the rook. She turned herself around, endeavoring to look up and around at the house; worried that a nest might in fact be sitting on her roof.

Minute movement in her bedroom window caught her eye; her attention was drawn to the glass; as soon as she glimpsed it, it was gone. Taking a deep breath to keep herself calm, Siuan wrote it off as being nothing more than a trick of her tired eyes. The phantom footsteps of the night before had truly put her on edge.

She spent the entire day in the garden; working her fingers down to the bone to put life and colour back into the grounds of Sunriver. Her knees were tired, and stained with mud and boggy water that had seeped up from the turf as she knelt upon it. Her body and face was covered in dirt smudges.

By midday, the wind had picked up slightly; the normally tepid summer had been banished for a day or two; the warmth replaced with a damp chill. A storm system was moving through, just a little to the south. The outer edges brought a cold front to Cairhien.

The wind in the boughs of the rowans made the wood creak; ancient wooden limbs groaned in a symphony of summer. The leaves rustled like silver bells overhead as Siuan worked in the gardens.

Iron hinges whinged, catching her attention, and piquing her interest; Siuan was certain that the hinges of her doors were well oiled; the doors themselves were new – as new as they could be for being hung in the early 2000s, and locked up for ten years. The doors were closed, and too heavy to swing on their own; they should have made no noise.

Siuan sat up, resting back on her heels as she knelt in the muddy grass of her front garden. Her body froze; from her peripheral vision she could see the lock of her door clicking and unlatching as the door opened wide and a flicker of a shadow stepped out from inside. Filth smudged on her cheek, she focused her eyes directly Sunriver’s front stoop. Eyes locked with the entry way, her heart skipped a beat; it was closed, and locked as it had been when she’d left it hours before. It hadn’t budged an inch. A cold wave of terror washed over her, and Siuan forced herself to struggle through it; she had to find a way to rationalize what she had seen, and what she had heard the night before; a trick of the light, the settling of the house; something.

The stillness of the air around her shifted; boot steps grated in the gravel of the driveway not far from where she knelt. Siuan’s shoulders tensed as she glanced around her, looking for a trace of an animal to blame the sound on. She saw nothing but a ever so slight shadow moving passed her; it could have been the wind. It should have been the wind.

The sky overhead, gray all morning, was finally starting to turn an ominous black. Before long a bolt of electricity jumped between cloud banks, and swells of thunder rolled like waves across the foggy sea.

In the near distance she heard a horse whiny; a melancholy noise that echoed over the fields and meadows of Cairhien and amplified itself. A woman’s voice soon followed suit; echoing over the impending storm, loud and clear as a bell. “ALDIEB!”

The horse, to Siuan, seemed to be closer to her than the rest of the town, as Sunriver was on the fringes of the village. Siuan couldn’t remember seeing any horse farms nearby.

Cold, damp, and shaken Siuan soon called it a day; retreating back into the sheltered halls of Sunriver, she sought to escape the summer thunder storm before it unleashed its fury upon her property.

Rain lashed relentlessly at the windows; the shudders of several windows had already been pulled closed to prevent any leaks from the old glass. Siuan sat in the kitchen with one overhead light on; sitting at the butcher’s block table, she held a large mug of tea in front of herself, as she stared out the window at the darkening sky. Her mind was blank; keeping herself attuned and waiting for a sign she wasn’t sure would come. In front of her, her cordless house phone waited on the wooden table top.

As the storm rumbled through, the consistent clamour slowly eased Siuan into a state of relaxation- unknotting her body and her muscles. She continued to listen to the rain pattering on the outside of her home as she lifted her mug to her lips.

The front door, a floor up and half a house away, flew open; crashing against the wall behind it, the clatter reverberated loudly through the Victorian house. Shocked, Siuan jumped, and spilled the tea down her front; she panted hard, listening as booted feet pounded on her hardwood floors, before racing up the stairs with wild force.

Sopping wet, and on edge, Siuan picked up the cordless receiver of her telephone. With shaking hands she dialed an all too familiar number.

Leane could help.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up!” she begged quietly; chewing her lip when the other woman finally picked up the phone.

“Hello-“ Leane barely managed to greet her, when Siuan launched into a tirade.

“Leane, the house is haunted!”

There was a pause on the line for a moment, before Leane’s calm voice continued on. “Okay. What’s been happening?”

“Everywhere I go I feel watched; like the walls themselves have eyes. I’ve been trying to ignore it, but I can’t! And before you say it’s bad electrical work, I’ll have you know I just had the entire house rewired!” Siuan snapped, preparing already for the inevitable fact that she would be told she was wrong.

“I didn’t say anything about the wiring.” Leane was calm, still listening and waiting to hear more. “What else is going on?”

“Every time I turn a corner I smell lavender in thin air. When I catch it, it’s already fading away back into the essence of the house. Like a woman has just walked around the next corner and out of my sight. There’s a crow, or maybe it’s a raven, living in one of my front trees. I haven’t seen it yet, but I know it has to be there; I see its shadow every once in a while. I hear soft breathing in the dead of night when I’m ALONE Leane. I see doors open up that I know are locked, and when I look up, they are still closed and latched. I see a shimmer of a figure for just a split second. I hear the voice of a woman murmuring to herself every once in a while; I hear her tromping up and down my hallways and my stairs. The house is haunted!” Siuan drew more and more frantic as she spoke into the phone.

“Oh, that’s nothing. Siuan, old houses settle; they pop and crackle. They groan and moan, and they murmur in voices that sound like people. Its normal, and it’s normal that you’re on edge; you’ve made a big change and you’re in that big old place alone. But Siuan, you are alone; there’s no phantoms there. And if there is, you’re stronger than they are; they can’t hurt you. It’s your house now, not theirs. And honestly? A house like yours, as old as it is, has its fair share of troubles.”

Siuan, worrying her lip, nodded her head briefly, before she realised that Leane couldn’t see her. She sighed softly, “Do you think that maybe my presence brought something out? I mean, aren’t ghosts apparently riled up by renovations on their homes?”

“As far as I’ve heard, yeah. Why? Have you done much renovating? You’ve not been there very long.”

Again, Siuan shook her head in response. She caught herself quicker this time, “No. Just the electrical work, but that meant tearing open a few walls and rebuilding them…” her voice trailed off for just a moment. “Do you think that this is why Sunriver was sold for so little? It’s a lovely house, but it’s huge and the price was less than market value… Do you think this is why the Trakands were so eager to sell it? Oh I should have known something was the matter with it when I got it for that price!” internally she cursed herself.

“What, you think that they wanted rid of a ghost?”

“They outright told me they moved in in 2008, and moved out the same year, just a few months later.”

Leane stayed quiet for just a moment, waiting to see if Siuan corrected the statement. When she didn’t, Leane answered. “Yeah, they also said it was just too much house for them personally; that they planned to rent it out, but no one wanted to live there unless the whole place was converted into separate apartments. So Sunriver was just locked up and forgotten for a few years. I highly doubt they left because of a ghost.”

Siuan nodded silently, humming to herself for a moment. Her heart rate returning to normal, she ventured forward. “I suppose you’re right…”

“And legally I think your realtor has to disclose the fact that a house is haunted.”

Siuan huffed slightly, trying to understand what was going on in her world. “But I just heard my front door crash open, and someone come in. They ran up my stairs.”

“Well, is the door unlocked?”

“I doubt it.”

Behind Siuan, thunder rolled threateningly.

“Oooh. That explains it.” Leane chuckled slightly.

Siuan’s brows furrowed tightly, “what explains it?”

“It’s storming there, isn’t it? Yeah the front door probably didn’t latch properly, and a goodly strong gust threw it open. As for the footsteps, they’re probably just the reverberations of the door hitting the wall.”

It was Siuan’s turn to pause and stare ahead of herself for a moment. When it passed, she answered in a monotonous voice. “My door opens outward; there’s no way it could have been blown in and hit the wall with a little bit of wind.”

“Well maybe the wind caught it and swirled in the doorway before smashing it off the outside. I mean that can hap—what’s that sound?” Leane’s entire tone shifted as she listening intently; straining to hear what she could from her friend’s house.

“What’s what sou—“ Siuan cut herself short as she caught what Leane was talking about; footsteps. They were pacing along the upper hallway, by Siuan's bedroom, and it was juddering down through the entire building, to her place in the kitchen. A slight rain of plaster dust fell from the ceiling above her. No, it wasn’t pacing; the figure was walking back and forth through the hall at her own leisure; she did not sound to be in any great hurry. She strained a little harder to hear the secondary background tone that followed the footsteps.

“She’s singing.” The two women spoke in sync.

“Siuan… I think your house might be haunted…”

The hours ticked away, and moment by moment time died and was reborn.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting here in the kitchen. It could have been minutes, or hours, even days. Siuan was afraid, but she didn’t want to show it to anyone other than Leane, especially not to the being that may or may not be haunting her home. Part of her truly wished that the haunting was a figment of her imagination; that she was just having temporary break from reality in response to the strife of the last year.

The night was growing late; the sun long having set behind the black storm clouds. Siuan swallowed tightly as she sat in silence in her kitchen; staring at the dying flowers in the vase in front of her. This week she’d bought cut daisies and wild flowers from the market; the lavender hadn’t helped her nerves before. The phone call with Leane was fresh in her mind, and her thoughts were centred on it.

Siuan released a long, low exhale before folding her arms on the table and laying her forehead against them. She didn’t know what to do any more, didn’t know what to think.

Leane had suggested she keep a journal of every paranormal encounter or happenstance that she witnessed, with a time and date with each entry. Maybe if Siuan could keep that sort of a record, the two women could figure out a timeline; when the activity was most likely to happen. Leane had suggested that if Siuan was able to anticipate some sort of paranormal activity, then it would become a routine, and far less terrifying. She was just going to have to learn to live in a house that wasn’t truly hers, not as long as there were ghosts skirting her halls and ruling her roost.

In the hours since the phone call, the house had fallen quiet once more; Siuan could hear no more footsteps on the stairwell or floors above. She couldn’t hear the spirit’s disembodied voice any more, and it relieved her. The house had once more become completely peaceful; light and not as oppressive as it had been when she was on the phone with Leane; she didn’t know what that meant for her. She was thankful, however, for the momentary reprieve that it gave her.

Her mind hedged back to the incidents she’d had on her third day living in Sunriver; the strange encounter in the Cairhien farmers’ market. The redhead had seen something near to her, before Siuan felt the presence; she’d outright stated that Siuan must have come from Sunriver Manor. Siuan knew that she was the newcomer to town, but still it struck her as strange that that should have been the woman’s only statement the moment that her eyes met with something that Siuan could not see. At the time she’d not thought about the implications of that simple declaration. She was beginning to wonder about what the people of Cairhien knew about her home, but weren’t likely to disclose with an outsider.

Didn’t she deserve a warning…?

The panting breath, the lips that lightly brushed against the shell of her ear, the firm arm that she could almost feel on her shoulder… her mind wandered back to the encounter with what she now assumed to the spirit in her home. She could yet recall the scent of her cologne, and it sent a shiver down her spine. She didn’t like not having control; she felt as though she were at this ghost’s beck and call; that she could alter her life and destroy her emotional state. She felt afraid, she felt weak. She didn’t know what to do.

Part of her wished she could just see the spirit; properly see her so that she knew what was in her home. She wanted more than disembodied footsteps, singing, and breathing.

Slowly lifting herself from the table, Siuan knew she needed to sleep; she was physically tired and aching from the work she had done in the garden, on top of the fact that she was mentally, emotionally, shot. She was exhausted, and simply wanted to sleep; to be dead to the world for a few hours would be a blessing. In her sleep she wasn’t living in a haunted house; wasn’t playing host to a housemate who may or may not truly be there. Part of her still wondered if she was simply losing her mind after the stress of the last year.

Dragging herself from the kitchen, she ascended the stairs to the main level. Rubbing her eyes, she deftly navigated the yet unpacked boxes and her furniture, heading for the staircase to lead her up to bed.

The long low scratching of a heavy piece of furniture being dragged over the hardwood floor made Siuan’s blood run cold. She was awake now. Heart pounding, she slowly turned her gaze to look up the stairs to her bedroom. The only room with furniture of any sort in it was the master suite. Silently, Siuan cursed the day she fell in love with Sunriver Manor as she crept up the stairs.

A feeling of dread washed over her; like ice water it ran down her spine and chilled her down into her very soul as she stood in front of her closed bedroom door. Her heart was racing, yet it felt as though it had long stopped beating in her breast.

Eyes. She knew she could feel eyes upon her. Every time she was relaxed, she could feel someone gazing intently at her; it pricked at her like a hot poker; made her flesh burn with trepidation that verged on terror.

When she knew that Sunriver should have been dead silent in the middle of the night, she swore she heard footsteps; heard the soft panting breath of someone within her house; at first she put it aside to the settling of the house. Now she knew better.

The terror in the pit of her stomach was like a lead weight; weighing her down and making her shake. She wanted to whimper, but knew she had to keep quiet. She needed to know what was lying behind the door; what creature was in the bedroom that she slept in nightly.

Her eyes fluttered as a slight sense of nausea struck her, but she swallowed it down and reached for the brass door knob. It was cold beneath her sweating palm. Turning it slowly, the door quietly clicked open as the latch came free.

The scent of lavender struck her senses, and an orange-golden light that flooded from the room that should have been pitch black. The lavender was soothing, and despite her terror she felt her nerves starting to ease. When Siuan pushed the bedroom door open all the way, her heart leaped into her throat.

There, sitting in a wingback chair before a roaring fireplace, was the figure of a woman. She sat with one leg over the other as she calmly turned the pages of a book; the fire before her popped, hissed, and crackled as it danced away. She was no mere shadow.

Siuan slammed her eyes shut instinctively; she knew there was no fireplace in her bedroom.

Chapter Text

She was in shock, unable to understand what had happened. For weeks, Siuan had only been able to sense her presence, and hear her actions; she had never been able to see the spirit. She didn’t understand what had changed about the situation, and yet she had most definitely seen the woman. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she had seen something – someone- in the master bedroom. Someone that she knew was definitely not living within her walls.

She truly didn’t feel safe in her home; Sunriver – as beautiful as it may have been – now felt tainted; foreign to her. Sitting once more in her kitchen and wide awake despite the nearly debilitating exhaustion from before the vision, Siuan clutched a large mug of tea. She’d poured a rather generous amount of whiskey into the mug. Lifting the mug with shaking hands she brought it to her lips and swallowed a large mouthful of the liquid. She felt it spread through her veins and down through the ends of her fingers and toes.

Siuan didn’t know what to do; she was still in shock and trembling from the upset of it all, and she knew she couldn’t call Leane again – not tonight at least. It was too soon after the last call about the ghost in her house, and too late into the night. She truly felt as though she had nowhere left to turn, nowhere to hide.

Where could she hide that the spectre wouldn’t find her? She’d already felt watched in every inch of Sunriver; it’s just that she’d never seen the culprit that the eyes belonged to before tonight.

No. Leane. Siuan wasn’t about to call her now at half past two in the morning to tell her friend that there was a wraith in her very bedroom. Leane would want to help her, to rescue her – she wouldn’t take no as an answer.

Siuan didn’t need rescuing, she needed an attack plan; some way of dealing with the haunting.

Or, maybe she truly was having a psychotic break from reality; maybe the woman was merely a figment of her tired and drawn imagination.

But then how had Leane been able to hear her singing even across the phone line?

Siuan was drained; sitting in her kitchen and staring at the far wall as she drank from a spiked mug of earl gray. She wanted to leave the house, and knew that she likely should, even if only for the night, but her body could not and would not allow her to move. She felt like a trapped animal simply waiting for the attack.

Since she had come here, only a few weeks passed, Siuan had seen a noticeable increase in the paranormal activity. It wouldn’t take an Oxford education to figure that at the current rate of acceleration the activity would reach a new peak in only a few weeks. Dolefully the woman wondered if it was possible for a ghost to kill a living person. Perhaps she would scare her so thoroughly that she would have a heart attack in her home.

It was too much for Siuan, and she broke down. The flood gates of terror and stress finally breeched and the tears streamed down her cheeks while she sobbed. Scared, defeated, lost, and confused Siuan laid her forehead upon her arms; weeping into the table top. She had nothing left in her to give; this new and fresh start had become her nightmare. She tuned out the world around her, just wanting to forget the house and its supernatural troubles for a short amount of time; she concentrated on trying to ease the anxiety and apprehension that had claimed her. She needed to cry.

The stairs, which lead down from the upper level of the manor house (where the bedrooms were located) started to creak slowly as the hardwood floor popped and groaned; flexing under a weight and deliberate foot falls. Boots gone, the steps were soft and quiet as they padded through the main level and toward the servant’s staircase down into the kitchen. The stairwell crinked under the stress of phantom weight.

Sobbing and sniffing, trying to regain control over herself, Siuan didn’t hear the approach; too lost in her emotional break to pay any mind to a new problem.

It stepped off of the stairs and padded down the short hall with the stone floors; it sounded like bare feet. The hinges that held the kitchen door whinged as the door eased open.
The atmosphere in the kitchen changed as a humanoid shadow passed over the wall before the woman herself stepped into the room. The book, which Siuan had seen her reading when she opened the door to the bedroom, was tucked under one arm. With her free hand, she pushed the door and then ran her fingers back through her hair. Her eyes were tired, and she kept them nearly shut against the bright light of the kitchen.

Sobbing. She could hear sobbing. Attention garnered and interest piqued, she looked up and saw the woman, sitting at the table with her head bowed into her arms. She was crying, and she felt a pang of sorrow for her even though she didn’t know her.

Setting the book down upon the table with a soft thud, she approached her carefully. Drawing close to her, she crouched down and gently reached out to lay her hand upon her knee, before she swiftly retracted it; she knew she couldn’t touch her without her hand passing right through her. It was frustrating to know that she was right there, clearly needing someone to comfort her, and that she could not affect her. She exhaled a long, exasperated sigh in frustration.

Siuan tensed; the breath near her left side had caught her attention. Body rigid, she held her breath and listened. She could smell the faint scent of lavender that followed the spirit wherever she went in her home. She was close.

Shaking her head sadly, the woman stood up and straightened herself before she walked away from the table and towards the large sink and window.

Hearing her feet padding away from her, Siuan slowly lifted her head. She was afraid, but she wanted to know if she could see her, or if she had returned to a state of invisibility.

She was right there; the faucet turned on as she watched her with baited breath. She was standing with her hand on the taps, holding a glass under the stream of water. But she was not a solid figure. The woman appeared like a mist; not strictly black or white, but made up of muted colours, her figure wasn’t shifting or changing but not clear. She wasn’t corporeal, nor was the glass in her hand – Siuan didn’t own any glasses that looked anything like the one she was holding. Shutting the tap off once more, she lifted the glass to her lips and drank the water down, before starting to turn around.

Siuan’s eyes widened when she saw her move; she didn’t want to see what, if anything, the ghost had for a face. She snapped her eyes quickly closed once more, before putting her head back against her arms as if she had never moved from her weeping position.

She turned around, and looked back towards the woman; she felt for her, even if she didn’t know her. She lived here in the large house alone, and it pulled at her heartstrings- well, whatever she could call heartstrings. Sighing softly to herself, this time in sadness, she closed her eyes and shook her head once. Returning the glass to its place beside the sink, she walked back past the woman, and retrieved her book from the table as she rubbed her eyes.

Siuan listened intently, straining to hear her footsteps as she left her alone once more in the kitchen.

Her heart was beating frantically in her chest as a cold sweat slid down the back of her neck. She had seen where she was standing in her kitchen, and she appeared to be standing upon a solid floor such as hers…that her feet were roughly two inches above the ground. She appeared to be floating.

She spent the rest of the night sleeping in the reception room on her sofa. She was too afraid to return to the bedroom.

In the morning, Siuan awoke with a sense of purpose; angered, and confused, she needed to know what secrets her house was hiding. And that started with the master bedroom. She knew that there was no fireplace in her bedroom, and yet she had clearly seen the spectre sitting before a roaring fire.

The house felt empty to her, currently. She felt as though she was finally blessedly alone. Good. Pulling herself off of the couch, Siuan stood to her feet and wound her way around the boxes that were yet unpacked. Her eyes flickered through the possessions, looking for one in particular. Finding it, she reached out and grasped the iron crowbar tightly in hand. She held it tightly as though it was her one tie to the world as she knew it. The crowbar had been left in plain access because Siuan had had several of her larger items crated before she moved into Sunriver; she’d needed the tool to pry open the wooden boxes.

Armed with her heavy tool, Siuan made her way up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom. She wrenched the door open with force, and stalked inside like a lioness on the hunt. And she was on the hunt; she needed to know what else had been hidden from her. Inside the door, she set the crow bar down, and strode directly the wall across from her, where she had seen the figure sitting in the chair the night before.

In the daylight there was no trace of the woman, the wingback chair, or the fireplace. There wasn’t even a trace of any markings on the floor from the woman dragging the chair the night before, as she was certain that she had.

Reaching the wall, Siuan knelt down and started wrapping her knuckles against the white washed wood panelling. It sounded completely solid for much of the dividing wall, but in the centre she was greeted by a sudden echoing. Her fine brows knit together, and she knocked again, and again the sound echoed back with a hollow thud. Spurred on by the discovery, Siuan jogged back to the door and retrieved the crowbar.

Arching it back, Siuan swung the iron tool like a woman possessed; it crashed into the wainscoting, and sent a shower of paint chips and wood slivers into the air. Panting, and not pausing, Siuan brought the crowbar back and swung it again; breaking the panelling open until she had a decent sized breach in the wall. Turning the crowbar back around, she dug the hooked end into the remaining wood slats and started to rip them out.

Each broken piece of white painted wood she threw aside like a woman possessed. When the crowbar had outlived its usefulness in this situation, she tossed it aside; it clattered across the hardwood as it slid towards the bedroom door. Siuan dug her fingers into the broken moulding, and pulled as hard as she could; ripping away the mask as quickly as possible.

Panting heavily, and staring transfixed, she sank down to the floor. There she sat for a long moment before she started sobbing into her dirtied and hands.

Across from her, released from the wall once more, was a grand old fireplace; the hearth was still blackened by the soot of years long passed. Siuan could almost smell the firewood and dried lavender.

Partial relief washed over her; she wasn’t totally losing her mind.

It took everything in her to make her next move.

“I saw her last night, Leane.” Siuan sighed into her mobile as she sat on her knees in the garden once more. Her friend had called her to check in on her after their topic of discussion the night before.

“You saw her?” She seemed interested; Siuan could nearly hear her friend sit up straighter. “Saw her where?”

Siuan sobbed a humourless half laugh. “Which time?”

On her end, Leane’s brows furrowed together. “It happened more than once?”

Siuan nodded her head before once more internally cursing herself because Leane couldn’t see her. “Yes… I stayed in the kitchen, after I called you, for some time... I was trying to force myself to be tired enough that I’d just fall asleep quickly.”

“Right…” Leane agreed, understanding the process. “So what happened?”

“I was exhausted, so I gave up and headed up to bed. But I got to the main floor and… fishguts how do I explain this?” she huffed, and brushed her curls out of her eyes with a muddy glove covered hand.

“In a series of complex noises made in your voice box that people tend to call words, I should imagine.” Leane tried to lighten the mood.

Despite herself, Siuan laughed softly at the bad joke. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome! Now, tell me what happened.”

“I was walking towards the stairs when I heard furniture being dragged across the floor. It was definitely something heavy, and I just… I panicked. I was so beyond terrified Leane I just… I…” she sighed and forced herself to steady her breathing and finish the thought. “I knew the only room upstairs that actually has furniture in it is the master bedroom.”

Leane remained silent for a moment; the tension was palpable even with the miles between them.

Siuan glanced down at the flowerbed at her knees, forcing herself not to worry about Leane’s looming reaction.

“She was in your bedroom? Light, Siuan…”

“I know… I got up the stairs and it took everything in me to open up that bedroom door.”

“I should think so! So what happened?”

“She was sitting in the big wingback chair in front of a roaring fire and reading a book.”

“That doesn’t sound too terri-“

“Leane. I have neither a wingback chair, nor a fireplace.”

“…okay, that’s…”

“Terrifying?” Siuan barked out a slight laugh.

“Yeah…”

“After that I practically ran back down to the kitchen. I made a huge cup of tea and whiskey, but only got a few mouthfuls of it before I just broke down. I was crying so hard and so long that I didn’t hear her come down two flights of stairs.”

“What!?”

“She came into the kitchen, Leane. I swear to whoever will listen, she came in and all I heard of her was a sigh beside me. I wanted to jump out of my skin.”

Leane shook her head, “Don’t do that, it’s too lovely of skin to be ruined like that.”

Again Siuan laughed slightly as the eased tension. “She walked away from me, and drank a glass of water. Leane the overhead lights were on, there is no way she was a trick of the light.”

“Well, what did she look like?”

“Just a figure, I couldn’t make out much of her because she was hazy. But she was definitely there. She started to turn around, and I hid my face again, so she didn’t know I had been looking at her.”

“Was she old? Young? Middle aged?”

“I couldn’t much tell, but I’d say middle aged– no older than mid-forties I couldn’t imagine– based upon her physique at least.”

“Did you see her face?”

“No.” Siuan shook her head slightly. “I was afraid what I might see, so I looked away.”

“Fair enough. Are you going to be alright? Do you want me to come and-“

“I don’t need you to save me, Leane. I know you want to, but I don’t need you to rescue me. I’ll admit I’m terrified of her, especially now that I can see her; I’m really not sure if it’s better or worse that I can. But like you said last night; she’s a ghost and she likely can’t hurt me. I just wish I knew why she was here.”

“Maybe we can look into the house’s history? Perhaps she died in the house and just… isn’t aware of it?”

“What do you mean she’s not aware of it? How do you not know you’re dead?”

“I don’t know, but I imagine if she died suddenly or from a traumatic illness or event… she might… she might not have realised it happened. You know? I mean that’s if this is an intelligent haunting. She could be residual energy too. Just repeating like a record.”

Siuan paused for a moment. “If she’s residual, she doesn’t know I’m here, does she?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

She heaved a sigh of relief. “So if… if she is residual, she’s just… energy, right? Like a memory playing through over and over again?”

“From what little I understand of these things from telly, yes.”

“Thank the Light.”

“Only trouble is…”

“…is what?” Siuan hedged, worriedly.

“Well… if she died in the house, she was probably an owner of the house…”

“Right…?”

“Well… that means that… well… the master bedroom is hers.”

Siuan paled. “fish guts!”

Siuan found it impossible to concentrate on the garden after her phone call with Leane; she’d mucked about in the verge for another hour, before sitting back on her heels and staring off into oblivion. She doubted she’d done this much zoning out in years, but her mind just could not settle. She wanted to know who the ghost was. She wanted to know why she was here.

She wanted to know if she was the reason that the Trankads had left in 2008 and never come back.

She wanted to know if she was a threat and if she was able to harm her.

Siuan knew that, for now, it was best if she carried on with living as she normally would. Nothing would be gained if she broke now; she hadn’t broken then, she wouldn’t now. She would try to carry on as if nothing had changed. Sunriver was no different than any other home, and no different than it had been the day she had fallen in love with it and bought it. Nothing was different; the only change was that she was aware of the haunting within her walls.

It was difficult for her; Siuan was on edge. Despite telling herself that she was nothing to worry about, seeing as she was very likely a residual haunting, Siuan still felt less than comfortable sharing her home with the remnants of a dead woman. At least she knew she would be bound to the house most of the time, if she was truly residual. She hoped for that much. But her mind recalled the time she had first encountered her; she’d felt her as plainly as any living mortal when she was in the village market. Perhaps Cairhien’s farmers’ market had always been held on Thursday afternoons; perhaps she was just echoing her typical trip into the town.

Contented in the knowledge that her deceased housemate was only able to go so far as the town square, and was otherwise bound to the property upon which Sunriver Manor sat, Siuan finally started to relax. It had taken her two weeks after seeing her ghostly figure twice in one night, and keeping a log book of each of her appearances or traces of her that she’d seen, felt, heard, or smelled. She had never touched her, which at least allowed her a minor reprieve of her fear, but she was finally starting to settle with the knowledge that her house was host to the spirit of a woman; woman who was living her life over and over into the afterlife.

As time ticked on, day after day, Siuan came to recognize the ghost’s routine. She assumed it must be her “recorded” pathway; that she was nothing more than a signature of energy forever flowing in the same order; like electricity.

In mid-morning, she would look from the master bedroom window, out past the curtains, gazing down at the gardens were Siuan continued to work. Although Siuan still felt uneasy knowing the ghost was in her bedroom, she had come to recognize that, when the ghost was present, she wasn’t truly seeing her or anything around her as it really was. When she gazed down upon her from the window, she could not see her sitting in the garden and working; she was looking at the lands as she had them when she was alive. Siuan knew this, because one day the ghost came when Siuan was yet in bed. When she strode in, and opened the curtains, gazing down upon the garden; she hadn’t even noticed Siuan. It did however startle Siuan, who awoke with a jolt when her bedroom door opened, and she heard stride in. Sitting up quickly, she’d looked towards her in shock, before quickly reorienting her gaze away from her. Siuan didn’t really want to see her, it had merely been an automatic reaction.

That day her form had been closer to corporeal than Siuan had seen it yet. The light only barely passed through her; and only in places where it might be expected. It filtered through the billowing sleeves of her silk shirt as she stood with her hand holding the curtains back.

Siuan studied her from her peripheral vision; she wanted to see her, though she did not. She was curious and she knew she shouldn’t be.

Looking at the spectre was like looking at a mirage; flickering and insubstantial. While she stood there, still and humming a soft tune to herself, Siuan’s eyes tried to focus on her. She was young, as Siuan had suspected, but not so young as to be counted a youth; she was an adult woman, and likely the mistress of the house. Her long brown hair hung over her shoulders elegantly. Straight backed and perfect postured, Siuan noted her clothing; an blue coloured silk shirt with a paper collar to keep it stiff, and billowing sleeves that fastened at her wrists. The woman was wearing a pair of khaki-coloured jodhpurs and meticulously polished black high leather boots.

The woman shifted, and turned her head towards her; her eyes met with hers briefly, before she fully turned around and strode from the bedroom once more.

Siuan was frozen in fear; for a moment she thought that the ghost had seen her, but it passed; she’d been looking towards her own bed, and never saw Siuan

Siuan had finally seen her face. She wasn’t sure if that appeased her curious soul or not. She hadn’t been able to see her clearly; looking at her was like looking through a heat wave flickering above the summertime pavement. It was as though she was peering at a photograph taken with a diffused lens; she was there, but the details of her face were still invisible.

Siuan closed her eyes, trying to hold on to the image of the woman she had seen. Her skin had a pallid complexion. From what she could see, her nose was elegantly shaped. Her eyes appeared to be a blue-gray tone (although she couldn’t be sure, due to the hazy nature of her spirit), and her lips were a relatively full line of rosy pink.

Even though she’d left the bedroom once more, Siuan was alarmed.

The spirit’s routine dictated that every day in the middle afternoon she would disappear onto the property. She was almost always followed by the whinnying of horses that Siuan could not see. She would not reappear till roughly nine o’clock in the evening when she would come up the stairs towards the bedrooms. No later than eleven at night she would be seated in front of the roaring fireplace and reading. It took courage for Siuan to accept this part of her routine; now that she knew there was a fireplace in her bedroom, it made it slightly better. Still, even though she could see the roaring fire, feel its warmth and smell the burning timbers, Siuan knew that in reality the fireplace in her room was cold and barren. It hadn’t been used in years. She would have to go through the records, but she was rather certain that it had been boarded up sometime in the 1920s in order to make the master suite more “modern”.

She would stay in her chair in front of the crackling fire, reading, until half past two in the morning. Then she closed her book for the night, poked at the dying embers of her fire, and walked down to the kitchen for a glass of water. After her drink, the spirit vanished and wouldn’t be seen again until mid-morning when he gazed from the master bedroom window and started the routine once more.

After a few weeks, Siuan had grown rather used to the flow of events. While she didn’t much enjoy the fact that there was a ghost in her house, knowing her habit allowed her to feel somewhat more at ease. She grew complacent, though she still sent a chill down her spine when she found herself in her area at the time of her actions. When possible, she avoided her bedroom when she was sitting and reading at night. In her heart she knew she couldn’t see her, but still her presence put her nerves on edge.

Siuan grew as accustomed to the ghost of the woman as she possibly could. She learned to predict her movements in Sunriver, and it gave her a sense of control over the uncontrollable.

And then one day, nearly two months after she had moved into the manor house, when she’d seen her humdrum schedule day in and day out, everything changed.

It was a Tuesday, at mid-morning. Siuan was walking along the lane, when movement and laughter off to her right caught her attention. Turning her head to look towards the wide open fields that surrounded her new home, she looked for what had caught her eye.

