White Roses, Black Doves

A hunger through time-22

The morning light was harsh and unforgiving as Lucy moved about the kitchen, her movements sharp and agitated. "I don’t know what ails you, Percy, but your constant tossing has left me a wreck," she snapped, smoothing her skirt with an impatient tug. "Between your restlessness and the drafts in this godforsaken house, I haven't slept a wink. Try to be useful and finish the floorboards in the parlor today, won't you?" She picked up her bag and moved about the kitchen mumbling “i should have gotten rid of this house a long time ago, I should have never kept this thing after that night” she mumbled, it didn’t register to Percy what she had said.

Percy barely heard her. He stared into his cooling tea, his mind still echoing with the ghostly resonance of the name Cornelius. He muttered a hollow agreement, watching from the window as Lucy finally climbed into her car and drove away, the gravel crunching under the tires like breaking bones.

The moment the engine’s hum faded into the distance, the house seemed to exhale.

Percy didn't go to the parlor. His feet carried him, unbidden and urgent, toward the master bedroom. The air here was cooler, heavy with the phantom scent of midnight roses. He didn't care about the dust or the decay; he collapsed onto the bed, sinking into the depression where he had felt that inexplicable, soul-gutting sadness.

"I am here," he whispered, his voice trembling into the empty air. "Please. Show me."

He closed his eyes, willing the boundaries of his mind to thin. He focused on the memory of her touch, the cold graze on his neck, the way she had looked at him in the library. He lay there for hours, suspended in a state between wakefulness and trance, hoping that if he surrendered enough of himself, she would come to claim the space. But the bedroom remained silent, a sanctuary of dust and stillness.

Frustration finally drove him up. He needed more than ghosts; he needed the truth.

He retreated to the library, the room where the memory of the kiss was most vibrant. It was a cavernous space, filled with rot-softened leather bindings and shelves that sagged under the weight of decades of neglect. He began to pull the books down one by one, his fingers flying over spines and cracked leather.

He moved with a frantic, systematic desperation. He wasn't just looking for books; he was looking for their history. He searched behind the volumes for loose boards; he ran his hands along the mahogany paneling, feeling for hidden springs or hollow spaces.

As the sun began to dip, casting long, bruised shadows across the floor, his hand hit a section of the shelving that felt slightly different. It wasn't as cold as the others. He pressed his palm against the wood, and with a soft, grinding protest, a narrow panel slid aside.

Hidden in the recess was a small, locked mahogany box and a stack of papers yellowed to the color of old parchment. His pulse thundered in his ears. He reached in, his breath catching as he pulled the items out. These weren't the records of a murder-suicide; they were journals, handwritten in a script that looked eerily like his own.

He sank to the floor, the library around him fading into insignificance as he opened the first page. He was no longer a man in a dusty house; he was a man reclaiming a life he had been cursed to lose. Every word he read was a piece of a shattered mirror, and as the light died in the room, Percy began to see the reflection of the man he used to be.