Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s been 5 hours since her sister last texted her. Her location hasn’t moved in all 312 minutes since that last text. Vi started driving by minute 73.

The mansion really is massive. Jinx had told her, a week ago pouring over maps and old records and building plans, that she’s been wanting to explore it for years. Hours from civilisation, abandoned for at least a century and built at least two centuries before that. She’d done her research meticulously, chatting with others who’d been there, getting the lay of the land. She’d even shown Vi pictures. The timing planned, bags packed, she’d left.

Vi checks her watch again. 13 hours. Jinx had left 13 hours ago. Vi had gotten updates for the first five hours of exploring. Three hours drive, five hours exploring, then nothing. Silence. Zip. Her sister was erratic at times, sure, but she wouldn’t just—this wasn’t like her.

A heavy sigh leaves her, and she turns off the ignition, grabs her own bag from the passenger side and steps out onto the gravel. It’s packed with old leaves and ripe with weeds but there’s still a visible path for her to follow.

The mansion is old but surprisingly well maintained for its age and presumed abandonment.  Her sister always did love exploring the strangest places. The pictures didn’t do it justice, however. Looking up at the dark façade of the building, there’s a shiver prickling at her neck. When her sister had arrived here, it was light out and she planned to leave before sunset. Now, only the faintest traces of orange linger on the horizon and the building is wreathed in shadows.

Vi squares her shoulders and moves. Her phone is fully charged, her brothers have her location and the promise to find her if too much time passes. She refuses to call the cops on principle. If anyone can find her sister, it’s her.

Her steps are silent, cushioned by moss all the way to the old wooden stairs. Vi pauses. They don’t creak. The hair at the back of her neck rises. She continues onward with a shaky exhale.

The large doors are slightly ajar, and they too do not creak when she pushes them open carefully. For a house that’s over three hundred years old, it’s suspiciously clean. There’s barely any dirt or debris that she can see. The front doors open to a truly ridiculous entry hall; more stairs leading to the upper floors and closed doors lining the edges of the hall. Vi pulls out her phone to once again look at her sisters last known location. It still hasn’t moved.

She keeps her steps slow and measured and tries not to flinch when her light reflects from the countless mirrors and glass vitrines covering the room. Vi really doesn’t want to linger. It’s eerily quiet, her steps barely making a noise on the thickly and intricately woven carpets.

The thought comes to mind that this is how people die in shitty horror movies. Following missing girls into abandoned places in the middle of the night. She doesn’t call for her, doesn’t call her sisters name, even if she wants to, desperately. Her flashlight guides her way as she follows the GPS signal with growing unease and she finally reaches the door, just a few steps away from where the icon blinks on her phone.

VI inhales and exhales, just once. Then, she opens the door.

Nothing.

A few pieces of furniture covered in thick white fabric and the moon shining through the windows.

And absolutely nothing else. Her sister isn’t here. Vi looks everywhere, her flashlight tucked between her teeth as she lifts blankets and moves curtains and sifts through books stacked in piles on the floor. Not even her phone.

Vi swears, first quietly and then, when the silence becomes almost unbearable, she curses loudly. She grits her teeth and stands again, moving towards the door when movement catches her eye. Her body tenses involuntarily and her head snaps to the source of the movement but again, there’s nothing. Just the looming sense that something is terribly wrong.

One last check around the room reveals no more than dust mites and stale air and when she once again moves to the windows to see if Jinx might be outside for whatever reason but again, nothing. Another movement out of the corner of her eyes. Near the edge of the trees? Is that a person? She blinks and it’s gone again.

She has to find her sister. Logic abandons her at the loss of the only lead she has. She’s terrified. Terrified of whatever got Jinx, whatever caused her to seemingly disappear into thin air without notice; and this god damned mansion is giving her the creeps. She tries calling again and for the 46^th time it goes to voice mail.

And then, from somewhere so deep in the mansion she almost thinks she imagines it, comes her sisters ringtone. She recognises it instantly because it’s haunted her often enough whenever Ekko called in the middle of the night. It was usually followed by hushed and hurried whispers and scribbling pens and the occasional tinkering.