Out in the field, maybe fifty metres from her, a kilometre or so passed Sunriver Manor, the woman – the ghost – was laughing as a large white horse trotted circles around her. The horse, trotted, pranced, and threw its head playfully as it clutched the brim of a sun hat between its teeth.

Both the woman and the horse were just as distorted as she alone had been the day that she had finally seen her face.

Eyes widening as she gazed at the scene, Siuan quickly checked her mobile phone; eleven in the morning. The ghost should have been in the manor house gazing from the master bedroom window at the gardens. She should have been on the property of the manor house, and yet here she was, passed the recognised property line.

“Give it back Aldieb!” laughing, she lunged at the beast, trying to retrieve her hat from the animal.

The horse threw its head back, lifting the hat once more.

She had heard the woman call the horse’s name before, but she had never seen the beast until today.

Siuan closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked away. Swallowing her trepidation, she nodded to herself and continued to walk into town. ‘It’s alright… this was probably still part of Sunriver’s property once upon a time. She’s still bound to her land… it’s alright Siuan.’ She thought to herself as she calmed down; quickly covering the remaining distance towards the town.

Ten minutes passed, and Siuan had all but forgotten her unease from before. Concentrating on what she needed in the town, she focused on the laneway ahead of her; she was almost there.

Behind her, the long grasses of the meadow swished as the soft thudding of hooves pattered along in the grass. In a moment, the large white horse trotted up level to Siuan, five or so metres off of the side of the pathway. The woman sat astride the animal’s back, sun hat and dark blue overcoat once more in place as she held the reins in one hand.

Siuan’s eyes flickered towards the woman, unable to help but stare as she and her mount passed her; Aldieb’s tail flicked back and forth. With widened eyes she watched as the two passed an invisible line marker, and vanished as if they had never been there.

She felt a little ill.

As she went about her business in town, walking from the bank to the bakery, Siuan allowed her mind to wander. With little prompting it found its way once more back to the woman, the ghost, that inhabited her home. She tried to keep her from her thoughts, as she was unwilling to give the spirit any power. But, the sudden change in her routine was startling to her; she couldn’t help but keep running it through her mind as she tried to understand.

But maybe this is what happened every day when she had turned away from the window in the master bedroom; she’d never seen her between then and the middle afternoon. It was possible that she was always out with Aldieb at that time; perhaps she and the horse had been having the same playful argument since the days that they were both alive. In a way, it made Siuan’s heart clench.

Yes. That had to be it; this was still part of the same routine and she had simply never seen it because she had never ventured out towards the town at that time of the morning on any day other than Thursday.

Siuan started back towards home.

As Siuan reached the manor, just entering the area best labeled as her lawn, the sound of quietened hoof beats followed her up the path. Glancing behind her, at first not thinking of the ghost and her mount, her eyes widened as she saw the big white horse and its rider drawing upon her. They were coming at a quickened, lolloping, pace. The woman quickly threw herself to the side when Aldieb didn’t appear to notice her; she knew the horse was a ghost, but instinct had tried to save her.

Siuan sat, panting softly, in the grass and looking up at the phantoms; the white horse was shuffling on its hooves, prancing around the front courtyard near the threshold. She swore its dark eye met hers as it flounced beneath its rider; a chill ran down her spine at the thought that perhaps the animal, even centuries later, could see her. Swallowing tightly, she glanced to the woman herself.

She swung one leg from over the saddle and hopped down onto the ground. Or rather, onto where she and her horse both stood two inches above the natural earth level. Off of the horse, she removed her hat, now that she was out of the public eye once more, and clapped it down onto her horse’s head. Aldieb’s ears lowered off to the sides as her looked at the woman dubiously; a horse in a sun hat. The ghost barked out a slight laugh, before rumbling softly. “You wanted it before, what, now it’s not good enough?”

Aldieb made a discontented huff, and shook her head; tossing the sun hat from her skull. The woman caught it awkwardly.

“Rude.” The woman sighed, with a hint of laughter behind it. “I am not punching two holes into a perfectly good hat just to suit you!” she led the animal away by the reins. Before Siuan’s eyes, they vanished once more.

Broken from the trance of watching the apparitions, Siuan hurriedly looked down at the time on her mobile phone; it was nearly three o’clock. This was normally the time that the woman took her horse out of the stables that must have once stood on the property. This was the time she would take the horse out and vanish until nine in the evening. This was not the time that she was supposed to be putting Aldieb away for the day.

With her stomach knotted Siuan slowly stood to her feet. ‘Keep calm. It’s quite possible that you just never noticed this part of her schedule.’ She tried to tell herself, in vain. Deep down something told her that her life had just become even more complicated.

Dusting herself off, Siuan gathered up her dropped baked goods, and her bankbook, as she took a deep breath. Opening her eyes to step forward, back towards her house’s front door, she watched as the ghost strode along the driveway, heading to the entry way. Her attention was lowered, looking at her wrists as she unbuttoned the cuffs of her silk shirt. Rolling her sleeves up to her elbows, she glanced up briefly, before hopping up onto the front step and pulling the door open. She paused in the doorway, holding it behind herself.

Siuan blinked in confusion; she glanced around to find another spirit which she was waiting for; she couldn’t see anything. Wary, she approached the door and stepped up onto the stoop. Reaching out with one hand – trying to gage if the door was truly open or if it was a vision, her fingers met only open air. Frowning, she walked inside; glancing about, she caught sight of the spectre just before she vanished around a corner.

She didn’t understand why the door had been open, or why she had appeared to wait for a fraction of a moment for her to walk in. Granted, her hands had been full and she was grateful for the help.

Internally Siuan wondered if perhaps the ghost could see her, even if it was only shimmers of her echoing through her foggy existence on a repeating loop.

She carried baked goods through the main floor and down the servants’ staircase towards the kitchen, unintentionally following the path that the woman had taken moments before. Concentrating on too many things at once, Siuan bustled into the kitchen and sat her basket, purse, and phone down onto the butcher’s block table before she ever looked up.

With a huffed sigh, she looked about for the small journal in which she’d been keeping the records of her encounters with the figure haunting her home; today she already had three new experiences to add to the pages. Swaying her hips around and out of the way of the table, Siuan moved to the mahogany cabinetry and pulled open drawer, after drawer, after drawer in order to find the book.

The soft chinking of porcelain behind her caused her to pause in her search. Slowly straightening her back, she lifted her gaze first to the kitchen door directly in front of her. After a moment, she slowly turned her head to look back over her shoulder.

Standing between the butcher’s block table and the large window that gazed out over the back half of the manor’s property (Sunriver Manor was built into a hill; the slope in the back dropped away and allowed the basement level –including the kitchen- to be on the ground level and accessible by a back entryway) the woman poured water from a freshly boiled kettle into a white porcelain tea pot. She was unclear, as ever, and the exact painted pattern of her tea service was hard to distinguish. But, it reminded Siuan of her grandmother’s fine bone china, which she had never seen used (it was always saved for a special occasion) that had been passed down from her great-grandparents at least.

Siuan slowly turned her body around, so she could focus on her actions.

She swiftly poured the remaining hot water from the kettle into the sink; Siuan could see the sudden influx of steam rising from her stainless steel double sink. The woman, picking up the tea pot, carefully brought it back to the table, and set it upon a silver tray with three fine bone china cups, a sugar bowl, and a creamer that matched the pot. The tray wasn’t more than two feet from where Siuan had been standing moments before; it was just to the right of the groceries which she had put down.

The ghost straightened herself with quiet grace before lifting the silver tray. Balancing the tea service with practiced ease, she crossed the kitchen in long, elegant strides. Her insubstantial form collided with her like a puff of smoke, a wisp of cloud against a glass surface; she scattered, and for just a moment she engulfed her in a bath of cold vapour like an early spring day.

Just like that, she was gone.

Siuan’s eyes rolled back in her head as her knees buckled. She fell unconscious to the kitchen floor.

After that, the activity in Sunriver increased; Siuan felt safe nowhere on her property. It seemed that everywhere she turned, every room she entered, no matter where or at what time, she was there.

The habitual routine of hers that she’d recorded for nearly a month was completely changed; nothing was the same. She couldn’t keep track of her anymore; she’d lost all control over the situation. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could carry on like this.

It had been one thing when she had half a way of expecting her actions; now she felt completely helpless. She was afraid to tell Leane what had happened, in fear that the woman would be on her doorstep within hours. She was afraid to tell her because she didn’t want to have her suspicions confirmed.

In her heart, Siuan knew that the ghost wasn’t residual, nor had she ever been. If she wasn’t a residual haunting, as she was being forced to admit now, than she had to be an intelligent haunting; a spirit with a consciousness; sentience. She wasn’t sure she could handle that revelation.

She loved the house, but it was haunted. Daily she thought of packing up her belongings and leaving Sunriver behind, even though she loved it as dearly as the day she’d laid eyes on it. But its other resident was becoming too much for her.

She had no moment of peace, no reprieve from her. Understanding now that she was aware of her surroundings, Siuan couldn’t shake the feeling of horror that she’d allowed herself to fall asleep while she used to sit by the fire and read every night. She wondered if the ghost had been able to see her, if he’d been able to interact with her.

All the wondering in the world, all the questions without answers, was starting to pull her apart at the seams.

She’d not slept in the last two weeks, not properly at least. On guard all the time, she couldn’t rest for more than a few minutes at a time. She’d tried everything she could think of, short of a prescription strength sleeping pill. No matter what she did, she would awake every so often, and toss and turn. Flopping like a fish in her bed while trying to seek a reprieve from her gaze; from the burning of the eyes that bored into her flesh and into her soul.

She was becoming paranoid, and snappy. Every time her phone rang she answered irritably, yet the spirit that plagued her seemed to carry on with his life without a second thought as to how her presence was affecting her.

She was there every time Siuan tried to sleep; she could feel her in the room, sitting by the fire and reading or sitting by the window. She was there in the kitchen late at night when Siuan forced herself to drink pot after pot of lavender tea to calm her nerves. She was there when she tried to bury herself in her canvases and paints. She was there almost every moment. Siuan was starting to think she’d long lost the battle with insanity; maybe she was hallucinating this woman.

Tired, on edge, and distracted, Siuan marched along the trail between Sunriver and the town; Thursday had come once more and despite it all Siuan was determined to get her produce and flowers for the week. She didn’t want to allow some dead woman to stop her from living her life as she intended, but it was becoming more difficult not to fall into the pit of despair.

Why had she chosen Sunriver? Of all the places, why that god forsaken manor house?

She was definitely why the Trankads had left in 2008, even if they did not admit to it. If her presence had been as strong with them as it was now with Siuan, she could see why they boarded the house up and left her to her own musings.

For a moment, Siuan felt a pang of guilt. Was the spirit just lonely? Could ghosts get lonely?

She shook it off as she kept herself directed toward the farmers’ market. She needed to stay angry; it was the only thing carrying her through. She was exhausted, but the faster she finished her weekly shopping, the faster she could come back home and hopefully collapse from exhaustion.

It was not a pleasant day; August had come cold and rainy. Overhead the sky was black, threatening to unleash a storm the likes of which Siuan had never witnessed. She prayed that she was either in the village, or back home, when it finally hit. She didn’t want to be out in the broad openness of the fields, lest she be struck with lightning. She couldn’t die here. She didn’t want to join her in the hellish afterlife which she was living.

The fine gravel of the trail crunched behind her, under all too familiar footfalls. Siuan tensed, not from fear this time, but from irritation. Why did she always have to be there? Could she give her no peace? The footsteps picked up their pace, gaining on Siuan, who refrained from speeding up herself. Siuan could feel her approach like a wave of electricity, crackling around her in a way that she had never felt from any living man, or woman. Gritting her teeth like an animal ready to fight, she glanced to her right.

There she was, walking at the same pace as Siuan, the collar of her long dark blue overcoat fastened high around her throat. Now and then, she glanced up at the path as she adjusted her coat sleeves.

She continued to keep pace with her, and finally, Siuan could take it no more.

She’d been too close to her for too long, and Siuan knew nothing about her. Internally, something finally snapped in Siuan.

“Bloody fish guts, who are you? What do you want?!” She didn’t expect any response. She doubted she could hear her, or see her at all times.

The ghost sucked in a gasp of air and faltered in mid-stride; Flustered, she turned quickly (the tails of her dark blue overcoat flaring out like wings) to face Siuan. A rosy blush coloured her cheeks and spread through to the tips of her ears. Eyes wide with astonishment. “You can see me?”

Chapter Text

She should have called a paranormal investigations group when she had the chance. Maybe then she wouldn’t have been here now.

Standing in front of her now, face to face, was like standing with a stranger; she might have thought that she had somehow come to know the ghost that haunted her house in the last months, but this was a turning point, and she knew it. Her figure is as unfamiliar to her as it had been the day that she first saw her.

This close to her, a breath’s width between them, she’s not what Siuan expected. Siuan had been expecting something intimidating, something terrible. Instead, she is forced to see the woman as she was once. While her features are still unclear, and the details are lost in haze, at this proximity she can see the shape of her face and hooded eyes. She is still certain that they are blue; she can’t imagine that they could be anything else.

Siuan swallowed tightly, forcing herself not to whimper from whatever strong emotion that was currently flooding through her- was it fear? Was it anger because she’d not had a moment’s peace and privacy in what seemed like a lifetime? Finally, she snapped. “Of course I can see you!”

The woman’s eyebrows lifted high as she cast a mildly disparaging look.

“Of course I can see you! I’ve been trying to ignore you for ages! But you’re always there!” Siuan panted.

“Me? I don’t think so, Miss!” She said, her tone was dry, but not hostile.

“Yes! You! You’re the one-“, moving to argue that she was the one haunting her home, she recalled her conversation with Leane: ‘It’s possible that she is unaware that she’s dead.’ And Siuan closed her mouth. She didn’t know what it would do to her if she told her, and she was unaware- she’d heard it mentioned once before that to tell a spirit that it’s dead (when it doesn’t know) is to torture it and possibly bring it physical pain. No matter the stress and worry that she’d caused her, she didn’t desire to hurt her without cause. Siuan was a lot of things, but cruel was not one of them.

Sighing, Siuan changed her sentence, hedging the issue of death. “You’re the one that follows me from room to room.”

“I haven’t been following you, I’ve been trying to stay away from you- but every time I leave one room for another, you’re not far behind! If I was following you, I think I’d have been cunning enough to hide myself from you, Miss…um…?” Her tone changed from sharply indignant to retreating, as her eyes met hers.

Siuan swallowed the lump in her throat; her eyes finally (after months) met hers for longer than a split second. She couldn’t help but stare.

Moiraine stared at Siuan for a good, long moment, raking in what she can of her appearance: Dark skin, brown eyes, her lips were full and curls hair that perfectly framed her face, held back in a ponytail. She’d been trying so hard to avoid looking at her directly, for so long, that she’d missed her beauty entirely.

The silence stretched between them for a moment.

Siuan cleared her throat slightly, trying to break her sudden speechlessness. “Siuan Sanche… Siuan for short.” Truthfully, she felt daft introducing herself to a dead woman. “Who… who are you?”

Still gazing at her, she vaguely realized she’d asked her a direct question. “I’m Moiraine,” she cringed at the impropriety of her introduction. “Moiraine. Moiraine Damodred.”

“Hello.” Siuan focused on her, still willing her heart to quell its frantic staccato tattoo.

“Hi, Miss. Sanche.” Her voice was gentle and soft as silk. Her posture straight and head held high.

Siuan watched the figure for a long moment, unable to understand the change that had happened in her. Pushing back her confusion and regaining her anger at being constantly watched, she snapped back at her. “Miss. Damodred-“

“Lady… truthfully.” Siuan could almost see the embarrassment in her; her cocky demeanour dropped and was replaced by one of mild admonishment. “But ‘Moiraine’ will do just fine, ‘promise.”

Siuan was forced to stop once more, she blinked. “Lady?”

“Of Cairhien, yes. S’not much, but it’s my home, and I’m its Lady. On paper; don’t much care for the title myself.”

“Right, of course, Lad– Moiraine.” She corrected, and the woman let out a little sigh of relief. “And you didn’t answer my other question: what do you want?”

Her brows furrowed as she tilted her head, regarding her with bewilderment. “What? I don’t want anything Siuan.” She tested her name, but it tasted foreign on her tongue; the woman could see it in the slight crinkling of her nose.

“You were following me, and then you walked up beside me. You were keeping pace with me.” She folded her arms over her chest.

“I was walking at a leisurely pace; to be honest, I was unaware of your presence until it was too late. I’m headed for the market.”

Siuan stayed silent; with the increase in the paranormal activity in her home and her presence around her nearly every moment of the day, she had never actually considered that it had nothing to do with her- vain though it may be. “The market?”

“Yes, the Farmers’ Market? I assumed you were headed there as well?”

Siuan nodded, but looked at her bemusedly. “So you weren’t following me?”

Moiraine stared back at her with a look almost best described as incredulity marred by pity. “I am sorry if I offend you, but I never had any intentions of making my life revolve around you.”

Siuan wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or not; part of her was a little disappointed. She tried to push it away, instead focusing on the moderately rude way in which she was just spoken to. She didn’t think her … existence… revolved around her, but still she thought she might have some part in it. “So you… own… Sunriver?”

“At the moment, yes, I suppose. Have you ever owned the manor?”

Siuan sighed. She wasn’t sure how to answer the question; in some ways, Moiraine appeared to be blatantly aware of the modern age and the passage of time from the days she last walked the Earth, but in others she seemed very innocent to the nature of her reality. Siuan decided that it was best to be as truthful as she could without telling her everything. “I’ve owned Sunriver, yes.”

A warm smiled spread across Moiraine’s unclear face, and she motioned up the laneway, inviting Siuan to keep walking with her.

She glanced up and then back to the spectral woman. Yet again her world, her reality, had been turned on its head, by her. She swallowed tightly; unless she left Sunriver in the near future (and she did love the house…) she was going to be in her company for some time. Better to get to know her unintentional housemate, than to offend the spirit. As kind as currently seemed, she didn’t want to experience the wrath of a wraith.

She could only imagine the torment the woman could put her through if she truly wanted her out of the house. Maybe she’d seen too many horror movies for her own good.

Smiling, she nodded her head, despite her thoughts reeling. She was going to have to try and research Lady Moiraine Damodred when she had a moment to herself; she just prayed the woman didn’t notice.

As she walked along the trail, Siuan listened to the rhythmic sound of Moiraine’s footsteps in the gravel; she kept pace with her rather easily. Silence had settled, and while it was terrifying to talk to a spirit, it was unsettling in another way when she said nothing.

Sensing Siuan’s discomfort, Moiraine glanced sidelong at the woman walking at her side. She watched her for half a moment before returning her eyes to the lane before them.“I know it must frighten you.” Her voice could melt a glacier if she tried; Siuan found herself turning to look at her. “But I really mean no harm to you.” She grinned and Siuan chuckled slightly. Her expression softened into a gentle smile as she spoke again. “Sunriver is my home, as much as it is yours. Perhaps now that I’ve introduced myself, we can cohabitate peacefully?”

A sympathetic smile settled on Siuan’s lips as her anger and fear melted away, revealing her exhaustion and a sense of understanding. She wanted peace, peace would allow her to sleep and prevent her from developing an ulcer. Peace meant living with a ghost who would at least try her best to leave her her space when she required it. “I’d like that, Lady Damodred.”

“Moiraine.” She corrected delicately, “Moiraine’ will do just fine.” She nodded her head to her, but together they once more passed the invisible line marker at the furthest edge of the property, and she vanished like a whisp of smoke in the clear, cool, late summer air.

Siuan sighed softly to herself; with her disappearance, she felt strangely alone, more alone than she had in ages. Maybe she’d been a hallucination – an intelligent figure conjured by a sleep deprived, lonely mind.

The town was busy (at least by the village’s standards) as people milled about, flooding the old streets for the weekly Farmers’ Market. Siuan paused on the edge of the town square, and took a deep breath; her eyes flickered around, looking for a trace of Moiraine.

She wasn’t there.

Siuan released the exhale and stepped into the market, merging into the crowd. Her mind drifted to a faraway place as she moved between produce stands. She would have to call Leane once more.

“The nectarines are rather lovely.” Moiraine’s voice near her ear made Siuan jump; Moiraine chuckled softly in response. “Sorry, I thought you heard me approach; you’ve been staring at the fruit for some time.”

Siuan glanced back at the stand; the farmer didn’t seem to notice her, let alone her ghostly companion. She swallowed back a cough, and calmed herself down as she spoke to Moiraine; her eyes locked on the fruit. “Is that so? The nectarines, I mean.” Slowly turning her head to glance at the woman, Siuan noted that her form was nearly solid. She was inspecting a bushel of early seasoned apples. Siuan swallowed tightly when she noticed Moiraine picked up an apple and lifted it to her face – the apple came away in her hand, but its physical form remained in the bushel with the others.

“Yes!” Moiraine said. She’d been focused on the apple. Finally looking up, she fixed her blue eyes on Siuan. “Cairhien nectarines have always been a high seller – even late in their growing season like this. Sorry, I just assumed you liked fruit.”

Siuan smiled. “I do.”

In all honesty, Siuan hadn’t thought much about the fruit, she had simply drifted away into thought as she stood by the stand.

Siuan was exhausted by the time she returned to Sunriver. Putting her groceries away as quickly as she could, Siuan wasted little time. She truly just wanted to sleep, to sink into her mattress and shut out the rest of the world until she had recharged completely. She’d been sleep deprived for too long. She had been starting to stumble as she headed up the stairs from the main living space to the second floor bedrooms. She steadied herself with a hand on the banister.

The house felt different after the breakthrough communication between Siuan and the spirit. The atmosphere had altered; the oppressive and stalked heaviness had been melted away. The house felt, and looked (if she wasn’t imagining it.) a little brighter. The sun streaming through the windows gleamed like fire on the hardwood floors; the darkness of the morning had made way for the sun of the afternoon. The gloom in her heart was replaced with a contented peace.

In the master bedroom she shirked off her day’s clothing, despite it being little past two in the afternoon, and pulled on her baggy pajama shorts and a camisole. Drained, she pulled back the covers of her bed and wrapped her hair in a silk headscarf. She crawled into the bed, and within seconds she was asleep.

When Siuan finally awoke, it was dark out. Furrowing her brow and wrinkling her nose, she first attempted to bury herself further into her pillow without opening her eyes. Her head was foggy with sleep and a migraine; she just wanted to fall back asleep. But the growling of her empty stomach gnawed at her. Sighing exasperatedly, the woman flopped back over onto her back, and opening her eyes stared up at the ceiling.

Shadow and light played across her ceiling, and Siuan watched it for a moment, before tilting her head to further gaze at it. Trying to decipher what it was that she was looking at, it finally dawned on her. She turned her head towards the wainscoted wall, and sat up slowly.

Moiraine was sitting in her wingback chair by the fire; positioned at an angle where Siuan could see most of her. She wore a long-sleeved blue dress, and her feet were bare. The book was in her lap; a faint ghost light shone up from it. Siuan realised that she gave off a slight spectral glow in the darkness. It seemed only to be the writing in the book. Siuan mentally shrugged it off as she looked at her. It had never occurred to her before that a spirit would be able to alter their appearance – change their attire. But, understanding that she was nothing but energy, it made sense; energy could take many forms, and she could change the way she appeared to her.

Siuan pushed herself up in bed until she was sitting with her back against the headboard. The rustling of the bedding drew the woman’s attention, and Moiraine slowly lifted her focus from the book and towards the bed. When she realised that she was sitting awake, she smiled softly and nodded her head; closing the cover of the book.

Siuan’s brows furrowed, she was still foggy from sleep. She licked her lips slight, “What time is it?” it was still beyond peculiar to her that she was able to intelligently ask her a question, and she would (if she could) answer her in an understandable manner. This threw a huge snarl into her view and understanding of the afterlife. She wasn’t entirely sure what she had thought, but it hadn’t been this.

“It’s half past one already.”

Siuan coughed in shock, choking on a breath she’d drawn in too quickly. “Fish guts! I’ve slept for nearly twelve hours?!”

“To be fair, you looked rather –“ she stopped herself, realising that what she was about to say.

Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized Moiraine. “I looked rather… what?”

No answer. Moiraine just stood watching her.

Siuan snorted and shook her head.

“I thought it was a dream…” Siuan sighed after a moment.

Moiraine spoke up after a moment, her voice quiet. “Thought what was a dream?”

“You.” The weight of the word sat between them. Siuan looked up at her once more after a long moment.

The warm orange-gold glow of the firelight bathed Moiraine’s face and body in light while casting the other side in shadows. The flames caught and reflected inside her irises, and despite the fact that Siuan could not see her clearly, the light turned her eyes a rich amber colour. Moiraine regarded her with quiet interest; her hands resting folded in her lap. Siuan briefly wished she could have seen her face as it was in life, wondering how different the clarity would make her.

“I didn’t think I’d ever be here, or speaking with you… I wanted to think you were a figment of my imagination.”

A slight smile pulled at her lips as she watched her intently. She steeled her face once more when she noticed what she was doing. “Are you sorry that I’m not?”

Siuan’s eyes moved from gazing into the fire and met hers. She gazed at her for a long moment. Her mind was ticking away, and she didn’t know the answer to her question. She knew what she should say, but it wasn’t the dominant reaction that sparked in her when she dwelled on it. She knew the right answer, and she knew the one she was thinking of. She should have said yes, that she wished Moiraine wasn’t in her house and she didn’t have to deal with her. Instead… “Yes.”

Moiraine cringed slightly, her shoulders lifting just a little as she subconsciously tried to shield herself. Siuan did not relish her wounded reaction.

“Because I’m sorry that I have been afraid for my life.”

Moiraine gazed intently back at her; eyes locked with hers, she set the book onto the arm of her chair, and rose from her seat. Siuan held her breath in fright as Moiraine crossed the floor to her. In an instant, Moiraine was standing by her side at the bed; she smoothed her dress, and sat herself down on the bed. The mattress creaked and bowed slightly under her weight, and Siuan couldn’t help but glance down with wide eyes to where her unearthly, unsubstantial form met her bed. She still didn’t rightly understand how a ghost could have weight. Her eyes flickered back to her face as she sat near to her.

Blue eyes met gentle yet guarded brown.

“In my life I have never been, or ever will be, the kind of woman that would hurt an innocent person.” Siuan nodded speechlessly as she looked up at her. Moiraine smiled politely, “You should sleep; Sunriver is safe as long as I reside here. You are safe.”

Moiraine rose to her feet, and retraced her route back to the large wingback chair. Mildly leaning over it, she picked up the leather bound book that she’d been buried in moments before, and started away from Siuan and the fireplace.

Once she passed through the bedroom door, and it clicked quietly behind her, the vision of the roaring fire and the chair vanished as if the door closing interrupted the frequency at which their energy resonated. Once more Sunriver’s master bedroom felt silent and dark save for the light of the moon lazily filtering through the window.

Siuan strained to focus on the house around her – listening for the retreating footsteps of Moiraine. The house was dead around her; her ears rang with the silence.

With a huff she flopped back down onto the bed, and settled into her pillow. Closing her eyes, she finally noticed that the faint scent of dried lavender still danced in the room. The world faded around her as she returned once more to the depth of her dreams.

When morning came, Siuan awoke refreshed. For the first time since she’d moved into the manor house, she felt properly rested, and despite the fact that she knew she was not alone in the large house, it was no longer an obtrusive feeling of constant surveillance but one of understanding that, as far as her ghostly companion was concerned, she was merely looking out for her safety. It should have terrified her further, and upon second thought she knew she should be worried about what Moiraine already knew of her, and what she could do if she wanted to, but Siuan couldn’t find it in her heart to worry too much. Not after the earnest declaration of intent from the woman the night before.

At least now she had a name, and a general idea of her era.

Gathering her purse and her reading glasses, Siuan padded through Sunriver. She kept a constant, careful eye out for Moiraine. It’s not that she was doing anything unsavoury, but she didn’t want her to find out. She didn’t want her to learn of her departure from the world of the living, if she was truly unaware that she was dead, and least of all in this way.

Glancing through doorways and room to room, Siuan found no trace of the woman, and finally came to the conclusion that she must have left the house that morning already. Moiraine was probably out with Aldieb in the fields somewhere. The revelation that she was an intelligent haunting (who must be quite powerful since she was able to appear as a full apparition and not just a shadow – even if she wasn’t aware) made the memory of her playing with the hell beast more entertaining. Still, she wondered if she and her horse were killed together, and that’s why they were together, even now.

Siuan followed the now familiar lane into the town once more. Though she kept a clipped pace, she took her time – ever watching in her peripheral vision for a spectral horsewoman.

Overhead the sun was shining brightly, the August rains had been brushed aside for a few days, and Siuan revelled in the return of the warmth. It brightened her spirits just as much as the nearly twenty hours of sleep.

She hadn’t seen Moiraine, or even Aldieb, by the time she reached the town, and while it relieved her, it also worried her slightly. The day before yesterday she would have been ecstatic that she wasn’t breathing down the back of her neck. She pushed it from her mind as she wound her way through the cobbled streets and towards the library where she’d spent much of her second week in the town.

Walking up the few old stone stairs that twisted through a maze of ancient oak trees which shaded the property, Siuan bobbed along the pathway to the building which was, once upon a time, the village chapel. Built in the 14th century the architecture still had a distinctly Roman Gothic feel to it.

Pulling open the doors of the library, Siuan was once again met by the scent of musty staleness that the Cairhien library seemed to have in spades.

Truthfully speaking, Siuan wasn’t sure why she was here; she wanted to know about her housemate, but she wondered if perhaps it was better left untouched. Not knowing would mean it was easier for her to keep Moiraine’s death a secret from her. Honestly, what would Siuan do if she suddenly learned that Moiraine had fallen from Aldieb’s back and broken her neck? Or if she learned that she’d taken ill with the flu and it had stolen her away within a day and a night? What if Siuan learned that someone had broken into the manor in the middle of the night and slaughtered Moiraine – and any family that she’d had – like a beast? What would she do if she learned that Sunriver had caught fire? It didn’t look any worse for the wear, but Siuan’s mind thought back to the electrician she’d hired ‘I would rather see it rewired and you safe, than find out you were cooked alive in this big old stone house. It’d be like an oven.’ And she felt the chill run through her body and wash over her with a sense of nausea. She wondered if the electrician had been able to see Moiraine standing on the stairs when he’d briefly glanced over her shoulder.

Siuan didn’t think she could ever look her in the eye if she were to learn any of those scenarios had been true. She wouldn’t be able to look at her without weeping for her. She was already burdened by the fact that she seemed so alive.

Maybe it was better for her not to know.

Realistically, Siuan was aware that she wouldn’t be able to read up on her life without learning the circumstances of her death, but the desire to know Moiraine and the reason that she was still at Sunriver Manor was too strong to pay heed to the apprehension knotting in her stomach. The curiosity was too much for her to dwell on the worry of knowing her death.

It didn’t occur to her that she could have simply asked Moiraine any of the questions that she had about her, or her life, or family, or any of the circumstances. She thought it better to leave her out of this, and besides, she’d not seen her that morning as it was.

With a soft little sigh, Siuan settled into a chair positioned at a large mahogany table. Pulling her laptop from her oversized purse, she glanced around suspiciously, in case she caught sight of a familiar shadow. She could have done this part at home, started this endeavour on her laptop and seated on her couch, but the chance that Moiraine could unintentionally see what she was doing was just too high in her mind.

When Google finally loaded, Siuan sat staring at the black search engine for a moment. Her mind quickly ran through all the ways in which she could start her query; how she should start looking for Moiraine in the annals of history. After a moment she sighed, and started tapping out her best guess.

Moiraine+Damodred+Cairhien+Sunriver

She paused and watched as the cursor blinked mockingly after her last plus sign. Siuan closed her eyes. Worrying her lip, she looked back to the search bar, and finished her search parameters.

Moiraine+Damodred+Cairhien+Sunriver+1800..1830

She hit enter quickly and held her breath as the webpage flashed and brought up the results page. She hissed out an exhale as her heart sank from her chest and down somewhere by her stomach.

No Results Found For Moiraine+Damodred+Cairhien+Sunriver+1800..1830

Siuan’s brows furrowed as she scanned through the related webpage results; nothing was even remotely close to what she was looking for. It figured; nothing could be this simple. She was going to have to be here in the library that smelled faintly of death and decay for longer than she wanted. She rubbed her forehead as she tried again; maybe her years were simply wrong.

Moiraine+Damodred+Cairhien+Sunriver+1780..1900.

She clicked search again, assuming this would cover the bases for what she needed. Once again…

No Results Found for Moiraine+Damodred+Sunriver+Cairhien +1780..1900

Siuan sighed loudly, a sound of pure exasperation as she knotted her fingers through her curls and rested her weight onto her elbows. Several other patrons of the library glanced her way, but if they thought anything about her tiny outburst, they never put it to voice. She stared at the screen for a long moment reconsidering the nature of her inquiry.

Siuan sat in silence for several long moments, not knowing where to start now that the most obvious of places had returned with nothing. All she could do was try again.

