《The Villa Delacroix》


 CHAPTER ONE - In which Kirsten loses her temper within an hour of arriving

    Maybe you''ve heard this one: Four writers on holiday enter a villa on the coast of a Swiss lake. When the time comes to leave, all but one of them will be dead.

    The lake in question was not Lake Geneva, surrounded as it was now by civilization, nor the villa the famous Villa Diodati, which had in recent years been given over to luxury apartments. Nevertheless, Kirsten had tried to select a holiday house best suited to recreate the vibes of the infamous birthplace of Mary Shelley''s Frankenstein.

    "Gee, flash!" Maika exclaimed as their rental car pulled into the driveway of the Villa Delacroix.

    Kirsten rolled the car into place and put on the parking brake before she allowed herself the thrill of looking up. Surrounded by light beech forest, a stately contrast to the rambling and dense bush back home, the three storey mansion was surrounded by a collonade on the ground floor. Above that sat two rows of four square windows with shutters painted a jaunty turquoise. The walls were cream, and caught the rays of the early morning sun in such a way that they were dyed peach. A brown tiled roof topped the square house. Behind, the lawns rolled down to a private slice of pebbled lakeshore.

    In the front passengers'' seat, Chad whistled between his teeth. God. Kirsten had forgotten that was a habit of his. "This must have cost a pretty packet."

    "Never you mind the cost," Kirsten scolded. Her tone was light, for now. If money kept coming up though, she would not be best pleased. It already had, too many times since she''d offered them this holiday.

    "No comment, Ginny?" Chad looked over his shoulder at the sleepy woman in the back seat.

    "It''s beautiful," Ginny muttered. Kirsten didn''t need to look at her to know; she could hear it in the muffle of Ginny''s voice. Her lanky frame was folded up under the baby-blue hooded blanket, some sort of snuggly comfort thing with an impossible number of pockets which had relinquished an improbable number of distractions on the long-haul flight: tablet, cellphone, headphones (cat-eared, like a walking stereotype), multiple small books and rolled-up magazines, sweets, fidget gadgets, notebook and pen, make-up for touch ups, pawpaw balm, medicines, deodorant, toothbrush and toothpaste, and even a sleep mask. It was a monstrosity - and yet it didn''t smell offensive, and it wasn''t unwashed or discoloured. Kirsten hadn''t the heart to tell Ginny how mortified she was to be travelling through multiple international airports and airplanes with her (in first class, sure, but still, imagine if someone photographed them together?).

    "Is that all you can say?" Chad dragged out the word ''all'', rolling his eyes.

    Maika kicked the back of Chad''s seat. "Leave her be, man."

    "Hey! This is a rental." Kirsten made an effort to lower her tone. She was far too wound up after so little. Classic jetlag. "Please treat it with respect, Maika?"

    "Oh yeah, sorry." He pushed a hand through his lank black curls as he lowered his feet off the back of the seat. "All right, let''s get in and see this place!"

    Kirsten got to the trunk first, took her pristine chrome-pink shell suitcase out, and wheeled it closer to the house. She stood there for a moment, ignoring the shuffling and mumbling of the others behind her, listening instead to the rustle of the leaves and the hush of the water. Snowy peaks pointed up to the sky, and toward her in their reflections on the lake.

    Sublime.

    "Ow! My foot!" Maika cried.

    "Maybe stand back while I pull my bags out then, dickhead," Chad replied.

    Children! Closing her eyes, Kirsten expelled breath sharply through her nose, then sighed and let her shoulders return to a neutral position, away from her ears. Perhaps she could have allowed herself permission to come here alone. It had felt like it would be incredibly selfish to do so, especially after she''d had the idea of helping her friends. The money was no object.

    She''d just be paying with her sanity instead.

    No, no, this would be fun! She sighed again, and opened her eyes to fall in love with the view of the lake past the house.

    Now that would make for some excellent Instablam posts.

    "Rooms are finders keepers," she shot over her shoulder. With a click of the car key''s lock button, she strode towards the villa''s heavy wooden door. She located the key box beside the door easily, typed in the passcode - 1818#. The keybox yielded its prize, and Kirsten unlocked the door before the others were anywhere near.

    So far, so good.