That is to say, she recognises it. And she jumps at the noise, her feet carrying her to the sound with nearly frantic steps. Down one corridor, a flight of stairs, deeper, deeper yet into the heart of the mansion and she’s lost all sense of her surroundings. Again and again, she calls and the stupid high-pitched ringing does not get closer.

Vi feels like she’s running in circles. She’s out of breath with fear and the oppressive thickness of the silence suffusing through the rooms like smoke. It’s only when she opens yet another door and reaches yet another dead end that she stops. This is getting her nowhere and clearly something is toying with her.

She steels herself and squares her shoulders again. Her chin is held high, and she holds her flashlight like someone might hold the bottle neck of a broken beer in a bar fight. “Very funny,” she says, loud in the noiseless void that is this house. “You can come out now, whoever you are. I’m sick of your games.”

More silence. Go figure.

Then, a change. The room grows incrementally colder. There’s a whisper of a breeze drifting over her shoulders, her neck. Like a caress. Vi shivers, a full-body thing.

Her head snaps back so fast she can hear it crack audibly and she’s frozen solid as she meets the soft gaze of a stranger. No, not soft. Distant. Like someone put stockings over the lense of a camera. Her instinct kicks in a second too late and she finally steps back, shining her flashlight right at the other person.

It reflects weirdly. Vi focuses more and— it almost seems to be passing through the person. But that doesn’t make any sense. Her eyes dart up again and the person is still just standing there. Hands clasped behind a very straight back, hair also straight and to the shoulders. They’re wearing… What the hell are they wearing? It looks like a suit, sure, but none that’s been in fashion for decades now. It fit them well, certainly. Accented solid shoulders and a slender waist and—she was getting carried away.

A stranger appeared out of nowhere, hasn’t said a word yet and just smiled very serenely. Vi once again brandishes her flashlight like a much mightier weapon than it is. The stranger smiles wider and inclines their head. “Good evening. Can I help you?” they ask, in a very posh accent and a very low, very gentle voice. Vi shivers again despite herself.

“Who the hell are you?”

A perfect brow raises in amusement. “I’m the owner of this house.”

That gives Vi pause. This house has stood empty for a long time, she’s sure of it. There’s no electricity, no life, no people, no nothing. So naturally she says, “No one’s lived here for ages.”

“That is not incorrect.”

Vi’s brow furrows more and she steps back again. “So what, you just decided to check in out of the blue today? Are there cameras around here or something?”

Now the stranger looks confused. “I beg your pardon?”

“Cameras,” Vi says again, slowly, and it brings a thought to her mind. “Have you seen my sister?”

“I’ve seen no one here for a very long time.”

Vi lets out a harsh breath and finally lowers her flashlight a bit to scrutinize the other better. Taller than her but not imposingly so. She could definitely take them if she had to. If they had Jinx. “Is there any way you can not be cryptic as all hell? Young woman, long blue hair, about this tall,” here she gestures to her shoulders, “Loud as hell usually. Couldn’t have missed her. I know she was here.”

“I’m afraid you’re the only person I’ve seen today.” They say, with impeccable poise and politeness and an almost apologetic incline of their uselessly handsome face.

“Bullshit!” Vi snaps, her fists itching and that prickle of fear lapping at her heels again. “I know she was here.”

The stranger lifts their hands placatingly and Vi nearly does lash out. But that’s not her anymore. It hasn’t been her for a years and she plans to keep it that way. “I really wish I could help you,” they murmur in that sweetly low voice that cloys in her head like syrup. “But I’ve only arrived a few minutes ago.”

Vi steps closer still, her eyes narrowing. “I didn’t hear any cars pulling up.”

“Cars?”

“Trying to tell me you came here on foot? Dressed like that?”

Blue eyes look down at the ridiculous ensemble, out of time but not out of place in this strangely not derelict mansion. “I’m not sure what you mean?”

“You look like you just came from a ball. Or a funeral.”

At that the stranger smiles again. “Why indeed, I did.”

“I didn’t see a graveyard anywhere on my drive here. There’s nothing out here. And you came on foot?” Her skin is pebbling up, and there’s that foreign cold again.

“Oh, you wouldn’t have. It’s quite lost now, I believe. Though I haven’t returned to it in many decades.”

