Jadis

a ghost story in verse

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own, and in reflex, in cowardice, I turned away. Midnight had crept in, stealing my evening, so maybe I had dreamed, perhaps I had slept. I rubbed weary eyes, seeking sense in me. It was only my usual fatigue, nothing more.

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I recalled my brief glimpse of that face in the long mirror of my drawing room. Did I remember a slender hand raised partially concealing a once young face, drained of the bloom that should have been? I whispered, silent, and an echo returned, “Jadis!” Startled at deep stillness broken, I ran, trying to banish my treacherous memories as I fled to my chamber down the shadowed hall. Chest still heaving, I quieted my sobs, and I told myself, “a nightmare, only that.”

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I did not, could not, move once seated reading in my chair by the barren, empty hearth. The cold I felt greater than I should have, even for such a bleak December night. Reading couldn’t warm me, not to the marrow, chilled in this old house by the ocean winds, frozen by a past cursed by misfortune. Not my fault. Just bad luck. Just that.

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Fearful to sleep, I listened to a storm that quickly ascended in wind and fury. Feeling disquieted, still I thought it’s a regular storm and nothing more, so I started a small fire in the fireplace, and lit candles when the power failed. I was certain the scrapes on the floorboards in the hallway were not dragging footsteps, but I wedged a chair under the door latch, cursing the thinness of the wood.

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The icy wind became a tremulous moan, like that of a woman, maybe. No not that. It was just echoes down the long hallway, sounding as though complaining at my door. I gathered my strength, and my humor, and called out, resolute and strong. “Forgive me,” said I, “but the night is late for visitors or bad memories or nightmares.” I chuckled quietly and hoped no one was there, but I timidly opened the chamber door…. A darkened hall, nothing more.

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Alone, alone, I stood in the hallway. I feared, then made excuses, yet I doubted. A sudden silence surely was not like a tomb. This thought chilled me deeply again, so I whispered to the darkness, “Jadis?” The dark returned, “Jadis?” as an echo. Retreating to my chamber, fire dying, I felt enflamed, frightened, but suddenly hopeful when I found the source of those footsteps. Outside my window was a scraping branch. It was only wind returned, moving the tree.

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Now after 2 am, it was past time to sleep, so I went to the master bath to prepare for bed, the candle an eerie, flickering companion. Still a bit fearful, I closed the door behind me, accidentally slamming it loudly in my rush. A shriek next to me made me drop my candle, and the room was plunged into abysmal darkness. Blubbering and wailing on the floor, like a child, I feared the touch of icy fingers that did not come. I felt for the candle and retrieved my matches. A strike, a flame, and enough light to see… it was just me here. No one more.

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I stood to look in the old, black-spotted mirror glaring at myself with one eye. I know not why. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?” I asked. I picked up my unpleasantly worn toothbrush and looked in vain for my toothpaste, then resigning myself to using only water. When a sudden smell of perfume wafted in the air, I remembered the sweet scent of lost Jadis. I wept for my misfortune that she was gone. It was my usual bad luck. It most certainly was.

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I grimaced at myself, most foully, in the mirror, and I was shocked to see a young woman’s face appear. Jadis it was, mouth screaming silently at me to go away! The door to the bathroom flew open by itself, and I raced through it to the bed chamber to hide, deep under dusty covers of my large, curtained bed. Weeping, I implored God to remove her foul spirit, for had she not brought me endless misery in life, with her expectations, and complaints, and weeping? Something unfortunate had happened on the stairs, but it most certainly was not my fault at all.

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From beneath my covers, hiding my eyes, I listened to the terrible spirit of Jadis, walking around the house, weeping and praying, in the most horrible of ways, like she once did. I could smell and hear preternaturally well, the scent of burning sage, sound of salt poured in the doorways and on the windowsills. Her prayers of insistent demand, echoed through me. “Leave, leave, John. You have to go,” she said. “It’s not my fault you died trying to kill me on the stairs.” She said such things repeatedly, ’til nothing more.

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I did not understand my encroaching madness, the insistent feeling that I was becoming hollow. My bed chamber began to fade from my sight, as eerie white light cast a dire shadow on the floor that moved closer every minute, all day, it seemed. I stood my ground for hours, trembling in fear, but when the room disappeared, I had no option. It was my decision to leave, nothing more.

Originally published at https://vocal.media.

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