Lady+Cairhien+Moiraine+Damodred

No Results Found For Lady+Cairhien+Moiraine+Damodred

Blood and bloody ashes.

Moiraine+Damodred

No Results Found For Moiraine+Damodred

This was clearly going to be the next thing that kept her awake night after night. Yet again it came down to her. To Moiraine; the creature that dwelt within her halls, haunting her, that kept her from her rest. This time it was just that she desperately wanted to know more about her. She knew very well that she existed. So why wasn’t Google giving her any results?

She shut down her laptop, and closed it up; shoving it unceremoniously into her bag.

Siuan walked from the table (where her bag was still sitting) to the main reference desk. A woman, was sitting behind the desk; her hair was neatly pulled back into a tight bun. She wore a dove gray cardigan over a pale blue blouse. The librarian’s fingers stopped tapping on her keyboard as Siuan approached her.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked.

Siuan looked down at her and smiled carefully; the woman didn’t look at all impressed with her approach, but that wasn’t Siuan’s problem at the moment. “Yes, I hope so. Um, I was wondering if you had a book, or a section or something on the history of Cairhien.” She put on her best, dazzling, smile.

“History of Cairhien?” The librarian’s brows knit, as she looked up at Siuan. “Not exactly light reading.”

Siuan took a deep breath and held onto it for a moment before she released it. “I’m just curious about the history of the town.”

The librarian nodded her head, “You’re the new owner of Sunriver Manor, right?”

“Yes!” Siuan said. “I was hoping to find out about the house and the former owners – not the Trankads, but the original family.”

“Ah, the Damodreds; tragic what happened with that family.” The woman shook her head remorsefully, and Siuan felt lead drop into the pit of her stomach. The librarian returned her eyes to her computer screen, but brought up a search index for the library; her fingers flew over the keys. “You’ll want to check in section 33-HS, which is basically- well it’s not archival because all of our original copies are kept in climate controlled cases, but it’s essentially the local history.”

Siuan nodded her head, still not sure if she could voice much more than a basic response. She cleared her throat softly, pushing away the negative thoughts clawing at her psyche, and focused again on the librarian. “Sorry, where would 33-HS be located?”

“33-HS is upstairs; third floor, up in what used to be the spire and right by the rose window. You can either take the stairs, or there’s a lift.”

“Thank you.” With one last glance back at the librarian, Siuan caught a shimmer of a vision; the librarian, still sitting in the same location behind her desk, but dressed in a pale pink early Victorian day dress. Just as quickly as Siuan spotted it, the vision had melted away. She was left a little shaken, as she returned to the table to grab her bag.

Slinging the strap over her shoulder, Siuan made her way between the tables and the old wood and stone staircase that was located in the back of the ancient church. The staircase and the elevator sat side by side, and Siuan glanced at the doors; her stomach knotted and a feeling of dread settled over her. The area around the lift itself felt heavy; it whispered silently of pain, suffering, and death. The stale mustiness seemed to be seeping from it, and Siuan quickly put any plan to ever use it to rest in her mind. She’d rather walk up the narrow staircase that loosely spiraled up to the other floors, than step foot into the death trap. Something just told her that it was to be avoided, and she wasn’t keen on ignoring her intuition.

She just didn’t want to die in a library.

The third floor was both small, and totally empty of people; the only light that seemed to come in here, at least during the day, was the sunlight flooding in through the rose window that then spread across the floor as a fiery mandala. Siuan stepped off of the stairs and walked across the floor; she was still replaying the same words in her head as she headed towards the research section that she needed. ‘Ah, the Damodreds. Tragic what happened with that family.’, what had happened? What had befallen them? What had Moiraine got herself involved in? Why was she still in Sunriver even centuries after her death?

What had been so horrible that it had trapped the soul of the woman forever in state of unrest in the halls of the house she once called her home?

Siuan scanned through the book titles in the section, trying to find something that would tell her what she needed to know, and finally she settled on a red leather bound tome simply titled Cairhien: A History.

She pulled the tome from the shelf and gasped slightly at its weight. Rearranging it in her arms, she carried it to the small, square, wooden table that sat halfway in the beam of sunlight falling from the rose window. The book made a soft whumph as it met the table, and Siuan quickly dug her fingers into the pages, throwing the cover open. She quickly flipped passed sections like Cairhien’s Pre-Roman Roots, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and its Effects on Cairhien, Cairhien and Aiel: A Medieval Partnership, etc., before Siuan finally came to a section that better suited her needs. Sunriver Manor.

Swallowing tightly, Siuan started reading the section about the house that she’d unwittingly bought months before.

Sunriver Manor was built in 1776 by Tamariel Damodred for his wife, Almyra Damodred, their four adult children, and two infant grandchildren. Built over the course of three years, Sunriver was perhaps more of a large cottage by the grandiose standards of the day, but its presence was the first of its kind on the planes surrounding the old Roman settlement of Cairhien. The house was destined to the seat of power for the Damodreds’ eldest son, once Tamariel died, and so the Damodred pumped a fortune into rebuilding the town of Cairhien (which had fallen into a state of ruin in the century prior). In return for rebuilding and strengthening the village, the community named Tamariel Damodred ‘Lord of Cairhien’, a title which was all too soon passed down to his eldest daughter when Tamariel passed of fever in 1782.

In 1782, the Ladyship of Cairhien and possession of Sunriver Manor, passed onto Tamariel’s childless daughter, Carewin. Within the year, Carewin’s mother, Almyra, followed after Tamariel and left the entirety of Cairhien’s rule to her daughter. Carewin’s youngest sibling, a sister named Innloine, married in early 1783 and moved from Sunriver to live with her husband in Andor. Shortly after Innloine’s departure, the middle sibling, Carewin's brother, Dalresin, moved into the house to be with his sister. With Dalresin came his wife and two young children; unnamed*

Siuan’s eyes flashed down to the footnotes on the page she was reading, and found the asterix.

*The names of Dalresin’s children and other such records have been lost due to a fire that tore through Sunriver’s internal archive in the mid-1920s

Siuan wanted to cry out in frustration; she could feel that she was on the verge of the revelation that she needed in order to learn about the woman still haunting her house. She returned her eyes to the page, pressing on to glean whatever information that she could.

In 1799, tragedy struck once more when Carewin was bucked from her horse; her neck was broken in the fall. It took the lady three days of agony and paralysis to die, leaving Dalresi’s daughter as her heir ( Dalresi himself passed away from the flu the in 1795)

It has been speculated that the earth upon which Sunriver stands is cursed; the heartache and repeated tragedy that plagued the Damodreds continued on into the 19th century, until finally the last of the family passed away.

Siuan rubbed her temples growing frustrated. Her headache was growing in intensity. After a moment she finished reading the page.

After the death of the last Lady of Cairhien, Sunriver sat empty and abandoned for several years until the manor was purchased by al'Akir mandragoran and his wife Leanna. The couple resided in the house for fifteen years, until 1895, when they moved out of the stone halls, citing that a “mischievous ghost drove them past all sense of sanity”. Sunriver was sold once more, inhabited for only a short amount of time, and eventually sold again. By the 1920s it had come into the possession of the Trankad family, and currently remains in their possession.

Siuan stared at the last sentence, thinking quietly to herself ‘except that it’s mine now…’ she sighed and closed the book.

The afternoon sun was warm, and the sky was a clear, rich, blue and not the faded tone of summer. Siuan marched through the village square with a purpose, having left the library behind she headed to the lane that would link her to her house. She needed to know the answers that were just out of her grasp. She focused on the ground as she strode.

“Siuan.” Her voice was full of smiles.

The shadow of the horsewoman fell over Siuan, and she halted her strides, lifting her eyes to gaze up at Moiraine as she sat astride the large white horse. The beast pranced slightly, taking several steps backward, and Moiraine suddenly blocked the sun from shining directly into her eyes. As her eyes adjusted Moiraine turned from a half blurred silhouette to a proper vision. She was smiling brilliantly, lighting up her eyes, despite the haze between herself and Siuan

Siuan glared up at her, and it wasn’t because of the sunlight. “Who are you?” her voice was definitely colder than Moiraine was expecting, as her smile fell to an expression of confusion.

“I’m Moiraine…” her brows furrowed as she looked down at her. Beneath her Aldieb hoofed at the cobblestones.

“Who are you really – and don’t lie to me.” Siuan warned, folding her arms over her chest as she attempted to take a stand of authority against someone- something- that truly still left her with a feeling of fear. She was, after all, still a ghost.

“I am telling you, I’m Moiraine – Moiraine Damodred.”

“The Lady of Cairhien.” She stared back at her.

Moiraine looked a little displeased. “Yes, the Lady of Cairhien.”

“Then why can’t I find you in the library’s archives?” Siuan asked.

Moiraine blinked at her blankly, before hedging calmly. “Probably because I’m not dead yet?”

Siuan’s heart clenched in her chest, ‘Oh Moiraine… if you only knew.

Chapter Text

Her head was aching. Siuan could no longer tell if it was a weather related migraine, or a headache brought on by tension and stress. Given the circumstances and everything else currently underway, the second option seemed more likely.

Siuan had spent the night, after returning from the library, trying to push away the nagging feeling that she was missing something. She felt like she was missing something so incredibly obvious about Moiraine’s origins and life; it drove her to temporary insomnia.

“Are you alright?” Moiraine’s voice rumbled softly behind her. Her bare feet padded over the stone tiles of the kitchen; Siuan tried to ignore that revelation. She had hardwood floors in the kitchen like the rest of the house.

She lifted her eyes to her as she sat at the kitchen table sometime after one in the morning. She smiled, tiredly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Her expression was sad as she gazed up at her. “I’m fine.”

Moiraine’s brows furrowed and lifted in the centre as she wore a slight, knowing, smile. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know.

She smiled just a little, but the lack of knowledge of her pained her deep down in her heart. How could there be no information on her? She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I’m not lying… I just can’t sleep.”

“You don’t need wine, not unless you want a headache.” Her tone was non-judgmental and comforting.

“I already have a headache.” Siuan grumbled softly as she lifted her hands and rubbed at her aching temples. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the careful pressure of her fingertips. The glass of merlot was sitting just in front of her.

“Alright, but you don’t want it to be worse in the morning. A cup of tea will do wonders for you.” She smiled gently, and Siuan felt herself relax as she returned her gaze to Moiraine's face.

“You’re right.” She huffed out softly as she stood, and grabbed the wine glass off of the table. Moiraine watched her as she walked passed her, straight for the kettle that was sitting by the sink. Siuan dumped the last of the wine from her glass into the stainless steel sink. She kept an eye on her as she filled the kettle and sat it on the burner of her stove before pulling out her dark seafoam green teapot from a low cupboard, and setting it on the table.

“Any specific tea?” she hummed softly as she took the small porcelain lid from the pot and set it on the table. After a moment, she lifted her eyes to the ghostly figure still standing in her kitchen.

“Chamomile and Linden, if you have them.” Moiraine turned herself properly to face her.

Siuan paused as she stared at her. “Linden?” her brows knit almost imperceptibly.

“Linden tea is used as a bit of a home remedy for insomnia, headaches, and anxiety, among other things,” she said confidently. “But judging by your question I think it’s safe to say you don’t have any Linden tea?”

Siuan shook her head, “No, no Linden tea… Chamomile yes, I think.” She headed towards her cupboard and pulled it open; leaning up on her toes to reach the box of tea on a higher shelf.

“I assume you bought the dried lavender from the Farmers’ Market in town?” Moiraine looked around her kitchen, scanning the room.

“Yes?” She looked at her a bit oddly, “but I don’t have anything to burn it in?”

Moiraine’s brows lifted as she turned to look at her. She couldn’t help the chuckle that bubbled up from her chest, but seeing her expression, she suppressed her laughter. “Sorry, I thought you were – never mind. Not to burn, Siuan, to drink.”

Siuan continued to stare at her blankly. “Is this a common thing?”

“Lavender tea? Yeah, I should think so? It’s usually in with other teas…” Moiraine returned her confused expression. “Sorry, have you never had it before?”

“Uh… not that I know of?” Her hand hovered over her teapot with the loose leaf chamomile blend in a measuring spoon.

“You’re going to take the dried lavender and put it in the pot like you would any other loose leaf blend and let it steep with the chamomile. It will be vaguely floral and sweet, but it’ll help relax you. ‘promise.” Moiraine smiled warmly at her.

Sitting in her seat at the butcher’s block table, Siuan had her hands were wrapped around a large mug of chamomile and lavender tea as she listened to her.

Across from her Moiraine stood pouring tea from her garish white, and gold tea pot into a matching bone china cup. “I wish I was joking, but I’m not. Aldieb’s tail and mane were both in bows when I woke this morning. Barthanes never seems to tire of playing with the poor animal.”

Siuan smiled brightly, but internally she wondered who Barthanes was.

“And I mean Aldieb just –“ Moiraine paused as she looked at Siuan, teacup half way to her lips. “I’m sorry, you probably don’t have a clue who Barthanes is; he’s my seven year old little-“

“Oh!” Siuan gasped and set the mug down. ‘She’s got a son named Barthanes! but that’s sad that the boy is … well at least mother and son are together…’ her smile faltered with her internal monologue. “That’s sweet though! The bows I mean.”

Moiraine watched her closely. she could see the change in her expression, but she pushed it aside as she seated herself across from her. “I don’t think Aldieb felt quite the same; she kept trying to bite me when I was taking the bows out. After that, I took her out for a long run.”

‘Oh, that’s where you were this morning…’ “I was a little surprised when I didn’t see you this morning, but I assumed you had better things to do than to rattle around the house with me.” Siuan smiled and took a mouthful of tea. Moiraine had been right, the tea was faintly sweet, and instantly soothed her mind. She knew she wouldn’t sleep well, but at least she might be able to get some rest.

“I take it you missed me,” Moiraine set her teacup down into its saucer and lifted her eyes to Siuan.

“Maybe just a little.”

“Just a little.” Moiraine broke into a bright grin, and Siuan returned her smile, but after a moment the woman spoke up once more. “Why were you looking for me in the archives anyway?”

The question came like ice water rolling down her back. She wasn’t expecting it, and had hoped after their walk back to Sunriver from Cairhien that she’d let it go. She’d managed to deflect the questions previously, and Moiraine had seemed to give up with her most basic answer to her – ‘Probably because I’m not dead yet?’. Siuan licked her lips trying to buy time. “I um…”

Moiraine still wore a tender smile with an innocent expression; her eyes were gentle. Siuan knew in her heart that she couldn’t hurt her by telling her the truth. She didn’t know her well, but she’d been nothing but kind to her. How could she be so cruel as to tell her she was looking for information about the ghost haunting her house?

She swallowed the lump in her throat and spoke up after a long silence. “I was curious about Sunriver and all of its owners. I thought I might look up the line of Lords and Ladys…

“And you couldn’t find me?”

Siuan shook her head, “Not one word.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me? I would be more than happy to answer anything I can for you.” Moiraine reached out her hand and laid it on the centre of the table top. Siuan wished she could lay her palm against her hand, if only as a silent motion of thanks, but knew what would never happen. She’d be as insubstantial as the summer breeze and gone just as quickly.

“I didn’t want to bother you. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to spy on you.” She laid her own hand, palm down, on the table; her finger tips mere millimetres from hers. She looked up at her from under her curls.

“It’d be a pleasure Siuan; no bother at all.”

Nodding, Siuan swallowed her last mouthful of tea from the mug. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you Moiraine…”

Silence settled between them, and remained like a weighted blanket. After a moment, Moiraine withdrew her hand from the table top and drained the remained of her teacup. “I should let you sleep.” Standing, she carried the cup and tea pot back to the sink, before heading for the kitchen doorway. She glanced back at her with a peaceful smile. “Goodnight Siuan.”

“Goodni-“ Siuan fell silent as she watched Moiraine walk from the door of her kitchen and vanish; the white, and gold tea service sitting at the side of her sink also vanished, as well as the large copper kettle that she’d boiled on the stove.

It was going to take a lot to get used to her vanishing act. Siuan sighed softly to herself; she’d start looking through history for her again in the morning.

In the light of the new day, she reconsidered her desire to seek out Moiraine’s records; she’d been accepting of her researching the house, but she knew that if she found out what she was looking- for her death record- the entire atmosphere between them would change. Moiraine was kind, but she also knew that Moiraine could shift between sweetness and frosty taciturnity in an instant. She had to be able to change like that; she was a woman in a place of power, a Lady. No matter if her seat of power was over a tiny village that had all but forgotten she’d ever existed…

Siuan knew it was better to let it go; she’d probably never learn what she wanted to know anyway. Even if she did somehow discover the information about Moiraine, it would come with a price. Learning her death would surely hurt her heart, no matter how she died or at what age. It would force her to look at her differently, despite the fact she’d always been gazing at her through the haze of the underworld, Siuan would fully realise the implications of that if she knew when and how her heart stopped beating beneath her breast.

It was best to let it go; knowing would change nothing about the fact that she was still residing within the halls of Sunriver Manor. Knowing would only hurt both of them. She would be unable to interact, or even live her life in the same space as her ghost, without feeling sorrow for her. In her heart she knew that if she were unable to look at Moiraine because of her grief, she would try to ignore her existence…and then she would be alone…again…

Gazing out the window of her bedroom, Siuan surveyed her gardens; they were finally re-tamed and reclaimed from the overgrown shoddiness of when she first moved. They were starting to match the vision in her head. Unfortunately, it was later into the season, and soon she would be readying the grounds for the harsh winter, but next year… next year she would make the gardens spectacular. Flowers that bloom in different months, a bright pop of colour for each part of the growing season, Siuan would make her home a manifestation of warmth and happiness. She smiled to herself; yes, she had a plan.

Siuan wandered from her bedroom and down the hall towards the room she’d painted a bright blue; her art studio. She pushed the door open, and stepped inside; the faint smell of oil paints still hung in the air from her time spent in here a few days prior.

Scraps of paper, both proper artist’s quality, and generic printer paper, were pinned to the walls in several places; sketches of all sorts. Many of them were of the landscape surrounding Sunriver including the old Roman era stone bridge that sat on the back of her property. Siuan assumed that its placement meant that there was once a stream running through the land and thus naming the property Sunriver. She’d drawn the bridge several times; the limestone structure, though slowly crumbling away, was still relatively intact as it spanned a total of six metres with one arch. Other sketches littered the room; drawings of flowers and the façade of the regency era house were pinned together and to the walls – Siuan didn’t bother with a corkboard.

Her easel, with a half painted canvas on it, sat off to the right side of the room across from the window. Passing it, Siuan grabbed her sketchbook off of the small table where her palette rested. The window, ever so slightly indented into the wall, Siiuan had turned into a makeshift window seat by piling a few old wooden crates as high as the sill and covering both with a large cushion. Opening the sketchbook, she leafed through until she found a clean blank page and sat herself down onto the window seat. With a piece of charcoal between her fingers, Siuan glanced down from her window, expecting only to see her empty front courtyard. Her brows lifted when she saw her.

Moiraine was sitting in the courtyard. She was wearing blue - of course - but it was new. Or at least, Siuan hadn’t seen it before. Looked like some soft and expensive fabric, long sleeves, high neck. She was as beautiful as a marble statue, Siuan thought, eyeing her appreciatively.

Siuan hurriedly blocked out a basic sketch of the woman on the page of her sketchbook; her fingers working out the shape and movement in a matter of seconds; she could build on it later.

Five drawings, of Moiraine, later Siuan set her sketchbook aside and stretched herself out; cramped from the awkward way she’d positioned herself in the window, her back was tense. But, she was happy with what she’d put onto paper, she’d be able to make a series of more detailed, proper, drawings later. Right now all she wanted was a cup of tea.

The week passed by, and turned into two, then two into three, and before long a month had passed. September was drawing to a close and with it the unfamiliarity between Siuan and the spirit which inhabited her home.

But as they grew closer, and Siuan became less intimidated by the fact he was the ghost of a dead Lady, the lack of understanding the circumstances that brought them together in this place plagued her.

Tossing and turning night after night, Siuan started to be plagued by dreams in which she kept trying to ask Moiraine more questions about herself and her life. She’d danced carefully around most of those in her waking moments, but each time she’d asked something Moiraine didn’t like, the dream would shift and she’d be sitting alone in a dark place. She’d be behind a locked door that she could never seem to get to. Siuan understood that the door in her dream was the representation of her uncertainty, and behind it existed all the answers she needed. It’s just that she could never get to it.

Siuan laid wide awake and staring up at her bedroom ceiling; somewhere in the dark room her clock ticked. She had no idea what time it was, but it was darker than dark in her room; the moon had already set. She sighed out softly to herself; Sunriver was deathly silent and the only noise or movement she could hear was her own. There was no sign of Moiraine anywhere nearby, she couldn’t hear her breathing, or humming, or even the creaking of the floorboards under her ghostly feet. She couldn’t hear anything besides the ticking clock and the oppressive silence was starting to affect her.

Rolling over onto her side she curled her pillow around her head and pressed it against her ear; she was trying to ignore the lack of all sound – she’d even accept her ears ringing right now. She’d even accept Moiraine’s ridiculous humming. But she wasn’t there, no one was.

Moiraine hadn’t sat by the fire that evening to read, nor had she in weeks; she hadn’t entered the master bedroom at all, at least that Siuan witnessed, in ages. She hadn’t gazed down at the property from its window, or sat by the fire, or – it suddenly occurred to Siuan that she’d never once been in her bedroom other than reading or looking from the window. She was the owner of Sunriver in her own right, however garbled that may be, but it meant that she had every right as far as she was concerned to claim the master bedroom for herself. It must have been hers before Siuan swept in and claimed the house. Siuan was silently thankful, if not confused, that she’d never startled her by being in her bed when she awoke in the morning; she didn’t know what she’d do if she woke up and she was sleeping mere inches from her – it would be too similar to sleeping next to a cadaver.

She rolled over onto her back once again to gaze at the ceiling. A moment passed, and finally, Siuan decided to drag herself from the bed. She swung her legs over the side of her mattress before padding across the hardwood to the door. She scratched at her curls tiredly as she walked out of the suite and down the short part of the hall towards the stairs. Creeping off of the stairs, meaning to head into the living room to watch either terrible late night TV or find a mindless movie, Siuan heard the front door open. Her eyes lifted immediately as she paused on the stairs.

Moiraine held the front door open only a foot as she made herself the narrowest that she could; she squeezed in through the door sideways and holding her breath trying to be quiet. She glanced around herself, thinking she was safe and hadn’t disturbed Siuan’s sleep, but she caught sight of her on the stairs. “You’re already up…”

Siuan’s brows furrowed, “I couldn’t sleep…”

“I know… I was coming in to ask if you wanted to join us?”

“Join you?” she repeated densely, hating that she had to, but the feeling in the pit of her stomach was worrisome. Why would a ghost ask her to join her…

“Barthanes and I” she said warmly. “Are out in the field, star gazing… we thought you might like to join us?”

Siuan’s confused and worried expression softened into a slight, half-hearted, smile. “Well…”

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to; we won’t mind. We won’t take offence; I mean it’s completely up to you… I just thought I’d offer, since you can’t sleep, and it might help relax you… at least more than the tea that hasn’t worked. I thought the stars might give you something to look at and think of other than whatever’s plaguing your dreams, unless–“ Siuan’s laughter cut her short, and Moiraine grinned awkwardly as she realised the cause. “I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

“A little… but it’s sweet.” Smiling brightly, if not tiredly, she stepped off of the bottom of the staircase and moved toward her. “I’d love to join you and Barthanes… if he won’t mind?”

“He won’t.”

“Then I’d love to join you.” Siuan smiled brightly, an expression that was quickly returned by the spectre.

“Come on.” Moiraine turned around, and opened the front door once more; she slipped outside and Siuan followed – reaching out like a blind woman to make sure the front door was truly open for her. She still noticed times when she moved objects in the house and yet they remained stationary to her. She had to always check.

The door clicked softly closed behind them and Siuan followed Moiraine in the near perfect darkness as she stepped off of the front stoop and immediately started heading towards the side of the stone house. Together they rounded the manor and headed towards the back side of the large property.

Moiraine’s hand was out to the side; her long fingers brushing leisurely through the tall grasses. Siuan could see the glint of muted starlight sparkling off of a thin silver band on her right ring finger; she glanced back at her and smiled. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she nodded her head up towards the sky.

Finally out of the shadow of Sunriver Manor, Siuan lifted her eyes to the heavens, and her breath caught in her throat; beautiful barely described it. The sky above was an inky black, divided by a band of velvety violet as it snaked through the sky. Clouds of twisting orange, magenta, and pale yellow bloomed around the violet core and shone brightly. The sky bore a river and a field of stars, each glimmering like a cut diamond.. Siuan could barely breathe, enraptured by the beautiful sight above her. Her voice was small and childlike, “Is that…?”

“Northern lights?” beaming at her; the starlight reflected in Moiraine’s eyes and Siuan couldn’t help but break into animated giggles as excitement washed through her.

“How far are we going?” She looked at her, the awe still evident in her eyes.

“Just over the river.” She returned her eyes forward and continued walking. Siuan’s brows furrowed together, ‘the river? What river…?’

They moved in silence for a few moments wading their way through the grasses until they reached part of the property where the limestone Roman bridge sat (albeit the bridge itself was several hundred metres off to the right of them). Moiraine stopped in the grass, and glanced down at the earth lying two inches under her feet. Siuan paused at her side and followed her eyes down to the ground; she saw nothing more than more soil and grass. She eyed her curiously. Then suddenly it dawned on her; there had been a river that ran behind Sunriver Manor, and while it had dried up in the two hundred years since she lived, Moirane still saw it running under foot.

Moiraine smiled kindly; the expression reached her eyes and gave Siuan a feeling of safety.

Moiraine picked up her pace slightly, “Sorry, not trying to get ahead of you, but it might be best if I lead, if only because Barthanes’s never really met you.” She looked at her apologetically, and Siuan shook her head.

“It’s okay Moiraine. I understand.”

“He’ll like you.” She reassured with a disarming grin.

“I hope so.” Siuan rubbed her shoulders slightly against the minor chill of the night air.

“He will.” Moiraine reiterated, and Siuan stayed quiet as she walked with her. After a moment, they came to an area where the grass had been flattened. A tartan blanket lay out under the starry sky, and the little boy lay on her back. Moiraine cleared her throat softly, and the boy jolted; Barthanes scrambled to get up, and looked up at the two adults.

“Barthanes, this is Siuan; Siuan, this is Barthanes.” Moiraine smiled as she stepped up beside the little boy, and put her arm around the child’s shoulders.

Siuan stooped over to be eye level with the child, a gentle smile on her lips. “Hello Barthanes.”

“Hi…” he squeaked shyly, as he tried to hid behind his mother’s leg; he gripped the fabric of Moiraine’s dress and peaked out with big wide eyes before looking from Siuan up to the woman. “Are you sure?”

Moiraine smiled soothingly as he rubbed the space between Barthanes’s shoulder. “I’m sure; she can’t hurt you.” The little boy nodded, unsure of the truth, but knew it was better to listen to his relative.

Moiraine was wearing a sunny smile, and Siuan couldn’t help but chuckle as she nodded her head to her. She stepped passed Moiraine and lowered herself onto the left side of the tartan blanket (Barthanes was sitting on the far right side). Moiraine followed after her, kneeling down in the middle of the blanket, between the boy and the woman, before shifting her weight and sitting down.

Siuan smiled sorrowfully at the small little familial group; at least they had each other. Scooting down the blanket, she laid back and gazed up at the night sky; this sight was infinitely more beautiful than the flat white ceiling of her bedroom. She glanced at the side of Moiraine’s face where she was stretched out nearby. “I never knew you could see the northern lights from here… I’ve never seen it from Sunriver before.”

Moiraine lolled her head to the left, gazing back at her with a look of pure tranquility. The light of the thousands and thousands of stars overhead illuminated her in a soft light, like magic. “Sunriver is special."

Together the three of them stayed out under the stars until the dark grey of the pre-dawn morning washed out the river of starlight...

Siuan returned to the Cairhien library the next day, having a better idea of where to look for her ghostly companion. Part of her felt more guilty than ever for looking for her. She knew now, without a shadow of a doubt, that she was unaware of her death. But whether she knew or not, she needed to know about her. The fact that she’d not found anything about her previously had bothered her, especially after their calm and lovely night under the starry sky. She promised herself that she’d do her best to find Moiraine Damodred’s life – one way or another. She would do her best to find her. ‘No one should be forgotten.’

From the library she’d taken every book and transcript about Cairhien’s history between 1700 and 1920 that she could find. She knew she had to be in the pages somewhere, even if it was a brief mention. She needed to know. If she could find her, she’d be more at peace with having her in her home. Where she was once looking for her in order to know if she was a threat, her focus had shifted to preserving her memory.

Sitting on her living room floor Siuan had put the books and papers around her in a semi-circle with her laptop in the centre as a method of confirming any facts that she found. Hour after hour passed; Siuan had found Anvaeres, Caralines, and even Carewins in the Damodred family, but not the one name she was looking for. No matter where she looked, she couldn’t find Moiraine - at least not the one that she was trying to find. Of course there were other Moiraines in the family – she’d traced the line from 1350 through to the unnamed daugther of Dalresin born in 1782 with an online ancestry website, but one look at the photograph or the commissioned portrait of each of the mentioned Moiraines, and she knew it wasn’t her.

Her heart was sinking in her chest, and Siuan finally opened up a word document to record what she did find. She stared at the blank document for a long moment, before sighing softly. Leaning over the book that sat on her crossed legs she wrote out the title at the top of the page, and the minimal information she knew.

Lady Moiraine Damodred born ? died?

The cursor flashed at her mockingly, and she growled out a sigh; resorting to saving the document and minimizing the window until she found something new. She hoped she’d find something in the stack of books she’d picked up at the library.

Sitting with her face in her hands, tired and all but defeated, Siuan tried to clear her mind to find a solution to the problem that she’d not yet thought of. She concentrated on letting her mind go blank, and opening it up to other possibilities. She could just ask Moiraine, but she wanted to know without bothering her. She wanted to know without the possibility that she’d glean her true intention from the weakening of her voice. Pulling her face out of her hands she reached out for the first book of the bunch that she’d brought from the library. She’d already poured through it, but it wouldn’t hurt to look again.

Siuan rubbed her eyes as she opened up to the middle of the heavy book, completely skipping passed the earliest history of Cairhien and straight to the mid-17th century. She knew she was looking too far back – it was over a hundred years too early for Moiraine’s method of dress, but she wasn’t going to risk missing her companion in the pages of history.

Eyes flickering over the page and absorbing the keywords in each sentence, Siuan ignored the tension headache that was creeping into her skull again. She poured through one book, then another, another, and another. In the end, she felt as if she had learned less in the second exploration than in her first.

There was no trace of Moiraine in the history books of Cairhien; no mention of her being involved with Sunriver, no record of her time as Lady of Sunriver. No matter how studious Siuan was with the records, nothing stood out to her as being her origin…

Nothing except, possibly, the unnamed daugther of Dalresin and heir of Laman.

The only thing she’d learned about Dalresin’s daughter was mostly what she’d already known, or had been able to guess. She had a sister whose name was also lost in antiquity, and she’d been the last born child of the family that still carried the Damodred name. There were two dates given for her birth, one in 1779 and the other in 1783.

Siuan sighed as she closed the last book and pushed it away from her on the hardwood floor. She gasped and groaned a little as she unfolded her crossed legs; her hips were locked and aching from the hours spent on the wooden floor. She opened up the document that she’d created earlier, and looked at the page with the flickering cursor. She owed her at least this much; a record of her own to keep the knowledge that she compiled on the spectral woman and Sunriver.

Moiraine Damodred Lady of Cairhien; owner of Sunriver Born? Died?

Supposed era: Early 1800s Approximate age: 35 to 45

Approximate height: 5 feet/9 metres

Brown hair, blue(?) eyes, pale complexion.

Disposition: calm,mysterious, elegant, kind, sweet enough, but authoritative without being pompous; would not wish to displease her.

She heaved an exhale as she gazed at the screen, wondering if she was missing anything.

“Have you found what you were looking for?” Moiraine’s voice behind her caused Siuan to jump; she slammed her laptop closed instantly and spun to face her.

Moiraine was sitting upright, posture perfect, in one of her chairs. Siuan wondered how long she’d been sitting there, and just what she’d seen her do. She swallowed tightly, but Moiraine was smiling half-heartedly.

Moiraine's eyes flickered to the door behind her, the one that lead into the small cavity between the wall of the parlour and the outside stone wall; she took a bite from a large nectarine. Her piercing gaze returned to her as she chewed on the flesh of the fruit.

Siuan pressed a hand to her heart as she looked at her, “I um…”

“You’re still looking for me, aren’t you?” She glanced at the bite mark she’d left in the nectarine; her brows furrowed ever so slightly in disgust as she noticed a brown.