Something is seriously, deeply wrong with this person. Vi tightens her grip on the flashlight. If they’re some con artist or whatever that’s been squatting here… Well. It really doesn’t matter does it. She still has to find her sister.

“So you own this place.” She muses, “Know your way around?”

“Certainly.”

“Then could you help me find my sister?”

They think about it for a moment before nodding. “These halls have a tendency to play tricks on one’s mind, I’m afraid. As was their designed purpose.”

“Who builds a house specifically to be confusing?”

“Fools with an astonishing lack of sense and quite a lot of money. And fear.” The stranger murmurs, and something dark passes over their sharp face. They lead Vi out of the room she’s found herself in and through the halls that seem to make more sense walking at the side of their apparent owner.

Vi calls Jinx again and once again the ringtone startles her, just as distant as it had been when she started her hunt. The stranger startles and looks at her phone with unconcealed confusion and a not insubstantial amount of weariness. They don’t ask questions, however, so Vi doesn’t say anything.

The moon is high in the night sky when they pass the long windows of a side corridor and Vi almost startles again when she looks over and sees them nearly glowing in the light. Nearly transparent. But it must just be a trick of the light, since just as before, in the next blink they’re solid again.

“So…” Vi starts, seriously sick of the silence, “What did you say your name was?”

They only glance at her, leading her out of the maze of doors and hallways with confident steps. “Caitlyn Kiramman. My pleasure to invite you to my home, I suppose. Even in these rather unconventional circumstances.”

“Uh huh,” Vi hums, because the name rings a bell. Something Jinx had told her in those few weeks of preparation. “Isn’t that the surname of the last family that lived here?”

“It is.”

“Huh. I thought they all died like, ages ago.”

Her guide—Caitlyn— doesn’t even falter. Her shoulders pull back and her already straight back straightens out more. “They did. I was the last”

“Funny coincidence then. I guess it might not be the rarest name…” And then Vi stops in her speech. And stops walking. And looks at the strange, handsome woman in her strange and handsome suit that’s out of time but not out of place, the funeral suit, and she pales. “You… were? The last?”

Caitlyn nods, and the moonlight shines right through her and seems to make her eyes shimmer. “98 years, 234 days and a few hours, by my vague estimation. Though I must admit, time is frightfully fickle with no way to track it.”

Vi takes another step back. She shines her flashlight at the stranger and it hits the wall behind her.

Okay.

Alright.

A haunted house. Sure. Leave it to Jinx to drag her into the weirdest situations.

“So what you’re saying is that you’re dead.” She says, very slowly.

“Very much so.”

“And you’ve been dead. For a while.”

“I have indeed. So you must forgive me for the state of the house. Once the servants left, well. I couldn’t well continue the perfect upkeep by myself.” She looks at her hands that once again shimmer in the soft blue light and seems almost abashed by the statement. As though the biggest concern in this whole situation was the dust tickling Vi’s lungs and not that she was apparently talking to a ghost.

Vi nods again, very slowly, and steps back once more. The movement makes Caitlyn’s brow furrow. “Oh but you mustn’t be frightened. I assure you I’m quite harmless. You have nothing to fear from me.”

“Uh huh.”

“Please, I swear to you. You would not believe how lonesome it gets here. I promise I will help you find your sister and then you both may leave.”

There’s something so earnest in the polite lilt of her voice that Vi refrains from stepping back again. “You won’t follow us? Haunt us? If you’re so lonely, why not leave?”

The spectre sighs wistfully and it makes her whole being shudder like a mirage. “I couldn’t stop you, even if it was my desire. I’m bound to this place.”

“Just you?”

“Just me, yes.”

“Why? If it’s the house, shouldn’t your parents also be here?”

Caitlyn tilts her head and gazes out the window again, her eyes like pools of solid moonlight.

“It’s just me. I can not tell you why. I’ve tried, for many years, to find out. But given that I’m only corporeal when the sun sets and the moon bathes me in her gentle embrace, it has its difficulties as you might imagine. It’s a shame, really. I quite enjoyed mysteries in my youth.” She says with an almost teasing grin on her lips that makes Vi’s heart jump despite herself. She has a tooth gap, Vi notices with yet another strong thump of the traitorous muscle in her chest. It makes her suit and her solid posture look kinder. More alluring.

