Elise

Dumb Supper

The bright Samhain bonfires lit my path, but my destination was far from the warmth of their flames. Like the year before, I felt the tug to join in the revelry, my toes curling into the wet earth as if to anchor me in place. It would be so easy to turn around and slip into the crowd and spend the night dancing with familiar faces, but I was not here for that.

I was here for him. For Edward.

There, at the bottom of the hill and on the edge of the Black Forest, sat the Miller's Shack. Its windows broken and its wooden siding sagging like a dirty shroud, it seemed to decay before my eyes, marching toward its inevitable end when the only thing keeping its frame from collapsing completely would be the creeping vines twining through its eaves and cracks. I had never liked this place, not even when it was newly abandoned and pretty as a picture. While the other children dared each other to sneak inside, I stayed atop the hill where the bonfires now blazed, keeping a careful lookout for my friends.

Edward knew this, but our options were limited. His mother beat him soundly when she discovered us last year. I witnessed only the first strike against his face. After the pitiful shriek of pain passed his lips, I left and was grateful I did not have to witness more.

Reaching the door, I knocked twice and waited, shivering, as a gust of chilled wind whipped through my blue linen dress. It had been my favorite and elicited envy in more than one woman, but it was a dress made for spring. I caught myself thinking how it would have been nice to have the wool coat Father bought for me two winters ago.

Little good it would do me now. I did not shiver because the breeze made me colder, but out of reflex. It was what one did when the wind blew in autumn. I had been cold for so long I no longer remembered what it was to be warm.

The door creaked open, and I swept inside. The single room was dressed in the golden glow of candles, and the air was thick with dust motes. A fireplace big enough I could walk inside without ducking took up most of the back wall, and the hearth was dark, filled only with bits of blackened wood and soot. Cobwebs clung to corners and spread across the slatted ceiling. In some places, the silvery silken strands had lost their grip and hung low like grasping fingers, and a chill ran down my spine just thinking of one brushing against my hair.

Edward closed the door and crossed the room to the table in its center. Two places were set, but he had set them in a way that would have made any well-bred matron in the county half mad with displeasure. Cups turned upside down and forks out of order. Raspberry tarts—my favorite dessert—rested on the largest serving plate while the dessert plate sat empty beneath the topsy-turvy cup.

Edward pulled out a chair and motioned for me to sit. Once seated, he pushed me toward the table, his hands pale and shaking in my peripheral vision, and I thought—for one desperate moment—he might caress my cheek or touch my golden hair, but he withdrew his hands and let them hang limply at his side as he walked around the table and took the seat across from me.

I watched him take a bite of dessert, his full lips wrapping around the spoon, his white teeth scraping across the red sugared fruit, and I could not help but remember our wedding night and how he had once done the same on my breasts. It had made me gasp—the sensation at once thrilling and forbidden—and before the night was over, I had discovered within myself a wanton creature. A creature obsessed with the carnal delights. Had that been the beginning of my downfall?

Next, he served the salad. Wilted greens dressed in lemon and oil. He patted at his chin to wipe away dripped dressing, and his eyes found mine through the hazy candlelight. As if to tease me, he dropped the cloth napkin and slid his tongue along his lower lip, cleaning up the last of his mess and leaving a wet shine that made me ache and almost drove me to lean across the table to discover with my own tongue whether he'd removed all traces from his flesh.

The main course followed. Braised lamb chops. I inhaled deeply. Rosemary and garlic. He truly forgot nothing. Tension mounted as the bones were picked clean of the savory meat. Memories and desire twisted in the space between us, drawing us ever closer even as the physical space remained the same.

Shattering glass made us both jump, and Edward leapt from his seat, his lips pressed together to hold back a shout of alarm. A mournful howl whipped through the room, its volume unnerving after the long stretch of silence. Food forgotten for the moment, my husband searched for a cover for the newly broken window, forcing back the knotted branch protruding through the gaping hole before pinning a heavy tarp in place.

Inhaling deeply, Edward ran his hands down the front of his double-breasted vest. His dark brown hair, normally so neat and precise, was in disarray around his face—the way it looked in the peaceful light of morning after a night of my hands running through the strands. Here, outside of our bedroom, it made him look younger than his twenty-two years.

The lamb was cleared, and the last course served. The hors d'oeuvre. Finger sandwiches cut in neat rectangles. My mouth watered. It was a simple pleasure, but I had always loved cucumbers. So fresh and crisp. Even in the shadows, I could see the pale green edges on the sandwiches, and just seeing it was enough to remember the taste.

Edward did not take a sandwich, though. He had never cared for them and had been happy to let me eat my fill, often sneaking me his portions during dinner parties with a teasing grin lighting up his face. But there was nothing teasing about him now as he leaned back in his chair, a cup of wine in his hand. He swirled liquid, leaving bloody legs on the glass as the wine settled back into the bottom of the cup.

Seeing me staring, he pushed the bottle across the table. It screeched on the scarred wooden top as he rotated it so I could see the label, and I flinched away from him.

When had he become so cruel? I would have cried if I could have. Big, heavy tears streaming down my face, and I would have meant every single one of them. All I wanted to do was speak a single apology, but it was too late now. That chance had been lost the night Edward discovered me in another man's bed. That very vintage of wine still heavy on my tongue when he burst through the door, horror twisting his handsome features. Horror that turned to hurt. Then from hurt to rage.

I threw my hand over my mouth. My shoulders shook. My chest heaved, and it was his turn to recoil. The forced disdain faded, and he reached for me, anguish loud in his expression as the clock on the hill struck the first chime of midnight.

Two. Three. Four. Five.

Edward's eyes pleaded with me. I could hear the words he wouldn't say. Couldn't say. The wish that I would touch him one more time. One last time.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

Would I if I could? I had wronged him; it was true. This was as much my fault as his, but was not his sin far greater than mine?

Ten. Eleven—

"Elise," he sobbed as the final bell tolled. "Elise!"

A single word spoken broke the spell, and the tethers which had been so flimsy this Samhain night grew thick and strong and dragged me back behind the veil. My last sight before it dropped was my husband wailing while he threw my uneaten portions across the room.

And once more, I was trapped. Only a few strands of my beautiful golden hair remained—now just matted strings falling through my eye sockets. My perfect blue dress was little more than rotten rags, the blood stain beneath my breast the color of rust, and centipedes crawled along my exposed rib bones.

In a few days, sleep or rest or whatever the living called this state of being would return to me, and I would forget this evening for another year. Only waking again when the bonfires of Samhain were lit and Edward laid the first table setting. On and on it would go until he let go of his guilt or gave me peace or until he joined me in the afterlife.

I rather hoped I haunted him for eternity.