{ NOT AS DELICATE AS EXPECTED }

the call bounding off the smooth surface of the water. the house a clatter and clash of rocking chairs, music boxes - the cat slapping its tail against the door. darling is not actually rolling yet. she is moving backwards in slow motion, putting the knickknacks back in their places. she goes through the entire process: lifting every framed photo, every vase, and wiping it with a damp cloth. this is important. she is unaware of the monstrous and awful sounds of bones shifting, of cartilage and blood. suddenly a choir, the collapse of her body onto the sofa. a veil of dust drifting, mingling sweat and sage. a static rises, flickers on the walls, sparkling.

duchess still thinks of the sea in her own way. she calls it a lovable creature. she watches it swell, fascinated. snippets of ships rising and popping on the waves. duchess thinks of when the horizon was all black, and the water an inked cauldron. she presses her mouth into the collar of her coat and sighs.

darling is disappointed in the result of her efforts. she didn’t even have to clean. she’d fixed on a room, hoped to make it real. she made an attempt and things might have altered, dependent on the time of day and the weather. the breeze disrupting the curtains. the room disturbed by its residents, the enameled box, the velvet pincushion. a glitch, a gap that’s slowly closing: soon there will be no unknown room - or will the gaps continue to multiply despite darling’s intentions? a lot could happen. it will certainly happen. darling will continue to hold her place. to notice how the house and the sea sit side by side, though they were never meant to be together.

i must get back to my duty, says duchess.

{ WHEN PARTED BY THE SEA }

in a photograph hanging on the wall there is a row of girls. they are girls compelled by exhaustion. a confusion of charm and condition, so easily forged. they are too tired to move; they stand still, reluctant to touch the keys in their pockets. the girl at the end of the line falls off and drifts way, thinking she might escape through the moon.

darling has had enough of looking at this picture to last her a long time. did you hear what i said? she says and duchess replies, of course it is creepy to talk about ghosts.

darling drops to her knee to pick up a key. the house expands, swallowing the wind drifting through the dormer windows. they key is lying beside a stone and she puts them each into the pockets of her dress. the key was hurried and hot in her palm.

from the front door to the sea. the path tangles, dies violently at the cliff’s edge. the sea, hemorrhaging, a graveyard of stinking fish. the problems of girls in heavy dresses. darling and duchess are still working with this history. start in the corner, document little changes: the moment doesn’t disappear.

darling walks with her heart popping grotesquely in her chest, her legs hopping under their own command, a neck muscle bulging and pulling her head around. though my memory appears to be clear i have no idea how this came about. in the high trees above, vultures hanging their damp wings out to dry - they look like demons, duchess says, pushing shut the door as darling’s figure fades into the forest.

around the house there is a perimeter of wire, several bowls of rain water. efforts to initiate, or prevent. the right key in the correct room and an invisible map.

not only is the pain almost entirely gone, but darling is unusually happy.

i am extremely pleased. i am overjoyed.

{ ALIKE BEWITCHED }

darling is sure that she is staunch. she has been completely motionless and compliant for the last few hours, standing in the sea and allowing each one to cross her, the apex of each wave dividing between her legs.

if she knew about the rusted battleships buried in the sand, she would disappointed. some things i keep to myself: i sing, flip my tongue rather than tell.

i look at her, even though she hasn’t moved. i watch her as i often do. i shuffle in the sand, making noises that don’t quite reach her. the house on the cliffs above us is dark: duchess has been persuaded to turn out the lights. duchess is walking in the inner perimeter, holding up her skirts, stopping at each window. trying to find the best view, stumbling over shadows.

there is something too close, near presence: something wrong. when i glance up, a glitch: long black hair hanging from a window. a stiff mountain, a poisoned comb. there is no one besides darling

and i am
and there is venom running down darling’s neck.
i am feeling wondrous, enormous pain.

i don’t realize it is blood until a drop begins to slip from the corner of my mouth. i wonder if it is enough.

a few minutes pass. are you there? says darling
her body has swollen, lewdly ripe, the flesh possessive of its organs. her body beyond lace curtains, candlesticks.

i am still grimacing
and grunting - it makes her nervous, now that she can hear me.

it feels like i am still biting her.

this throbbing, these symptoms. all the times i have made her nervous; i kept interrupting her pacing from room to room. i have never had to answer. i know her typical activities - enough to last me a long time. i wonder if i can keep watching, all the way until the end.

my flesh has become warm. i can feel pain in my joints - startled, the crying starts with a wail and a whirlwind of dust.

a purple flume, her halted breath.

darling returns to the house despite the fact that it is still progressing. her hands are unable to move. there is a tight air in the corridor and a certainty that it will take her a couple days to recover. a paper moon, a paper heart, floundering in the fire.