    Of course, they probably didn''t come forearmed with the knowledge she had. She''d studied the photos of the house. The master bedroom was her quarry, the largest of all of the bedrooms, with its own ensuite with a huge bathtub, big enough for two people. This house was apparently quite the honeymoon destination, but it had more than enough room for four singletons. Her studies paid off: she had a decent idea of how to navigate through the gilt-wallpapered corridors with their dark parquet flooring, up the stairs with their single wall sconce of light to illuminate the landing, and over to the lake side of the house.

    There.

    Kirsten entered the room, wheeled her suitcase over to the side, then threw herself down on the crimson velvet quilt of the four-poster bed in the middle of the room.

    She lay there, waiting to hear or see the other three, to stake her claim. Some ten minutes later, when she''d almost given up in boredom, Chad finally made his way past. His eyes lit up at the luxurious sight of the bedroom, and it seemed as if he was about to step in when he finally saw Kirsten lying there. His nose wrinkled. "Aw, damn. Thought you were a dead body for a sec. Nice digs." He moved on, taking his designer heavy-duty utility backpack elsewhere.

    A few minutes later, Ginny drifted past, a fleecy ghost. Kirsten caught a single dark brown eye gazing at her, and then Ginny was gone, her metal hardcase luggage rolling behind her, bestickered to the point where no one could make out what colour it might be underneath.

    Maika finally slouched by not long after. He poked his head in the room, looked all around, then nodded and grinned admiringly. His tongue clicked against his teeth. "Gee." He shrugged his old leather barrel bag further up his shoulder, and shuffled away, taking the tobacco smell with him.

    Her territory having been marked, Kirsten felt it was safe to explore the rest of the house now. Where better to start than the kitchen and communal areas, where surely the hosts had left some information?

    She retraced her steps back down the stairs to the road side of the house, only to find the front door wide open.

    All the air went rushing out of her, stopping a hair short of becoming a shout. Who had left the bloody door open? No, she was not going to act like everyone''s mum on this trip. She''d been called trip mum plenty of times during their uni days, she didn''t need to hear it again.

    But did no one else think of security? What if thieves, or even an axe-murderer came wandering by? They were ages from the nearest city. Would the local village constabulary be likely to have people who spoke English? What even was the emergency number in this country?

    That would surely be in the guest information. Kirsten closed her eyes, breathed out, and walked towards the open door.

    Surely this would only happen once. It''s not that the others were lazy, it was just the jetlag and the excitement of arriving. It wouldn''t happen again.

    She shut the door. Not loudly, not angrily. Just firmly, enough that she was satisfied to hear the click of the lock.

    Coffee. Her mood would be much improved by coffee. Likely, the moods of everyone else too. Kitchen; that was the next destination.

    She walked in to a well-appointed kitchen, far more modern than many other parts of the house. The wall between it and the dining room had been taken out, in another nod to modern living. No more of this master-servant rubbish. It was almost a shame, really, except that it meant that whoever was cooking could see past the huge dining table to the lake.

    On the marble-topped island in the middle of a sea of dark-grey tiles, Kirsten found the info booklet from the hosts. She picked it up, carrying it over with her to read as she flicked on the kettle and searched the cabinets for coffee. The text was rather impersonal - probably this place was maintained by a body corp, rather than an individual or family - and said all the standard things about the amenities. Boring reading, really, compared to what Kirsten''s thumbs were itching for instead.

    She relented to the urge, and fished her phone out of her jacket pocket.

    As soon as Instablam was open and loaded, Kirsten was treated to a full splash of her own face from her latest photoshoot. She sighed. Dressed in red and gold, they really had managed to put her Chinese-ness front and centre, despite her repeated emphasis on the Kiwi part of Kiwi-Chinese. She pulled her black over-the-shoulder plait up to parallel with the ground and tried to catch the light with it, like the impossible silky gloss of her hair in the photo. And no way were her cheekbones that high. Either they''d photoshopped every inch of fat off her, or the contouring of the makeup had been even more severe under the photographer''s light than she''d thought at the time.

    At least her eyes looked nice. Though were they really that dark? Or was that a filter?

    She pulled away from the budgie-distraction of her photo and opened the caption below. It was filled with praise for her latest novel, Miner Minor Mynah, released two months ago. The comments underneath were all similarly laudatory. She recognised a few of the publisher''s plant accounts spouting particularly effusive acclaim: one such read ''LOVED IT! A shame it came out a week too late for this year''s Tomer Prize nominations. Fingers crossed for next year!''