Vi considers her for a long time, this girl stuck in the past. This dead girl with nowhere to go, stuck in a home filled with shadows, fated to never see the sun again. “What if we burned it down?” Vi says, still deep in thought. She looks up at the girl. “Would you vanish or would it free you?”

Caitlyn shrugs and looks at her again, her sweetly handsome face breaking out into a soft smile. “I couldn’t begin to imagine what might happen.”

It tugs at Vi, despite having known her for all of five minutes, the thought of finding her sister and just leaving. That isn’t to say she doesn’t want to find her. So she moves again, and Caitlyn moves with her, and Vi notices her feet don’t quite touch the ground.

“Name’s Vi, by the way. It’s only fair, I think. I’m honestly not quite sure what to do in this situation.”

“Just Vi? A curious name.” The ghost—what the fuck—muses.

“Short for Violet, if you have to know.”

It brings another smile to Caitlyn’s lips and Vi can’t help but feel like she made the right decision. “Violet.” She says in that intoxicating accent, like she’s tasting it and seeing if the aroma pleases her tastebuds.

“Vi, please.” Vi says, her ears heating up. “I haven’t been Violet in a long time.”

“Oh, but it’s such a darling name. I’ve always adored violets. Mother used to plant them everywhere. Or order the gardeners to, at least. But if you insist, I shan’t use it.”

Vi snorts quietly at the formality and shakes her head. The ringing phone is closer now, finally.

“Not much longer now,” Caitlyn says thoughtfully and indeed, the next door they open holds the phone. Not her sister. Just the stupid phone blasting it’s stupid music obnoxiously loudly in the ringing silence. Vi curses again and picks it up, but it doesn’t tell her anything new. Her sister is still missing.

She turns to Caitlyn who stands in the middle of the room with closed eyes and doesn’t move. Well, maybe stands isn’t the word. She hovers in place and her eyes are moving hurriedly beneath pale lids. “She’s waiting for you.” She whispers, which is ominous as fuck thank you not at all.

“What?”

“Outside.”

“What?”

“Your sister is waiting outside.” The spectre repeats, opening her eyes again.

“No, I got that, just how—?”

“The house told me.”

“Fucking, of course.” Vi sighs and pinches her brow, “Take me outside then.”

And she does. The atmosphere is strange, heavy almost. Caitlyn seems dejected and yeah Vi might not have known her long at all, nor was she sure all of this was real, but she was a sucker for sad women so sue her. She gradually starts to recognise her surroundings again and slows her step accordingly.

Caitlyn looks at her with confusion when Vi stops completely.

“Vi?”

“Do you want to try?”

The ghost startles somewhat. It’s almost funny to see her ripple like a flag in the wind. “Try?”

“To see what happens.”

A moment, and another, pieces falling into place when Vi holds up her lighter and holds it out. “Oh.” Caitlyn whispers. She reaches for it and her hand passes right through Vi’s, leaving her palm buzzing with pins and needles.

“It’s your choice. But either it finally lets you move on, or it lets you see the world again. A lot has changed since you died, sweetheart. Might be worth it.”

Caitlyn is gnawing at her bottom lip, a movement that looks so out of place on her sharp face and pressed suit, that Vi is fighting a grin. “Our library—all the books, I couldn’t.”

“I’ll bring a truck and get everything you don’t want burned and we try it?”

“A what?”

“Forget it. If I make it happen, do you want to try? Or do you want to stay here, forever, and see what happens.”

“You’d take the books?”

“I’d take anything you want me to, Cait.” Vi says, earnest and unsure where its coming from.

Caitlyn is very clearly fighting herself. Her face contorts and instead of making her look unappealing the confusion and thoughtful frown only makes her more real. But eventually she says, “Come back in a fortnight and ask me again.”

“Making excuses to see me again already?”

And the spectre has the audacity to flush. Vi hadn’t thought such a thing possible.

“My opportunities for companionship have been sparse and I find myself missing it dreadfully.”

They’re at the front door now. Vi can hear music blasting overly loud from Jinx’s car. She feels like once she steps over the threshold this entire night will fade like so much dust and she can not explain why the thought irks her so.