Siuan’s mouth went dry; sweat started to bead on her temples and on the back of her neck underneath her curls. She licked her lips, buying for time, as she tried to orient the best reaction. In other situations, she was at her best when put on the spot. With Moiraine, she was almost always left speechless.

“Why?” Moiraine glanced up at her again; her soft voice interrupted her thoughts.

“P-Pardon?” she stuttered, not expecting her to ask; she had been expecting a chastising- to be Beauty with the angered Beast.

“Why look for me?” Instead of being outraged, she sounded -- dare she say it -- piteous with her barely-there tone.

Siuan’s brows furrowed and she gazed back at her woefully. “Why wouldn’t I look for you? You’re my friend…”

“Because there’s nothing to look for; not now.”

“Oh Moiraine…” She sighed and moved the books out of her way. She slid the laptop away from her and crawled the short distance between her mock-camp on the floor and the chair her was occupying. Her brows lifted as she curled up with her back against the bottom of the chair. They sat in amiable silence for a long while; the clock ticking softly in the background and filling the crushing stillness.

Siuan broke the quiet first, “Moiraine?”

“Mmhmm?” she hummed softly, still sitting just above her like an overgrown cat.

“Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?” Siuan tilted her head back, gazing up at her.

She smiled gently as she looked down at her, “For you? No.”

She smiled brightly before returning her gaze to her discarded laptop and the historical registers. She took a deep breath, thinking of the two most pressing matters she could think of. “When were you born?”

“January 27th, ‘79” she rumbled softly.

It was her; she was Dalresin’s daughter. The Lady of Cairhien. And now she was…

“How old are you?” Siuan hedged carefully.

“Forty-three.” Moiraine took another bite from her nectarine.

Siuan squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears that were prickling behind her eyes from slipping down her cheeks. She’d died young. After a moment of concentrating on keeping her voice from breaking, she squeaked one last question. “What was your father’s name?”

“Dalresin.” The unfazed quality of her voice sent shivers down her spine.

If she’d died at Forty-three, then she’d been the Lady of Cairhien and Sunriver for fifteen years… add to that the two hundred years since she’d breathed her last, and she should have known better than to expect any emotion in her voice. Still it was a little chilling to the woman as she listened to her bite into the fruit again.

At least now she had a better idea of where to look for her in the records; she’d seek out as much information on Dalresin’s dauther “Moiraine” as she could. There might not be much more than what she’d already found, but maybe other archives had more information on her. She’d start her search anew in the morning.

Siuan awoke with a jolt in the morning. She’d been having nightmares, but the details of them were just beyond her grasp. A sense of dread was pressing down on her shoulders as she threw herself into a seated position. Panting, she looked around her, trying to reach out for the details of the dream; to hang onto the thought that had come to her in her sleeping state.

She knew where to find Lady Moiraine Damodred.

Throwing the bedding off of her legs she hurried out of bed, and stumbled to her bedroom door. By the time she reached the staircase leading down to the main level her legs ceased to be jelly. Racing down the stairs with one hand on the banister, she pushed her hair back and out of her face with the other.

Reaching the bottom didn’t stop her; she flung herself around the banister and into the main living area. Striding through the reception room, she headed for one of the doors that branched off of it, heading for the small hallway that she’d never truly known the use of. Grabbing the brass door knob, Siuan turned the ancient key (which she left in the lock) and heard the mechanism click open. She pushed the door open and strode into the space between rooms, and under the stairwell.

The small hallway wasn’t much more than two metres wide, and four metres long; the window in the centre of the stone wall at the end was barely covered by a white lacy curtain. The morning sunlight streamed in with a pale orange glow as Siuan looked around herself. Three doors branched off to her right, but only one was blocked off with its white painted door nailed into the doorjamb. Her heart leapt into her throat as she looked at the permanently locked room. What was behind that door…

The faint scent of old death emanating from one reached her nostrils, and Siuan gagged as she recognized the odour of decaying flesh. Clamping her hand over her mouth and her knees nearly buckling, she stumbled a quick retreat.

Standing in her living room, surrounded by sunlight, Siuan stared, locked in horror, at the tiny hallway. “Oh Light. Moiraine…” she hiccupped.

Chapter Text

Siuan pressed a trembling hand to her mouth as she tried her best to calm her broken nerves, and settle her nauseated stomach. She clutched the phone tightly in her hand.

“999 Emergency service dispatch, what is your emergency?” the woman’s voice on the other end of the line was nasal, but she was both a blessing and a curse to Siuan.

Siuan swallowed tightly around the lump in her throat; her mouth had turned into a veritable desert. “I think there’s a body in my house!” her voice was scratchy and panicked, and the words flooded from her mouth quickly.

“Calm down ma’am; take a deep breath for me. What do you mean you think there’s a body in your house?”

Siuan squeezed her eyes shut, almost wishing Moiraine was with her, to keep her calm and breathing. But, she prayed she didn’t appear anywhere near her until it was completely finished; she couldn’t have her finding out like this. Not this way.

“I found a space between walls, and there’s a door that’s permanently closed; someone nailed the door into the doorjamb, and it reeks of rotting flesh and I’m terrified, I don’t want to be the one to open it, please can you send someone to look?” she didn’t care if she was rambling. The tears were prickling behind her eyes, and her voice was wavering. She sniffled in fear.

“Of course ma’am, someone will be with you shortly. According to my files your address is Sunriver Manor, Lavender Dae'mar Way, Cairhien, is this correct?”

“Yes. Please just hurry!” Siuan hiccupped, and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth once again as she tried to centre herself.

“They are being dispatched as we speak; they will be just a few moments. Do you want me to stay on the line with you?”

Siuan shook her head vehemently, before realising that the woman was unable to see her. “No. No, I’ll be alright.” She swallowed bravely, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome ma’am, please try to keep calm, someone will be with you shortly.” Siuan felt the shiver run up and down her spine; she knew Moiraine would be with her in moments if she was still inside the house and heard her crying; she wouldn’t leave her to have a breakdown on her own. It wasn’t her nature, and Siuan knew that.

She hit the end call button furiously, and tossed the phone away as if it were a living creature; it landed with a slight bounce upon her settee. Siuan scurried away from looking at the door that led to the tiny hallway between walls; she was terrified of what was in there. Plonking herself down into the other main chair (where Moiraine had been sitting, draped like some Greek goddess) she buried her face as she pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly.

The congregation of well-dressed mourners slowly started to break apart, splitting off in married couples, and single patrons. They gave her a sorrowful smile, or clasp on the shoulder, or a few kind words each, but Moiraine Damodred could not hear them; she made no effort to be social, not today. She forwent any charade of wholeness and serenity in favour of a despondent gaze void of anything but the broken-hearted melancholy that had settled in her chest.

She made no effort to lift her gaze from the grave at her feet, and eventually the other funeral attendees stopped greeting her… leaving her alone in her grief.

Thunder rumbled softly in the distance, and the rain started to fall, but Moiraine paid it no attention. The only thing that mattered was the pine box in the open grave at her feet; her heart was inside of it.

She stayed at the grave even as the rain became heavier, and harder; it soaked her body while it ruined her black wool coat. The fact that it was the height of fashion and more than a little expensive didn’t matter to Lady Damodred; she’d wear rags if it meant that she could have her wife back.

Eventually darkness fell, and though she wished to never leave, Moiraine pulled herself away from her son’s grave. She walked slowly, heading back to the beautiful horse that waited with its head bowed. Together the melancholic pair made their way slowly back to Sunriver Manor along Lavender Dae'mar Laneway; the rain had turned into a summer storm, but it didn’t matter. Moiraine half-heartedly hoped she would catch her death of cold.

Siuan gasped in horror as the nightmare flooded back to her. She couldn’t keep her nausea at bay; leaping off of the chair she ran to the front door, passed the place where she had seen Moiraine struck with the candelabra, and wrenched the front door open. Stumbling out, she wretched bile and acid into the shrubbery by the entrance.

“Ms. Sanche?” Siuan lifted her hand to her mouth as she straightened herself. Several men, consisting of three men from the fire brigade and one police officer, were coming up the driveway from where the emergency vehicles had parked closer to the road.

“Yes.” She nodded slowly, still combating the violent nausea that churned in her stomach.

The officer reached out and touched her shoulder gently as he stepped onto the front stoop. “It’s going to be all right, Ms. Sanche.” He motioned her inside, and Siuan followed robotically. “I’m Constable Cauthon.”

She tried to control her breathing and keep herself calm. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The officer motioned to the firemen, directing them to follow him inside as he walked with Siuan. “Now, Ms. Sanche. Where do you think the corpse is?”

Siuan had to fight back a horrible swell of illness that washed over her at his less than subtle wording. She turned a little green as she put her hand over her mouth. She held her breath for a moment, focusing on keeping herself from vomiting, before finally lifting her hand to point to the far side of the parlour. “There’s a small area between the walls.” Her voice trembled a little. “And there’s three doors in that hall; one of them has been nailed shut.”

“And why do you think there’s a body in there?” The officer raised a brow as he glanced at her.

Siuan knew she couldn’t tell him that the house was haunted by the spirit of a murdered Regency era Lady, and that she’d dreamed of her final hours locked up in the room. She swallowed tightly. “It smells like rotting flesh, and there’s a feeling of dread in my gut when I go near it.”

He hummed in a non-committal way as he wrote something in his note pad; Siuan felt like she was under investigation. “No other evidence?”

Siuan shook her head quickly, “No. Nothing else. But, I didn’t want to be the one to open the door and… well you can imagine.” She looked up at the officer; her arms were folded over her chest.

“Fair enough, Ms. Sanche.” Cauthon closed his note pad and tucked it into the breast pocket of his uniform. Turning to look at the waiting fire brigade, he nodded his head. “Alright boys, you heard the lady.”

The three men armed with crowbars and an ax passed Siuan and Constable Cauthon, and heading into the tiny area between walls. Cauthonl hung back, watching the men for a moment as they pointed out the door seams and the best way to open up the nailed entryway. He looked at Siuan, watching her as she stared forward with a blank expression. But, behind her eyes he could see the fear.

Cauthon cleared his throat softly, “It’ll be alright Ms. Sanche. ‘Area’s not known for murder mysteries.” He smiled, gently, and the skin around his eyes crinkled a little.

The noise produced by the men pounding at the wooden door was nearly deafening. But Siuan would take that sound over the looming silence that the room behind it seemed to leak in spades.

Siuan knew he was trying to keep her calm, but she couldn’t help but think that it was a little condescending. Her eyes darted around her home quickly; though she couldn’t see much more than the living room she was looking for the trace of a moving shadow. She listened, even against the clamour, for boot steps. She just prayed that Moiraine was out of the house, and stayed out of the house for now.

She didn’t know what would happen if Moiraine's body was found in the wall, and her spirit witnessed it; she was afraid that she’d be altered for it. She’d heard before that a spirit who was happily ignorant of its history could be forced into reliving its final moments over and over and over again if it learned the truth. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she would miss Moiraine terribly if she was no longer able to communicate.

Also, she’d never be able to rest if she had to hear her screaming for help from the storage area beneath her stairs night after night. She could barely live with the memory of it in her nightmare…

She cleared her throat slightly, and turned to look at the constable. “What if it’s an old murder?”

His brows furrowed as he looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if the murder wasn’t modern, but a century old? Maybe even two?” Siuan worried her lip.

“Ms. Sanche, I –“

“Officer! We’ve got the door open.” The head fireman turned to face the officer and the home owner. “You’d better come see.”

Siuan felt her heart leap into her throat as her stomach dropped. All the colour drained from her face as she stared across her parlour. Cauthonl glanced to her, before leaving her side and striding into the hallway between the walls. Siuan wanted to follow, but her trepidation was too great. She strained to hear them.

“There’s scratch marks on the door there, and blood over there.” The fireman’s voice was mumbled, but Siuan could hear her. The nausea swelled in her belly once again. ‘Oh god it’s true…’

“It looks awfully old; the blood is brown and dark.” Cauthon spoke up as he stepped partially inside the room.

Horror after horror played through Siuan’s mind. She could only imagine how the body must be positioned… on the floor and with one hand still reaching out desperately asking for help-

“Siuan.” Her breathy voice against the shell of her ear startled her so badly that Siuan let out a little scream, before slapping her hand over her mouth.

Siuan turned wide and wild eyes towards her, still trying to remain silent. She breathed hard through her nose as she focused on her.

Cauthon glanced back at Siuan, having heard her scream, but he paid it no mind. His eyes flickered between her and the space beside her, before returning to his task.

“Are you alright?” Moiraine asked.

Siuan nodded quickly, and just a little too enthusiastically.

Her brow lifted as she leaned closer. Siuan held her breath when she realised hers was a mere breath’s width from her. Moiraine glanced towards the emergency workers before looking back at her. “You know you don’t have to lie to me, Siuan..."

She slowly closed her eyes, squeezing them slightly as she focused on her breathing. “I want you to leave.” Her voice trembled. “Please just leave.”

“Siuan… I don’t understand. Did I do something to upset you?” Her voice faltered and she looked at her worriedly.

Opening her eyes, she focused on her blue irises- no matter how blurred her face might be. Her gaze was pleading, and her lip trembled slightly. “Please just go… take Aldieb out for a gallop. Just… just ride until the sun’s setting.”

A grimace crossed Moiraine’s face, a sort of twisted pride. and Siuan knew she had hurt her…but better this than the other possible outcome. She’d rather Moiraine hated her, than to see her relive those horrible last moments hour after hour.

“Right. Of course. So be it.” Moiraine said coldly and spun around on her heel.

Siuan squeezed her eyes shut again, fighting back her tears. “I’m sorry…” she whispered softly, but she was already gone.

Cauthon’s voice cut her momentary reverie, “Ms. Sanche, come here.” His tone was less comforting that it had been previously.

“Oh God…” she groaned, and approached the forcefully opened door. The weight in her stomach kept her movements sluggish. She could hear thunderous hoof beets on the gravel of the courtyard, and despite whatever was waiting for her in that room, she sighed in relief. At least Moiraine wouldn’t see it.

“What is it?” Siuan swallowed tightly as she stepped into the minute hallway.

Cauthon looked up at her with less than kind eyes, before pointing into the room. “Your murder victim is a dead fox. It probably came in and got trapped during the winter.”

Siuan looked into the room, and sure enough the carcass of a decomposing red fox was tucked into the corner of tiny room. She let out a long sigh of relief.

However, that didn’t explain her nightmare.

Chapter Text

Thunderous hooves pounding on the earth slowed to a trot and finally to a canter. The fine stone gravel of the courtyard gave way under the animal as the rider slowed her horse down to a walking pace.

Drenched in sweat and panting softly, Moiraine swung her leg over the animal and dropped herself back to the ground. She grabbed the reins as she pushed her sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. “Come on Aldieb…” The Friesian snorted softly but allowed the woman to direct her around the house and towards the stables.

Moiraine pushed the wooden doors of the stone building open before leading the horse in. Night was falling, and the last summer crickets were chirping. Letting Aldieb into her stall, Moiraine followed her horse in. She removed the saddle and the riding tack before picking up a wooden bucket. She pet Aldieb's snout before leaving to fill the bucket. When she returned, Moiraine quickly tied Aldieb to the wall of the stable with a quick-release knot and scrubbed the natural sea sponge against the bar of soap she held.

Lifting the sponge, Moiraine dipped it in the water and started to rub the horse down. Occasionally, she scrubbed, lightly, with a boar's hair brush as she worked the filth and sweat from the animal. The day's ride had been long and difficult; she'd pushed Aldieb perhaps more than she should have. But the wind whipping through her hair and the horse's mane had placated, if temporarily, her buzzing mind.

Siuan had told her to leave.

She'd been crying.

She'd practically begged her to go.

Despite her upset at it, she'd bowed to her wishes. Sighing to herself and focusing on the task of bathing Aldieb, Moiraine lifted the bucket of clean water and tipped it over to rinse the animal off. Aldieb shook herself off a little, but Moiraine hushed her as she scraped the excess water from the animal's body with the side of her hand.

When she was finished with the body and the face, Moiraine grabbed a blanket off a hook on the wall of the stable. She unfurled it and draped it over the large horse, before untying her. “There, that's better, yeah?” she smiled and patted Aldieb's neck gently.

The horse didn't seem quite as convinced. She nipped, lightly, at Moiraine as the woman retreated from the stables, heading back towards the manor house.

Her thighs were burning from the long hours astride the horse, and she was more than a little reluctant to enter her home once more. She moved slowly, not sure if she should stay outside, or eventually make her way back into Sunriver Manor; the way Siuan had begged her to leave that morning… Well, something was obviously going on. She'd be a fool to not realise that.

Sighing to herself, Moiraine pushed the dark hair back off of her face. Concentrating on the burning tension and not the endless possibilities that she might find inside the house, Moiraine opened the door and strode in. She glanced at the parlour, only to stop dead in her tracks. A light was on in the small hallway between the walls; Moiraine's brows furrowed in confusion. She pushed herself further forward, crossing the hardwood floor and to the open door.

Siuan was sitting halfway between the small corridor and the third room, which was closest to the outside wall. Her curls were bundled loosely back with a scarf tied around them. She'd dressed herself in a pair of cut-off jogger shorts and a baggy tee. In her lap were sitting a number of very old books; some were bound in leather and others in sturdy canvas.

Moiraine knew she really should leave her be; she'd asked her to do that already that morning. So, despite her curiosity, she pulled herself away with a soft sigh. The doorframe creaked as she moved the weight of her body off it. The sound alerted Siuan to her presence, and she looked up to face her. Moiraine's breath caught in her throat when she saw the tears sparkling in her brown eyes.

“Sorry, if you want me to leave you alone, I will. I was just –”

“I don't want to you to…” her voice trembled with emotion.

Moiraine glanced down, and finally spotted the book lying open in her lap. She couldn't quite figure out its contents from where she stood, not without towering over her.

“Are you alright, Miss –”

“You don't have to be that formal,” Siuan choked out a half-hearted laugh as she brushed away a few wayward tears with the back of her hand. She sniffled softly.

Moiraine smiled mournfully at her. “Are you alright, Siuan?”

Siuan seemingly changed the topic of conversation. “Why didn't you tell me?” She sniffled again.

Moiraine's brows were tightly knit as a look of bewilderment settled over her blurred features. “I'm sorry?”

“Why didn't you tell me that not all of the books burned in the archive fire? You knew I wanted to read the history of Sunriver.”

Moiraine blinked. “What archive fire?”

Siuan's shoulders tensed, and she silently cursed herself. Naturally, she was unaware, and why shouldn't she have been? The fire would have been years after she died. After a moment, she heaved a sigh.

“One of the other owners of the house accidentally set fire to the archival room.” She hazarded a look up at her. “I never even knew where the archive was.” her shoulders sagged in defeat.

“I didn't think to tell you where… I mean, I thought you knew already…” She continued to gaze at her with an expression of perplexity. “If I had known, I would have told you… I'm sorry; it didn't occur to me, and I didn't… well. Anyway.”

“I should have asked you,”

She didn't know what to say. But, she was still covered in sweat from the day's ride – both hers and her horse's.

She cleared her throat softly. “I smell like a farm animal, and my thighs are aching. I'm going to go bathe.” She said while she turned away from the woman sitting on the floor.

Glancing up at her, she nodded her head. “Alright… I'll just… be here… reading.”

Moiraine nodded non-committedly as she waved her off; a headache was starting to press against the inside of her skull. She strode out of the parlour and around the corner, before starting up the stairs. She had to take a deep breath to ignore the burning pain that pulled at her muscles.

Siuan listened to her practised and deliberate footfalls on the antiquated, creaking boards. When she was sure Moiraine was upstairs and away from her, she finally let the tears come. They welled up in her eyes and started streaming down her cheeks. She'd been so wound up all day and had slept so poorly the night before, all due to the nightmare. She was on the edge of her breaking point, and rightfully so. She needed to release the pressure.

The nightmare had been horrible, and it had set the tone for the entire following day. The police had been called out to the house and had laughed at her when they left. She'd been certain that they would find Moiraine's ancient cadaver behind the closed door of the storage room, and in the end, it had been nothing but the corpse of a fox that must have slipped in in the winter, and become trapped. Constable Cauthon had called the incident on his radio, and Siuan had overheard him call it a waste of time and resources. She'd been embarrassed, and angry. She had sent Moiraine away, unsure if she would ever come back.

She delved her way into the three small storage rooms. Siuan had scrubbed out the middle one first, where the fox's rotting carcass had been found. She scrubbed everything with bleach and hot water, before finally moving on to the others.

Siuan had stopped when she'd found ten unharmed, if not a little smoky-smelling, registers of Cairhien and Sunriver history. She'd found a few records unharmed by the electrical fire back in the 1920s. One of the times even listed the Ladies of Cairhien from 1792 through until 1862.

Siuan had finally found her. The real Moiraine Damodred. The ghost in her house.

When Moiraine had strode back into the house that evening, she'd already been reading about her for a few hours. She was heartbroken but couldn't let her know. It was a secret she was going to have to keep.

Moiraine M. Damodred, Lady of Cairhien between 1799 and 1822, was born on January 27th, 1779. She was the youngest child of Dalresin and Edrisse Damodred.

In 1789, when Moiraine and Anvaere were aged ten and thirteen years, Dalresin gathered his family from their residence just north of Andor and moved them to Cairhien. There, they settled in with Dalresin's elder sister, Carewin, the Lady of Cairhien and the mistress of Sunriver Manor. Carewin, who had no husband or children of her own, named her niece Moiraine as her heir to the Ladyship of Cairhien.

Here in Sunriver, the Damodred family was happy; the sprawling land which the manor house encompassed allowed for the children to grow and play, while their father and aunt saw to business, and Edrisse looked after the house. In Sunriver Manor, everything was wonderful, at least for a few years. In 1792, Dalresin's wife (and Moiraine and Anvaere's mother), Edrisse, took ill with a fever and passed away shortly after. Life moved on, but it was heavily altered.

Moiraine, who was by then thirteen years old, had always been a bright and happy child, but her mother's death caused her to retract from the world for a little more than a year. She chose her studies over socializing and bundled herself away from any attempted social gathering. Anvaere fared little better, and at the age of sixteen, she too buried herself in her studies. She became adept with languages, as well as spending time with her Sister. Eventually, the two teenagers adjusted to life without Edrisse.

However, tragedy had grown to love the Damodred family.

In January of 1794, Laman, Carewin's twin brother, was struck down by the highwaymen when the band of men charged around a street corner. Laman was knocked to the cobblestones, and his body trampled by the hooves of fleeing horses.

In 1795, the then forty-five-year-old Dalresin passed away from the flu. He was laid to rest in his father's mausoleum alongside his wife and his own parents. This left one plot open for Carewin when the time eventually came.

Carewin, upon losing her brother and sister-in-law, swiftly took Moiraine, then aged sixteen, and her nineteen-year-old sister into her care. By then, Anvaere was already engaged to be married to a merchant she had met in the city. Carewin knew that before long, Moiraine would lose her sister as well, this time to marriage and not illness.

Moiraine focused herself once more upon her studies. Her father's death had hit her very hard, but she'd been intent on making Edrisse, Dalresin, and Carewin proud. She threw herself into business studies, quickly learning mathematics, languages, and other such useful skills.

Sadly, in the summer of 1799, tragedy struck once more. Lady Carewin Damodred, out for a morning ride through her property, was bucked from her horse. The landing was hard and swift; Carewin had broken her neck. Three hours later, she was found by Moiraine and two footmen. They gathered up the broken body of the Lady and rushed her back into the manor house, but Carewin was never meant to survive.

It took three days for the Lady of Cairhien to pass from her injuries. Finally, on August 29th, 1799, Carewin Damodred, the last remaining daughter of Tamariel Damodred, died from the complications of a fall from her horse. She was 47 years of age.

Carewin's death threw young Moiraine, only twenty in August of 1799, into a difficult position.

Moiraine was the only heir of Carewin, and of the Damodred family as a whole. She was the only child left that still bore the Damodred name; her cousins Moressin and Galadedrid (born to Dalresin and Carewin's younger sister) were Trankads, and twelve years younger than even Moiraine. She was the only option left for the Lady of Cairhien.

On September 1st of 1799, Moiraine was officially named as the Lady of Cairhien and Sunriver Manor. The people of the village, though proud to have the kind young woman as their mistress, ultimately worried about her fate; the Lords and Ladies of Cairhien and their family tended to live short lives in Sunriver.

Moiraine outshone her predecessors; the years she'd spent in mourning and burying herself in her studies had taught her many a lesson that helped bring the life in Cairhien to a higher standard.

In 1802, Moiraine, aged twenty-three, met a young woman from nearby Maule. Her name was Mara Sanchard, and she was the daughter of a wool merchant.

It's said that when Mara, who had been sent by her father to Cairhien to pique interest in their wares, first met Moiraine, that she knew she'd marry her one day. This was a very mutual thought, as both youths were stricken by the other.

Moiraine courted Mara for a year, before she approached her father to ask for Mara's hand in marriage. Berdyn Sanchard was beyond ecstatic; this was a match made in heaven as far as he was concerned.

The young couple were married in May of 1803. The wedding was a lavish affair; Moiraine had invited every person from Cairhien. The venue had been decorated with white wild flowers, along with Cairhien's lavender, and blue ribbons which fluttered demurely in the warm spring breeze.

Together, the couple decided to adopt a child, whom they named Barthanes.

Barthanes was a lovely child who loved everyone and rarely caused a fuss. However, darkness was looming, and tragedy struck Moiraine's family once again. This time it struck in the form of a child's death. Barthanes Damodred died in 1810 from a fever and complications of a broken leg after falling from a tree. He was seven years old.

Moiraine was heartbroken; she sank into another bout of withdrawn behaviour. It was the only way for her to cope, the only way that she knew how. But she put an end to her solitude when she quickly realised that Mara was grieving just as heavily for their son.

Life slowly moved on for Moiraine and Mara, and though neither of them would ever forget their poor lost child, they pushed on.

But, everything would soon change as the damodred family curse loomed overhead once more.

In 1811, at the age of 35, Anvaere was pregnant with her second child. But the pregnancy was a difficult one.

At one in the morning on January 27th, 1811 – the day that Moiraine should have been celebrating her thirty-two birthday- her sister Anvaere went into labour. But the labour was long and hard. The child, a little girl, was stillborn. The damage that had been done to Anvaere's body with the challenging labour had been too much. She passed shortly after nine o'clock in the evening of January 27th, 1822. Instead of celebrating her thirty-two years, Moiraine found herself once again planning a funeral.

Moiraine was close to a breakdown, but she stayed strong.

In the winter of 1819, at the age of thirty-nine, Mara suddenly fell ill; she grew weaker and weaker by the day. Struck down by an unknown illness, Mara was quarantined away from her wife. She was not long for this world, and after a short fight with the disease, Mara too passed away from fever.

Moiraine was never the same for it.

She felt it deep down in the furthest reaches of her heart. In private, she claimed that Mara's loss was like the start of a winter frost that froze the darkest parts of her heart and soul and slowly spread hoarfrost outward.

By Christmas of 1819, Moiraine Damodred had lost all but one member of her immediate family. Anvael… Anvael was Anvaere's eldest son and named as the heir to the lordship of Cairhien. The boy was bright, but he was brash. He was less of the slow and steady sort, as his father was, and more of the pseudo-adventurer, like his great-grandfather had been. This would eventually be the boy's downfall.

Moiraine, finally overcome by her grief, withdrew herself from the public eye. It was slow at first; a failed appearance here, a letter of cancellation there, but as time wore on, it became more and more obvious that the Lady of Cairhien was confining herself solely to Sunriver Manor, and to the cemetery where her family was laid to rest.

On November 17th, 1822, at the age of forty-three, Moiraine, Lady of Cairhien, died. She died, alone, as she sat slumped against the tombstone of her wife, Mara. Her frozen, blue, body was found the following morning after a heavy frost.

The lordship and ladyship of Cairhien died with Moiraine. The family ownership of Sunriver also died with them.

Moiraine Damodred was laid to rest in the cemetery between her wife Mara and their child.

The Damodred family plot rests in the shadows of three rowan trees, and three oak trees, in the back quadrant of the Cairhien burial ground.

Siuan snuffled slightly as she dried her eyes on the back of her hand. She had fought so hard to learn all of this, tried for so long to discover who her spectre was, that she'd lost sight of what horrible truths it might bring. With her heart metaphorically aching from sadness, it dawned upon her that some people believed that spirits return to the place and time that they are the most emotionally affected. If this was the case, perhaps Moiraine had unwittingly been able to choose between two versions of emotional peaks here in Sunriver. She had obviously not chosen the one of grief and mourning.

It broke Siuan's heart in her chest; she needed to find Moiraine's grave, if only so she could properly say her goodbyes to her.

The air was chilly. Autumn had settled over the land quickly and without warning. The last week had been entirely rained out, and with the rain came an overwhelming dampness that bit at Siuan’s fingers and toes.

Last week, she’d been all but confined to Sunriver Manor; she tried her best to keep the look of mourning from her face every time she laid eyes upon her spectral form. But it was difficult for her; Siuan felt a great sense of sorrow in knowing the fate of her friend. It hurt her heart that she’d suffered so greatly in life that she was bound to the house in death.

Siuan stalked her own hallways like a ghost; trying her best to go out of the way to avoid Moiraine. She assumed she was successful, as the woman never tried to stop and speak with her. She thought Moiraine didn’t notice her movements and the change in her demeanour; She thought the other woman wasn’t watching her.

But Moiraine did notice; she saw the sudden shift in her nature and her change of being. When Siuan thought she wasn’t looking, she caught the faraway, mournful look in her eyes. She could practically see her broken heart behind her almost vacant gaze, but she didn’t acknowledge it. She let it slide, despite knowing that she should reach out to her again. But she’d been lying to her, and she’d been able to see that for months.

Siuan shivered slightly as she wrapped her scarf a little tighter around her neck and pushed her hands into her pockets as she walked into Cairhien. A dense fog had rolled over the landscape, and cloaked like a veil; it was still early morning. Siuan was just pleased that she was able to leave the house without it pouring rain again.

She strolled with long strides, moving relatively quickly as she walked through the small village that she’d become part of. She nodded in polite greeting to the few brave joggers that she met along her way, but mostly kept to herself. She had a goal in mind, and she wasn’t going to let anything distract her from it. No matter how cold her nose was becoming.

Siuan passed the library and kept walking. Eventually, she drew upon the Victorian era cemetery which stood on the outskirts of the village’s far side. A shudder ran down her spine, and it was not caused by the cold; the cemetery looked exactly like the one in her nightmare. Siuan swallowed tightly, and slowly lifted her eyes to look at the ominous wrought iron gates. Overhead, Tamariel Damodred Memorial Cemetery was intricately wrought in iron letters; Siuan could still see the traces of the gold Tree and Crown that had once covered them. It sent a chill down her spine, which was completely unrelated to the cold weather; she realised the connection between the Damodred family and the burial ground. When Tamariel had rebuilt much of Cairhien village, he’d given them a new place to lay their dead to rest.

A brass placard on the gate post to her right caught Siuan’s attention. ‘This place of rest for those who have departed this world was founded by Lord Tamariel Damodred in 1786, and thus remains part of Sunriver’s outlying property.’ Siuan felt her stomach churn warningly; no wonder certain spirits were bound to her house; their graves laid on the property.

Clearing her throat and brushing aside her trepidation, Siuan slowly pushed the creaking iron gate open and slipped into the graveyard.

The fog rolling between the ancient tombstones gave the entire situation the feeling of a dark fairy tale; it was not lost upon Siuan as the feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. The graveyard was large, but considering it had been in use between the late 1780s and the 1910s, it only seemed obvious. The trouble was that the cemetery had fallen somewhat into ruin since the day of its final burial. Moss clung to and crawled over the once beautiful grave markers and completely masked out any remaining names. It gave her a deep sense of sorrow to realise how many people, like Moiraine herself, had been forgotten in the swell of Time.

Siuan pulled her coat a little tighter against the damp air as she slowly wandered the pathway. She knew the register recorded that Moiraine Damodred and her family (her wife and son, because her parents and grandparents had been buried in the large mausoleum in the cemetery) were laid to rest in a plot located in the far quadrant of the land. But, in the fog, Siuan couldn’t see the names on the old stones well enough; she moved slowly so she wouldn’t miss her.

Overhead, a large rook crowed in the gray morning light.

Wandering for an hour or two, Siuan sighed in relief as the heavy mist eased; burned away by the sun, the fog relinquished the earth once more. She could relax a little more; the sun was warm against her back, and it fought off the bitter chill that wanted to seep into her bones.

Finally passing between the stones, having tried her best to stay on the pathway, Siuan wound her way into the furthest quadrant of the burial ground. Siuan recognised the ancient oaks and rowans that stood overhead instantly; they were the same now as they had been in her nightmare. She tried to ignore the nagging thought that she had never seen the gravesite before this morning, and yet had dreamed of it.