    The smile was impossible to resist, even if it was a sock puppet account. A Tomer Prize was Kirsten''s dream. Maybe Miner Minor Mynah would be the one. Still, she was only thirty-six. Plenty more time to reach the pinnacle of her career.

    "Why the big grin?"

    Kirsten put her phone face down on the counter as Chad walked in. "Hey. Coffee?"

    "Cheers. That got the wifi password?"

    "Yeah." She passed the guest information over and went to make him a cup of coffee, taking her phone with her. Chad sat down on a stool at the kitchen island and opened up his oversized, serious-business-looking laptop with a matte black finish and an alien''s head logo. Now that his judging gaze had passed her over, she went back to her Instablam.

    The next post down was a photo of her guru, with a meditation mantra for the day: "I am the rock jutting out of the river. I let the water flow around me." Kirsten muttered it under her breath a few times, and let her smile leak through to the rest of her body. Yes, she could be that rock. She could let the furious rapids of her three oldest friends rush around her, and be unaffected.

    She scrolled down. The next post made her swear under her breath. She shut off Instablam and opened up a search engine instead. "Oh damn it."

    Chad hissed and rocked away from his laptop, hands behind his tall brown hair. He had to have re-gelled his hair since they''d arrived; it had well deflated on the plane rides before this. "Well... I guess we both saw the same news just now?"

    "Bird flu?"

    "Yep. They''re taking the world into lockdown again."

    Kirsten ignored him and kept searching, looking for the Swiss government''s English language press release on what was to come. New Zealand''s response was already up - all the mostly successful infrastructure clicking back into place once again - but she didn''t know where to look straight away for the Swiss government''s directives.

    "What are we going to do?" Chad asked.

    Kirsten rolled her eyes at him. "What am I, trip mum again?"

    His face lit up and he pointed at her. "Trip Mum! I forgot that!"

    Kirsten facepalmed, then went back to searching for information. "Anyway, let''s just keep our minds open. I can charter us a plane back home at any time. Or I can bankroll us staying here for several months. Years, even. I''m not concerned It''s not going to be like 2020 again. At least, not for us."

    "Geez, all right, Moneybags." He tapped away at his keyboard for a bit, presumably searching like she was, if the quick dashes of keystrokes were anything to go by. "Man, wouldn''t it be better if we could all just live in computers? None of this meat-based weakness?"

    Kirsten was astounded enough to look past her phone for more than a second. "Chad! You can''t be serious."

    "What? We''re basically attached to the things all day every day anyway. What would be so wrong with computer-based immortality?"

    Kirsten shook her shoulders square and raised her chin. "Computers will never truly replace us, or capture us. There''s something about the synthesis of... of meat, as you so crudely put it, and electricity going on in our brains which mere machines can''t replicate, unfortunately. A machine can''t cry, or love, or fear."

    "I dunno, Kirst. They''re getting pretty good at fooling us these days."

    Kirsten folded her arms and scowled into her phone screen. No machine had ever fooled her.

    This was his problem, just as she''d suspected. This was why he hadn''t soared to the heights she''d expected him to after uni. He was shallow, utterly shallow.

    Still, his trashy self-published thrillers sold well enough that he could probably share the bankrolling of this trip easily, if she felt he needed to. She could hardly sneeze at what he''d accomplished on his own.

    Even if she considered it all a bit beneath him.

    Ginny slipped into the room, a cross between a giant teddy bear and an ambulatory mop. At least now her pockets looked emptied, and she''d taken down the hood, freeing her straight mousy blonde hair from its fluffy confines.

    "Wassup, Vince -" The mistake played out across Chad''s face - from cheerful, to shocked, to aghast. "Shite. Virginia, I mean. Dude, I''m sorry for deadnaming you... oh flip, is ''dude'' misgendering? Fuck..."

    Ginny sat at the counter beside him, from the looks of things, barely restraining an eye roll. "For me, I don''t mind ''dude''. But not every trans woman feels the same, so maybe practice not using it with me?"

    Kirsten waved an empty mug from her side of the bench. "Coffee, Ginny?"

    "Thanks."

    The sound of the front door slamming shut made her jump and drop the mug. The further shock of that made her stumble back, and onto a sharp shard of broken ceramic which sliced into her big toe. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

    "Ow! Fuh... far out..."

    "You all right, Kirst?" Chad hadn''t moved from his seat, smirking at her overreaction.

    "You''re bleeding," Ginny said, and moved towards Kirsten.