her unwashed hair, damp from the fog.
some girls have fallen into a coma from such a bite.

duchess not really looking at the sea - looking at the window, the glass, the water caught there. you have to stop, duchess says. sounds she doesn’t recall making, too concerned about the possibility of broken glass. she closes her half-open mouth, sends darling to the only room she knows. the room is alarmed and monitored.

duchess is regretting her vow. if she could leave the house she could have covered darling’s eyes with her own hands, lifted her hair and wrapped it around her neck, snake of silk. duchess, suspended between the roof and the floor, is no longer convinced that she can answer the question. what happened here?

i was wrong about the pain subsiding. completely wrong. i have lived, hoping to be found, guiding my light through the mist to the first granite stone. i have been here ever since, unable to contain the scream: from my mouth comes a red dress.

some of it must be real. i can’t believe this, otherwise.

darling limping down the hallway, walking on sharp stones, bare feet. her tendons severely stretched as if used for the first time. she did not expect her inclination to cry.

she was quite nauseous, but that has passed. soon darling will go to bed wondering whether she will wake tomorrow experiencing something completely new that she hasn’t even thought of, or if tomorrow will be one of many ordinary days. some heaving and then some fumbling. none of this is darling’s fault. she didn’t ask to be put in this situation, and merely reacts out of fear. any fault, if there must be any, is mine.

{ DRIVEN BY CLOCKWORK }

certain that she sees the stillness. the flat surface of the water, interrupted for a pause: something there and not there, disturbing her sense of time. the waves unaltered, long enough to be defined by their outline. it is easy enough for her to recognize that everything has stopped. after duchess has moved away from the window, a shadow strolls beneath the surface of the sea.

duchess will wait until tomorrow.

darling pushes open the door, going over the room, line by line. the furniture is as it always has been, faithful. the arrangement is not very likable, but it will do. the entire room is open to the influence of the window, where duchess stands all day long, gazing with an intensity that cannot be ignored. in the middle of the room sits the davenport with the coffee table before it. the fireplace in the middle of the room is burning, as ever - and the entire space smells of smoke and roses. is this my room? darling says. the space is common. she turns to the window, where the sea waits. will watching it make me a bad girl? darling says.

in her own room there is turbulence, discarded belongings; yesterday’s dress thrown over the lampshade, crumpled stockings kicked under the bed. the springs creaking like a ship, lost at sea. darling has been lonely here, pretending she is stronger. nothing can persuade her to turn out the light: she leaves it burning, pushing away the noises that won’t quite… that want some attention. darling bites inside of her mouth, drawing blood.

i think there is someone in the house, darling says.

{ FOR HOURS AND DAYS ON END }

it is hard to prove duchess has never left. she rarely has the feeling she is not watched; the air crowds around her, pulsing against her own body. a cold slip, a surge of bad weather. duchess knows there is wisdom in staying where she is. there are reasons why she doesn’t go outside.

darling often makes wild guesses.

the lawn is completely filled with worms.
the sea is very interesting to watch, but the feeling of the waves rushing is too much to take.
something will go wrong.
watching is almost the same as being there.
it is an advantage of depth, exquisite stillness.

these are the risks of a mammal. the thrill of the walls moving in. duchess makes a fuss at the window, as a signal. the water seems to rise, to engulf more space. there is less sky than there was, and a tiny boat, drifting on the horizon. is that something to kill, over there? duchess says. darling will have to climb the tree herself, holding the knife in her teeth. later, she will toss her soiled dress into the bathtub, run the water over the scratches on her knees. vanilla and milk and at last, a whistle. a warming within the walls; veil of steam, darling holding in her breath.

duchess makes the rules, and she will not waiver.

{ TO CLING UNTIL IT HAS EATEN OUT HER HEART }

the wind with sudden heaving: a response of surface to weight. the house stands solid, last shadows creeping over the front door. clouds thud and shatter against the turrets, silvery wisps sparking, a collection caught in cotton. the keys, the keys and darling’s open mouth, salvaging the bad lie, the betrayal. singing split end and then loud mouthed hooves along the unsteady hallways.

i thought i saw something move, darlings says, a rush of air disrupting the troublesome business of the light. contamination meeting with a wall and one laugh - a signal without answer. darling can’t keep waiting; she strikes against the wall, anywhere, looking for a way in. within the structure an echo: wads of tinsel, shredded. she has an impulse to stop, to revise her last movement: her hand moving through a flock of bubbles, shattering blood. carnage dripping down her dress and a gasp, released, from her throat. nothing eerie about faded light, this dull dappling of the carpet. her enjoyment over, darling fastens a handkerchief to her neck, to cover the marks a mouth left behind.

ashamed and ready to return, darling pauses at the double doors, eavesdropping on the sounds enclosed within. insects sucked through a wet tube, tongued. the suture of a threshing edge, unsettled snow dark with roars. let go and quick: bounding back, snapping radiance against the atmosphere. darling wonders why duchess ever wanted her at all, was it it divination, or a decision? the heroics of kitchen gossip and a girl hanging: everything must be a result. from her lips a wail not yet ready, embarrassing admissions poised, unwelcome. the beast withdrawing, layering it’s unwholesome self against the rug, a vibration expanding to fill the house: rubber and the belly. without pause, a piston. get me out of here, darling says.