The weak autumnal sunlight glimmered over the few exposed areas of the white headstones. Hidden amongst the veritable garden of wild-growing weeds was a small nest of moss-covered headstones which had been stained by years. Siuan’s eyes flickered over them, and though unable to read the names through the jungle of verge, she counted three tombstones.

Without a doubt, she had found the Damodred family plot.

Her heart felt heavy, and she sighed softly as she stepped closer. She knew she found them: Moiraine, Barthanes, and Mara. Broken-hearted, she carefully stepped off of the pathway and into the centre of the grave cluster. She pushed the tall grasses away from the two large stones before sinking down onto her knees on the cold, hard ground. Wetness from the week-long rains seeped into the knees of her trousers, but Siuan ignored it as she would ignore it in her garden. Truthfully, this was like her garden; a space that needed to be cleared of the wild growth.

Siuan sat before the gravestones, reverently, and slowly pulled the long grasses out by the stems. Tossing each small bundle of grass aside, she slowly opened up the gravestone to vision. Still, the plant matter was clinging to the once crisply carved façade; Siuan kept working. Slowly picking away the moss inch by inch, Siuan uncovered the name on the stone, and then the epitaph:

Moiraine M. Damodred
Born 1782 Died 1862
Aged 43 years.

Lady of Cairhien, mistress of Sunriver, beloved wife, and loving mother.

‘We shall be reunited in Heaven’s glorious light.’

Siuan sat on her knees for a long while, simply staring at the tombstone in silent reverence. Her mind was, for once, deliciously blank if not a little sad. This entire ordeal had been emotionally taxing, but at least now that she had found her, found her resting place, maybe she could be at peace.

Maybe now she might actually be able to enjoy the company of the woman who was spending her afterlife in her home. She might as well, since she was going to be with her for a very long time.

Siuan stood to her feet and brushed her jeans free of the dirt and the grass. She continued to stand on the head of the grave, but if she moved in either direction, she’d be on another grave. Reverently, she traced her fingers slowly over the rough top lines of the stone.

She couldn’t contain her emotions; the tears welled up and started to slip down her cheeks as sobs wracked her body. So much of her weeping was caused by relief, but the sadness was not lost upon her. Lifting her hands from the grave marker, she brought them to her face. Sobs wracked her shoulders as she wept into her hands; she needed to cry it out.

Her shoulders shuddered briefly with the chill in the air, but she kept moving. It was best to ignore the bitter weather, before she let it seep into her bones; she already felt as though she was shrouded in cold, damp earth. Pulling her coat closer around her neck and shoulders, Moiraine continued on her way up the cobblestoned street.

The open gate of the cemetery caught her eye, and she paused as she glanced towards the iron gate. Brows furrowing, she turned her head and peered into the sunlit burial ground. Among the distant broken stones and the forest of overgrown weeds, she caught sight of a mass of dark curls. “Siuan…” she sighed, ever so softly, to herself before she pulled the gate open a little wider.

She strode into the graveyard as easily as a park, marching up the main path and heading towards the furthest plots. She was heading towards Siuan; she couldn’t bear to see her hovering over the graves as if she was a ghost.

Moiraine stepped up behind her quietly, trying to keep her from scaring. Her eyes flickered over her shoulder to the grave she was standing over, but she returned her gaze to the side of her face as quickly as she had moved it. She took a deep breath of the crisp autumn air and centred herself before she forced a bright smile onto her lips.

“Are you all right, Siuan?”

Siuan gasped in horror; withdrawing her tear-stained face from her hands, she whirled around. Instantly, she pressed her back against the tombstone, and wrapped her arms back around it. Moiraine couldn’t find out this way; she couldn’t see her own grave. She was panting, from fear and from exertion; the sobbing had drained a lot of her energy for the moment.

“I’m fine!” Her breast heaved, and she forced a smile, but even a blind man could see it was too bright compared to the tracks of tears on her cheeks.

Moiraine’s forcibly cheerful expression slipped as a truly amused smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. She stared her down; studying the way she panted to catch her breath – the way she hid the stone behind her. “Are you positive? I thought I might have startled you.”

Siuan shook her head, just a little too quickly. She felt the effects instantly, but fought back the sense of dizziness that came with her movement. “I didn’t hear your approach.”

“I shouldn’t think so; else I doubt you would have jumped quite that high. A good three-four feet was it?”

Siuan’s eyes narrowed at her teasing, “Hush… I didn’t jump, you just startled me.”

“Startling usually causes jumping,” She said good-naturedly. “Why are you out here alone, Siuan?”

Her brows knit in confusion. “Who was I going to bring with me?”

She balked in mock indignation. “I should think that it would be quite obvious!”

“You? Why would I bring you?” Catching on, Siuan smirked.

In the ensuing silence, she seemed to be studying Siuan closely.

“Never mind!” Moiraine said, after a while. “Although I was serious... why are you out here?”

She knew she couldn’t tell her the truth; no matter what, she could not let the history of the grave she was covering be revealed to her. She couldn’t risk hurting her, not this woman. “I was out looking for inspiration for a painting.”

“In the cemetery?”

Siuan worried her lower lip for a moment before nodding her head. “I thought it would make for a beautiful image.”

Moiraine all but snorted, “Rather morbid, though, isn’t it?”

“Well… I suppose so. Yes.” Siuan sighed, and her shoulders slumped slightly as she continued to hug the grave marker behind her back. “But I didn’t know what else to do, so I thought this would be the best place to start.”

“To start what? Looking for ghosts?” Her calm tone caught Siuan unaware, and her eyes snapped up to her. She searched her for any trace that she might be aware of her true intentions.

“I umm-"

“That is all you’re going to find in a cemetery, Siuan. Sadness, gloom, and the ghosts of those long departed from this world.”

‘I know Moiraine, believe me… I know.’ Siuan forced a small smile. “I suppose you’re right.”

Moiraine gazed at her for a long moment as a thought formed in her mind. She pieced it together, quickly but remained silent for a moment longer. When her voice came, it was soft and careful. “I can help you find something more interesting to paint.”

Siuan stared at her for a long moment before starting to laugh. “You would really do that?”

Moiraine smiled. “For you, anything.”

Siuan licked her lips softly, contemplating what Moiraine might have in mind for her. She gazed at her, unsure, for a long moment; her eyes flickered between her blurred blue-grey eyes. She wished she could open her eyes a little wider, and suddenly the clarity of her features would flood into her reality. She wished she could see Moiraine the way she must be able to see herself; a crisp and clear image of a woman and not the hazy phantom that she witnessed, even when she appeared completely corporeal. She needed to know her face more than she already did; she needed to know the woman as she knew herself in order to cope with living within her house with her soul for the foreseeable future.

She wished she could make sense of it; she’d never found any images of Lady Moiraine Damodred. To her, her historical absence was sad, but also confusing. She’d be able, with some digging, to find the portrait of Lady Carewin Damodred – her grandmother. She’d found Laman's portrait, and even a portrait of a young Dalresin and Edrisse – Moiraine’s parents. In the painting alongside her parents, a three-year-old Anvaere sat dressed in white lace, while a newborn baby rest in Edrisse’s arms. It was the only image of Moiraine that Siuan had been able to find.

It was odd; in her time frame, the Ladies of a location would typically pose for a portrait, which would then hang in her home, and be moved to a communal location after the people passed away. It was typical, and even Carewin and Almyra had their portraits, despite the short time that both of them ruled over Cairhien. So, where was the portrait of Moiraine Damodred? The woman who had inherited the posting very suddenly.

It boggled Siuan’s mind that she wouldn’t have commissioned her portrait at that time; to be forever captured in the glow of her youth. Perhaps, though she’d preferred to wait until she was older.

Siuan worried her lip as her eyes focused on Moiraine. The question was burning inside her, and she needed to know the answer. She’d spent so much time and effort to find her; spent so long confirming her suspicions about her origin through other means when she was unable to match her ghostly figure to a painting. She swallowed slightly, and the soft sound broke the easy silence between the two of them.

“Have you ever posed for a portrait?” Siuan lifted a hand and pushed her curls back and out of her way.

“Do you want to paint me?” she teased a little as she bowed her head towards Siuan. “We hardly know each other.”

“Well, I thought… maybe it would help us get to know one another better. I will, after all, be staying in Sunriver for some time.”

Moiraine’s smirk softened into a tender smile as she looked at her, and once more Siuan could feel the heat rising in her cheeks.

“That was the plan.” She hid her embarrassment behind a small cough that she passed off as a symptom of the autumnal chill.

“But Siuan," She said. “You already know me.”

Her arms subconsciously tightened around the gravestone at her back; she knew it was the closest she was going to come to being able to hug her. What a sad thought… she pressed on, with a gentle smile on her lips. “But you don’t anything about me.”

Moiraine’s smile pulled itself into a bright grin. “You’re right; I want to rectify that. I want to know you, as well as you know yourself.”

Siuan continued to grasp the tombstone behind her, and Moiraine gave her a curious look. “Was the stone falling over?”

Her brows briefly knit together, and suddenly it dawned on her what Moiraine was asking. Releasing the grip on the carved stone, she eased herself away from it and forward onto her own feet. She cleared her throat self-consciously. “You startled me, that’s all.”

“You frighten easily, don’t you?”

“I do not spook easily!” Siuan's eyes narrowed playfully. “I wasn’t aware that anyone else was in this old cemetery; I wasn’t expecting you to suddenly pop up!”

“Best I didn’t ‘pop up’ then, or you would really have had a fright.” She teased.

She fought back a feeling of dread at her chosen words. If she had ‘popped up’, she’d have never recovered from the horror; seeing as she was still standing on her grave… her smile faded from her face.

Moiraine didn’t seem to notice her change of expression.

Siuan shook her head and properly stepped away from the ghost’s grave; she wondered if Moiraine knew she was within her own presence or if her previous words pop up were entirely innocent in her meaning. She wondered if Moiraine knew the truth, if she remembered it or any part of it. Still, Siuan couldn’t linger on that, not if she wanted to stay sane herself. She pushed the thoughts aside and plastered on a soft smile of kindness. She gestured towards the path in a silent invitation for her to walk with her.

She strode out to the main pathway between the grave, and briefly paused to glance back to her; she wanted to know if Moiraine was following along with her like she hoped. “I hope I’m not keeping you from something?” her brows furrowed as it finally occurred to her that perhaps she’d been coming to the cemetery to pay her respects to someone she had loved.

“Nonsense; I wasn’t doing anything too spectacular. Just a walk.” Moiraine smiled tenderly, and Siuan felt its warmth wash over her and settle her concerns. She followed her away from the burial plot as the woman nodded in understanding.

When Siuan turned away from her, Moiraine’s gentle smile faded from her face and left it a cold, blank, mask. She glanced over her shoulder, back towards the plot that they had just left. Her eyes focused on the stones, ominously, for a moment. Drawing a deep breath, she exhaled it in a long, low, sigh before steeling herself and pressing on after the curly-haired woman.

Siuan cast her a sidelong gaze whilst smiling. Moiraine couldn’t help the warm smile she returned.

After some time of amiable silence, Moiraine’s voice finally cut the quiet. “You know, I’m quite happy you’re in my house.”

Siuan paused for a second, trying to find a response that she felt was appropriate. In the end, she opted for a question. “Oh? Why is that?” Her brown eyes flickered to her.

“Because it’s nice to have company; it’s nice to have someone to talk to, who is not a child, horse, or a servant that is strangely intimidated by me and never says much of anything…”

Siuan couldn’t help the undignified little snort that erupted from her; she tried to hide it with a cough, but Moiraine caught her.

“I do believe that I should take offense to your reaction.” She said, pushing the boundaries of dramatics.

“Sorry, I just… intimidated? By you?” Her eyes flickered up her almost corporeal form.

Her brows lifted as she fought to keep her face a mask of neutrality. “You were afraid of me a few months passed; don’t forget.”

“Yes, but that’s because I thought- well. I wasn’t expecting you to be in the house.”

“You mean you didn’t expect me to be haunting you.”

Siuan stopped dead in her tracks, and swallowed nervously. “Haunting implies intent to do harm. Do you mean to do any harm?”

“Of course not. I really am quite fond of you; I suspect I’d rather die than hurt you, if given a choice.”

Siuan felt her heart fluttering inside of her breast just at the sound of her kind words. “I’m really quite fond of you too, you little pufferfish.” She grinned.

“So, not a haunting then?” smiling, she motioned her to continue their walk a very slow, leisurely, pace.

Siuan shook her head resolutely. “Definitely not a haunting.”

“Very good!” Moiraine continued to walk over the cobblestone streets of Cairhien village for a moment, before she paused. “Hang on, did you call me an pufferfish?”

She burst into bright laughter at her indignantly little harrumph. “That took you just a bit too long, Moiraine.”

“I was distracted.” She sniffed in faux haughtiness.

Part of Siuan wished she could slip her arm into the crook of hers and lay her head on her shoulder. Ghost or not, she knew that she must be lonely in that big old house, and simply wouldn’t admit to it.

Moiraine hummed as they walked; the tune was familiar, but Siuan couldn’t quite put her finger on it. One day, she would just ask her the title of the song, because it was starting to become more and more irritating that she couldn’t place it. It wasn’t a classical piece of music, like one might expect, but she wasn’t sure what it was. The sound of her humming was soothing to her, and Siuan rather enjoyed hearing it, now that it no longer sent shivers of terror down her spine.

“I’ve never seen any portraits of you around the house,” Siuan spoke up suddenly. “I mean… I’ve seen the others that hang on the walls, but I’ve never seen yours…” She glanced towards the woman walking at her side.

“I’ve never posed for one.”

Siuan stayed quiet for a moment as they walked. Eventually, she glanced up at the side of Moiraine's pretty face; her eyes lingered. “I won’t paint you if you’d rather not pose.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m happy to pose for you.”

“Well, I just thought that maybe you didn’t want to be painted at all, since you never commissioned a portrait.”

Moiraine’s reply was delayed, and it sounded rather sad. “It’s not like that; I just always figured that I’d wait till I was a bit older..."

"I won’t paint y-"

“Siuan, I’ll pose for you.” Moiraine interrupted her. “But only because it’s you.”

“Alright.” Siuan forced a wan smile.

Moiraine hummed again and the soft tone ran through Siuan’s veins like warm water to a frozen body. She seemed to hum like this when she was content, and it gave Siuan a sense of peace that she was happy enough when she was in her presence.

Moiraine was seated once more in the armchair in the living room; while Siuan paced. She watched her, her eyes moved back and forth as she trailed Siuan's figure back and forth on the hardwood floor.

“What’s the matter? You’ve been pacing for half an hour and still haven’t said anything.” She reached and picked a phantom cup of tea up from the table and brought it to her lips.

“It’s nothing, actually.” She waved her off as she made the now familiar trip over the floor and turned once again.

“It’s not,” Moiraine swallowed her mouthful of tea, and set the cup back into its saucer. “Not if it’s bothering you.”

‘Bless her.’ Siuan smiled slightly to herself as she looked up at the ghostly figure occupying her sitting chair. “It’s silly.”

“Even so…” she pushed herself up from the chair and straightened her posture.

“I can’t decide how to paint you…” she laughed softly as she stopped pacing again.

“You don’t have to fret. Here, what’s the first thing you feel when you look at me?”

“Pity.” The word slipped from her mouth before she could even think to stop it. Siuan’s eyes widened in horror, and her hands flew to her mouth.

Moiraine stared blankly back at her for a moment. “Okay… that hurt my ego.”

“I’m sorry!” Siuan squeaked behind her hands. “I didn’t mean to say that!”

“No, but obviously it was a truthful response, why pity?”

She gazed back at her for a long moment; her eyes still wide open in shock. She swallowed tightly. “I…” Her words were failing her, and she knew she was going to have to be careful. “I just… You seem lonely in this house…” Siuan prayed that she believed her.

“Lonely? I’m not lonely – at least no beyond what I can handle, Siuan. I’ve got Barthanes, Anvaere, and you…” she smiled softly. “I’m not lonely.”

Siuan’s brows furrowed, “Anvaere?

“Anvaere, my sister.”

Her stomach dropped. “She’s here with you?”

“Yes,” Moiraine said.

“I’ve… I’ve never seen her?” Siuan shuddered; it was hard enough to accept that the woman herself was here, and then accepting that her son was with her, even though Siuan rarely ever saw the boy. But adding another spirit to the mix… “Is she here right now?”

“No. She’s around somewhere; she keeps herself quite busy, and Barthanes enjoys keeping her company. I’m not surprised you’ve never seen her.”

She wondered if the ghost of her sister, whom she had never seen, was sentient like Moiraine, or if she was a ghost still locked in her own era and carrying on as if nothing had happened, no death… it was a curious case: Moiraine herself was seemingly aware of her surroundings and able to reach out from beyond the grave, and yet she was unaware, as far as Siuan knew, that she was dead. What would the difference between her and her sister be? Would Anvaere know? Or was she unable to reach out like her sister could?

“Either way, I’m not lonely, Siuan; you don’t need to pity me.” She smiled warmly. “Now, about that portrait…”

Siuan grinned, glad to be steered back onto a topic that she knew something about. “Yes, love?”

“Love? I like that.” Moiraine said, and smiled. “What did you have in mind? Portrait-wise.”

Chewing her lip, Siuan paced back and forth, but this time she kept her eyes on her subject; she was a lioness stalking her prey. But as she crossed over the familiar path (which she truly had all but worn into the hardwood floor), something strange happened. As Siuan took a step, Moiraine completely vanished. There was no trace of her; the seat where she’d been sitting was empty and without even the slightest imprint of her weight.

Siuan’s brown eyes widened as she stopped in her tracks. She stared, openly, trying to understand why she’d left so quickly. She hoped she hadn’t offended her, but pushed the thought aside as she picked up her movements once more.

“Something wrong?”

“I… did you just leave?” she blinked.

Moiraine gave her a confused, slightly disparaging look. “No…”

“You’re positive?”

“Siuan… I’ve been sitting right here since we came inside.”

“Really?”

“I haven’t moved,” Moiraine said. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing… It’s just that you vanished before my eyes when I crossed a certain place on the floor.”

 “Trick of the light, most likely.” She tried to comfort her.

“Yeah, most likely.” ‘Except that lighting can’t make a chair appear to be empty.’

Less than a week after Siuan's foray into the Cairhien Victorian cemetery, the winter snows came. While they didn't last long and easily melted away in the afternoon sun, each day experienced short bursts of flurries. It wasn't even Hallowe'en yet; the holiday was still over a week away.

Time had flown, and Siuan wasn't entirely sure where it had gone. It seemed to her that she had just moved into Sunriver Manor, had just discovered that her house was haunted, and had just met the woman whose ghost she was living with. And yet the weeks and the months had passed, and it was already late October.

In a flourish of busyness to prepare the manor for the winter season, Siuan completely missed the last few days of October. Pushing the roller through her paint tray, Siuan kept her eyes focused on her task, but her mind was wandering. Her brows furrowed and left deepening lines between them. She concentrated on determining if Moiraine had said something about not being around.

Covered in latex house paint in another French blue shade and sweating slightly, Siuan put a paint-laden palm to her forehead to push her curls out of the way. She smeared blue paint against her skin and part of her hair, but paid it little mind. Laying the telescopic handle of the paint roller against the unpainted portion of the wall, Siuan brushed her palms off the legs of her denim coveralls and stepped out of the room. Absently, Siuan glanced around for Moiraine, hoping to catch sight of her. She'd settle for the once-ominous sound of her steps if she was being honest.

It was already after five o'clock, and she knew that before long, the children of Cairhien would be out, and Hallowe'en would be in full swing. Sighing to herself, Siuan retreated back into the small storage room and collected the paint tray and roller. She walked them through the parlour and finally down into the kitchen, where she deposited them in the large stainless steel sink and turned the hot water on full. At least the paint was soap and water cleanup; it wouldn't take her too long to undo the mess that she'd created.

Turning the faucet off and leaving the paint tray to soak, she walked back up to the main level and gathered up her drop cloths. Siuan bundled them up and only briefly worried that the paint might dry and permanently stick the sheet to itself. Well, if that happened, she would just have to buy another inexpensive drop cloth and call it good.

Rolling her shoulders out once more to loosen the cramped muscles in her back, Siuan headed for the ancient staircase. She kept alert, listening for any sound of Moiraine in the house. Not hearing any sign of the woman, she started up the stairs and finally headed into the master bedroom. Gathering up a fresh bra and pantie set, an oversized cream coloured jumper, and a pair of black leggings, Siuan trudged along to the upstairs bathroom and locked herself in.

The hot water poured down from the showerhead as steam filled the room and fogged up the mirror and the frosted glass window. Siuan stood beneath the spray and allowed it to wash over her and alleviate knotted muscles; the heated water flattened her hair against her head, but she didn't care.

She stayed in the shower for nearly another hour, before finally dragging herself from the relaxing warmth and wrapping herself in a dressing gown as she patted her curly hair dry with a towel. She combed her fingers through her hair, before taking a wide-toothed comb to it; just enough to separate the curls and allow them to dry quicker.

Hair damp but rapidly drying and dressed in a jumper that fell down to her middle thigh with black yoga pants, Siuan started down the staircase. She descended the staircase while pushing her rapidly drying curls back from her face.

Sunriver was deathly silent; a state which the woman found to be oppressive. She never really liked absolute silence.

Descending into the kitchen, Siuan put on a pot of tea for herself and grabbed a couple of chocolate biscuits from her pantry. With a biscuit in her mouth and the silver tea service tray in her hands, Siuan carefully walked back up and into the parlour.

Seating herself on the settee, Siuan reached for the remote before clicking on the television for the first time in ages. She hoped to find something worth watching, even though she realised that the Hallowe'en night programming likely meant nothing but horror movies and after-school specials on the airwaves. Bringing her mug to her lips, she continued to click through the channels until she landed on a black and white, 1940s film… The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Siuan had heard of the movie, but had never seen it or researched the plot. But, deciding that it couldn't be all that bad, she set the remote down onto the table in favour of curling up on the settee with her mug of tea. She watched the 1947 movie in amused silence for half of an hour, before the plot dawned upon her: Mrs. Muir was a young widow, living alone but for a domestic servant and her young daughter, in a large house which was haunted by the ghost of a man… a man whom Mrs. Muir was inevitably falling in love with… Perhaps the movie had been a bad idea; it was unsettling to her how life was mirroring art–or rather, art was mirroring her life.

Her mind was a flurry of thoughts, though most of them were variations on the same theme. On nearly silent feet Siuan's own ghostly companion drew up beside her.

“What are you w-” Moiraine's soft voice shattered her thoughts.

Siuan screamed; heart thumping in her chest, she struggled to regain her breath. Pressing her hand firmly against her breast, she lifted her intense, startled, gaze to Moiraine.

“Sorry!” she blurted out quickly as she held her hands, dumbly, to placate her. “I didn't mean to frighten you; I thought you heard me coming.”

Siuan shook her head vehemently. “I didn't hear anything. Light Moiraine! You nearly scared the life right out of me!” she panted, still on edge.

“I don't want to do that.” Moiraine said.” That would be such a shame. Really. I assumed you heard me come downstairs.”

Regaining her composure, Siuan shook her head again. “It's alright…” She lied. “I understand you weren't trying to scare me. It's just…it's…” She realised she didn't know where that sentence was going, and her voice trailed off.

Moiraine waited patiently for her to finish her statement, before finally pressing on herself. “It's Halloween night… or, well, Samhain… you're on edge.” Moiraine carefully stepped around the corner of her couch. She lowered herself and sat beside her; Siuan felt the cushion beside her compress under her weight. She still had to get used to that.

“I am on edge,” she nodded. “but I doubt it has anything to do with Hallowe'en.” She folded her arms over her chest as she glanced away from her.

Moiraine's brows lifted high as she focused on her. “Me? Are you upset at me?”

She released a slow exhale. Siuan wasn't really sure of the answer.

Siuan shook her head gently. “I'm not angry, Moiraine; I'm just glad you're alright. I hadn't seen you in several days, and-”

“I told you I was going away with a few friends for a couple of days.”

“You did?”

“Yes!”

Siuan squeezed her eyes shut firmly.

“I did.” Moiraine sighed softly before lifting her hand and reaching out. She brushed Siuan's curls from her face; Siuan froze.

She could feel Moiraine's hand in her hair– she didn't break like the sea against the shore or the fog on the glass. She must have actually died of a heart attack when Moiraine scared her a moment ago. What other answer was there?

“I'm sorry, Siuan, I didn't mean to do this to you.” Her hand slipped from Siuan's hair and down onto her sweater-clad shoulder. She gripped her tightly; Siuan's heart was pounding in her chest.

She didn't want to spend her eternity in this house, even if she did love it. She couldn't spend eternity here. Not even with Moiraine.

She wet her lips cautiously. “Do… what… to me?” she swallowed tightly.

“I didn't mean to make you worry about me when I was gone for a few days.” Her thumb rubbed her shoulder's peak.

Siuan blinked. “Pardon?”

“You were worried about me, weren't you?”

The tense grip in her chest eased, and she let loose a relieved sigh. Okay, so she didn't die moments before; still, she'd like to know how Moiraine was able to touch her in this moment. “Yes, actually, I was… I was afraid something had happened to you.” ‘Again' she thought in silence.

“Siuan, that's not going to happen.” Grinning brightly, Moiraine lifted her hand from Siuan's shoulder and swiftly slung her arm around her shoulders until her hand rested lightly against the soft place between her shoulder and her breast. She tugged her close, despite the fact that her body had gone rigid in disbelief.

Realising quickly that Moiraine was not going to relent her vice-like grip on her anytime soon, Siuan surrendered. For the first time she had ever known, Moiraine was not the mist-like phantom whom she could see, but never touch; She was firm and warm. It terrified her- she was a woman long dead, but Siuan pushed the thoughts aside as she forced her tired body to relax.

Leaning in carefully, Siuan tentatively rest her cheek against Moiraine's shoulder.

‘I didn't think ghosts could travel…'

Siuan swallowed firmly, before deciding it was best to change the topic of conversation. “So, did you have a good time?”

“Yes! It was great!” Moiraine said. “My Favourite band was there; played my favourite song. It was lovely!”

It was a strangely modern statement coming from a woman one hundred and fifty years dead. But, seeing as Siuan wasn't entirely sure of the lingo of the Regency Era, she couldn't say it was out of place. Besides, Moiraine had always struck her as being rather progressive for her timeframe. Maybe she'd just heard others that had lived in Sunriver since her death use the term "band" to refer to musicians. Really, she didn't know.

“I'm glad you had fun,” Siuan said. “You’re very modern.”

“Cairhien might be in the middle of nowhere, but that doesn’t mean I have no idea of the world outside of it.”

Siuan wasn’t sure how to take that – did Moiraine mean that she was aware of the modern world currently underway? The not knowing unnerved her a little, but she nodded her head.

The closer she was, the more she could smell the distinct scent of the woman that always seemed to linger and alert her to her presence. Moiraine smelled of a crisp, cozy autumn, and it warmed her.

Moiraine smiled against her mass of curls as she felt Siuan's arms finally slip around her narrow waist and grip her. She could get used to this. Shame that it was only for one night.

Shifting her weight slightly, Moiraine laid her cheek against her crown and closed her eyes to the world. She could feel her body tingling; each of her nerve endings buzzing slightly as the fragile nature of her existence changed.

Moiraine opened her eyes and glanced towards the TV without moving her position, hanging onto the woman. Her heart sank as she watched the movie – watched the living and dead characters fall hopelessly in love. ‘If only…'

Siuan's heart was racing, thumping loudly against the inside of her ribcage. But, she attempted to ignore the sickening, swirling, thoughts in her mind. She didn't understand why she could be this close to Moiraine, or why she wanted to hold her this firmly. But she did. Staying close and bundled up in her warmth, Siuan brought her knees up a little as she peaked out from behind her hair at the black and white movie.

Together they watched in silence until the movie had finished on its rather bittersweet note. Even then, Siuan stayed close to her companion; she was warm, and comforting to her aching heart. She enjoyed her presence and company in her home, but she'd never realised how lonely she was without the ability to reach out and touch the woman. She hadn't realised how alienating it was to have a friend right there with you, whom you couldn't hug or sit with.

Siuan could hear Moiraine's steady, slightly uneven breathing. She knew she was still awake. After another moment, Moiraine lifted her arm from her shoulders, and Siuan automatically tensed. She was about to sit up and move away when Moiraine swiftly wrapped her arm around her waist, and she relaxed. Siuan lifted her own hand and ghosted her fingertips over the flesh of Moiraine's forearm; tracing sinew until she finally reached her hand.

Siuan's eyes widened when she realised she could see Moiraine hand in perfect detail; the hazy, phantom, nature of her appearance had melted away and left her crisp, clear, and corporeal. She looked as if she was truly sitting with her in this house, and not a woman somewhere lost in time. Siuan focused on her companion's hands; tracing her fingers and remembering the way her knuckles stood out from her taut skin, the perfectly manicured nails. More though she noticed the silver ring that adorned her right ring finger. She'd noticed it before, but the silver band had never been clear enough for her to see its details.

The silver band, as it wrapped around her finger, became two small, bird-like wings, which framed a silver heart placed where a jewel would normally be set. Siuan smiled softly to herself as she traced her fingers over the tepid silver band; committing every ridge of the design to her memory. After a moment, she laid her hand over hers and interlaced her fingers with Moiraine's. She could feel her eyes growing heavy.

"I missed you." Moiraine rumbled into her hair.

Siuan, contently situated against her frame, burrowed a little closer as the exhaustion started to wash over her body in waves. "I missed you, too."

Her eyes closed, and the world went black around her. She kept her firm grip on Moiraine's hand.

In the morning, Siuan awoke alone on her settee; she rubbed her eyes slowly as she sat up. The cushion beneath her was still warm, and she couldn't tell if it had been from Moiraine's body heat or her own. She hoped that it was from hers. Lifting one hand, she started to fluff up her sleep-flattened hair as she looked around for a trace of her ghostly companion. Listing against the oppressive silence of the manor house, the only sound she could hear was the incessant ticking of a clock. Sunriver was silent and empty but for Siuan.

Her heart sank a little in her breast, but she knew that Moiraine would turn up again; she always came back.

The morning slipped by and turned into afternoon. Shortly following midday, Moiraine strolled back into the house; she'd gone for a morning ride through the fog-shrouded meadows of Cairhien.

Hearing her footsteps on the floor, Siuan looked up eagerly, hoping to see her face as clear as she had seen her hands the night before. But as her gaze met hers, her heart plummeted. Moiraine was once more a blurred, almost corporeal, haze. She was so close to being solid that it was as though she was looking through a diffused lens. But her figure was insubstantial like the mist that cloaked the November morning.

Siuan swallowed tightly, pushing aside her upset thoughts. She must have fallen asleep the night before. How else could she have seen her so clearly? She must have dreamed of her arms around her. It was obvious in the light of the day that she couldn't have held onto her as she had thought.

It had to have been a dream. And that realisation pained her.

“Good day, Siuan.” She said with a smile as she stepped passed her.

Siuan forced a wan smile as she nodded her head. “Hello, Moiraine.”

Moiraine made her way up the stairwell as Siuan kept an eye on her, and after a moment, she disappeared around the corner into the main hallway. She heard the bath running and pushed the intrusive thought of her washing Moiraine's ‘body’ from her mind.

November passed, relatively swiftly. The snow swirled and fell, but for much of the month remained insubstantial; it always melted away within hours of falling. The later part of the month grew colder, and the last of the summer leaves were shed in a flurry of colour. The snow stayed when it fell, and blanketed the ground in a light covering of powdery whiteness.

By the thirtieth of the month, Siuan knew without a doubt that winter had come.

Sitting in her studio amongst the painted blue walls, white mouldings, and the tiny electric heater that blasted warm air into the reclaimed bedroom, Siuan stared at the sketchbook in front of her.

The blank page was taunting her, she knew she needed to at the very least draw up a few concept sketches for the painting of Moiraine that they had discussed – but she was completely art blocked. Heaving out an exasperated sigh, Siuan lightly smacked her forehead against the sketch pad with a slight thwunk! Keeping her eyes closed, she murmured to herself, partly to motivate, and partly to chastise.

"You silly woman, you see her every day, you know what she's like, and it still isn't enough. Why isn't that enough inspiration for a sketch?"

"Well, I wouldn't worry too much, Siuan. We have eternity for a painting."

Siuan jolted, sitting upright immediately as she turned to look at the woman. Moiraine was dressed in several layers, the top of which was her blue coat. She was plucking the black lambskin gloves from her fingers as she stood near her. Siuan could see minute piles of snow that had settled on the peaks of her shoulders; they were starting to melt. Moiraine was smiling affectionately.

"Yes, but I really would like to have a plan for the painting before I just jump into it." Siuan huffed.

"I could pose for you a bit if you like?" Moiraine grinned down at her brightly and discarded her coat onto a side table. Siuan still wished she could see the detail of her face.

"You'd be willing to pose for me?" Siuan blinked.