    "Who cares about me?" Kirsten yelled, unable to hold her volume back with everything happening. She gestured furiously in the direction of the front hall. "Who the hell just slammed the door?"

    Ginny shrank back at the strength of her shout, but eventually answered, "It was just Maika. I saw him talking to someone at the door."

    "Who the hell could Maika be talking to? Here?"

    Ginny shrugged, all her body language telling Kirsten she wanted to curl up and hide. Her voice was no more than a mutter. "Some guy. They seemed friendly. Like they knew each other."

    Kirsten grabbed a paper towel from the bench and wrapped it around her toe, then grabbed more and knelt to clean up the shattered mug and traces of blood. "Sorry, I didn''t mean to yell," she said as she faced the tiles. "It''s just my sore foot making me overreact."

    "Mmhmm," Chad hummed, and Kirsten was glad she wasn''t facing him so he couldn''t see her answering sneer.

    By the time she''d cleaned the floor and her cut toe, found the first aid kit and bandaged it up, Maika came waltzing in. His black, curly bob of hair was dishevelled as usual - obviously he hadn''t freshened up before joining them - and he wore a baggy cardigan made of patchwork, like something worn by a hideous mix of clown and  grandma. "Who was that at the door?" Kirsten demanded.

    "Oh, just a mate of mine."

    "A mate? You have a mate here, in Switzerland?"

    Chad looked up from his laptop again. "Geez, Kirst, you sure you need coffee right now, and not, like, a tranquilizer?"

    "I wasn''t asking you." Kirsten managed to temper her tone just short of snappish.

    Maika put his hands in front of them, waving to calm the room. "Hey, hey, it''s all chill, you guys. Yeah, I made some friends when I was backpacking through Europe after uni. That was Christian." The fact that Maika said it properly, like a French name, and not like the religion, convinced Kirsten and soothed some of her ill temper. "I told him we were coming here a while back. With the whole lockdown thing coming, he knows we probably can''t catch up properly, so he wanted to deliver a care package."

    "Oh, that''s nice. So where is it?"

    "Up in my room."

    Kirsten was taken aback. "Oh... ok... bit weird of you not to share, but ok..."

    "Oh." After a pause, he chuckled under his breath. "It''s uh... you guys wouldn''t  really... He uh... he brought me the supplies to set up my own little uh... hydroponics situation somewhere, since we''re probably going to be stuck in here for months -"

    Kirsten''s hands slammed down on the kitchen island. It was a good thing she hadn''t picked up another mug yet. "I''m sorry, what? You told a drug dealer where we are living, and got him to deliver drugs to you? Maika, we are visitors in a foreign country! Do you even know the laws around these things?"

    "Geez, when did you become such a control freak, Kirst?" Chad needled.

    "Seriously, Chad?" Beside Chad, Ginny was frozen, huddled, flinching at every outburst.

    Maika was making the peace-hands again. "Guys, guys, it''s okay. He''s not a drug dealer, all right? Just a friendly normal guy who grows his own as a hobby. The guy works in IT. You couldn''t get more normal or square. He makes Kirsten look like, I dunno, Paris Hilton or something."

    "What is that supposed to mean?"

    "Well, you''re just... a bit of a normie. Compared to him, you''re practically a party girl, but compared to like... me..."

    "Well, sorry if it''s normal to follow the law. Besides, compared to you, I think the rest of the world is stone cold sober." A flash of hurt in his eyes, hidden behind Maika''s smile, made Kirsten regret her words. She took a breath and took a turn at doing her own peace-hands in front of her. "Look, please, just be careful about where you smoke that stuff, ok? I don''t want the police around here, and I don''t want the hosts suing me for a weird smell or anything."

    Maika gave a double thumbs up. "I got you."

    Chad muttered under his breath, "Don''t tell her about how half of your luggage is duty free alcohol then, I guess."

    Kirsten waved her hands above her head and went back to putting mugs out and dishing granules of instant into each. "Alcohol is legal. So long as you don''t need to go to hospital for alcohol poisoning in the middle of a damn lockdown, I''m fine. My ignorance is bliss."

    "I''m practicing moderation these days," Maika declared from the other side of the kitchen, turning away from the open cupboards with a deep, appealingly-round breakfast bowl in hand. "Not exactly a 12-step program sort of thing, but I''m taking it easier. I promise."

