Chapter 33
The call comes – when it comes, not the next day, as Emilio suggested, but later on in the week – with a hesitant, if not enthusiastic yes. Emilio himself is not all too thrilled, but Dani can hear Rafael in the background, chirruping excitedly about getting to meet with his new teacher and learning how to read (followed by exclamations that of course he knows how to read, he doesn’t need to learn how to read, he already knows how to read, and he’s old enough to not need a teacher now).
She still hasn’t set any ground rules with Viola.
She doesn’t know how to broach the conversation.
She still really doesn’t want to talk with her at all.
So instead of having the conversation that she knows she really should be having, Dani sets up her – their? – her first appointment with Rafael. The more she talks with Emilio, however, the more she becomes aware that he is less interested in his youngest son’s education and more interested in making sure that someone is available to keep tabs on his daughter. The favoritism doesn’t sit well with her, but it’s entirely possible that it has less to do with that and more to do with Luisa being the age where….
Dani remembers when she was thirteen. A lot of the girls had been boy crazy before that (she’d never been, of course, and Eddie was always there as an easy standby if they asked her who she liked – the lie leaping to her lips like nothing else mattered), but thirteen was when the boys – when Eddie – began to notice them back. Emilio has every right to feel protective of his daughter. She would be protective, too. In a different way, perhaps, being more open to the possibilities that it’s not even guys that she likes, but….
They are to meet at the library again. There is a playground nearby and a park. Anything else they might need is within walking distance. Emilio seems to be more than fine with her taking them somewhere else – and seems open to the possibility that they might meet somewhere else in the near future – but nothing else is brokered.
Dani isn’t sure Jamie would particularly like small children in their house, even if she is at the flower shop. But that doesn’t mean she can’t take them to meet her, eventually.
You wait for your host to meet with you.
Not only do you wait for her, you make yourself accessible. Of course, spending so much time just between her eyes is likely not comfortable for her, but it’s a constant reminder of your presence. Which is perhaps a bit manipulative. You’ve never said that you weren’t that, even if it isn’t your intent here. You simply want her to know that she can talk with you whenever she is ready. You’re still here.
You’re always here.
But she doesn’t.
There is still no communication between the two of you, not even a note left behind for you when you take control while she sleeps. And in an absence of any outreach from her, you do not reach out either. You know that she is upset. You know, too, that pushing her to talk when she isn’t ready will likely only make things worse.
You were never one for breaking horses. You think. That’s the sort of thing you feel like you would remember, even if just in the periphery. Or there would be more horse things around your room. There aren’t. You are sure you must have had horses.
None of this matters. The point is that despite how often your host and her partner seem to like comparing you to a pet animal, it is really your host who is acting like an animal – a wild one. She approaches and sniffs at your fingertips and looks up at you with large eyes and then runs off and decides she doesn’t want anything to do with you. Then she creeps closer when you offer her food or something beneficial to her, and she sniffs at it again, and she takes the food and runs off again. Sometimes she comes closer, and you can brush your hands through her fur. More often than not, when you try to touch her, she bares her fangs and hisses or growls at you.
And yet she believes you are the one with rabies. Isn’t that the domain of wild creatures like her?
Perhaps it would be better for you to approach again, but you have nothing else to offer right now. That’s the worst of this – anything you would possibly think worth proposing is worthless to her. You have nothing, and in her mind, you are nothing.
This makes Jamie’s offer more appealing. You would still have to be around Dani, but not in a way that is so invasive. She still won’t like you. Perhaps she will like you less for where you might take up your residence. The question is really whether it is better to have a good relationship with someone else in the real world or if it is better to have a good relationship with your host.
You wait.
You haven’t had any conversations with Jamie recently, and even if you did, you are not sure that is one you would willingly broach. The silence – such as it is – is slowly but surely getting to you. Of course, you are used to silence. You are used to loneliness. This should be nothing.
But it is so much harder when you have slowly been growing accustomed to spending time with people again.
You take a deep breath. You force yourself to relax. And you continue to wait.
Of course, there comes a moment when you can’t wait without speaking any longer.
Are we going to the library?
Dani takes a deep breath, her hands reflexively clenching into little fists. “I’m going to the library. You’re just along for the ride.” Her teeth grit together. Of course, Viola noticed when she was leaving. The ghost hasn’t left that area between her eyes in days, why did she think she could get away with going anywhere without the creature noticing? She’d probably overheard the phone call with Emilio.
This is worse than trying to sneak out of her house had been when she was a teenager. Worse because her mother had never really cared if she left at all, where Viola acutely cares about everything she’s doing now, apparently.
Are you meeting with Emilio and his children?