"Siuan, I said that I'd be willing to pose for the portrait, and this goes along with it. So yeah." Her hand working to free the knotted scarf at her throat, Moiraine stepped around in front of Siuan. "Where do you want me?"

Siuan felt the slight flush of warmth in her cheeks but pushed any sense of embarrassment she was feeling aside. She prayed that Moiraine hadn't noticed the blush and that it wouldn't make her question her. She rather doubted that her slightly more proper mind would have jumped to the same thought that hers had at her words.

She cleared her throat slightly to save face. "Uh… over by the window would be best, I think?"

Moiraine nodded her head, and walked over to where the weak sunlight still flooded in the window; she tugged the scarf away from the column of her pale neck and laid it aside as she started unbuttoning her shirt.

"What are you doing?" Siuan snorted ever so slightly.

She glanced up in the middle of loosening the button at the base of her throat. “Sorry, it's just stuffy with it buttoned, would you rather that I closed it?”

“No, it's fine… sorry, I'm not sure why I asked.” ‘Stop looking at her like that.'

“Okay. Is there any position, specifically, that you want me in?”

‘Yes-‘ “No. I think I'm just going to sketch you as you are at the moment.”

Moiraine nodded her head, “Alright, you're the artist.”

Siuan spent several moments sketching her form loosely with a piece of charcoal. Her hands were smudged, but eventually she had the bare figure of her form on her paper. She moved on to start another. “Could you just-”

Siuan paused when she glanced up and saw Moiraine holding a kesiera.

For a brief moment, before she looked up, she froze when Siuan held up her hand to stop her.

“Stay right there.” Her regal, honest, pose was perfect.

“Alright!” Moiraine returned her eyes to the kesiera and held her pose and expression as she heard Siuan's charcoal scrape across the page.

Hours later, Moiraine sat next to Siuan on the settee; their positions separated by a few inches. Siuan knew better than to try and reach out for her again – Hallowe'en had been nothing but a dream conjured up by a tired and worried mind.

In her hand, Moiraine held a garish pink, white, and gold teacup that seemed to match the hideous tea service that she owned. But perhaps it was less gaudy in reality – the hazy nature between them made it difficult to determine any detail.

“I wouldn't worry.” Moiraine rumbled gently before he took a mouthful of her steaming tea. “I think it'd be best if we held off on the portrait until the spring anyway, yeah?” Her unintelligibly coloured eyes (which Siuan was still calling blue-gray though she had her suspicions) flicked towards her as she held the teacup aloft.

“What? Why? You don't want to do it?” Siuan blinked back the growing sense of dread in her belly.

“I never said that,” Moiraine replied. “I just think it'd be nice to have a spring background instead of the gloomy winter we're heading into. New life and new promises instead of death.”

Siuan nodded her head quietly as she reverted slightly in upon herself. She wished the words of death didn't flow so easily from her lips. “If that's what you want, Moiraine.”

“No, no… It's up to you. I just thought that maybe it might be nice; Sunriver is wonderful in the Spring.” Moiraine smiled.

Siuan nodded again, “The spring then.” She took a long draught from her large mug of tea and kept her eyes off the ghost seated beside her. Moiraine didn't notice.

Chapter Text

December came with heavy snows and soggy wet flurries. When it wasn't outright snowing, it was a combination of snow, sleet, and rain. The appearance of this weather was, by those who were superstitious, and Moiraine seemed to be just that; a bad omen. Siuan didn't think much of it; it was winter, and any combination of poor weather was to be expected.

The lack of decoration and the piling snow outside the doors left Siuan feeling a little blasé about the winter holiday.

She found it to be rather uninspiring, at least for the Christmas season. But she didn’t have the decorations to dress all the far, dark, and mysterious corners of her home. Even if she did have numerous baubles for brightening up and bringing Christmas cheer, it wouldn’t be right. She wanted to decorate Sunriver Manor in a way that Moiraine would recognise; she wanted a Christmas that was familiar to her Regency Era (or at the very least her Victorian days) sensibilities. Though she wasn’t quite sure what that would entail. Did they have Christmas trees in those days?

She sat on her settee with a cooling mug of hot chocolate, her eyes were focused on the television, hoping to push aside the spiraling thoughts. She knew they wouldn’t lead her anywhere pleasant; they never did. She’d tried very hard not to feel sorry for herself. But it was easier said than done, especially now with the company of a beautiful woman constantly in her home.

If only Moiraine hadn’t been born two centuries before her and died a hundred years, less six months, before she was born. If only she wasn’t the ghost haunting her house. If only Moiraine were living flesh and blood, warm and with a thundering heart.

Moiraine would be the woman of her dreams.

If the circumstances were different, Siuan could see herself falling head over heels for Moiraine.

Without warning, Moiraine zipped passed her, a blur of movement between Siuan and the table in front of her. Despite the fact that she had long grown used to her company, the times that Moiraine passed by without her expecting it, or without being totally visible, still startled Siuan.

She jolted slightly. Her breast heaved as she panted, trying to catch her breath after the scare. “Moiraine!”

“Sorry, Siuan!” Moiraine said as she tilted her head back and looked up at the boy, “What say you, should we ask Aunty Siuan to help us decorate this old manor?”

Siuan’s brown eyes widened at the affectionate nickname.

Barthanes grinned brightly, and Siuan saw that his two front teeth were missing. He nodded his head enthusiastically. “Yeah!”

“Very well,” Moiraine emphasized the first syllable of the word as she turned her attention back to the still surprised Siuan. “Are you quite all right, Siuan?”

“Aunty Siuan?” She blinked dumbly as her gaze flickered between the little boy and the woman in front of her.

“He’s really quite fond of you.” Moiraine said.

“I see,” Her eyes flickered up once more. “I don’t have anything to decorate the house with.”

“That’s alright! We got loads!” Barthanes bounced slightly.

“Barthanes’s right; we’ve got everything we could ever need to decorate the house. But we could use a supervisor.”

Siuan snorted out a slight laugh. “Shouldn’t you have your servants decorate the place? With you overseeing it?”

“Oh posh!” Moiraine said. “I’d much rather do it myself and –“

“What she means is that they no longer do it. ‘Cause she always redoes it herself anyway.” Barthanes giggled.

Moiraine narrowed her eyes at him. “Barthanes,”

Siuan wasn’t as discreet; she started laughing and couldn’t stop for a moment. “Is that so?”

“It might be,” Moiraine glanced up and away from the woman before her. Her eyes wandered back to her for a flash before looking away in faux indignation once more.

Siuan was smirking. “Are you truly that horrible that you make them slave away with the decorations for hours, just to pull them down and do it yourself? Moiraine, you should be ashamed of yourself,” she teased.

“’ S’not like that! They just never put up the decorations I want, and so I end up redoing them.”

“And just what, might I ask, is wrong with what they do every year?” Siuan asked.

“They don’t do anything wrong, it’s just not enough,” Moiraine said, her voice firm. “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

Siuan cocked a brow disparagingly while fighting off a tiny smile. “Okay then, let’s get to work on the decorations!”

Christmas Eve finally arrived, though with it came a slightly sorrowful sense. It was the first time in ages that she wouldn’t be spending it with her father, her best friends, and Siuan was a little unsure of what to do with herself.

She could bake cookies, but for whom? She was the only one in the house that would actually be eating them.

She finally settled on what to do.

Siuan drew a deep breath, inhaling the floral notes of her wine, and humming in pleasure to herself. She was covered in paint, some dried and some drying, as she settled into her couch with a book.

Footstep clicked on the hardwood floor behind her, approaching her, but Siuan paid them no attention. Moiraine rounded the couch and, spotting the open book in her hand (her wine glass in the other).

“What are you reading?” Moiraine asked.

Siuan took a sip of her wine as she turned the page with her thumb. "Machado de Assis."

“The Alienist?”

“No, the other one.”

Tilting her head slightly, Moiraine gave her an intrigued look. “The one who has hangover eyes?”

“That’s the one,” Siuan’s brown eyes lifted from the page. “Dom Casmurro.”

“Read that book decades ago. Definitely one of Machado de Assis's best.” Moiraine said and stepped around her coffee table and sat on its edge, between Siuan and the table. “You know, I realise that it might not be everything you hoped for, but I’m glad you’re staying here for Christmas.”

Her heart clenched in her breast. “Oh?”

“Of course… you’re family.” She smiled, and suddenly the haze of life and death parting them meant nothing; while she couldn’t see the details of Moiraine's face, she could read her expression perfectly.

“I’m… I’m what?” Her voice faltered, lamely.

“You’re family.”

“You… you think of me as family?” Siuan asked softly.

“Of course I do.”

Siuan opened and closed her mouth, at a loss for words.

Moiraine broke the silence after a moment. “Umm, what about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Brows furrowing in confusion, Siuan looked up to the woman once again.

“Christmas Day,” She offered. “What are your plans?”

“I don’t have any.” Siuan said.

“Well, alright then.”

Siuan watched her contentedly, if not a little confused, as she contemplated her next move.

After a moment, Moiraine broke the silence again. “So, tomorrow evening is the annual Cairhien Christmas Ball,” She said,as her gaze focused on Siuan. “And since you don’t have any plans for your own celebrations, I thought maybe you might attend?”

Siuan blinked. She had, quite literally, no idea how she was meant to attend the ball, since the last one held by Moiraine Damodred had been around the time she was forty years old, in 1818. It was the last year that Moiraine had ever put on a Christmas Ball, at least during her lifetime.

Siuan pushed away the nagging sadness that niggled at her heart with the memory of how this woman had lived and died. “I would love to, Moiraine.” She smiled fondly and watched as the giant grin split her face.

Christmas Day, however, arrived with a lingering headache and a depressive funk for Siuan. No matter what the woman haunting her house might think of her, she knew she was alone – she had no family here or even nearby. She’d bought Sunriver Manor because it was secluded away from the rest of the country, but Siuan was quickly rethinking the benefits of this decision.

But Moiraine was here. She wasn’t in another part of the country or another house. She was here in Cairhien, here in Sunriver Manor. If she left this place behind, she’d be leaving behind the friend that had been here for her in her times of need. She’d be leaving a dead woman alone, and condemned to an eternity in an empty house, her son and sister be damned. If she ever left Cairhien, Siuan knew in her heart that she could never sell the house that Moiraine resided in; she couldn’t pass Moiraine off onto another person like an unwanted piece of furniture. Besides, she had no way of knowing what another person would do because of the spectre; she didn’t want to find out the Regency Era house had been demolished in a last-ditch effort to rid the grounds of a ghost.

And if the house were demolished, torn down stone by stone, what would become of Moiraine? Or Barthanes? What would happen to them? Would their spirits be let free, or would it destroy them? Would they turn to dust and cease to exist in this world or the next? The questions nagged at her and caused a sense of anxiety to settle lowly in her belly.

Sitting at the coffee table in her living room, Siuan stared into the mug of tea in front of her. It was midday, and the bright, nearly white, winter sunlight streamed in through the windows around her. Outside the manor house, the snow glittered pleasantly. In the distance, she could hear a child playing and laughing in happy shrieks. She couldn’t tell if it was Barthanes or one of the children from further up. Her head was pounding, and she felt more than a little numb to everything around her. It was Christmas, and she knew it was a happy day, but try as she might, she didn’t feel very happy. The lonely Christmas proved one thing, and one thing only to her: she really had changed everything about her life in the last year.

Siuan sighed softly to herself.

Moiraine stood in the corner of the living room, ever so slightly behind Siuan. Having entered the room to wish her a Happy Christmas, she’d paused when she saw the look of sorrow etched in the very lines and curves of Siuan's body. Her entire body language belied her internal struggle. Moiraine looked around the room, trying to find something to distract her or entertain her. After a moment, she swallowed tightly and walked up to her.

She immediately plastered on a bright smile as she made sure that her footsteps were loud enough for Siuanto to hear; she wanted her to think she’d just stumbled upon her. “Siuan!”

Siuan’s attention snapped up towards Moiraine, she let out a slight smile. Praying that Moiraine hadn’t noticed her previous body language. If she had, she never let on. “Happy Christmas, Moiraine.”

“Happy Christmas, Siuan.”

Moiraine stepped closer, and though she could hear her footstep click off of the floor, Siuan knew she wasn’t really there.

The nature of their relationship had certainly changed over the months since she’d first introduced herself to her on the laneway leading into Cairhien. A ghost, yes, but a kind soul. She cared for her and knew that she always would in some manner.

Moiraine looked out the window, watching Barthanes tumbling joyfully in the snow. “He loves Christmas more than anything,”

“Oh, the joys of having young children,” Siuan murmured.

“Do you have children?” Moiraine asked.

Siuan’s shoulders tensed, and she swallowed tightly.

Moiraine saw her mistake instantly and reached out a hand gently. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

Siuan gave her a weak smile, sending her curls a’bounding. “It’s a valid question. One that I’m surprised you haven’t asked before.

"I didn’t ask about children before because, honestly, it hadn’t really occurred to me to ask. There are some things that you simply don’t ask about and let the lady tell you.” Moiraine said simply. “I was waiting for you to tell me. But in six months, you haven’t made a peep, so I asked, and I’m sorry that it upset you. I won’t ask again.”

She sighed. “No, it’s alright. Really. It’s a perfectly understandable question. The truth is, my ex-partner didn’t want children.”

“I’m sorry.” Moiraine said softly.

After what felt like an eternity, Siuan finally spoke.

“No, don’t be sorry. It’s for the best that I didn’t have children with her anyway; it would have just ended in sadness.”

Moiraine hedged cautiously. “Is that why you're sad?”

Siuan blinked, glancing at her. “What? No.”

Moiraine studied her for a moment, tilting her head. “Then… why do you look so distant?”

She struggled to keep her tears at bay. “This is my first Christmas without my dad.” Siuan said sadly.

Instantly, she understood her sadness. Moiraine fumbled for something meaningful to say. She had little experience offering comfort, and nothing came to mind except the useless platitudes people had offered after her parents’ deaths. She had detested them then, and she detests them now.

“Siuan, I’m sorry for your loss.” Moiraine wanted to hug her, to hold her, to wrap her arms around her and keep holding Siuan until her sadness melted away. But she knew that she couldn’t. She knew that she was insubstantial, like the mist, to her.

“Thank you." Siuan stared at her and narrowed her moist eyes before letting a warm smile take over her whole face. “Enough with the sadness for today, it’s Christmas!” she settled instead on changing the subject.

They smiled at each other.

“I have an idea!” Moiraine turned away from her and to the stereo that she had set up in the parlour. She crossed the space between her and the machine, tapping the power button, and the radio jumped to life.

Siuan gasped as her eyes widened; she’d actually been able to interact with her world properly. It was the first time she’d seen Moiraine being able to affect the objects truly around her since Hallowe’en. Moiraine was always able to affect the objects around HER. The things that she knew didn’t exist in her home, but did in hers, but the stereo was far more in-depth than just pushing the door open.

Moiraine didn’t noticed her astonishment as she kept her eyes on the small screen of the stereo; she clicked her way through the AM/FM setting until he finally found a station that she liked. Oldies. Moiraine turned to face her with a grin as the first bars of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Do You Believe In Magic? started to play.

She moved back to her and held out her hand. “Dance with me, Siuan.”

Siuan couldn’t help but smile. She glanced at Moiraine's offered hand but knew better than to try and take it. Instead, she put her hands down on the arms of the chair she was sitting in, ready to push herself up from it.

Siuan was laughing thoroughly within moments, dancing with her ghostly companion as the song played on.

Believe in the magic that can set you free.
Ooh, talkin’ about magic.

Do you believe like I believe?
Do you believe in magic?

Their shared laughter didn’t cease for the better part of two hours. Song after song, Moiraine kept Siuan dancing with her. Finally, they collapsed to the floor, lying outstretched on their backs. Lying next to one another, close enough for their shoulders to touch in any other situation, both of them panted softly.

Moiraine turned her face to look at Siuan; her expression was contagious, and Siuan couldn’t help the happy smile that spread across her face. Siuan wanted nothing more in that moment than to be able to put her arms around Moiraine and hug her tightly. She’d been a blessing in disguise, a distraction from sad thoughts, and she was happy to have her. She just wished that she could show her how happy she was.

The afternoon passed away into the evening, and before long, Siuan knew it was time to make her appearance downstairs. She could hear the commotion, the chatter of many people, and the phantom music that entertained them all. She knew that downstairs in her house, in some era of time, there was a grand ball going on. She’d promised that she would attend, and attend she would.

If only she wasn’t so underdressed for the occasion.

Moiraine glanced up, and catching sight of Siuan as she stepped into the parlour, her entire demeanour changed. The woman with dark hair beside her quickly noted the change in her sister, the shift from a state of almost-boredom to the sudden jump of happiness. Her emotional change was almost dizzying.

“Siuan!” She leapt to her feet and brushed the wrinkles out of her dress.

Her breath caught slightly in her throat as she took in the sight of the woman standing before her. Moiraine was vivid, much as she always was, though as her eyes darted about the cleared-out parlour (now the ballroom), her eyes could make out the insubstantial shapes of hundreds of people, the guests that Moiraine had in her home. But it wasn’t the sight of the other spirits that had rendered her speechless; it was Moiraine.

Moiraine was wearing a beautiful dress of blue velvet; it had sheer, full-length sleeves and clung to her figure before falling to the floor in simple lines. An Aro choker sat around her neck. In addition to the small pearled drop earrings, which sparkled with the yellow of the chandelier in the center of the hall.

“You look… You look amazing.” Siuan breathed out, still not quite able to fathom the change in her appearance from the comfortably dressed woman that had spent several hours dancing and playing various games with her that afternoon, to this immaculate Lady.

Moiraine was grinning and once again waved her off embarrassedly. “You look beautiful yourself.”

“I’m not even close to being dressed properly for the ball.”

Dressed in a blue sweater dress, with long sleeves, hitting just above her knees. Siuan felt ridiculous. She ignored the thought as her hand lifted subconsciously to ghost over the small sapphire pendant that danced at the base of her throat.

“You look wonderful,” Moiraine said.

Behind Moiraine, Anvaere cleared her throat softly. Moiraine’s cheeks flushed as her thought process was broken. She side-stepped out of the way.

“Anvaere, this is Siuan. Siuan, this is my sister, Anvaere,” She motioned between the two women, and Siuan turned to look at her companion’s young sibling.

Anvaere sat, perched politely in the seat beside the one that Moiraine had been occupying previously. She was roughly thirty-five years old, and her hair was gathered back from her face with the top half twisted into an elaborate knot at the back of her skull. The rest fell in soft tendrils down her back as her fringe brushed against her forehead, just above her eyes. Her fine hands were covered by white lace, fingerless gloves, and the woman wore a beautiful ball gown of pale purple silk.

Siuan’s blood ran cold, and her heart nearly stopped in her chest. She recognized Anvaere from the library instantly.

Siuan blinked, completely stunned at seeing the librarian. Despite the haze of the veil between them, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was Anvaere that she had met in the library those months before. She stared at Moiraine’s sister for a long moment before realising how rude she was being. Closing her mouth and swallowing, she dropped her eyes to the floor briefly as she curtsied to the woman.

Anvaere rose to her feet in a swift, graceful movement and dipped herself into a deep curtsy as she bowed her head to Siuan.

“It’s… it’s… It’s lovely to meet you.” Siuan stuttered softly.

Moiraine’s brows furrowed gently as she gazed at her softly. “Are you alright?”

Siuan made a movement of her head that was neither a nodded yes nor a shaken no as she tore her eyes away from Anvaere and returned them to the woman she’d come to know so well. “I…” gazing into her eyes and knowing that lying wouldn’t help her in the least (Moiraine always seemed to see right through her), she paused a moment before continuing. “No, sorry, I just… I’m sorry.” She turned back to Anvaere. “I think that I’ve seen you before, in the library in the village. Have I?”

Anvaere’s eyes widened slightly before she giggled with a silver voice. “Oh, yes, you probably have! Moiraine, you should have told her before now! You’ve made the poor woman a frazzled mess!” She said before she stepped closer to the woman who owned Sunriver Manor.

Siuan could smell the woman’s faint perfume, a light mixture of roses and peaches tinged ever so subtly with the scent of wild honey. “Told me what?” Siuan glanced nervously, between the siblings.

“Don’t look so frightened, Siuan, it just slipped my mind. Really!” Moiraine shrugged easily with a sheepish grin.

“What slipped your mind?” Siuan’s eyes narrowed slightly as she internally worried about what she might hear from Moiraine's mouth. ‘Did I die some months ago, when I first ‘met’ her, and that’s why I’ve been able to interact with her? Oh god, that’s it, isn’t it? I’m dead. I’m dead! Oh Light, the whole town is inhabited by ghosts!‘

“When my husband died and I came to live with my sister at Sunriver Manor once again, I took a job in the library to keep myself busy. I spend a few hours every day in the library- practically haunting the shelves like a ghost!” Anvaere chuckled, and Siuan felt her stomach drop like a lead weight. “But it keeps me busy and I enjoy the time I have to myself.”

Siuan couldn’t help the exhale of relief that rushed from her lungs; it was a breath that she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. But, she still didn’t understand. Instead, she nodded her head, pretending to understand, as she glanced about at the full ballroom. “Who are all these people?” she turned her attention back to Moiraine.

“The people of Cairhien.” Moiraine, as she looked around at the audience she’d invited for Christmas.

Siuan scrunched up her nose. “I don’t recognize any of them,”

Moiraine looked at her. “No, no, I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Siuan looked around herself once more, and the more she focused, she swore that the nearly invisible nature of the other patrons slowly melted away into a proper vision of their spectral selves. They were becoming closer to corporeal, like Moiraine.

Despite having grown used to having a dead woman, her sister, and son in the country house alongside her, the realisation of just how many ghosts inhabited Cairhien made her stomach flip with anxiety. Perhaps, though, that Sunriver Manor offered a glimpse through Time and Space? Perhaps it allowed her to see the ball the way that Moiraine used to throw them, oh... but then how on earth was she able to interact with her spirit? If it was a window through time that she was seeing, passively, then there was no reason for the woman to be able to speak with her, laugh with her, dance with her.

“Come with me, Siuan.” Moiraine held out her hand once more for her, and Siuan looked at it dubiously. She knew better, didn’t she? Moiraine shook her head a little when she didn’t reach for her. Moiraine gave her no choice; grabbing her by the hand and pulling her with her through the throng of gathered people as the soft opening notes of a waltz were picked up by the orchestra. The tune was gentle, but carried a minute slyness to it. Siuan’s thoughts were currently locked entirely on the fact that Moiraine was holding her hand and directing her through the crowd of people… people that were becoming clearer and clearer the more she studied them.

None of this was possible.

Siuan gasped as she found herself pressed against the woman. Placing her hand on her shoulder and straightening her posture, she let Moiraine lead as her warmth pressed against her. Moiraine took the first steps as she lead her into a Viennese Waltz - whirling her around the floor in time with the bittersweet melody of the orchestra's playing.

Heart beating a tattoo against her sternum, Siuan tightened her grip on Moiraine, even as she fought to keep pace with her fast, and precise movements. "How is this possible?" She panted softly as they whirled around between other dancing couples. "How can I be dancing with you?"

Moiraine smiled sadly, self-deprecatingly. "Think of it as a Christmas Miracle,"

“How can this be possible when you’re… you’re…” Her voice trailed off; she’d promised never to say Moiraine was dead to her face.

“Siuan. In this moment, this very moment, I am alive.” Moiraine spoke barely above a whisper into her ear. “In this moment, I am more alive than I have ever been.” She turned her head and brushed her lips against Siuan's cheeks. Siuan’s heart skipped a beat. “Just enjoy the time we have. I’m right there.”

She pressed closer to Moiraine and breathed deep to calm her flooding emotions and her thumping heart. Siuan gave up on fulfilling the proper posture for the waltz. She nuzzled her way under Moiraine's shoulder as she held her securely. She smelled like Christmas. She smelled like Cairhien. She smelled like home.

She could dance with her all night.

“Five… four... three… two… ONE!”

Cheers erupted in the Salidar nightclub as the ball dropped on live TV. 2024 had gone, and now 2025 was being ushered in with cries of “Happy New Year!”

Siuan turned to her friend. “Happy New Year, Leane!” she giggled, already a little affected by the champagne that she had ingested that night. Dressed in a close-fitting, just-above-the-knee-length black sleeveless dress, with her curls pinned up on top of her head, she lifted her champagne flute.

“Happy New Year, Siuan!” Giggling, Leane raised her own flute as a toast.

The night melted away to blackness from a multitude of blurred nightclub lights that faded into city streetlamps and digital advertising lights.

Leane had been adamant over the phone just days before; she wanted Siuan to come down for New Year's. After that, she wanted to go back to Cairhien. with her friend.

“I want to see your home!” Siuan’s long-time friend screeched.

Siuan pulled the phone away from her ear quickly to save her hearing from being damaged by the high-pitched squeal. Her brows furrowed together in mild confusion. “I’ve sent you all the photos of the house and what I’ve done with it?” The inflection of her voice gave away her bewilderment.

Leane sighed a little exasperatedly. “I know, but photos don’t do it justice, I’m sure!”

“Well, no… they don’t. But my garden’s dead because of all the snow, and well… it’s an awfully long trip from Salidar all the way back here.” Siuan wound a curl through her fingers as she stood by the phone. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it as she gazed out the grand window.

She could see Moiraine near the window, bundled up in her blue coat.

December 28th, three days after the Christmas Ball and three days before the New Year’s Celebrations, Moiraine had decided to take down the decorations from the holiday.

Watching her. It finally dawned on Siuan. Leane’s desire to see Sunriver Manor… was it born from another want? Did she only wish to make sure that Siuan truly was safe within her haunted house?

“Well, I figured you’re already coming down here anyway,” Leane’s voice trailed slightly. “So it’s not like you wouldn’t be going back up there,”

Siuan, broken from her reverie, shook her head. “No, but it’s almost four hours on the road,“

“I’ll take the train home afterward,” Leane all but pleaded.

Her brown eyes widened. “Oh! Leane, no! That wasn’t my point! I just thought that… well, that it might be a long trip after New Year's.”

“So we’ll leave later in the morning. Please, Siuan? I want to see the house in person! The house that you fell in love with last spring.”

“Alright,” She finally conceded, “but I’m driving you home again.”

“We’ll see. So, you really don’t mind me seeing the house? Like, speak now or forever hold your peace,” she teased.

Siuan shook her head as she smiled softly. “Of course not! I just thought that spring would be better, but if you’re so keen on seeing it now… well, okay.”

Outside the window, Moiraine grasped hold of an evergreen garland that hung down from above the window. She tugged at it loosely; it should have just released and fallen neatly down at her feet. The garland wouldn’t give, and the more she tugged and whipped the length of it, the less it budged. It was stuck in its tacking above the window, and Moiraine was becoming more and more frustrated with it. She took a firm hold of the garland and braced her foot on the outside window ledge. Pulling hard, she leaned herself back at a 45-degree angle until finally, the tacking gave way. Losing her balance, Moiraine pinwheeled her arms for a fraction of a moment before she landed on her backside in the snow.

Siuan, watching her from inside, started giggling, completely unable to help herself.

“What’s so funny?” Leane’s voice in her ear caught Siuan off guard; she’d briefly forgotten about the phone in her hand as she watched the woman outside.

“Oh, sorry! I was just,” she paused for a moment as she looked for an excuse. “I was watching a movie, and a joke caught me off guard.”

“I didn’t hear anything?”

“Oh no, you wouldn’t. Sorry, it’s a silent movie.”

“And here I thought you might be laughing at your ghost.” Leane’s voice came with the unmistakable hint of a growing smirk.

Siuan choked and then coughed in surprise. “No! It’s an old movie, that’s all!”

“Alright, alright!” Leane chortled as Siuan silently cursed herself for continuing to watch Moiraine with half of her attention. “So I’ll see you on the 31st?”

“Yeah, alright, Leane. We’ll come back here on New Year’s Day.”

“Yep. Alright!”

Sitting in the car now, making their way north through the country, Leane happily studied the landscape as Siuan drove back from Salidar to Cairhien.

“It really is beautiful in the country,” Leane’s voice broke the comfortable silence between them.

Siuan suddenly laughed, “How on Earth can you tell? It’s nothing but motorway right now.”

Leane turned to her friend and stuck her tongue out at her. “Doesn’t matter! I know what’s around here!”

The night out before had been a welcome one; the reunion with her close friend had brought back a little childish humor to both women. Though, if Leane didn’t know better, she’d have said that someone else had already returned that spring to Siuan’s step.

“If you say so,” Siuan teased as she shook her head, keeping her eye on the highway in front of them. The traffic was surprisingly light for the holiday day. However, she suspected that people were either already where they planned to be or not leaving for some time. She rather suspected that most of the populace was a little hungover this morning. She and Leane were not excluded from this state, but their hangovers could have been measurably worse than they were.

“I do say so. So there!” Leane laughed, and as it faded away, an amiable silence settled between the two women once more. After a moment, Leane reached out and clicked the car radio on.

The stereo crackled to life, and in seconds, the first bars of Do You Believe In Magic? flooded the small vehicle.

Siuan tensed ever so slightly in the driver’s seat, but Leane didn’t notice. “Oh, I love this song!” Leane gushed.

Siuan smiled awkwardly but nodded in agreement as memories of dancing with a certain woman came to the forefront of her mind.

“Do you believe in magic?” Moiraine chuckled softly as she sang along with the song, keeping her eyes on Siuan as the two of them danced unabashedly in the parlour.

“How on earth do you know this song!” Siuan was laughing heartily, though part of her truly wondered how Moiraine could know the song when it was released a hundred years after her death.

“Oh, please! It’s like you think I’ve been living under a rock!”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Siuan asked.

But Moiraine lifted a hand and waved her off easily, “You think no one has ever turned a radio on around me before? Please!”

‘How did that not occur to me? Light, Siuan, others have lived in this house before you, even if the last owners fled from this ghost. Of course, she had heard the song on the radio; she probably heard it when it was new!’ Siuan thought to herself as she watched her dance.

Thinking it best to let it go, Siuan smiled brightly and started dancing with her again. Her heart fluttered as she watched her. Moiraine was a special woman, and she rather loved her for it; it meant that she always had a way of making even her darkest moments brighten up. But what about the times when her darkest moments were born from the sorrow she felt for Moiraine? What about the times that she couldn’t tell her why she was looking at her with a faraway gaze that verged on the edge of tears? What about the times that Moiraine caught her crying as she tried to sketch her, and never asked her what the trouble was? Moiraine had known better than to press her; if she wanted to tell her, she would. She trusted that.

“Get out of your head!” Moiraine chuckled as the song wore on.

Siuan jolted ever so slightly. “What?”

“Don’t ‘What’ me! I can see the gears in your head grinding,”

“Hey!” Siuan laughed.

“You’re thinking too much. Just dance! Enjoy the moment, and let everything else go! Nothing matters right now, just you and me and The TheLovin’ Spoonful!” She smiled. “Just us! You and me!”

‘Just us,’ her mind echoed her words.

Siuan was lost in thought, her mind on autopilot as she drove. If Leane noticed, she said nothing.

The song changed, and the soft opening notes of Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’ reached out from the car’s stereo, and Siuan froze as she listened to the 1968 folk ballad. That was the song; there was no question in her mind. Moiraine, from the moments before she had met her, had been humming ‘Alone Again Or’. That’s why she hadn’t been able to place the song; it wasn’t a classical piece from her time, but one from hers.

“Yeah, I said it's all right
I won't forget
All the times I waited patiently for you
I think you'll do (just what) you choose to do
And I will be alone again tonight my dear”

She briefly squeezed her eyes shut before opening them and concentrating on the road in front of her, not the song playing on her radio.

Leane remained silent for a while, simply listening to the radio. Eventually, she broke the weighty silence between them. “Did you ever figure out what your nightmare meant?” She turned her head to look at her friend.

Siuan’s shoulders tensed tightly. She had rather hoped to put the nightmare of Moiraine being locked up in the storage room for two hundred years behind her.

Noting the change in her demeanour, Leane realised her mistake. “Right, sorry… that wasn’t something you wanted to remember.”

“I don’t want to remember it, because to this day it makes me uneasy, it’s completely different from the reality of how she died… and I don’t understand why I dreamed that. Nothing about it was correct. Well, except for Barthanes dying, the graveyard’s exact appearance, and Moiraine herself... but everything else, the years, the context… it was wrong,” Siuan huffed.

“I think I understand it, though,” Leane spoke up, as Siuan glanced at her.

“Do you?”

“Well, I mean, I could be wrong, but I think the symbolism is all there if you really look at it as just a dream and having nothing to do with Moiraine’s history.”

“I never thought to look up dream interpretations, honestly, I wouldn’t know where to start,” Siuan laughed half-heartedly.

“Well, I doubt it would have been easily explainable in those terms. But let’s look at it at face value: it’s a nightmare born of a lot of conflicting emotions. For one thing, you’ve been cooped up in that house with the only other sound in the manor being that of a creeping, dead woman, and you were trying to research her life.”