    Kirsten resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but Ginny beamed, the first honest smile Kirsten had seen from her yet this whole trip. "That''s really great, Maika. I believe in you, and I''m proud of you for making good changes in your life."

    Maika bowed his head deeply. "Thanks, Ginny. That means a lot." He''d found some cereal in the pantry, and was pouring himself a bowl.

    Kirsten sighed, turned back to pour the jug, and smiled. She had almost forgotten this about Ginny. Amongst all the frustration of her particular quirks, and her obvious non-normativity, it was easy to forget that, actually, she was a total sweetheart. Behind all that extreme introversion was someone wise and calm, who at moments could say something so perceptive and incisive that it had the power to change someone''s trajectory for the better.

    Certainly, her intervention had been the saving grace of two or three manuscipts of Kirsten''s in the past. And maybe she''d just managed to defuse a Day-One blow-up.

    Maybe Chad was right about the coffee. Still, Kirsten''s veins craved sweet caffeine. She could sleep after a cup. One wouldn''t hurt.

    Chad sidled up to Ginny, wearing a cheeky grin. "He said guys before. Is ''guys'' misgendering, Ginny?"

    Kirsten shared a look with Ginny. The whole thing before with the deadnaming, and the misgendering with ''dude'', that was borderline, but in the moment it had felt genuine. This time, it felt like Chad was shit-stirring. Kirsten had always had a feeling about Chad, one she didn''t want to interrogate too hard, because it would mean discarding one of her best, most dedicated beta readers, if he was what she suspected. But times like this, she couldn''t help but suspect... was Chad one of those online far-right devil''s-advocate trolling types?

    Ginny sat straighter. Kirsten couldn''t help but think perhaps Ginny had gained some strength in the moment from their shared glance. "Again, I personally don''t mind ''guys''. I feel like in Kiwi parlance, it''s pretty gender neutral. But there are plenty of people who would take offence to it. After all, would you feel okay if I walked into the room and said, ''Hey ladies''?"

    Maika, head down in a bowl of cereal fast disappearing under his ravenous maw, called out, "I wouldn''t mind! Gender''s a construct, babyeeee."

    Chad, however, had folded his arms. "But I guess I would. Thanks, Ginny, I think I get it now."

    Kirsten dished out the coffee mugs to the other three, then leaned back against the counter, hand held in both hands. "Right, so. Now that I have you all here, at my mercy, it''s time to reveal the actual purpose of our little trip."

    "You mean you''re not just rewarding your favourite and most loyal minions with an all-expenses paid trip around the world, Ms Lee?" Chad asked, fluttering his eyelashes and cupping his chin in both hands.

    "I am, but there''s more to it than that. Yes, you are the most loyal ''minions'' if you want to call it that - personally, I prefer to think of you as my most honest and incisive peers, who both get where I''m coming from because of our days in Creative Writing 201 -"

    "Class of ''09, whoop whoop!" Maika called out sotto voce, pumping his fist.

    "- but also know where I''m trying to go because you''ve bothered to keep up with your craft after leaving uni. You lot have had a lot to do with my success, as I hope you understand, and I shall be eternally grateful to all three of you. And because of that..." She narrowed her eyes and scanned over their faces, making sure she had their attention. "I had an ulterior motive in bringing you here.

    "I would like for us to evoke the spirit of that summer of 1816, when four writers were shut in the Villa Diodati - also here in Switzerland, though at a different lakeshore - and they each decided to write ghost stories to pass the time. Now, I did not orchestrate the new lockdowns, I promise you. That is not within my power. They''re just a convenient, albeit very spookily-timed conincidence... but I intend to make full use of them.

    "I think each of you is a really talented writer, and I wanted to give you the gift of time and space to really let your gift shine. So... what do you say? Are you up for the challenge? Let''s rest up, and then maybe write a bit, and later tonight we could all share an excerpt... sound good?"

    Kirsten peered into each blank face, waiting for reaction. Chad was the first.

    He threw his hands behind his head and leaned back in his stool (a stupid, childish thing to do - if the stool slipped, he''d crack his skull!). "Typical Lee. Trust you to turn a holiday into homework."

    Kirsten gaped at him, and looked to the other two for backup.

    Ginny had a small grin on her lips, but a haunted look in her eyes. "I had a feeling you were trying to evoke that fateful getaway," she murmured. "I''m in. But can we make our first sharing session be tomorrow night instead, please? I''d prefer to resist the jetlag during daylight hours, and then sleep early tonight. I''ll be in a better place to do spooky hours tomorrow."