{ OUT OF DOORS ACROSS A GARDEN }

the trees too cautious, branches withdrawn, holding in a spectacle of light and dark: a dappled bed of grass. the sky curiously low, the wind shuddering to a start, her hair skipping forward into her mouth. darling will have to stop, to stand as if eagerly awaiting the middle of the night. the blood in her body, shuddering. she follows the trail cut in the grass, barely recognizing the bushes that crowd around her: beyond them a thin whiteness shoulders out the dark of the sound stage. she walks and she wants to stop but she is urged forward, irreversibly.

i have seen her look surprised, a sequence of emotion altering her face. it is not unusual. she is often moved to desire, inspired to show a trick she knows. her fistful of knives, her handful of pearls: how she tells the weight of water, the buoyancy of land. she doesn’t mind walking alone.

her discomfort constant; darling knows she is too fast, too early. there is a stone in her chest and something crushing the hem of her dress. she is never ready for what comes next. she calls and there is an answer from the night, from the sleepless stars.

she is given the warning; she is in danger.

the grass ripples under her heels, a carpet of artificial green. it isn’t safe for her to wait here, a girl surrendering to necessity.

cut to the next thing; the forest frustrated by loss - an absence of birds, no message wielding a saber in the sky.

{ HOW SHE PLACES OBJECTS IN A ROOM }

the sea, full of distance, a condition evoking a yearning to cross, to conquer fathoms deep. if the roaring swells should overtake me, i would be satisfied. to be infused by salt. and if i thought of what has passed, i would smile sweetly. it is already too late late for me to be scared away.

i remember that i heard nothing myself. when i first knew something was wrong, when i saw that the house was more than it should be. the house empty, but for darling and duchess, who were little more than wretched. how easy it was to show them the way, to keep the door closed.

to see darling detached from her shadow, the polka dots running down her dress, the blush in her cheeks a red stain slipping down her neck - a tongue. worse than drowning, to slowly melt, a puddle of tinsel and borax at her feet. darling pacing round her bed, oblivious to any alteration: she sees the path before her as it was yesterday, not as it has become.

down on the beach, a handful of seashells scattered this way and that: is there a pattern, a purpose? darling will have to bolt the door, braid her hair from left to right. otherwise, what might happen? the house holds in the cold, a kind of slickness to the walls, a gleam she can’t escape. it is more than an accident. it is small clouds of breath held dearly, with such pity.

i amuse myself by placing obstacles in her path. her confusion brings me flowers, a reason to keep trying. the room beyond the door, of no importance. dust and heirlooms, a canticle of spiders.

looking for a key, aren’t you? duchess says, pulling closed her quilted satin robe. vile thing, a key. she turns to the window, to the howl of an unreleased wave.

if only darling knew where to look.

duchess closes the curtains at last. her silhouette flocked by velvet, a halo cast by a single unshaded light bulb dangling from the ceiling. and then what? i am always able to walk away from this.

oh bright window, bring me home.

{ REMEDIES FOR THE SPLIT END }

darling forces herself to walk. she has the feeling that if she starts she will never stop, but she continues nevertheless. she moves along the length of the witless corridor, her movement stifled, overdone. there are not many steps she can skip: she uses the pattern on the carpet as a marker, to measure her progress. she stands, her reflection inverted in the crystal doorknob, wondering whether she ought to turn it, or turn away.

before duchess, the window shows a swatch of darkening sky. the cat sits beside her, suddenly familiar, his back bowed in pleasure, a small fat fur rubbing against her leg. it can’t be! says duchess. there is a weight in her hand, a wolf in her hand: it is a stone she pockets, cleverly.

the cat looks at her.

his eyes are very green. his eyes are always the same.

darling steps to the door and puts her hand on the glass knob. it is cold. it has never been let in the sun. the shadow follows like it belongs to her; it stands beside her, tamed by her hand. she ought to be in bed, she thinks. she ought to dream, again, that things are actually starting to happen. what can you do for me? darling says to the shadow. there’s got to be an end, darling says.

the cat snarls, concerned about a change in the air: a vibration that raises the hair on his back, thunder disrupting the walls like rocks shaken in a tin can.

on the other side of the door, something scratches, somehow soft and relentless.