“Two weeks?”, she whispers, meeting shiny blue eyes again.

Caitlyn nods, her hands clasped behind her back, her feet still just barely hovering over the ground. Vi blinks and she’s still there. Not quite a dream then. She shakes herself out of it and tries for an easy smile that she already knows will fall flat. Her heart’s not in it.

“Well then, it was a pleasure to meet you, Caitlyn Kiramman.”

And oh, the smile that erupts on that painfully sombre face makes Vi’s heart ache. It only aches more when Caitlyn instinctively holds out her hand to shake and it passes right through hers again when Vi, equally instinctively, reaches to take it. Caitlyn pulls her hand back like she was burned and her face falls and—

“I’ll be here,” Caitlyn murmurs, thick with something like longing and something like dying, which yeah. The irony. She smiles, a crooked little thing, and Vi feels vaguely sick.

She tucks her hand into her pocket, the other thumbing off the flashlight with a sense of finality. Her feet carry her finally to the doors and to her sister, but not before she turns and calls out to her. “Thanks again for your help. Don’t miss me too much.”

Vi is aiming for light-hearted. The stricken look on Caitlyn’s face that’s quickly wiped away in favour of another half genuine smile tells her she missed by a landslide. “I assure you I’ve become quite proficient at missing, dear Vi. She’s waiting for you.” And with that she nods her chin towards the sliver of light streaming in through the doors. Vi follows her gaze and when she turns around again, Caitlyn is gone.

---

Jinx is on her the second she pulls the heavy wooden doors shut, lanky arms tightening around her neck in a vice grip and she catches her with a relieved breath. “Where the hell were you?” she chides, with no harshness at all.

“Lost my phone.” She starts, pulling away with an overdramatic eyeroll. “This place is wayyy creepier than people told me. Damn maze is what it is. I swear the walls moved when I tried to find the thing again. Can’t lose it obviously, all my stuff is on it. And then I thought, oh hell, you’re gonna think I died or something, so I knew I had to wait for you anyways. And then I got lost again and—”, her sister rambles, voice light and carefree and a simple glance tells Vi she’s unharmed.

The last shreds of fear in her chest ease and she ruffles Jinx’s hair just to feel her bat at her hands and push off her side completely. Jinx talks all the way to the cars but Vi, shamefully, only half listens. Her eyes catch on a shadow in one of the upper windows and she lifts her hand for the smallest wave she can manage. The shadow vanishes. She smiles to herself until Jinx gives her a weird look and starts nagging her about it.

She drives behind her sister on the long way home, and she can’t help but feeling like she’s left something in that house she wasn’t even aware she had.

---

Two weeks later, as promised, she packs only the barest necessities and makes the trip again.

 She’s done her research this time. Caitlyn Kiramman, last heir of House Kiramman, passed away from the Spanish flu. Supposedly. Her parents, already deceased at the time, were buried in the estate’s own gardens, in a mausoleum that Caitlyn too should’ve been laid to rest to. It never happened though.

Vi admittedly couldn’t find all that much since the family was apparently secretive as hell even by rich asshole standards back then. But she can put the pieces together well enough. Young heiress Caitlyn Kiramman, unmarried and, if the few newspaper clippings are to be believed, uninterested in the advances of men in favour of the fairer sex, died alone. Her familys servants, loyal to her but no longer numerous, left for more fruitful pastures as per her will when it became clear she would not survive her illness.

The mansion was abandoned and, though Vi couldn’t find any death certificate, the fact that she’s talked to Caitlyn, does lead her to believe that she died there. She was never buried. Unless Vi suffered from sudden madness and hallucinations and simply imagined her, which honestly wasn’t entirely unlikely, Caitlyn’s body is still somewhere in that house.

Vi drums her fingers on the steering wheel as she looks at the façade again, still bright in the last rays of sun. Evidence—her getting so turned around in those hallways it didn’t feel like the same place at all anymore—suggests that Caitlyn’s bones don’t want to be found. And the house itself is intent on keeping her safe that way, whether Caitlyn knows it or not.

A long exhale leaves her, and she steps out of the car. She brought a smaller flashlight this time, one to clip to her shirt collar. She’s not sure if she should tell Caitlyn any of what she’s learned. On the one hand, telling her might help free her. On the other, Caitlyn either genuinely doesn’t remember, or pretends that she doesn’t. And Vi is loathe to upset her again.

