I met my first ghost back when I first thought about killing someone. Her face was kind, almost as if she knew me better than I knew myself. It was the middle of the night, and there was a cold wind wailing outside, yet when I awoke, I was covered with sweat. I saw her then, looking bright within the dark. I should have been frightened, but I wasn’t.
She was kneeling beside my bed, resting her head on the end, as if she was waiting for me to wake up. We were similar in age. She smiled, touched my cheek, her warm hand trailing down my arm. When she spoke, it wasn’t in a language I understood. It sounded like the tongue of the ancients, all-knowing. Settling back to sleep, I felt safe. It was within this oasis of calm that the first stabbing pain shot through me, first in my chest, then further down my body. Opening my eyes, I saw her. This time her face and arms were covered with blood, and when I screamed, she backed away. Later, I could find no signs of her. The pain was gone and so, too, was the blood. But she had been real.
The next time I saw her, she told me she knew I wanted to kill someone, but that I should wait, endure longer. Evil defines you. If it pushes you hard enough, you’ll break or, like me, find ways to survive it. When I lived with the hunched shadow of the witch, she extracted pleasure from my vulnerability, took joy from my hurt. If you’ve never reached that point, the one asking you if you want to die, or kill to survive, you can never understand me or my desire to take another person’s life.
Until now, the only woman I have ever killed was the witch, but I need to rid my new lover of his pathetic security blanket. I’ve become more convinced than ever that he is the one. I can’t allow her stand in my way. She is at breaking point. Little by little, she is falling apart, and when she least suspects it, I will destroy her.
SANDRA
IT WAS AFTER Edgar had left for work that I saw the shadow again. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. I felt such a strong sense of foreboding that my relief, once the shadow disappeared, was quickly followed by fear: if the stranger was no longer in the garden, they could be inside the house. I felt like a prisoner inside my own home.
Last night, I slept in the studio again. I didn’t want Edgar reaching for me in the bed, whispering in my ear, willing me to wake up and have duty sex with him. We haven’t made love in such a long time, but I couldn’t take the risk that his old habits would return. It was Karen who told me sexual desire towards your partner rises rather than falls when you’re having an affair. The libido is sparked by extra-marital activity, and you imagine you’re having sex with your lover rather than your partner.
Lori phoned earlier, but I brushed her off. I needed to get out of the house, even though I was forced to agree to meet her later on. I decided to drive to Edgar’s showrooms in town, as if I was some kind of secret-service agent. I waited for more than an hour before I saw him leave: I had made the decision to follow him. If I was wrong about Edgar lying to me, so be it, but if I was right, it was better to know the truth than be kept in the dark.
Considering everything, I don’t know why I was so shocked when I saw him drive to that other house. Maybe I hadn’t expected to discover something so quickly, but when he turned the key in the front door, I still couldn’t quite believe it. He had walked up to the house with such familiarity, turning the key as if he was arriving home. How long has he been seeing this woman?
It took me a while to realise I was shivering in the car. I pulled my collar up around my neck for some warmth, and it was then I heard the voice inside my head saying, You’re in denial.
I drove past the house, cursing myself for not being better prepared. I hadn’t made a detailed plan. I had simply wanted to get to the bottom of things, but presented with reality, I needed to think about my next move.
I parked at the end of the street, keeping my eyes on the house. Ideas, notions, ridiculous explanations formed repeatedly in my mind, but one thought kept coming back: I needed to find out everything I could about this woman. Was she a stranger or someone I already knew? Were Edgar and her in this together, planning and scheming against me?
The house was no more than an hour’s drive from the centre of Dublin, and I had visited Greystones, a busy seaside town, many times as a child. Alice and I had often gone there by bus. It felt weird being there again, and there wasn’t anything particularly unusual about the house. It didn’t look very different from any of the others on the street, except for one thing: I felt I had seen it before.