Leane was unaware of how close Siuan and the woman in question had become; she assumed that the ghost was haunting her, but was not present nearly to the degree that she was in Siuan’s life. She didn’t know that before the nightmare, Siuan had spent that very night lying beneath the night sky with Moiraine, stargazing.

“Right?” Siuan blinked dumbly, trying to see exactly where this was going.

“And you’d been thinking about her a lot, and why she might be in the house. I’m not surprised your dream involved her; she was the scapegoat for your subconscious.”

“Right, okay… but that still doesn’t explain the content of the dream. I mean, for god’s sake, I watched the woman get locked up in a tiny room where she died a horrible death. That’s not exactly what I wanted for her!”

“No, but it’s what you feared happened to her. This is what I think the dream meant: first, let’s look at the death of a child.”

“Must we?”

“Yes, Siuan.”

“Fine…” Siuan sighed out a long exhale.

“I think in this case the child’s death was your subconscious thought that you’ve ‘wasted’ your life, or at least your youth, on relationships that fell through.”

“Oh lovely. Thank you for that.”

“Siuan, I’m just explaining what I think happened. So with the dead child representing your youth, and you know I mean that term loosely. I think watching Moiraine throw all of her servants out of her house and push everyone she’d known away from herself, I really think that’s the dream’s way of acknowledging that you’ve taken a new, fresh start for yourself. Even if you’re ridiculously far away from all of us.” Leane sniffed in faux indignation with the last sentence.

Siuan rolled her eyes, “Oh please, you all know you’re more than welcome to come visit and to come stay for a while.”

“With a ghost in the house,”

“With a… right,” she sighed. She just wished that she could explain to others that her house was haunted, without them thinking she’d finally lost the plot. And if they believed her, she wished that they could see Moiraine the way she had come to, after knowing her for so many months. Moiraine wasn’t the ghoul that would rattle chains at night.

“I think the maid returning is a sign that you can’t move on fully because you’re haunted. Not just haunted by a ghost, but also by the memories of your last relationship and your deceased father. But yeah, the ghost has a huge hand in it too.”

“Are you seriously blaming Moiraine for my inability to move on? Or what you perceive as being my inability?” Siuan growled, ever so softly. She took offence to the derogatory nature of Leane’s words against Moiraine.

“Why shouldn’t I? She terrified you months ago, you didn’t want to stay in the house, and-“

“Leane, that’s before I knew her. Before I spoke to her. And honestly, she was just as surprised by me as I was by her.”

“Okay. I’m not going to argue because obviously I don’t know the entire situation. I’m only going by my gut and what I think happened with the dream,” Leane smiled gently.

Siuan sighed softly, this time in guilty defeat. “I’m sorry, Leane, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“You didn’t, and I put my foot in my mouth, so let’s move on,” she laughed, and Siuan was glad to join her.

“Now I think her being entombed in her own home, walled up and missing for two hundred years… well, I think that’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? I think it has everything to do with you being unable to find the information about her life for so long. And then you finally found the records of her life locked away in that little room. So… besides a slight sense of precognition, I think everything going on in your life just finally smooshed itself together and gave you one hell of a night terror.”

Siuan mulled it over for a moment before finally speaking. “You know. I think you’re right. It all makes sense when I look at it this way… but she’s not stopping me from doing anything. Sure, my existence in Sunriver Manor is a little different than I had planned, but she’s not bothering me anymore. She’s not a threat, as far as I can see.”

Leane nodded, unsure of how to respond.

Siuan herself remained quiet for a moment before looking up at the other woman. “I’m going to start painting again.”

Leane sat up a little straighter in interest. “Anything in particular?”

“I thought I might try to paint… well, I’d like to try to paint Moiraine.” Siuan said. “There’s no portrait of her anywhere, and I’d like to try and fix that.”

“Really? Why?” Leane asked.

“She never posed for one.” She answered. “I suspect that she just thought she had more time for it and then… well, then time ran out.”

Leane shook her head. “Sorry, no. I meant, why do you feel the need to fix that?”

“I don’t want her to be forgotten again. I mean, eventually, I won’t be the owner of Sunriver Manor, whether I sell it, or I eventually pass away. I don’t want the new owners after me to be afraid of her the way that I was… because there’s nothing about her that requires that reaction. She’s not something you should be afraid of. Yes, her presence is startling, but you grow accustomed to her, and as long as you are aware of her and her nature, there’s no need to be afraid of her.

She nodded wordlessly. ‘Oh, Siuan… you really don’t see what you’re getting yourself into, do you?’ Leane thought to herself as the worry gnawed away at her mind.

The last hour of the drive to Cairhien passed rather uneventfully. The silence that settled over the two women for a while soon melted away, and found the two talking animatedly as Siuan pulled her car into the long driveway of her home.

Sunriver Manor loomed ahead. The stone structure rose from the winter fog like a wraith. In the weak winter light and surrounded by the dead vegetation, the house appeared far more imposing and ominous than it did in the light of a bright summer day. The beautiful gardens that Siuan had worked her fingers to the bone for were barren in the cold winter light. The land surrounding the manor house was shrouded in thick, cold fog, and an oppressive silence had settled over the county home since Siuan had left the day before.

In her belly, she felt a lead weight drop; Sunriver was rarely quiet, forget the oppressive nature of pure silence. Her heart clenched a little in her breast.

What had happened?

Leane seemed to be oblivious to her friend’s slowly growing anxiety. Her breath caught in her throat as the house loomed out of the fog like a wolf in a dark forest, but it was a small gasp of awe. Leane’s eyes widened as she looked out from the window of the passenger’s side door. “It’s… It’s beautiful.”

Siuan’s eyes flashed to her, and despite the nagging in the back of her mind, she had to laugh. “You’ve seen it before.”

Leane turned her head to look back at Siuan over her shoulder as she relaxed back away from the window again. “And like I said, photos don’t do it justice. It’s beautiful. Like a fairy tale.”

“It’s more of a fairy tale in the summer, I promise,” Siuan laughed despite herself, “Come on, let’s go inside; it’ getting really damp out here.” She shivered a little.

Leane nodded in agreement as she opened the door of the car and pulled herself out.

Siuan unlocked the front entry and pushed the wooden door open. She was greeted by a wall of warmth and was never happier that she’d chosen to leave the heaters on in the stone house while she was absent. She rubbed her shoulders a little to dispel the seeping chill as she stepped through the door and set her handbag and keys down onto the small table that sat to the side of the door. Leane followed suit as she stepped inside.

“Welcome to Sunriver,” Siuan chuckled softly at the awkward introduction as she motioned around them with her hand.

Leane grinned brightly. “It’s spectacular; I can see why you fell for it… even though it’s a million miles away from everyone else,”

Siuan shrugged lightly. “It’s quiet here; I like the isolation. It gives me a break.

“Oh, of course I know that. I hear it every day,” Leane chuckled softly.

The ancient floorboards of the second floor creaked as weight was swiftly put upon them. Straining to listen, Siuan heard soft footsteps from the area of her bedroom, the master bedroom. Moiraine must have taken her bed back for the night that she was not home. Siuan couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Internally, deep down though it may have been, she was honestly worried that something had happened to Moiraine. She’d been worried that she’d come home and her spirit would no longer be there, she’d be so alone without her, and the realisation startled her. She pushed it into the back of her mind; she’d deal with that situation later.

“What is that?” Leane’s voice strained slightly as she listened and tried to be quiet.

The floor creaked and popped for several seconds before the heavy door of the master bedroom groaned and opened; the old hinges needed to be oiled.

Siuan turned to her friend with a gentle smile on her face. “It’s Moiraine.”

Leane’s brows furrowed. While she’d wanted to see her, she was still slightly on edge. Though very little of it came from the thought of a ghost near her, but rather the look in Siuan’s eyes.

Her footsteps rounded the corner, and the top step of the staircase groaned in protest. Leane’s attention snapped immediately to her location, and Siuan followed at a more leisurely pace; she was used to the woman by now.

With one hand on the banister, Moiraine’s face was in her other hand. She blocked the light from her face and rubbed at her eyes while she slowly stepped down the stairs one at a time

Siuan was gifted with a glorious sight. Moiraine was wearing nothing but an oversized silk shirt. The bottom of the shirt fell almost mid-thigh. The sleeves were loose and so was the collar, but it made Moiraine look a lot smaller than she was. Siuan's eyes trailed upward to her pale, exposed legs, calves, and further still to her thighs.

Siuan stared at her, mouth open slightly.

“Light, no more Oosquai. Not. Ever. Again,” Moiraine murmured lowly to herself, and it was barely audible to the two women.

She cleared her throat, but Moiraine didn’t seem to hear her.

Leane watched the woman as she descended the stairs, and before their eyes, her state of existence shifted. Where she had been corporeal as solid as any other woman made of flesh and blood (though her clarity diffused by the veil of death), she flickered and became translucent. Leane blinked, surprised, but as soon as her form became insubstantial, he shifted back to corporeal once again.

Leane turned to look at Siuan, a little startled. “Does she do that often?” she whispered.

Siuan sighed and whispered back. “She’s not really concentrating. I’m not even sure she’s aware we’re here.”

Nodding, Leane turned and followed Moiraine with her eyes as she stepped off the staircase. She stepped passed her, barely a breath’s width away. She vanished in thin air, though the creaking floor still gave away her presence.

Both women spun around, glancing about for her. By the entrance to the servants’ staircase, Moiraine flickered once more back into their sight just as she stepped through the doorway and started down towards the kitchen. Siuan nodded her head in the direction that she’d taken, “Fancy a cuppa?”

Leane was, understandably, a little shaken by her penchant for disappearance. Moiraine Damodred was a woman she was going to have to get used to, for her friend’s sake.

By the time the two women reached the kitchen (they had elected to follow Moiraine at a distance), the ghostly figure was already standing by her copper kettle, with her hands on the counter and looking out the wide-open window leading to the back of Sunriver’s property. Glancing back down to the wide sink in front of her hips, Moiraine lifted a hand and rubbed the back of her neck slowly; she was trying to work the ache and kink of sleeping in a strange angle out of her spine.

Leane, trying to overcome the wariness in her mind at being exposed to a spirit haunting the house her friend inhabited, decided on another way of distracting herself from the thoughts of Moiraine's reality. Her eyes trailed up and down Moiraine's almost corporeal form, tracing the slight curves. She tilted her head slightly as her eyes trailed down over Moiraine's backside and down to her feet. Leane smirked and lifted her eyes back to Siuan. “I can see why you’ve been staying cooped up in this house - she’s gorgeous… in an otherworldly sense.”

Siuan flushed and moved to answer her friend, but Moiraine’s shoulders tensed when she heard the two women. Spinning herself around quickly, her gaze finally caught the pair.

Unearthly-coloured eyes widened as her face flushed bright crimson. Moiraine quickly folded her arms across her chest in a lame attempt to hide from the two women. It wasn’t proper. “Siuan!” her name rushed from her lips in a breathy little gasp.

Siuan smiled a little, having not expected the way that her name was like an invocation upon her lips. She cleared her throat to disguise any appearance of embarrassment on her end. “Moiraine.”

Leane, on the other hand, was still smirking naughtily as she looked between the two of them; the ghost and the mistress of her home. There was something in the way that they looked upon each other. Oh yes, something was definitely growing between the housemates, whether they realised it or not.

Moiraine half-grinned and half cringed with a painful expression of embarrassment. “Good morning.”

She moved to uncross her arms and step away from the counter. “I should go dress properly; I will return momentar-“ the copper kettle off to her side began to whistle loudly and cut her words short. With the rosy blush still in her cheeks, Moiraine turned away from the two women. She quickly took the kettle off of the stove and set it aside before turning off the burner.

Leane elbowed Siuan lightly before she turned to look at the other woman. Grinning at Siuan, she wiggled her eyebrows.

Siuan snorted slightly as she rolled her eyes. “Oh shut up.”

Moiraine glanced up from pouring the boiled water into the white teapot that sat on the tray on the counter. “I’m sorry,” she swallowed a little, though she cringed again as the sunlight emerged from behind a cloud and shone in through the window once more, falling over her face.

Siuan’s spine straightened as she stood up fully with her eyes widened. “Oh! Not you, Moiraine. Sorry, I was telling this one to shut up, not you.”

“Ah,” she swallowed slightly.

“Well, aren’t you going to introduce me?” Leane finally perked up as she looked between the two souls separated by life and death. Better to have proper introductions than allow this awkwardness to continue.

“Sorry… Moiraine, this is my friend Leane. Leane, this is Moiraine.”

Despite her lack of proper clothing. Moiraine greeted her. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

Leane’s little smirk broke out into a bright, if not slightly devious, grin. “The pleasure is all mine,” she purred.

Beside Leane, Siuans body tensed as she glared at her friend. “You’re embarrassing me,” she hissed lowly.

“How? I’m being perfectly friendly.”

“No, you’re being...” Siuan trailed off.

“Moiraine, do you think I’m being anything but friendly? Honestly, I don’t know what Siuan is on about.” She quipped

Siuan glanced up and realised that Moiraine’s attention was on her, even though Leane was speaking to her. Siuan swallowed slightly, noticing the affectionate, half-lidded gaze that Moiraine was giving her. Maybe she was just protecting her aching eyes from the light.

Moiraine kept her eyes on Siuan, even while she answered Leane. “If you say so,” Her gaze flickered back to Leane, who stumbled slightly over her words.

Leane arched an eyebrow.

Moiraine’s attention returned to Siuan, and she smiled warmly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I really am going to be back in a moment,” she said, and stepping passed the two women as she left the kitchen.

They could hear the staircases and the wooden floors creaking under her feet as she made her way up to the master bedroom once more.

Leane turned to Siuan with a teasing smile.

“You really are comfortable here with her, aren’t you?” Leane asked after a momentary silence.

Siuan lifted her eyes to her friend once more. “I won’t say it’s not lonely here, because it is. But Moiraine’s presence is a balm to that loneliness. She’s a friend who’s always here with me, and I enjoy her company

“Except that she’s d-,“ Leane was swiftly cut short as Moiraine strode back into the kitchen.

Dressed properly. Moiraine stepped passed Leane and walked towards the sink. Picking up the pot of tea that she’d allowed to steep, she turned around and returned to the butcher block table where Siuan stood. She moved one of her teacups in front of herself and poured the tea slowly into it. Moiraine glanced up to Leane as she stood shoulder to shoulder with Siuan. “She’s what?”

Leane stammered, trying to think of how to cover her misstep. “She’s… she’s dependable,” she finally blurted out.

“Mmm,” Moiraine hummed as she set the teapot aside. She knew that wasn’t what the woman had been about to say, but she didn’t voice the opinion.

Lifting the cup of tea to her lips, she took a long draw from it and relaxed. “That’s better. Now,” she turned to face Siuan. “How was your New Year’s Eve?”

Siuan looked up at her and pushed her curls aside as she turned to face her with a grin. “It was good! And yours?”

“Good as well.” she replied.

Leane, again, watched the ease between the two people.

“Go on, sit,” Siuan said to Leane, who was still standing.

Leane eyed Moiraine for a moment, reading into her and deciphering who and what she was.

Her brow lifted slightly. “I won’t bite.”

Leane, realising the look she’d been giving her, cleared her throat softly. “Sorry, I was just lost in thought.”

The midmorning tea soon turned into lunch, and then afternoon tea, and finally dinner. The two women ate while they sat with the ghost of the house. Leane had finally grown accustomed to her and almost forgot that she was not a living, breathing human being anymore, no matter if her breast rose and fell or if she gave off a faint warmth. But it was always present in her mind; they were speaking to a dead woman. Siuan was laughing and joking with a woman who had died one hundred and one years before she was born.

With the used dinner plates sitting on the table in front of them in the laughter-filled living room, Leane gave the punchline of the joke she’d been telling. Beside her, Siuan erupted in a fit of giggles while Moiraine smiled brightly.

But as the clock tolled eight o’clock in the evening, Leane lifted her wrist and glanced to the face of her watch. en glanced back up to Siuan.“It’s getting late, hun, and I should really be going,” she smiled a little sorrowfully.

Siuan’s laughter faded away as she looked up to her best friend. She lifted herself up from the couch as Moiraine straightened her posture once more. “Are you sure you’d rather not stay the night?”

Leane shook her head. “Sorry, Siuan, maybe next time. I’ve got work to do in the early afternoon tomorrow, so if I want to be home by the early morning, I need to head out now.”

Siuan shook her head as she stepped around the coffee table. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not taking the train. It’s a thirteen-hour trip for god’s sake! I’ll drive you home again.” She walked towards the other woman.

Leane shook her head gently, “No, it’s fine! I’ll take the train, you already drove to Salidar once in the last two days; I’m not going to ask you to drive all the way there and all the way back.”

“I’m not asking you to ask. I’m going to drive you.”

Leane’s eyes flickered to where Moiraine sat on the settee before her attention returned to her friend. “Siuan, it’s a four hour drive, both ways… I’m not going to have you on the road for eight hours. I don’t want you driving back at one in the morning.”

“So I’ll stay the night at yours,” Siuan shrugged, but again, Leane shook her head.

“It’s fine, Siuan. Really. Just see me out the door,” she nodded her head towards the entrance way. She really hoped that the woman would understand that she wanted to talk to her in private, away from the spectre of Moiraine Damodred.

Siuan sighed softly and nodded her head. “Alright, Leane, if you really insist. I mean it’s no bother to-“

“Siuan Sanche,” Leane spoke sternly before turning to Moiraine with a smile. “Good evening, Moiraine. It was lovely to finally meet you.”

“And you, Leane. I’m happy to finally have a face to put to the name,” she smiled warmly.

“You look after my Siuan.” Completely serious, Leane gazed firmly into Moiraine’s eyes.

Though caught slightly off-guard, Moiraine nodded her head. “Of course, Leane. I will look after her.”

“I can take care of myself just fine!” Siuan looked between them, irritated to be spoken of as though she wasn’t standing right there.

Leane focused her gaze solely on Moiraine. “Yes, she can take care of herself. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need someone to be there for her.” The woman’s voice was mildly stern.

Moiraine nodded once more. “I promise I’ll look after our Siuan. Always.”

Appeased, and nodding her head in agreement, Leane once again motioned towards the entryway for Siuan to follow her.

Sighing, Siuan followed her, marching after her to the doorway. Out of earshot of Moiraine, she turned to the other woman and hissed softly, “What on earth was that about?!”

“Nothing, Siuan. I just wanted to know that she’s taking care of you and not here to hurt you.”

“Moiraine would never hurt me, Leane. That’s not who she is as a person.”

“I know, but I wanted to have her promise it.”

“Why?” Siuan huffed softly.

“Because a woman of her era is bound to her word; she’ll keep her promise. She will never forget it.” Leane looked her square in the eye."

“Leane, I’m safe. Really. I’m much more likely to fall down the stairs than I am to be hurt by that woman. Besides, it’s not possible for us to touch.

“Then explain to me how she had her hand on your shoulder when she stood beside you, pouring a glass of wine for herself at dinner.”

Siuan blinked. She had thought that she had imagined the slight pressure of Moiraine's hand and the warmth of her palm on the peak of her shoulder. “She did?” she played dumb.

“Yes, she did. And I know you know she did, but if you want to look at it that way, then fine. But be careful, Siuan, you’re walking a fine line here, and I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Siuan waved her friend off dismissively. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m a grown woman.”

Leane lowered her voice in the off-chance that the woman in question was able to hear her. “A grown woman living with the ghost of a beautiful, smart, nice woman… be careful.”

But Siuan honestly didn’t know what Leane was implying; yes, she enjoyed Moiraine’s company, as she saved her from being totally alone and cut off from the world. But she loved Moiraine as her friend and nothing more. Right?

Siuan shook her head lightly as she buried the internal argument for another day. “I promise, you don’t have to worry about me.”

Nodding, Leane grabbed her purse from the table in the entryway.

“I will drive you home, Leane. The train will take thirteen hours!”

Turning back to face her, Leane smirked gently. “I don’t need you to take me home, Siuan. Not when there’s someone here that needs you more than I do.”

“At least let me call you a cab.”

“No need; I did that while you and Moiraine were talking.”

Siuan didn’t have the time to question it as the headlights of a vehicle soon lit up the front of the country house. “Just be careful, okay? Call me when you get to the train station, call me when you get on the train, and just let me know you got home safe, alright?”

Leane smiled softly. “Of course I’ll call you.”

Closing the door after her friend, Siuan turned slowly to look back towards the living room, where Moiraine’s shadow was cast against the wall as she moved about the room. She studied the shadow for a moment, as she swallowed tightly. Did Leane have a point?

Was she falling irrevocably in love with the ghost?

Squeezing her eyes shut, Siuan forced the thought from her mind. Of course, she wasn’t falling for her charms; she was just fond of Moiraine; she was a friend to her. It was nothing more than camaraderie, right? Deep down in her heart, something nagged at her. Siuan worried her lip as she moved back into the living room.

-

The winter passed away quietly. Siuan worked on sketches of her ghostly muse when she wished; she kept a running folder on her desk of various drawings of her. There were dozens; some were charcoal, others graphite, India ink, pastel, and even the occasional ballpoint pen drawing. She drew Moiraine when she wanted to plan her portrait, spending hours having her pose in various ways. She drew Moiraine when she found herself unable to relax. She drew Moiraine as she sat drinking her tea or reading late into the night. She drew Moiraine when she was on the phone with her friends, and Moiraine was nowhere to be found. Over the months, Siuan became adept at drawing the woman she could barely see; her fingers learned what was to be learned of her physical traits and were able to replicate them without a second thought.

Though, she found herself wishing she could truly know Moiraine's face. She had managed to draw what her best guess of her features were and drew them as such time and time again, but the ski-jump nose and the pronounced but soft-edged cheekbones didn’t feel right to her. She knew it was wrong, and it drove her a little insane, though she didn’t know how she was expected to fix it.

By mid-March, she was reconsidering the whole idea of painting the woman. Not because she didn’t want a record of her to be left in the house, but because she couldn’t be positive her face was correct. She knew it wasn’t, but she didn’t know what was wrong with it.

Staring at a page in her sketchbook that was full of various drawings of Moiraine’s face, a study from various angles, she was getting more and more exasperated. Nothing felt right. All she wanted to do was rip the page out and tear it into shreds. Giving in, she shifted her weight suddenly on the settee and moved to grab the page.

“Siuan, no!” Moiraine gasped as she walked passed her couch. “Don’t do that!”

She huffed out exasperatedly. “And why not?” she looked up at her as she stood over her.

“Because you’ve spent hours drawing those; don’t destroy them.” Her voice was soft.

“But they don’t look like you,” she sighed as her shoulders slumped forward and her death grip on the paper relaxed.

Moiraine tilted her head to look at the paper in her hands as she sat down beside her on the settee. “No, they don’t. But they’re close.” Moiraine's eyes flickered up to hers. Siuan looked at her dubiously. “Really, they are close,”

“What am I doing wrong?” Siuan sighed softly as her eyes moved back down to the paper in front of her.

Moiraine’s fingertip traced the drawings carefully. “Here, this isn’t quite right.”

“The nose?” Siuan lifted her eyes back to her again, and Moiraine nodded.

“My nose is quite straight in profile, without any curve along the bridge. The tip is subtle, slightly refined, not upturned, at least when you look at me from the front... Does that help?” Her eyes lifted to hers once again.

Siuan’s brows furrowed as she looked at the paper in front of her. Her eyes moved over each of the sketches, and picking up on what she wasn’t entirely keen on, she lifted her vinyl eraser and carefully removed the nose before lightly sketching one that matched Moiraine's description. Chewing her lip, she worked for a moment, mapping out the sketch, before filling in the proper lines. “Like this?”

Moiraine’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Perfect! That’s my nose!” She said as her eyes focused on Siuan’s.

Smiling brightly, she looked back at the paper. “I quite like that; it’s better than the ski-jump,” she giggled. “What else is off?”

“Okay. The jaw.”

“Oh?” Siuan’s brows furrowed. She’d drawn it softly, but apparently it had still been too strongly shaped.

“Here, I have an idea.” Moiraine shifted her weight and changed her position as she turned ers head to the side. She lifted her hand to just under her ear. “Can you see my hand?”

“Yes,” Siuan nodded.

I’m going to trace the line of my jaw.” Her fingers pressed down against her flesh and slowly mapped out the angle of her lower jaw.

Siuan followed her hand with her eyes before turning back to her drawing, erasing the jawline and redrawing it. She offered it to Moiraine once more for her inspection.

Moiraine’s eyes studied the drawing again, and she nodded with a smile. “Yes. Now, the mouth.”

“What’s wrong with the mouth?” Her brows knit tightly. “I thought it was pretty good.”

“It’s drawn well, but that’s not my mouth. It’s not far off, mind, but it’s not mine. My mouth is less wide, like an elongated Cupid’s bow. Top lip and bottom lip are, generally speaking, nearly the same fullness.” Moiraine tapped her lips with her fingertip, “and my cheekbones are a little sharper, but other than that,”

Siuan nodded and returned to her drawing. Carefully reshaping the mouth, she again turned the sketchbook to face Moiraine. She grinned and nodded her head. “That’s me. That’s my face.”

Siuan turned the book back to herself and stared at the drawing. This wasn’t the woman she had drawn on the page; this was better. This felt right. Still, she knew the drawing was only an approximation of her. She’d never be able to truly replicate Moiraine without being able to properly see her face without the veil of death. But this was a face that she was more confident with painting and feeling like she was recording the Lady of Cairhien correctly for posterity.

She moved on to the other sketches, changing their features one by one until the entire set looked like the woman had in life and not the poor interpretation of her blurred features that she had concocted in her mind.

She spent a few days redrawing her previous favourite sketches, getting used to this face before she attempted to move on to the next part of the portrait. By April, when the land was starting to thaw from the long winter, Siuan finally found the perfect pose for the portrait of her ghostly companion.

Bundled up in a cardigan and boots, Siuan stood outside in the early morning sunlight with her easel and canvas set up. Moiraine stood in front of her, positioned as she wanted her, underneath the three rowan tress.

The soft morning sunlight filtered down between the newly opening leaves and shown down in mottled light beams upon the ghostly woman. The effect bathed her in a soft light fit for a William-Adolphe Bouguereau-esque portrait. Lifting her eyes, Siuan stared at the vision of the woman before her for a moment. The light illuminating her being was perfect, idealistic to the point that if Siuan could capture it, she knew that her portrait of the woman could easily be one of her best pieces to date, even a masterpiece. But she knew that the lighting wouldn’t last in this state for long, and she still needed to properly sketch the figure onto her prepared canvas.

Siuan continued to stare at her for a long moment. She worried her lip as she considered her best option. Lowering her eyes, she quickly glanced around her, and finally her eyes settled on her phone. Swallowing tightly, she picked up the iPhone and lifted it, aiming it at the woman standing beneath the rowan trees. She framed her and tapped the screen to capture a photo. With the soft sound of the shudder, she lowered her phone once again and looked at the screen. Her heart sank. No matter that Moiraine was standing there beneath the trees right in front of her, there was no evidence of her in the photo. It was only a photo of the light streaming through the rowans and falling on the newly growing green grass at their feet. There wasn’t even a shadowy place to show where he had ever been. Crestfallen, Siuan put the phone aside and forced herself to pretend that she hadn’t ever attempted to photograph the ghost.

Clearing her throat slightly, she lifted her pencil and started the sketch on the canvas. Her sheet of reference sketches of her face (approved by Moiraine) sat taped to the top corner of the canvas. Her eyes flickered back and forth between the canvas and the page from the sketchbook as she sketched out her pose.

Under the rowans, Moiraine put her hands onto her lower back and arched her spine. She groaned a little as her vertebrae shifted back into place.

“Are you alright?” Siuan looked up as she swirled her paintbrushes around in a mason jar full of paint water.

“I’m fine. Just a bit stiff. I can’t sit or stand for too long without my back aching,” Moiraine shrugged her shoulders easily as she massaged at her lower back. Realising that perhaps she shouldn’t have moved out of position yet, she froze in place. “Sorry, should I go back to the way I was?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I think we’re good for now; the sun’s changed and you’ve been there an awfully long time. Sorry, I didn’t realise that your back bothered you that much.” Siuan shook her head, even while she eyed her a little worriedly.

Moiraine waved her off dismissively as she crossed the distance between the rowan trees and her easel. “It’s alright. How would you have known?”

“Did you injure your back?” Siuan ran her eyes up and down Moiraine's posture, discreetly looking to see what the issue was.

“Ages ago, when I was a kid.” Moiraine smiled half-heartedly as she shrugged her shoulders again.

“What happened?” Siuan listened interestedly as she tidied up the mess that was her scattered paint tubes.

“I fell from a horse. Anyway, it was a bad injury. Still aches at times.” Moiraine smiled softly as she rounded the easel to stand at her side and examine the painting in progress.

Moiraine looked up at her sharply. “Light, Moiraine! Oh, how your mother must have worried!”

“I used to drive her batty,” She said before turning her attention back to the canvas. Moiraine smiled brightly, eyes flickering quickly over the sketched form of herself.

“It’s looking amazing. I knew it would.” Moiraine turned her brilliant smile to her, and Siuan felt the weight on her shoulders lift.

“Thank you.” She returned her gentle smile before turning to a notebook at her side and scrawling the number of hours she’d spent working outside on the painting. Closing the book once again, she moved everything around before starting to gather up her supplies and the easel to bring them inside for the rest of the afternoon. She couldn’t risk a spring shower destroying her hard work.

“You’re welcome.” Moiraine said, taking one of Siuan’s curls and rolling it around her finger. Siuan still had to get used to the faint sense of pressure and warmth without being able to feel her touch, but she smiled, nonetheless.

After the dark had settled for the night. Siuan moved the easel back into her studio upstairs. With Moiraine following behind her, she set up the painting once again so that she could move around her and stand by the window.

Moiraine stepped around her as she set up her workstation yet again. Positioning herself by the window, she glanced back at her. “Is here alright?”

Siuan looked up from opening paint tubes and nodded her head, “There’s fine.”

Moiraine nodded silently and moved herself back into the proud pose that she’d decided on for her portrait. Straightening her back and ignoring any little twinge that she was already feeling in the muscles. She lifted her jaw and looked back at Siuan with a slight smile as she immobilised herself in place.

Siuan reached over and flicked on a few lights, one near to herself that would allow her to see the colour of her paints properly. The others she aimed at Moiraine, allowing a partial mimicking of the sunlight from the morning. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave her a decent idea of the locations of shadows and the values that she needed to mix and block in.

Several hours passed by as Siuan mixed paints and applied them to the canvas, slowly blending the colours together and starting on the first layer of tightening lines and shapes together, starting to solidify the form of the woman in her portrait.

As the hour started to grow late and the moon began to set in the sky, Siuan stepped back from the canvas. She pushed her hair back from her face, ignoring the fact that she’d covered her curls in a mixture of paints. Her hands and face were smeared with paint, but it didn’t matter; the golden whorls would match her skin. But her shoulders were aching again and she knew that Moiraine herself must have been starting to feel the effects of remaining immobile for so long. Eyes flickering up to her muse over the top of her easel, she noticed that her form was starting to tremble. ‘Poor thing….’

“You can relax now, Moiraine. I’m done for the night,” she smiled tenderly.

Her shoulders immediately slumped as she relaxed her frame. It dissolved and vanished as the woman reached her hands around her body and once again massaged her tightened lower back.

“Are you alright?” Siuan asked.

“Just fine. A Bit sore, but nothing I can’t manage,” she said before her face screwed up a little in pain.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you stand like that for so long, Moiraine, I’m sorry-“

“You didn’t make me do anything. If I wanted to, I could have easily stopped ages ago. But maybe we could wait a few days for the next session? If that’s alright with you?” She looked her over with a slightly worried expression on her face.

Siuan immediately nodded her head, “Yes, of course. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

She nodded and crossed the distance between them, then turned to the easel to examine the painting in progress. Moiraine could see the general shape of herself now; her form was more concreted, while the landscape with the rowan trees around her remained soft and muted so far. “It’s wonderful, Siuan .”

She flushed a little as she looked back at the painting. “Again, thank you.”

“I mean it, you’ve got talent. And I’m honoured to be your chosen subject,” she said and smiled affectionately down at her, her half-lidded eyes full of warmth.

“Well, you’re very enigmatic; it would be difficult to ignore the creativity you inspire in me.” Siuan’s eyes met hers.

Siuan and Moiraine stared at each other for what felt like an eternity.

Deep down inside of her, somewhere that she’d thought she’d shut away from the light long ago to protect herself, Siuan felt a tiny little spark of light that bloomed into a warmth that filled her soul. Her heart skipped a beat as she felt a few little butterflies flutter down in her belly.

This wasn’t happening.

Clearing her throat softly, she tore her eyes away from Moiraine's as she forced a wan smile. “Well, it’s quite late.”

“Good night, Siuan,” she said warmly.

“Good night, Moiraine.”