She’s parked close enough to the house so she can carry the books to her trunk, if that’s still what Caitlyn wants.

The doors open without creaking just like the last time, and in the dim light of sunset Vi can almost imagine what the mansion used to look like.

Caitlyn won’t appear for at least an hour yet, so Vi sets about exploring again. She doesn’t love that it feels like trespassing now, but she wants to know. Needs to know more. She might not have her sister’s penchant for obsession, but they share the same blood. It’s burning through her now, the fascination, the ache.

The house greets her like an exhale as soon as she steps inside, like it held its breath until she returned as she promised. If it does protect Caitlyn’s body, it will do it’s best to keep Vi away from it. Jinx wasn’t wrong, in thinking the walls moved. Vi gets turned around terrifyingly quickly, even having the plans memorized now.

And it’s once again the whisper of a chill that alerts her to Caitlyn’s presence. The smile she’s greeted with is equal parts relief and wonder, and her quest flees her mind at the first sight of it. “You came back,” Caitlyn breathes, not quite as solid as last time. The moon has barely risen.

“I promised I would, didn’t I?” Vi hums, trying to wrap her head around that it was indeed real. All of it. “Want to show me the library, Casanova?”

Caitlyn let’s out a pearly laugh, covering her mouth with a hand as her form shivers with mirth. “Oh dear, did you read about me? The papers were such horrid gossips; you mustn’t believe a word they said.”

Vi grins and she feels lighter than she has in 14 days. “No, I think I’ll believe them. Caitlyn Kiramman and her scandalous affairs.” She doesn’t tell her about how her name appeared in a few memoirs, of old women lamenting their brush with true love before the girl suddenly vanished during a time that was messy to begin with.

Maybe someday.

The spectre looks as though she wants to argue but simply huffs and begins to lead Vi through halls that part for her like water, falling into place. Returning to their original layout, she notes. Curious.

And so, it begins. Caitlyn shows her to the library and Vi very quickly realises she can not take all the books in one go. So she does it in parts, until her apartment is littered with the things. Books old enough to whisper apart at a touch. And she asks Caitlyn and Caitlyn tells her which tomes—because honestly that’s what they are—to give to museums or to libraries or to sell.

And it takes a while, you see. Ages. Weeks upon weeks. She gets a good amount of money out of it honestly. But that’s not the point. The point is that Caitlyn’s face lights up every single time Vi steps foot inside that building, whether it be the third time or the twenty seventh. The point is, she likes this strange dead girl.

Like, really likes. And she can see why women over a century ago fell head over heels for her. Because Vi with her impeccable sense of balance and her years of parkour experience, well. She’s stumbling.

The library keeps emptying and still she returns, even when the last book is safely tucked away in her room. It is, after all, not the books she cares about. Not really.

Because on day five, Caitlyn guides her to a window on the west floor and points out into the darkness and shows her where she used to play with her maids as a child, the swings rusted and overgrown, and her face will do that thing. That longing, aching thing.

Because on day 12, Caitlyn leads her to the main sitting room and they sit (or hover) and Caitlyn tells her all about her daily lessons and how her mother insisted she be fluent in several languages to better appeal to any possible suitors. And how her mother, strict as she could be, helped her cover up each scandal and only gave her a stern talking to whenever she found a dame in Caitlyn’s rooms.

Because under Caitlyn’s guidance Vi tears down the fabric from ancient pieces of furniture and sells those too, and she sees portraits of Caitlyn’s family, and of Caitlyn and she hears stories and she hears the hunger in Caitlyn’s voice. The hunger for life. To be remembered. Because she returns each morning to her own small, shitty apartment and writes until her hands ache, to keep something of Caitlyn’s alive.

Because when Vi shows her the advances of technology, shows her movies and music and allows Caitlyn to listen to her favourite pieces that she hasn’t heard in over a century, and even then only ever in concerts, Caitlyn’s ghostly cheeks grow wet with tears that disappear as soon as they fall.

