‘Poor Father,’ I said. ‘Can I get you anything to make you more comfortable?’ The walls around me hissed. They weren’t wearing any clothes. I wondered if I would miss him. I pulled the sheet down and I saw them wriggle closer to each other, hands caressing each other.
I gritted my teeth, No more touching! No more make-believe love! and I stepped back from the table towards the door. In the corner of the doorjamb a flower petal clung to the wood. Three days before, the dining room was covered in violet bloom, Mrs Borden having filled vase and vase and vase with those sickly flowers she liked having around so much. I watched her breathe in those small petals, watched her smile and sway her hips. When she exited, I walked in and ripped off the petals until there was nothing but stem and glass. I did it to all of them. For a moment, my small violent impulse had felt restful. And then, after a time, it didn’t. I felt just as I had before. I picked up as many petals as I could and left the room. I said nothing.
I took the petal from the doorjamb and stuck it into my pocket. I walked out of the dining room into the sitting room and left Father and Mrs Borden behind. Outside someone yelled, ‘I can see her,’ as I passed the parlour window towards the front stairs. I smoothed my hands over my hair. I walked up the stairs, made the wood yell.
I ran my hand across the hot banister and it melted into my palm like taffy. Everything slowed and the walls pulled themselves away from their foundations. There was no more silence. Everything was loud and thunderous the closer I got to the top of the stairs. On the landing, the heat was a tyrant of rage and pushed my mouth open, forcing my breath to be shallow then big. I heard myself scream then laugh.
I walked into the guestroom where they found Mrs Borden and saw that the police had opened all the drawers and cupboards, spreading our life across the floor until it was dirty and soiled. Father would be angry at the mess. I thought of how he would demand I clean it and how I would turn to him and refuse. There would be a moment when his eyes would snap, his neck becoming thick and superior. He would knot his fingers together and shout, ‘You will do as I say,’ and I would smile at him sweetly and press my palms over my ears. I would watch his mouth open open shut, open open shut and pretend he was saying, ‘I am wrong, Lizzie, and you are right.’
On the floor the police had laid out an old towel. It was covered in bloodied boot prints, invisible soldiers, and I thought of the time when I was eight, when Emma and I became ghosts leaving flour footprints all over the kitchen, I was so small, small, small. So long ago.
I had tiptoed around Emma’s bed and whispered, ‘Make me laugh, Missus Chatter!’
Emma rolled over, wiped dribble from her mouth and asked, ‘What do you want to do?’ and I told her, ‘Let’s be naughty,’ and we walked downstairs, me a jumping jack and Emma a mouse, into the cold kitchen, waiting for the sun to warm us. We went through the cupboards telling each other:
‘We could eat sugar!’
‘We could hide one of the knives.’
‘We could hide in here until someone opens it and we jump out.’
‘Let’s eat all the food except for the horrible stuff.’
And then Emma spotted the flour tin and asked me, ‘Lizzie, would you like to be invisible?’
‘A ghostie?’
She nodded, like a jump. ‘Yes.’
I said I would if it really meant no one would ever see the naughty things I would do, and Emma told me, ‘No one will ever, ever see you, not even when you’re old and spotty.’
We stood in the middle of the kitchen with the flour tin between our feet and took off our nighties, bent over the tin and dove our hands into the flour, made fistfuls of clouds onto our bodies.
‘Make sure you cover my face,’ Emma said, and I threw another handful at her, into her eye. She yelled at me in the voice she knew scared me, yelled and yelled until she heard Father walk down the back stairs and unbuckle his belt. We listened to the leather slither its way through loops of material, his boots whipped into the staircase. Then it became quiet. We closed our eyes and became invisible.
I opened my eyes. My shoes were drifting along the bloodstained carpet, the last pieces of Mrs Borden’s life licking at my heels like an ocean. I’m in the sea. At the bottom of the ocean, I saw fine strands of grey seaweed, saw little fish swimming through it, hoping to hide from sharks. I crouched into the water and let the blood sea salt cleanse my face. I waded across a wave. I fancied myself an explorer, a deep-sea diver. Floating in the water I found a hair comb, a cameo necklace, a piece of lace from a pillow sham, a little scrap of bone. Signs of sunken treasure, a bounty stolen from pirates. I tried to put treasure into my skirt pocket, careful not to let it sink me. I let out a deep breath. Something made me feel like crying. I left the ocean, left the room, felt fresh air sweep my face.
Downstairs a thud sounded and echoed through the house. The heavy boots of a police officer thumped up the stairs. I quickened across the landing into my bedroom and locked the door.
My room was tight with heat. I looked at the silver crucifix above my bed, reminded myself that He had suffered too. My body ached and all the blood rushed to my ears then forehead making everything black and solid. I stood in front of my mirror and pulled at my clothes, when did they become so tight? peeled away the layers until I was naked. My skin was pale and opaque, this is not what thirty-two should look like. Everything hurt. I wanted to feel better. I forced my fingers onto my arms and ordered them to march like ants. They trounced over hills and mountains, digging trenches under my arms and breasts, I’m beginning to feel better, and the army advanced down my rounded stomach to view my groin and thigh. I filled with tingles, good things. My skin cooled and the house dimmed its heat. With a one two left right, the army continued towards my toes, taking with them my webby skin until it became liquid, beautiful. I pressed myself against the mirror.
I layered my clothes back onto my body and straightened my hair, perfect. I peeked out my bedroom window at Second Street, took in the bright whites and purples of front yard glory, took in the dank layers of grit and rot that clung to houses. Below me was Irish Mary hanging out clothes. She scratched her head, that lopsided thing, and then she looked at the basement for a time. I knew what she was thinking. Bad things do happen.