Lying awake in her bed that night. Her thoughts were circling and starting to spin out of control. Was she falling in love? She didn’t think so. Sure, if Moiraine were alive and made of flesh and blood and not cold mist, Siuan would have found her endearing; she already did in a sense (even ignoring her state of death). But she was not falling in love with her. She couldn’t be; it was too ridiculous.

Siuan groaned as she brought her hands up to her face; she hid away behind her palms. She shouldn’t even have had to consider this thought at all. She could speculate all she wanted on what could have been if Moiraine was born two hundred years later and was alive, living in Cairhien, but Siuan had never put any real stock into the thought that she was falling in love with the woman as she was, a ghost locked in her chosen afterlife by horrible circumstances.

No. Siuan was definitely not falling in love with a ghost. No matter how wonderful she might be.

Closing her eyes, Siuan finally fell into a restless sleep punctuated by dreams of Moiraine.

In the light of the new day, Siuan stared up at the ceiling of the master bedroom. Her mind was a flurry with thoughts, thoughts that she couldn’t quite settle. Most of them centred on Moiraine. With the sunlight streaming in through the window of the bedroom, Siuan tried to ignore most of the thoughts that were swirling around inside her skull, but the way that she’d gazed at her so affectionately the night before, well… it was hard to get the look of adoration out of her mind.

When had Moiraine started looking at her like that? Was that the first time? It had to have been the first time she gave her that look; she would have noticed it otherwise!

Wouldn’t she?

After all, a woman doesn’t give a look of adoration and dare she say it… love without her noticing it.

Siuan sighed as she turned over onto her side and looked towards the alarm clock on the nightstand beside her. It was only half-passed eight in the morning. Rubbing at her face, she tried to settle her thoughts once again. ‘Even if she loves you, it’s because she’s been lonely for years, and you’re a woman who isn’t her sister living in her house-’ She brought her hands to her face and pressed against her eyes.

She froze as she could hear the bedroom door creaking open, and the empty atmosphere shifted. She kept her face in her hands, holding as still as she could.

“Are you awake?” Moiraine’s voice whispered from the doorway, and despite herself, Siuan parted her fingers and gazed up at her. The woman was holding the doorknob with one hand as she leaned her head into the room that technically belonged to her.

“I am,” Siuan sighed and forced a smile as she avoided meeting the woman’s eyes.

If Moiraine noticed the change in her demeanour around her, she ignored it. “I know it’s early, but I thought maybe you’d like to join me outside?” She chewed her lip, and even without looking at her, Siuan could hear the strangled enthusiasm and hope in her voice.

‘Oh light, when did Moiraine start sounding like that?’

“I’m always excited and happy to spend time with you.” She said, and Siuan cursed herself, realising that she’d spoken aloud once more. “It’s quite warm out, and I thought a day out in the sun without any goals would be a nice change after the cold, dark winter.” She swallowed tightly around the lump in her throat. “Was I wrong?”

Siuan pushed herself up from the nest of bedclothes that had bundled around her in her sleep. “No, you weren’t wrong. Give me ten minutes?” She glanced up and finally met Moiraine's diffused face. Her breath caught in her throat as she witnessed the barely contained look of expectation, the slight and nervous smile pulling at her lips, the faint brows lifted in hope, and most of all, the look of pure adoration glimmering in those stormy-coloured irises. Her heart fluttered in her breast.

Moiraine nodded excitedly, “Of course. I’ll meet you out in the courtyard, yes?”

Siuan forced another smile and nodded her head brightly, “Yes, Love.” Suddenly, that term felt a little too affectionate for their situation.

In the courtyard ten minutes later, Siuan found Moiraine. They walked in an amiable silence as they crossed through the dead and slightly soggy long grasses that soon would be replaced by a new verge. Siuan looked out over the land, glad to see it free of snow once again. Sunriver was beautiful in the winter, but it had nothing on its spring and summer spectacular.

Eventually, Siuan found herself seated beside Moiraine on the old stone Roman bridge, their legs dangling off of the side as they basked together in the warming spring sunlight.

“You know,” Moiraine hedged carefully, and Siuan turned her head to look at her. Moiraine gave her an open, slightly worried expression for a moment. “I know almost everything about you – but I still don’t understand why you’re here alone.”

Siuan’s brows furrowed together. “I told you about my last relationship-“

“Yes, I know that part. I just… I don’t understand how you can still be alone. You’re kind and adventurous and intelligent – you’re gorgeous! Siuan, you’re amazing, and I can’t understand why no one sees that,” she said with a slight blush on her cheeks.

Siuan stared at her for a long, quiet moment before her soft voice broke the mild tension between them. “Well, you see it.”

Moiraine turned to look at her, and her expression of bewilderment melted away into one of warm affection. “Yes, I do.” She leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Siuan's shoulder; Siuan’s eyes closed in pleasure. She could feel her warm breath puffing against her flesh, and she relaxed a little as the silence fell between them once more.

This was wrong, and she knew it. But she really didn’t care.

“You know, Sunriver is beautiful in the spring,” Siuan hummed happily.

“Yes, it is.” Moiraine glanced at her with a smile. “But it’s not the only thing.”

Siuan smiled as she looked up at Moiraine through her lashes.

Despite everything, she was glad that she’d bought Sunriver Manor and hadn’t run away at the first sign of paranormal activity. She was glad that she’d stayed in the house.

The next morning, Siuan set to work clearing out the dead plant material from the gardens that surrounded the house. Spring was well on its way, and she wanted to get a head start on the growing season. Her desire was to plant a garden that would flower in intervals until the late autumn, forever shifting and changing colours with the blooming seasons of the plants.

Kneeling in the garden and dressed in tattered jeans and a cardigan on over a t-shirt, Siuan pulled at the annuals that she had planted the year before. This was her element, even more than painting; the garden was what pleased her more than anything. It was part of the reason she’d bought Sunriver Manor; there was so much raw potential. She could cover the land, every inch of every acre, in flowers, and it would glow, and Moiraine would never argue with her; she would let her do as she pleased to her land.

Siuans smiled to herself as she tugged on the stocks of old flowers. Behind her, she could hear the sound of prancing hooves. She kept her eyes forward, despite the fact that she knew Moiraine and Aldieb were vying for her attention; she wasn’t going to give in, not yet. Smiling softly to herself as she hummed a soft tune, she leaned further in and felt the cold, muddy water seep into the knees of her denims.

Aldieb shook her head and snorted slightly as she pranced around the corner from the stables. Her hooves scrabbled slightly against the gravel of the courtyard as her rider kept balance on her back. The horse snorted as she approached Siuan, and while the horse’s presence so close still made the woman slightly uneasy, she ignored it as she worked in the garden.

“Siuan,” Moiraine called down to her softly.

Siuan playfully ignored her.

“Siuan!” she called again.

“Oh? Were you talking to me?” Siuan glanced over her shoulder back at her, with a slight smirk on her lips.

“Yes, I was talking to you.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening,” Siuan chuckled as she sat back on her heels and tilted her head back to look up at her. “Was there something you needed?”

“It’s Thursday!”

“What about Thur - oh! The market!” Siuan’s eyes widened as she realised. Standing to her feet, she brushed the mud and grass off of her knees..

“Yes, the market!” Moiraine said as Aldieb fidgeted once more. “Let’s go.”

Siuan eyed the horse dubiously. “Moiraine, I can’t possibly ride that beast with you, you know that,” she giggled, though it was tinged with sorrow.

Moiraine shook her head. “I’m only taking Aldieb out because she needs the exercise after the winter. We’re only going to go at a walk pace, aren’t we, Aldieb?” She looked down at the horse. The horse huffed and shook her mane out in semi-protest.

Siuan smiled softly. “Give me a few minutes to get changed?”

“Why? You look fine.”

“I’m covered in mud and I look like a mess,” She folded her arms over her chest.

“Alright,” Moiraine nodded. “Hurry up.”

Siuan spun around and ran back toward the house. She rummaged through her things for a pair of trousers and a blouse. She pulled them on quickly, tugged on her boots, and snatched up a ribbon to tie her curls back from her face. The whole process took her less than five minutes.

“I have to lock up the house!” Siuan said.

“What? No, you don’t. Anvaere and Barthanes and everyone else are still home; it’ll be fine.”

Giving in, though with a sense of trepidation, Siuan walked at Aldieb’s side as they started down the laneway that led into Cairhien village.

After a moment, Moiraine spoke up once more. “What are you thinking of planting in the gardens this spring?” she looked down at her interestedly.

Siuan shrugged her shoulders. She hadn’t really thought about it yet, but she was more than willing to go entirely based on her instinct when she saw a display of flowers and plants. Still, she thought of one thing she wanted to grow on the land of Sunriver Manor, even if the village was already known for it. “Lavender.” She looked up at Moiraine.

“Lavender?”

“Yes. I never really liked lavender before, but…”

“But?” Moiraine asked.

‘But I’ve learned to associate it with you, and it’s a comforting scent when I can’t sleep, just like you’re a comfort when I’m upset and alone,’ Siuan thought to herself. “But I’ve come to like it after getting used to it in the last year.” She smiled up at her.

Moiraine smiled and nodded her head to her as they made their way into Cairhien and along the cobblestoned streets.

In the town square, the Thursday market was in full swing, with venders selling their produce, rather limited due to the winter, and wares. As always, several vendors were set up with bushels of fresh and dried flowers. Customers were already bustling about as they shopped for their weekly groceries and supplies.

Siuan giggled happily as she and Moiraine entered the marketplace.

A couple of shoppers near to the vendor selling late-season apples glanced up from putting their purchases into a fabric bag. The two women looked towards Siuan, seeing the woman as she giggled and walked alone.

The first woman, with the black hair, turned to her friend and shook her head slightly. “She’s talking to herself again. I told you that house is no good,” she sighed softly. “It’s a shame, really. I quite liked her.”

The second woman, the redhead with gray eyes that Siuan had encountered the first time she had ever witnessed Moiraine Damodred, the woman who had been able to see her over Siuan’s shoulder, even when Siuan herself could not see the ghostly woman, looked to her friend, and her brows furrowed tightly. A look of irritated confusion was locked on her features. “Are you mad? She’s not talking to herself. Don’t you see her?”

“See who?” The raven-haired woman’s brows furrowed, and she looked back towards the woman who owned Sunriver Manor as she now stood looking through fresh flowers. She glanced back towards the redhead.

“Rina, are you kidding me? You don’t see her?” she emphasised as she motioned her hand towards the woman with the curls once more.

Rina looked once again to the woman and finally noticed the faint, shadowy figure beside Siuan. If it weren’t for her friend pointing it out, she would never have seen her. She gasped slightly and quickly turned back to look at her friend. “Wait, wait... I thought,“

“You haven’t been living in Cairhien long enough to really know.”

“I’ve been living here for five years, Zarya.” Rina’s voice was stern, but still masked by a bit of fear. “Who or what on Earth is that?” she hissed.

Zarya sighed exasperatedly. “That’s Moiraine Damodred, the Lady of Cairhien-“

“She’s a shadow, Zarya!”

“Only the first time you see her! Now that you’ve seen that much of her, the next time you see her, she’ll be a proper vision. That’s how it always works,” Zarya shrugged her shoulders. “I know, it’s terrifying, but you get used to her.”

“Okay, but who is she?” Rina pushed her dark hair back from her face.

Zarya stared back at her friend for a long moment. “She’s who she’s always been. She’s her soulmate.”

Chapter Text

Siuan lifted a bushel of blue cornflowers that had been tied together by a fine twine and held it out for Moiraine as she stood at her side, holding the reins of her horse. Moiraine leaned in and sniffed the bundle, but shook her head vigorously. Siuan couldn’t help but laugh even as the vendor glanced up at the two of them.

“They smell like nothing!” Moiraine commented.

“They smell like cornflowers!!” She retorted

“Cornflowers don’t have a scent,” She explained. “If you like them, then yes, of course, buy them. But if you’re going for scent alone, no.”

Siuan pressed her lips together thoughtfully, looking at her. “I was thinking of buying the cornflowers along with the bouquet of lavender. I thought the mixture of blue and violet would look lovely in the kitchen and the master bedroom.”

Moiraine hummed non-committedly as she nodded.

“You don’t like that idea?” Siuan asked.

“I never said that. I’m just thinking.” Moiraine looked once again to the selection of flowers in front of them. “What if you mixed the blue cornflowers with the lavender and the gardenias?”

“The gardenias?” Siuan turned to look at the display of flowers once more as the sun passed behind a cloud and the market became dark. She studied the flowers for a moment before humming her agreement. “Okay, the gardenias.” Adding the flowers to the rest of the produce that she had purchased, Siuan looked up at Moiraine and smiled. “That was a lovely choice, I think.”

“Glad you approve.” Moiraine lifted her eyes towards the sky. “However, I think it’s about to start raining… It’s probably best if we head back home.” Her eyes lowered to her face once more. “You have everything you needed?”

Siuan quickly looked through her purchases and nodded. “I’ve got everything I needed, you?”

Moiraine nodded and patted the leather saddlebag on Aldieb’s back. “I’ve got the salted meat and cheese that Anvaere wanted specifically, and she’s got amounts of potted flowers strewn about her quarters, so I’ll take a guess and say she’s fine for flowers. I think we’re good,” she said as she directed Siuan once more out of the marketplace and towards the laneway that would lead them back to Sunriver.

Moiraine kept her pace slow as she stayed close to Siuan’s side. As they walked together, she swallowed hard and tentatively reached out towards Siuan’s hand. She paused for a moment, unsure if she should dare to attempt what she wanted so badly, but then pressed on. Moiraine slipped her fingers between Siuan’s and squeezed gently. Her heart was racing in her chest, and she could feel the heavy pulse in her throat, but she’d actually achieved it! Moiraine was holding Siuan's hand!

Siuan’s breath hitched in her throat, and she gasped softly. Eyes widened in shock, she looked down to where Moiraine's hand entwined with hers. She could feel her fingers between hers, feel the warmth of her hand, and the almost solid state of her flesh. Her heart was racing as she looked down at their entwined hands; she wouldn’t lie; they looked like they belonged together.

Shyly, they met each other’s eyes with a small little smile. Their cheeks burned, but neither pulled away. Their hands remained entwined as they walked back to Sunriver.

The rain started pouring down as the front door of the country house closed behind them, Aldieb safely put away in his stable. Siuan giggled as she panted; they had run from the stables to the house when they heard the distinct rumble of thunder overhead. It was still very early in the year for a thunderstorm, but the sky was terribly blackened. “I think we just made it,” She ran a hand through her curls and ruffled her hair out.

“You’re right," Moiraine said, panting through her laughter. “I suppose the garden will have to wait for another day.”

She sighed softly as she looked out the door behind Moiraine’s shoulder. “Unless you want to plant seaweed and tend to it by learning how to dive, then I’d say yes,”

Moiraine chuckled.

Siuan looked her over and worried her lip for a moment. She didn’t realise that she was staring at her. Moiraine, however, did notice.

“Are you alright?” Moiraine asked.

“Hmm? Oh! Sorry, I was just wondering…” Siuan said pensively.

Moiraine couldn't help the smile that threatened to lift the edges of her mouth, but she tamped it down regardless. “You want to paint, don’t you?”

“What? No, I was just curious if you were feeling better!”

She knew what Siuan was thinking. “Yes… You want to paint,”

Siuan felt her cheeks grow warm. “Am I that obvious?”

“A little. But yes, my back is alright today and I’ll pose if you ask me to.” Moiraine replied evenly

“Would you please pose for me?” Siuan asked with her own coy smile.

“Mmm… no,” A slow, flirtatious smirk crawled easily across her face.“Yes, of course, I just-“ Her eyes widened and her voice faltered as she looked passed her shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” Siuan’s brows furrowed as she turned and looked up the staircase.

Anvaere was standing a few stairs from the top, watching them. Her hand lingered on the banister as she watched them with inquiring eyes. Dressed in a dark blue dress and her hair tied up into a neat ponytail. Anvaere focused on her sister and the woman she had introduced her to at Christmas. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen Siuan since the ball, and it wouldn’t be the last. She frequently noticed her sister spending more and more time with the woman, and while it warmed her heart in one way, it worried her in another.

“Hello, Anvaere,” Siuan greeted the ghostly woman. She swallowed tightly and felt just a little like a teenager caught sneaking around with a girl.

“Good morning, Siuan,” Anvaere replied drily, and turned her attention to her sister swiftly. “Moiraine, have you seen Barthanes? He promised me he’d take a bath, but he keeps running off,”

“Typical boy, Anvaere… he’d rather you left him in his layered dirt and mud.” Moiraine simply responded.

“Yes, well, he’s tracking it through your house,” Anvaere warned.

“Nothing that a mop and water won’t fix, sister,” She retorted.

Anvaere sighed deeply. “You say that now, but the moment he jumps on you when you’re wearing light colours,”

“Then we just toss him in the river and have done with it,” Moiraine smiled as she started up the stairs towards her sister.

Anvaere gave her a disparaging look. “You wouldn’t,”

“I’ve done it before.” She said, amused, as she stood on the stairs below her.

Below, Siuan watched them in amusement.

“Sorry, Anvaere, I haven’t seen the boy, and I’ve got things to do,” Moiraine continued, and Anvaere glanced between her sister and the other woman quickly before looking back into her sister’s eyes. “If I see him, I’ll send him off to you, yeah?"

“Yeah, alright. He’s probably hiding in your study or something anyway,” Anvaere said in a perfectly neutral voice.

Moiraine moved to step around her sister. “See? You’ve got it all worked out!”

Anvaere reached out one hand and caught Moiraine's arm. Stopping her sister in her movements, she leaned in close to her ear and intoned a message meant only for her.

Moiraine’s body tensed, and she slowly turned her head to look at her. She gazed at her sister for a long moment before she spoke up. “Anvaere, I am an adult woman, and I can take care of myself. I will be fine.” She stepped around her sister and moved back up onto the landing.

Anvaere watched her step around with a slightly vigilant gaze but glanced back towards Siuan, who remained standing at the bottom of the staircase. She nodded her head to the other woman, though her smile had faded back to a blank expression.

Siuan swallowed slightly; she couldn’t help but think that, somehow, Anvaere didn’t much care for her. Moiraine’s spectral sister had been gracious to her at Christmas and the few times that they had encountered one another since then, but something about the way that she gazed at Siuan sent a lead weight into her belly. She couldn’t help but think that perhaps Anvaere was wary of her.

Moiraine, realising that her artist wasn’t following her, turned around and looked down at Siuan. “Come on!”

Siuan, broken from her thoughts, nodded and started up the stairs. She smiled at Anvaere as she passed the woman before scurrying off after Moiraine herself. “You’re sister doesn’t like me.”

She glanced at Siuan over her shoulder. “Don’t be silly, Siuan."

“Could have fooled me,” Siuan sighed softly as she walked with her muse down the hall and opened the door to the studio. Moiraine strode in ahead of her and positioned herself by the window as she waited for Siuan to once again set up her work station.

Siuan glanced at her once or twice in the long moments of silence that stretched between them. Finally, she glanced up and realised that she was looking right at her, unblinking. It sent a slight shiver down her spine.

“What’s wrong?” Moiraine asked calmly as she gazed at her over her easel.

Siuan tried to shake her head dismissively, but Moiraine pressed the question again. She sighed softly. “I know your sister said something to you - about me.”

“Anvaere is just overprotective of me, has been all our lives,” Moiraine reassured her. “The point is, she just worries, that’s all.”

Siuan swallowed. “Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all.” Moiraine said softly. “She just worries because of my back, and she doesn’t want me to hurt myself further.

Siuan looked down and nodded minutely.

Moiraine sighed. “Come here.”

She looked up again. “What?”

“I said, ‘Come here.’” She beckoned her with a nod of her head.

Worrying her lip, Siuan carefully approached the window where Moiraine sat.

Moiraine looked at Siuan, who tensed.

"Siuan, I promise you, she’s just being protective of me because she’s my sister. It has nothing to do with her not liking you, I promise.” Moiraine assured her again.

Siuan closed her eyes and nodded her understanding as she drew in a deep breath. Moiraine lifted her hand and brushed her thumb over Siuan's cheek. As always, the touch was just barely there.

Her lips quirked into a smile. “Now, if you want to paint me, I’ll be happy to pose for you. If not, well…I suppose I’ll find something else to do,”

Siuan shook her head quickly. “No! I still want to paint you.” She smiled brightly as she returned to her workstation.

Nodding, Moiraine moved back into position for the painting. She froze in place as she assumed the pose she’d been working with.

Hours ticked by as Siuan mixed paints and layered thin washes of colour onto the canvas in a way reminiscent of DaVinci. Building up the layers of color, she slowly built a realistic portrait of a woman whose face she could never really see. She had her reference sketches around her, of course, which allowed her the freedom she needed. Wash after thin wash, she worked on the multitude of flesh tones, soft roses, cool slate blues; Everything came together to create a realistic texture of pallid flesh.

Covered in paint, Siuan looked up from the canvas towards Moiraine. The woman sat on the window seat, having taken a break from posing after a few hours had passed. “What colour are your eyes?”

“Uh…” Moiraine paused a moment as she looked at her, wondering the best way to answer. The pause drew on for a moment before she finally broke the tension. “Blue.”

Siuan’s eyes widened as her brows lifted. “Really?”

Moiraine blinked. “Really.”

“Blue,” she said softly. “like the sea.”

A smile budded on her lips. “Or like the sky on a clear spring day.”

Siuan nodded and disregarded the colour she was currently mixing on the palette, moving on, instead, to a mixture of two tones of blue.

Outside, the sun was setting, and the darkness of the night was starting to settle over the land. Moiraine glanced out the window behind her before she turned back to look at the woman who was currently lightly applying colour to the eyes of the painting; her tongue was thrust out of her mouth in concentration. “You’ll need to turn the light on shortly, you know.”

“No, I won’t.” Her eyes never lifted from the canvas as she kept working.

Moiraine’s barely-there eyebrows furrowed together as she watched her paint. “Why not? Are you stopping for tonight?”

Siuan shook her head and sent her already wild curls a little further abroad. “No, I’d like to finish most of your portrait tonight, if you don’t mind? Oh! How’s your back?” she glanced up with a look of worried shock. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think-“

“I’m alright. As long as I can sit while you’re working on parts you don’t need me for,” Moiraine straightened her posture. “I’m happy to pose until you’re finishe, though, I can’t promise that I’ll be very chipper by the end.”

“You don’t have to stay and pose if you’d rather not. I’m sorry, I’m keeping you away from Barthanes and- “

“You’re not forcing me to do anything. I’m a free woman to do as I please,” She hesitated but let the words spill. “And I choose to stay here and let you paint. Besides, Barthanes’s got Anvaere to take care of him.

Siuan sighed softly to herself as she nodded. “Alright, Moiraine, as long as you’re sure.”

Moiraine flashed her a flat smile. “I’m sure.”

Siuan set down the palette and moved around the room. She clicked on a desk lamp before bustling about the room and gathering several candles (which she had been using for a still-life previously) and arranged them near the subject of her painting. Producing a box of matches, she struck a flame and lit the wicks of each candle.

“Why don’t you just turn on the overhead? Surely it would give you much more light to see by.” Moiraine said as she glanced at the candles.

Siuan couldn’t help but start laughing at her confusion. “Of course it would, but then it wouldn’t be as authentic!” She beamed at her.

She shook her head gently. “Only you, Siuan.”

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,” Siuan said with a satisfied smirk

"It is.” She said, her voice low but perfectly audible.

The hours slipped by as the candles burned down and eventually sputtered out.

This is the way that three weeks passed by; each night, Siuan would work on the painting, whether it was on the figure of the woman or the mottled sunlight through the spring rowan trees. She worked and worked and worked on the details, fleshing out the painting over and over again until she was satisfied by it in the wee hours of the early morning. She wanted it to be perfect. She had repainted Moiraine several times.

Siuan would glance at Moiraine, looking for her approval or thoughts on the image as she focused on the canvas. Moiraine expression was always one of awe, and her eyes were alight with enchantment as she worked. Siuan couldn’t help but bask in the glory that her admiration of her skill inspired in her; Moiraine’s expression was one of honest wonderment.

But her vision of Moiraine’s veneration of her artwork was only ever laid bare before her for a short moment. Feeling her eyes on her, Moiraine would look up, and though her eyes continued to burn brightly, the look of awe was swept away by a brilliant smile.

“It’s amazing,” Moiraine said, her voice was breathy and barely above a soft whisper.

Lifting her hand, Moiraine brushed Siuan's curls lightly back from her face. She could feel them flutter slightly as a warmth and slight pressure brushed against her cheek. Closing her eyes, Siuan sighed softly in contentment; she could feel her hand on her, and the line between life and death was blurring for her. Moiraine was a ghost, but every time that she touched her, brushed her hair from her cheek, or held her hand, she was so close to corporeal.

Did it really matter that Moiraine was a dead woman, lost in time? Did it matter, as long as Moiraine cared for her, and Siuan for her? If they could touch, wasn’t that enough for her to be considered real?

Siuan was falling quickly, and she didn’t even see it happening. Tonight, Moiraine was once again posing for her artist.

Siuan was completely enrapt in her work - she was almost lost to the world as she kept working away at the painting. She wanted her figure to be perfect and without the slightest mistake. She wanted her painting to hang forever in the halls of Sunriver Manor. She wanted Moiraine to be remembered now, as she hadn’t been before. The spring background could wait for another day, but Moiraine… Moiraine had to be painted now, while the spirit of her enchanted her so brilliantly in the night.

She was exhausted, but she wanted to keep going, to keep pressing on as long as she could. She wanted to complete Moiraine's image tonight, finally, even if only her. The rest of the forest could wait if it needed to, but it was Moiraine that she worked on.

“Just another hour, please? Another hour and I’ll be done.” Siuan stepped around the easel and walked towards where Moiraine stood in the makeshift set.

“Of course, anything for you,” Moiraine said gently, meeting her eyes.

Their eyes met, and they held one another’s gaze for a long moment. Something irrevocable passed between them.

Without thinking, Siuan’s hand reached out as if it had a mind of its own, her fingertips hovering tantalizingly close to Moiraine’s cheek. She stared at her, rapt, caught in the pull of the moment.

As her hand reached her, she barely noticed the woman hold her breath until…

Her hand passed through Moiraine like smoke; she was no more corporeal than sunlight. She’d grown so used to her touch that it no longer crossed her mind that Moiraine was a spectre… no more substantial than mist on an early morning. The shock of it, of the inability of her to touch her, came like a bucket of icy water over her head.

Her heart skipped a beat and threatened to stop from the sudden heartbreak.

She was in love with a ghost.

Moiraine's eyes closed tightly against the heartache as Siuan’s hand passed directly through her. The area of her face, where Siuan had been trying to touch, broke away like the sea fog against the hull of a ship. Moiraine's already unclear form completely faded out where her hand passed, and the horrible truth flooded through Siuan.

She couldn’t touch Moiraine, not as Moiraine could touch her. She was only a mirage of a woman dead for more than a hundred years, a sentient imprint of energy upon the house and lands of Sunriver Manor and of Cairhien village.

Her stomach turned as nausea boiled in her stomach, bubbling up into her throat as tears pricked against the back of her eyes. “Oh, the Light…”

“Siuan…” Moiraine’s voice implored softly, but the woman pulled away from her, and her form re-solidified. “Siuan, please…”

Siuan cautiously stepped back away from her, eyes sparkling with tears and still widened in horror. Finally tearing her gaze from her, she looked to the floor as she murmured to herself, but her words were too quiet for Moiraine to hear.

“Siuan, please, listen to me-“ she pleaded again as she reached out for her hand.

She immediately pulled away, and as something snapped inside of her, she turned on her heel and ran from her studio. Moiraine sighed softly as she heard her footsteps race through the hall before pounding down the staircase.

Siuan barely remembered leaving the blue-painted bedroom, yet alone the staircase that brought her down to the main level of the manor house. She quickly tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, but it was no use. Giving in to the sorrow, she threw herself down onto the settee and drew her knees up to her chest.

Covered in paint and grime, she didn’t care if she stained the couch cushions. She didn’t care about anything at the moment. She’d not felt this alone since her father died.

She wasn’t sure that she had ever felt this alone. To be so close to someone and to be forcibly reminded that touch was impossible.

The horror of one circumstance led quickly into the more pressing matter. She had allowed herself to fall in love with a woman who hadn’t had a beating heart in one hundred and fifty-four years. She’d let the woman’s nature charm her. She’d let the woman take her heart, even while she’d vowed that she wouldn’t; she had known that it would cause her far too much pain.

And yet here she was, in love with Lady Damodred.

By the Light! she knew, she couldn’t even call Leane, her friend had already told her to be careful. Leane had realised Siuan's adoration for Moiraine before she had known it. Truly, Siuan had not understood the depth of her feelings for Moiraine until reality had forcibly made itself known once again..

“You’re so stupid, Siuan Sanche!” she chastised herself between sobs. “How very like you... falling in love with a ghost!” she sighed and hiccupped slightly as she inhaled. “Light! no one can ever know, falling in love with a woman long in her grave… It’s...it’s sick!”

Her shoulders shook as the tears kept flowing. “Did you actually think it could ever work, you fool woman?” she sighed to herself as her sobs slowed. Her shoulders shook as she buried her face in her knees. “She could never actually be with you, stay with you. She was never yours,” she sniffled as exhaustion settled over her.

In the doorway to the parlour, Moiraine sighed, a sad, almost dead look on her face. “Siuan… I’m right here. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Siuan neither heard her footsteps or the soft-spoken words over the sound of her own sorrow.

Brows furrowing, Moiraine tried again. Looking down at her hand, she concentrated every ounce of energy she could spare and focused it into the tips of her fingers. Moiraine had no idea if this would work, but she had to try. Fingers tingling from concentration and energy, Moiraine reached out and touched Siuan’s hair. Her heart leapt as she slipped her hand between Siuan's curls, ecstatic as she was finally able to feel the course but silky texture of her hair, finally able to touch her, and feel her rather than the slight feeling of warmth and pressure for the first time since Christmas.

Heart thumping in her chest at the small victory, she could feel her concentration slipping as a headache formed in her skull. With a heavy heart, Moiraine had to let go of her and let the sensation of her curls under her fingers go. But it was a victory. It meant that there was truly hope.

If she could just learn to concentrate her energy for longer periods of time and into her entire body, rather than just her fingertips, and if Siuan could learn the same… then anything was possible for them. Life and death wouldn’t matter.

“Siuan!” she breathed excitedly, but again Siuan didn’t respond to her; her sobs had slowed, and her breath was evening out. Realising she had cried herself to sleep and was lightly aided by the comfort of her hand in her hair, Moiraine smiled sadly.

Ignoring the pounding headache for now, Moiraine leaned down while focusing her energy, even though she knew this would exhaust her. She pressed her soft lips against the corner of Siuan’s mouth and lingered there for a long moment before she pulled back from her.

In the morning, grey and still dark before the dawn, Siuan awoke and found herself alone. The house was silent. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she sought out the wall clock. It was only half-passed six, and she’d only had a little more than three hours of sleep, but in the light of a new day, Siun knew what she had to do.

She’d never heard a word that Moiraine spoke to her in the parlour the night before.

With defeat locked into her very bones, Siuan lifted herself from the settee and made her way slowly up the staircase as she headed for the master bedroom. In the darkness, she pushed the door open and held her breath, waiting to see if Moiraine was asleep in the bed. She poked her head inside.

Blessedly, the bed was empty, and the covers were undisturbed. Releasing a tiny sound of relief, Siuan allowed her shoulders to slump as she moved inside and headed towards the bed. Kneeling beside the frame, Siuan reached underneath and pulled forth a suitcase, which she opened on top of the bed. Moving between her dresser and the closet, she quickly filled the suitcase with clothing before zipping it closed. She was moving on autopilot, and any thought in her mind was ignored in favour of remaining blank.

With the suitcase packed, Siuan moved on and changed out of the clothes she’d worn to paint in and into a pair of jeans and a light sweater. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, Siuan barely recognized herself. Her expression was so blank that she couldn’t see any of the light that used to be in her heart. She might as well have been dead herself.

Sunriver Manor, the house that she had once loved, felt cold and foreign to her. It didn’t feel like home anymore and only served as a cruel reminder that she loved a ghost, a woman whose grandfather had built the house two hundred years prior.

Suitcase in hand, she made her way down the staircase and moved to the front door, but thought better of it. Setting her luggage down at the foot of the stairs, Siuan wandered back up to the top floor. She slipped into the room that she had made her studio and glanced around. Her eyes settled on the portrait of Moiraine, and her heart clenched in her breast. Powering through it, she finally found what she was looking for. A sheet of paper and a pen in hand, Siuan wrote a short letter addressed to Moiraine and only Moiraine. When she had finished her task, she taped the paper to the top of her canvas and turned on her heel. Making her way back down the stairs, Siuan picked up her suitcase, grabbed her keys and purse from beside the front door, and left Sunriver Manor in a waiting cab.

She didn’t look back.