“I think you know that,” Dani answers as she lifts her backpack, shifting it on her back a bit before leaving the house. Viola checks out so many books that it is far easier to carry them this way than it is to try and carry a stack of them in her hands all the way to the library. From the heft of this thing, it feels as though Viola has read through more books in a short span of time than she normally does. She’s not going to ask. “You’re not going to rob me of myself this time, are you?”
I had not planned on doing that. Viola pauses before continuing, Although I would like to take some time and pick out a few new books after the children leave, if you would be so obliged.
Dani feels the growl beginning at the back of her throat. She doesn’t let it out. She never lets that sort of thing out. Jamie says she’s repressed. Maybe she is. “I’m sure you plan on spending time with the children, too. Don’t lie to me.”
I had hoped you would allow me time with them, considering that Rafael wanted me to begin with, but I wasn’t planning on forcing the issue unless it was strictly necessary.
“And what, exactly, do you mean by strictly necessary?” Dani asks, bristling as she does so. “There is no strictly necessary, Viola. You don’t force that sort of thing on me.”
Viola hums something noncommittal. If you would talk with me about this, then we could set up—
“You should know not to force—”
I wouldn’t be forced to force anything if you would talk with me about all of this. Viola huffs, and Dani is certain the ghost has her arms crossed again in that intimidating sort of holier-than-thou position she often takes when she’s so sure she’s right about an issue. But you refuse to talk to me.
“Maybe I have a reason for not wanting to talk with you, Viola.” Dani’s teeth grit even harder together, and her jaw aches. She shifts the heavy backpack on her shoulders. “And maybe next time don’t get so many books. This hurts.”
You could let me carry them—
“No.” Dani can feel the word barking through her lips, harsh and firm. “I’m not giving you more control when you are not respecting the lines I’m setting in place where I don’t want you to take control. I’m not rewarding you when you should be punished.”
Why am I the one being punished for your refusal to acknowledge that I might be good at something? Better than you, perhaps?
Dani can feel the words leaping to her lips unbidden, and she shuts her mouth tight to keep herself from screaming at the ghost. She pinches the bridge of her nose – it doesn’t help; it never helps; she isn’t sure she’s doing it to help anymore – and hisses through gritted teeth, “You aren’t being punished for my problems; you’re being punished because you shouldn’t take over my body without my permission.”
Viola laughs, then – a harsh, bark of a thing – just the one hah, then twice, and then nothing. Dani can imagine her with one hand on her face, her dark hair wild around her, eyes gleaming a bright, mottled green as she looks out at her. You gave me permission when you asked for me to fuse with you. Or did you forget about that?
“That wasn’t—”
I have heard you talk about Peter Quint and what he did with Miles. What did you think fusing with me would do? Surely you did not believe that you would retain control of your fleshly form. Surely you thought you would be tucked away just as surely as the child was. Viola’s voice isn’t a hiss, isn’t mad, isn’t frustrated – it’s calm and steel and warm as a mother chiding her child should be, not that Dani has ever experienced such a thing herself. She saw it with Eddie and his mother, but as much as the woman who once would have been her mother-in-law might have tried to do the same with her, she’d never quite done it. Something always held her back. Pity, perhaps, for Dani’s own situation with her mother. Eddie’s mom must have thought she should be good and warm and kind with Dani. She never took on the true chiding role that a mother should. She taught, but never in a way that suggested she was right and that anything Dani did was ever wrong. Dani knew she messed up. She knew. Eddie’s mother hadn’t needed to side-step around it, and her own mother should never have ignored it.
Now, Viola speaks in a way that Dani has only heard used with someone else, but with a hint of insanity beneath it. That, likely, is less in Viola’s control. It might only be Dani’s imagining. It likely is. Yet it remains there, causing the beginnings of panic to take root in her heart.
“You didn’t, though,” Dani says, not even realizing that she has stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, her hands so tight on the straps of her backpack that her knuckles have gone a bright white. “You didn’t tuck me away.”
I am not Peter Quint.
Dani wonders, briefly, if Viola knows anything about Peter other than what she and Jamie have discussed. They were both ghosts, after all, and Peter had mentioned in his conversation with Rebecca that he had talked with the other ghosts. Had he tried to talk with Viola? The ghost who murdered him? Had he followed her into the lake, pleading and bartering with her in an attempt to get her to release his body? Had he tried to wake her from her slumber at the bottom of the lake to ask her how to leave Bly? Or had he sat next to her ghost, staring at his broken body, and decided she wasn’t worth his time?
If Viola couldn’t remember her attempted murder of Dani, then there is no way that she remembers Peter Quint.
I did not manipulate you into offering a space for me. You offered it freely.