Months pass, that way. It thoroughly fucks over her sleep schedule, these long nights. And yet, every time she drives home in the gentle light of sunrise, she feels full to bursting. By the third month, the house starts to welcome her, no longer twisting and turning and obscuring the way for her. By the fifth it actively leads her to wherever she wants to go.

Almost wherever.

Half a year. Half a year of befriending and yes, falling in love with a ghost, and she finally comes to a stop in front of a door she’s never seen before, in all her hours of exploration.

And she knows. Caitlyn is hovering at her side, wringing her hands, her impeccable posture faltering for one of the first times since this started and Vi looks at her for a long time. “Why now?”, she asks, but she knows. Together they’ve stripped the mansion to its very bones. The rooms lay empty, paintings sold or saved, the rest of House Kiramman’s belongings and legacy handled much the same.

This is all that’s left. “It’s time,” Caitlyn says, decisively. So, Vi opens the door. It welcomes her as much as the rest of the halls have. She’s unsure what she expects. Maybe the lingering smell of decay, of illness. A skeleton in a fine suit. Not this.

It’s Caitlyn. Just Caitlyn. The same as she is, hovering at Vi’s side. This, of course, isn’t possible. But then again, none of it should be. Vi steps forward on quiet feet and comes to a stop by her bedside.

It’s Caitlyn, too, that speaks. “I asked them to dress me, as was appropriate for mourning and to leave, lest they catch their death alongside me.” Her voice is terribly wistful.

“I don’t remember dying,” she says, grazing her knuckles over her own body’s pale cheek.  “I was delirious with fever, you see. When I woke up, quite literally beside myself, it took me a while to understand what had come to pass. I haven’t returned since I realised.”

Vi steps closer and hesitantly, as though in a dream, reaches for the body’s hand. She almost flinches at the inexplicable warmth of it. The windows are hung with thick curtains, and the moon doesn’t reach them here, but Vi would swear she sees her breathing in the flickering light of her lamp.

“The house allowed me a graceful death.” Caitlyn sighs again, sitting by her own hip. “It preserved me and condemned me to remain here, for eternity. A moment frozen in time.”

“Burning it— Burning you,” Vi begins, drawing her gaze away from the peacefully slumbering corpse to her soul beside her, “it won’t work, will it?”

Caitlyn smiles a very small, very sad smile. “Likely not. I myself don’t understand the magics at work here, but no. I can’t imagine it would let such harm come upon me.”

Vi squeezes the hand again, brings it to her lips and rests a kiss on soft knuckles. Caitlyn makes an anguished noise beside her and Vi drops the hand carefully.

“Violet,” she whispers, reaching for her and only looking more pained when her hand passes through her. “My dearest Vi, I cannot begin to describe the joy you’ve brought into my existence, the past months. I have felt more alive than I have in… well.” She looks at herself again, resting, untouched by time.

“But it’s time, I believe. For you to leave this place.”

Vi almost flinches at the words, shaking her head. “I promised I’d help you. Let me help you. Please Caitlyn.”

Her spectre looks at her with such tender affection Vi feels bile rise in her throat. “You’ve helped me immeasurably. And I’ve been terribly selfish. The living should not be so close to death. You’re so young still. Don’t spend your days chasing ghosts. Do all the living I never could.”

“Caitlyn.”

“I mean it, Vi. I have nothing to give to you. And you’ve given me everything. I’m setting you free, Violet.”

Her heart aches as she looks at her, at eyes as familiar as her own now, transparent. Caitlyn is starting to fade, Vi realises. The sun is rising.

“Please Cait, don’t do this.”

“The house will no longer grant you entry, my dear. I apologise for hurting you. Take your leave before I change your mind.”

And she wants her to. Foolishly, stupidly, she wants her to. Vi wants to scream at her, knowing full well it won’t make a difference. Change your mind. Keep me. Can’t you see I’m linked to you now; can’t you see that it was never about what you had to give but who you were. Don’t stay where I can’t follow.

Instead, she says, “One last sunrise.”

The flickering form of the dead girl she’s in stupid and useless love with, solidifies in her confusion.

“What?”

“I’ll take your body outside, if the house allows it. Show you one last sunrise, before I leave. And then I’ll put you back to bed and—“, she’s speaking quickly because she feels grief like molten iron in her spine and in her limps and prickling at her eyes, “and I’ll leave. Please.”

