Part 1 - Part 2
August 12
Janice opened her eyes in the gray half-light of her bedroom. It took a moment to sink in that she had been sleeping soundly and dreamlessly just seconds ago. She couldn’t remember the last time she had genuinely slept. A cautious hope swelled within her, but was dashed when she heard McDougan’s gruff voice just feet from her bed.
“You must be mad. You’re a plaything and you’ll never be more.”
Silvery beams of moonlight poured through the windows, illuminating a foreign scene. The room was bare save for the bed she was in. The twelve-inch baseboards were gone, as was the trim around the windows. Plaster was on the walls, but the rough edges were exposed where later moldings would hide them, and she realized she must be seeing the place as it was in 1872 during construction.
A woman Janice had never seen before - but who she realized with a jolt looked remarkably like her – was weeping into a handkerchief. McDougan towered over her, staring down from at least an eighteen-inch height advantage.
“Don’t say such things. You cannot mean it. We belong together, you know we do!” The petite woman lifted her eyes to his, imploring, but his features only hardened.
“My wife arrives Monday next. You will take yourself away from here and never return,” he growled without a hint of mercy.
As though a switch had been thrown, the woman ceased her weeping and the hand that had been clutching the handkerchief to her face dropped to her side. She smiled wickedly, and stepped even closer to McDougan.
“No. I’ll not leave. I’ve decided I like this house very much more than the little cottage my husband built. I like your purse strings very much more than I like his as well. I’ll have this house and you with it. I can be patient while you put your wife away from you, or I’ll see she knows the whole affair from my own-”
Her voice was cut off as McDougan shot a hand up and gripped her delicate throat. With two strides he had pinned her to the wall and Janice looked on with horror as his other hand reached within his coat and returned with a knife.
“You threaten me?” he roared. The woman’s eyes were rolling back, her throat pinned by his enormous hand to the wall, her own small hands once grasping, struggling, now wilted as he drove the pointed blade into the side of her neck just above the collarbone. Blood sprayed, splattering the walls but the beast wasn’t done. He pulled the blade free and in an underhand motion, thrust it into her abdomen and upward, aiming for the vital space behind her ribs. Janice screamed but he took no notice. She lost count of the number of times he pierced the body, but when he finally let it slump to the floor, the origins of the “black mold” were brutally clear.
She must have lost consciousness, and when she came to, Janice was staring at the ceiling as it drifted by. No, she was moving, sliding along the floor. She could feel her skin tearing against the yet unvarnished wood, and then her head thudded against step after step as he dragged her down to the first floor.
He left her slumped on the floor of the unfinished dining room as he pried the bricks from the still-soft mortar. Trapped in the body of a mistress who had overplayed her hand, Janice felt panic welling inside her as she was stuffed into the hole and brick by brick her tomb was assembled.
He covered her eyes last. Staring for what seemed an eternity into them, before sliding the final brick into place, blotting out her view of him.
Everything went black.
August 13
Sunlight streamed through the windows and she stretched languidly in its warm glow. She felt amazing, like she had slept for a hundred years and in a way, she supposed she had.
Wiggling her toes into the slippers beside the bed, she padded downstairs to brew some tea, then took the cup on a tour of the house, reviewing her progress. Beginning in the front hall, she stared up the impressive main staircase, newly stained a deep maple tone. She poked her head into the library to the right of the shotgun style hall, then the women’s parlor to the left. Strolling through into the dining room, she stopped to see the handkerchief poking from between the bricks, from within the tomb.
Sloppy work, James.
She crisscrossed the rear of the hall, cellar to her right, the incredibly luxurious bathroom with jetted corner tub and free standing vanity directly ahead. Above her, the ceilings were solid and freshly replastered. No longer a hazard just to walk under. Through the servants’ quarters, up the back stairs, around the bedrooms, and down the main staircase, she toured it all, a deep satisfaction at a job well done filling her.
She had never seen the place done like this before. The restoration had gone beautifully and it was almost as good as if it had never seen a moment of decay since it was completed a century and a half ago. She returned to the bedroom, and pulling the laptop onto the bed with her, she navigated to Craigslist. She would need a little help for this.
Janice placed the ad for a roommate and sat back to wait. They hoped they could get a man as handsome and dashing as James. They didn’t want to settle for his spirit – satisfying though it was. But they also wanted him restored as faithfully as the house – and they – had been.
Author's Note
I took the photo accompanying this piece while running electrical for the home in which my family and I now reside. The confusion was real: What on earth was a handkerchief doing stuffed into the brick behind a finished plaster wall? This story is the result of my wild ponderings of that question. The handkerchief remains untouched.
Just in case...
Many thanks to the great folks at the workshop who helped me tame this thing. Any crappiness remaining is solely due to my refusal to change. These folks are amazing for taking the time to review and comment on such a long piece: @horrorguyian, @rhondak, @jhagi.bhai, @jean.racines, @gmuxx, @pegasus.physics, @arekwolf
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