“Because I thought you were going to kill Flora. Because it was the only thing I could think of to get you to stop.”
Why would you think that offering me your body would stop me? Why didn’t you realize that it would only make me—
“I thought, if you had a body, even if it was mine, that was something mortal.” Dani takes a deep breath, steadying herself. “I thought, if you were mortal, you could be killed.”
In truth, Dani hadn’t put that much thought into the entire proceeding. She’d heard what happened with Miles and Peter, she’d seen how Miles – Peter – had completely disappeared when the woman who turned out to be Viola showed up, and she’d understood that Peter was afraid of her. Dani was afraid of her, too, but Peter’s fear was more important. He had hidden. Whatever plan Miles was necessary for, he was afraid that woman would do something to screw it up.
Dani hadn’t known what that was. But if Peter was scared of her, then perhaps, if she was chained into a body, she would need to fear, too.
Maybe Dani had only thought that if she took the woman within her, then the woman would, by necessity, drop Flora. Maybe she had thought there would be enough time in the fusing for Flora to get away. Maybe she hadn’t really thought that far at all.
It was a shot in the dark. That’s all it was. A desperate attempt to do something, no matter how much it terrified her.
No matter what it cost.
In the silence, Dani starts forward again. The pressure is still there, just between her eyes, so Viola hasn’t left. She’s still there. Just silent. “I don’t think any of us understood what was happening at Bly. It wasn’t anything personal. I just wanted—”
—to save Flora. I know. Viola’s voice is softer now than it was before, although still holding that same firm, steel. You wouldn’t have killed me.
“I couldn’t have known that.”
You would have been stuck there with me.
“And with Hannah Grose,” Dani says, and she smiles at that. “I would have been with Hannah. That would have been alright.” She shifts the backpack on her back. “Jamie would have stayed on as the gardener, and Owen would have stayed on as the chef, although the children would have been long gone. I still would have been able to see everyone I loved.”
You wouldn’t have been able to leave.
“And Peter Quint would have taken Miles.” Dani sighs. “I wouldn’t have been able to stop that. But I wouldn’t have had to deal with him, either.”
You would have forgotten everything.
“In time, yes. Eventually. If I ever accepted that I was dead in the first place.” Dani laughs, almost more to herself than anything. “I can be quite ignorant when I want to be. I’m not sure I would have believed I was dead.” She shrugs. “Saving Flora would have been worth it.”
You would not have saved me.
You cannot bring yourself to say the words. There is little point in saying them, if there is any point at all.
You host, such as she is, does not want to save you. Never did. She only wanted to kill you.
Ironic, that she should spend all this time complaining about your murderous pursuits – things that you do not remember doing, and certainly did not do consciously (as far as you can remember, although you believe if you had truly known Peter Quint, such as she and Jamie have described him, you would have had no problem removing him from their equation) – all the while hiding that she knowingly, consciously, would have murdered you, had she been given the opportunity.
That this thing the two of you became was an attempt to do so.
You do not call her a hypocrite. You do not even think the word. You do not need to do so. The feeling of it sinks into your chest and spreads like ice from your heart to the tips of your fingers. This, perhaps, would give use to your unending rage, which would warm all of this up if you allowed it.
And yet it is not rage you feel at this new understanding.
You could, easily enough, and it is possible in the future that you will, but right now, it is not rage you feel.
It is only an ache, one that, if left long enough, will all too easily become part and parcel of the rage ever present in the back of your mind.
You understand, then, that your rage is not truly pure rage at all. It is something born of grief, of expectations – of your hope being dashed into ashes, just as it is now.
Saving a child is always worth it, you say instead. Not because you want to butter up to your host, but because you agree with her. A commonality, just as sure as the monster within’s murderous rage.
Dani nods, but you do not nod with her.
You have not always paid attention when she walks to the library. In fact, you rarely do. You know to give her space, and you know that you don’t need to see or know everything that is going on. There is…not plenty for you to do back on your side of the gate, but you have other things to do. And time does not pass where you are the same as it passes where Dani is. You know this, too.
When you were the lady of the lake, you slept, you woke, you walked, but you had – and you have – no concept of how much time passed between those wakings, those walkings. You remember very little of that period of your life – or death, as it may be – but you know that time, for you, passed differently. Perhaps because you are a ghost. A short period of time for you is longer for a normal person because your time is so much longer than theirs is anyway.
Dani has been alive barely over thirty years, and you have been dead for centuries, not even counting your life (how old you were when you died, you do not know, but you think you could not have been too terribly much older than she is now. It is an odd feeling). A short time within thirty years must, by necessity, be shorter than a short time within centuries. Three hours compared to a few centuries is a short time, but it is not nearly as short compared with thirty years.