Caitlyn thinks for long enough that Vi almost thinks she’s just stalling until the sun rises. Then she nods, slowly and thoughtfully. There’s something in her eyes that Vi hasn’t seen before. It makes dread glow icy and vicious in her guts. “I’ve missed the sun,” she murmurs, and nothing more.

Nothing more as Vi gently slides her hands under Caitlyn’s knees and neck and lifts her, cradles her dead weight to her chest. She smells faintly of lavender. She’s tall and slender and she feels light in Vi’s arms. She holds her body close and feels abruptly like crying. Vi has no idea what she’s doing.

She carries the corpse out of the house with measured steps. Her Caitlyn remains by her side, and if Vi’s theory is correct, taking the body outside will allow her to leave as well. She crosses the threshold and sits at the edge of the porch and feels the now achingly familiar sensation of pins and needles at her right side while she cradles the body in her lap.

It’s absurd. Utterly absurd.

Caitlyn fits into her arms like a puzzle piece a century lost. She looks to the side and finds her watching the outside with quiet awe. The sky is turning pink. It’s peaceful in the most hopeless way Vi has ever experienced.

“Thank you.” Caitlyn whispers when Vi looks at her again. The rising light is making her glow warmly.

“Cait—”

“Don’t. Please. I couldn’t bear it.”

Vi exhales harshly and there are tears gathering in her lashes and dripping onto the pale cheeks of the body cradled to her chest.

“Caitlyn,” she breathes again.

“Oh, my love,” Caitlyn sighs, and her hand comes up to brush against Vi’s cheek. She closes her eyes and leans into the stinging sensation and convinces herself it’s real. “I know.”

Vi swallows again, rubbing her thumb over the soft skin of the body’s arm, “I hate this. I wish I could do more for you.”

“Take my ring, Vi.”

So, she does. She eases the silver band from the body’s hand and kisses her knuckles again and again Caitlyn makes a pained sound at her side.

“And remember me.”

“Caitlyn don’t do this.” VI pleads, uncaring for the fact that her throat feels like someone poured gravel past her teeth and forced her to choke on it.

“Remember me, Vi, and live. That’s all I need you to do. Can you do that for me, darling?”

Again, her throat is clogged, and she can only look at her and when the sky is aflame with colours she leans down and brushes a kiss to the body’s temple.

“How could I forget?” she whispers, her eyes resting on the fading form of the girl beside her. Caitlyn smiles that handsome, brilliant smile. The one that lights up her whole face and makes her tangible.

And then the sun rises properly, beams of light streaming through the dense trees surrounding the estate and Caitlyn lets her eyes close and soak up the light. And she fades. Vi watches her until the last of her is gone, like a dream.

Her hands are empty.

There’s dust covering her palms and her pants and she heaves around a sob. The ring burns in her pocket and Caitlyn is gone and she can hear the house crying behind her, can hear it creaking and shuddering apart under the weight of loss, inexplicable loss.

Vi stands up and leaves and she doesn’t turn back, even when she hears the loud agonies of a century’s worth of decaying happening in minutes. When she looks into her rearview mirror, it’s only rubble and dust.

She pulls over as soon as she’s out of sight and empties her guts into the bushes by the side of the road and feels the sunlight like a caress on her tear-streaked cheeks.

The day passes in a blur. Vi can’t sleep and she can’t stay awake, and she can’t keep anything down, and when Jinx asks, she tells her she caught a bug and rolls over again.

Hours pass without her awareness. Night falls and she watches the moon until her eyes dry up and there are no more tears left.

Disoriented and dizzy with the worst headache of her life, she pulls the ring from her pocket and brings it to her lips. Half asleep, she thinks she can almost feel fingers caressing her cheek. There’s the prickling sensation of a kiss at her hairline and she finally falls asleep.

Passed out as she is, she doesn’t see the moonlight take shape. She doesn’t hear a fond voice whisper her name and take vigil at her bedside and wipe her tears with careful movements. Nor does she feel the press of a body at her back, even as it eases her out of another nightmare into quiet, peaceful sleep.

But her dreams are softer and the tears fall slower and there’s the faint smell of lavender weaving through her mind.