You think, maybe, this is why you feel time differently than she does, than Jamie does.
It simply is different for you.
You could blink in that room of yours, and Dani could be at the library or with the children or leaving them so that you haven’t spent any time with them at all. Better to stay here, where you are, because after everything that’s going on, you don’t think Dani will let you know to return at all.
She likely doesn’t want you here now.
I hope you don’t mind if I stay here.
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” Dani’s lips press together. “Just as long as you don’t force yourself forward—”
Are you going to tell them about me? you ask, knowing that the answer will be no and hoping that it will be otherwise. Or are you going to let them just figure it out on their own?
“I was under the impression that they wouldn’t ever know.”
You begin to pace back and forth within the small void behind your host’s eyes. If I’m spending time with them and you’re spending time with them, then they will be able to tell a difference. Children aren’t so oblivious that—
“Maybe you don’t spend time with them, then.”
Then you feel it, that rage burning bright in the back of your mind being stoked ever stronger, your hands clenching tight around your arms instead of into fists that can be seen as aggressive – not that your host is looking at you to know, but out of habit—
He chose me, Dani, you say, unable to keep the bite from coming forth on your lips. Rafael chose me.
“Yes, and their father chose me to tutor him—”
Which he would not have done if not for my discussion with him—
“When you took over my body.”
Only because you refused to acknowledge that there are aspects of life and discussion and people that I am far better at managing than you are—
“Viola, it is still my body. Not yours. Mine!”
You can feel her teeth gritting together, can hear the snap loud in your ears no matter how much she hisses it out between her clenched teeth in an attempt to keep passersby from hearing her (this does not work; you can see one of them give her an odd look in passing, can see her attempting to ignore them)—
She is mad at you. Still mad at you. Still refusing to acknowledge that what you did – while bad – was also good.
You, at least, can acknowledge that you crossed a line by taking over her body. She doesn’t need to keep pounding it into your brain. You know. It’s her refusal to understand that she, too, might have done something bad – or at least, unwise – by ignoring you and refusing to allow you to help her that sits wrong with you.
A refusal she still continues in, believing herself to be in the right, when she is still wrong.
But you take a deep breath and let it out – an action that you have felt your host doing multiple times when she is frustrated with something or someone (usually you, although you refuse to acknowledge that). You think it is supposed to help. It sends rivers of ice along the white hot rage bubbling within you, but that devours them and maintains its heat.
That probably is not good either, but it is a conversation you cannot broach with your host – one that you might, possibly, broach with Jamie, if she were free to speak with you again. Your host is not preventing her from speaking. You know this. You do not hold anything against her.
And yet.
I know that, you answer, even though you are certain she will not believe you. I know it is your body. You do not think I look at your face and wish I could see my own instead of yours? You do not think that I am accustomed to a certain height that you do not have? You do not think that I am used to a way of dressing and being meant to intimidate and yet you and your body do not adhere to any of those standards?
“I am not less than you, Viola.”
That is not what I meant. You take a deep breath, steadying yourself, and you feel as though this is an action you took many times in your real life, with someone who was very much not your host but who is acting very much like she is now. You have never been less than me, just as I have never been more than you. The world does not turn in such a manner. No one being is less or more than another.
“You certainly act as though they are.”
I am not the one who refuses to acknowledge that the ghost she asked to live within her actually might have helpful things to do and say every once and a while about events or people that are important to her. You can’t stop yourself from saying it, cannot stop yourself from continuing. You grow upset each time I force myself into control, and yet both of those actions helped you. It is not my fault that you refuse to see that there are good aspects of my living within you and only choose to see the bad ones. You look at me as a burden, and you still look at me as a beast. I am a human being, and if you would treat me the same as you treat everyone else, you would find that perhaps I am not as much of a burden as you believe me to be.
Dani does not respond to that. Her teeth work against each other, grinding this way and that. Viola’s rage bubbles and boils in her blood stronger than she has ever felt it before, which tells her that as calm as the ghost may be trying to maintain, she is not succeeding. She is just as angry as she is. Maybe more so. It is her anger that makes her most wary, most afraid – because it is that unending anger that Dani is afraid will wreck havoc and begin its murderous ways again. She still seems in control of it. That is good. Very good.
“I know I’m not great at everything,” Dani says, a small admittance that is less pointed at Viola and more universally applied. She isn’t a great gardener, but Jamie is. She isn’t a great cook, but Owen is. She isn’t great at…whatever it is that Henry does (she hasn’t asked), but he…. Well, in truth, it appears that Henry isn’t as great at his job as he appears to be. But he does wonders with Miles and Flora just by being there. She had, too. “I know there are things other people are better at. But I don’t manipulate people, Viola.”
I wasn’t manipulating anyone. I was merely acting in the stead that Emilio expected of you, meeting and fulfilling his expectations to gain a benefit for his children. Viola is silent for a moment, and Dani thinks she would be leaning forward – but, then, that sort of action is not befitting the ghost or indicative of her normal actions. She is imagining her wrong, and she knows it. Aren’t the children the most important thing? Are we not in agreement on that, at least?
Dani takes a deep breath. “The children do not need us, Viola. I might be a good match as a tutor, but that does not mean they could not have found one better.” In fact, she is absolutely certain they could – someone without a ghost forcing her way forward whenever she so desired.
The children need us as much as we need them, Viola answers, her voice still that feigned calm. It is a mutually beneficial relationship. I am sure you can understand that.
“Mutually beneficial to you, maybe.” Dani shakes her head. “I still don’t think this is a good idea, Viola. I don’t think I should reward your misbehavior by allowing you to spend time with the children.”
Then perhaps I should not reward yours by refusing you the same.
“So we’re in agreement that we shouldn’t be spending time with the children.”
I did not say that.
“No, but you agreed that I should be punished to not spend time with them while I said that you should be punished in the same way. That's saying we shouldn’t be with them.”
Viola growls – a low, guttural thing that is unintelligible in its viciousness – and a shiver runs down Dani’s spine. The sound reminds her of the beast – that thing that was once Viola but which she isn’t at the moment – and fear blossoms inside her once more, if it could ever be said to have gone away at all. We cannot abandon them now.
“We wouldn’t be abandoning them if we were allowing them to find someone better suited to—”
NO.
The sound is loud, forceful – and the image of the beast with its mouth stretched open appears in Dani’s mind unbidden, as though that is the very action Viola is taking right now, as though she is letting the rage control her in the way that Dani is most afraid of.
Viola takes a step forward at the same moment that Dani does, and Dani can feel it all the way through her skin, that white hot rage that could melt the concrete sidewalk beneath her if anyone or anything else other than her could feel it. YOU WILL NOT GO BACK ON WHAT YOU HAVE PROMISED ME. YOU WILL NOT TELL ME ONE THING AND DO ANOTHER. YOU WILL DO EXACTLY AS YOU SAID. NOTHING MORE. NOTHING LESS.
“You cannot force me to—”
DO NOT LIE TO ME, MORTAL.
Dani forces herself to laugh – an awkward thing just breaking through her lips, forcing herself to stay as relaxed as possible in the face of what is happening. “Are you saying you aren’t mortal, Viola?”
There is a ripple beneath her skin again, one marked with confusion.
“Control yourself,” Dani says, trying to remain calm. “Breathe. I’m still going to the library, aren’t I?”
The beast doesn’t move. There is another ripple. Something – and then a sharp shift – and then nothing. No pressure in the bridge of her nose, just between her eyes; nothing moving along the curve of her head, just along the center; no pressure at the back of her skull where it meets her neck as the ghost leaves her – just something and then nothing, as though the beast – or Viola herself – has abruptly fled.
Dani lets out another shaking breath, unable to keep the panic, the adrenaline, from flooding within her. Her body begins to shake all over. Her throat tightens so much that it feels hard to breathe without it growing raw, and she hunches over, gasping for air. More people are looking at her, but no one comes over to help. That’s good. That’s probably best. She isn’t sure how she – how Viola – would react to that.
She stumbles over to the nearest alleyway and leans hard against the brick wall, wrapping her arms around herself, forcing herself to take deep, measured breaths, trying to calm herself.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
She still can’t feel Viola. That could be a good thing. That could be a bad thing. Either way, she doesn’t want to risk being out in public right now. She doesn’t want to risk what the beast could do if it gets loose.
This is not quite before the advent of cell phones, but they are huge bricks of things. Dani can’t afford to have one, so it isn’t until she struggles back to the house she shares with Jamie that she is able to fish out the number Emilio had given her. She gives him a call, hoping that Viola had been right about his state of affairs (something she’d never thought she would ever do) – hoping that he had the money to afford one of those huge bricks of things and that she would get to him directly.
There’s a click on the other end. “You have reached Emilio Solano’s phone. How may I help you?” Emilio sounds annoyed and like he doesn’t intend on helping anyone.
That doesn’t matter. “My apologies, Emilio. I seem to have come down with a horrid cold, and I don’t want to get either of the children sick. Can we postpone our meeting until next week?”
She isn’t sure next week will be any better, but she’s afraid of what might happen if she tries to tell that monster no again.