    "Yeah, that''s fine by me." Kirsten glanced finally at Maika. "Your thoughts?"

    "Love it," Maika shrugged, smiling. "Look, I''m just here enjoying the company. Chill out, throw down some words? Hard out. Though I thought there were five people in that OG writers'' holiday?"

    A chill settled over the four of them. Maika had said the wrong thing. No one met anyone else''s eyes for a long moment. The slurping of coffee was loud in Kirsten''s ears, only to be broken by Chad''s obnoxious interjection: "Yeah, but I think the fifth person was just Lord Byron''s fuckbuddy."

    "Chad!" Kirsten scolded. "Her name was Claire Clairmont and she was Mary Shelley''s stepsister."

    He let that roll off his back and asked instead, practically jumping in his seat, "Ooh, ooh, which writer is which, do you think?"

    Maika waved a hand flippantly. "Ginny''s Mary Shelley obviously."

    Kirsten was disappointed. Sure, Ginny was the most goth-chic adjacent of any of them, so like, aesthetically, maybe. But Mary Shelley was also the one who wrote an amazing first draft which would later become one of the seminal gothic horror texts, Frankenstein. So surely Kirsten herself fit that mould better, right? The one who actually got stuff done, unlike Ginny, who was constantly dithering, pushing the same words around in different orders year after year, never satisfied, her fantasy epic reaching doorstoper proportions which no sane publisher would ever even glance at...

    Sipping her coffee, Kirsten breathed slowly out and reminded herself to be kinder.

    "I mean," Ginny started, blushing, "obviously she is one of my idols, so I would love that."

    Before Kirsten could even comment, Chad pointed straight at her. "Which one of them was the most uptight? That''s got to be Kirsten."

    "How very dare," she gasped, only mildly offended, but trying to sound like she was joking.

    "I think I would be the most likely Lord Byron," Chad boasted, raising his profile, nose in the air.

    Kirsten smirked behind her coffee mug. No, Chad was far more like that hack, Polidori. Yes, he wrote The Vampyre and actually completed it. But his writing, compared to the other three? Amateurish. Just like some of the utterly pedestrian prose in Chad''s popular thrillers. Not that she would ever tell him so.

    She pursed her lips and swallowed back her bitter thoughts with another bitter swig of coffee. These thoughts were not helpful, and she needed to cut them out. She was here to try to help Chad and the others. Looking down on them all the time was only going to get in the way of that.

    "No, sorry Chad," Ginny said from behind her coffee mug. "Maika''s Byron. He''s the reckless romantic. You''ve got your shit way too together, and you just... don''t have the natural charm. Sorry. I mean look, his hair can go swish. Your hair can''t do that."

    Chad sneered as Maika demonstrated for everyone that his hair did indeed go swish. Though when it did, Kirsten caught the distinct whiff of tobacco, which dampened her mood as it always did.

    What a waste of life.

    Maika straightened up and shook his head. "I mean, who was the biggest success in their day? Was it Mary or Percy Shelley, or was it Byron? Cos like, Kirsten probably would be that one. The natural genius -"

    Kirsten put her cup down. "Look, no, I have said this time and time again. I''m not some natural creative genius. It''s all about diligence and a workmanlike disposition. You guys know I was hardly ever the one called on to read my work in class. The professors never thought I''d amount to much. They had zeroed in on their favourites - not even any of us, really, though I know Perkins had a thing for you at one point, Chad - and the rest of us were just the plebs watching the virtuosos, just... non-player characters, extras in the crowd shot."

    "Yeah, yeah, easy for a genius to say," Chad cut in. "She''s the perfect little marketable package, our Miss Lee. A person of colour - but she speaks and writes perfect English. She writes touching, poignant historical fiction, so all the olds love her, she''s a hit on the writer''s festival circuits - really, could you have had it handed to you any more than that, Kirsten?"

    His expression told her he was teasing, but there was a edge to his eyes as if he really meant it all. It was rich of him to be putting her on the spot like this, when he knew damn well these stereotypes weren''t true, and she knew his secret about using ghostwriters. But she had promised she wouldn''t tell, and she was a woman of her word. Even if he was hitting her right in the impostor syndrome - both as a writer, and as a Kiwi-Chinese woman who could barely speak a word of her ancestors'' tongue and knew far less about the culture than she thought she should. She could make his life hell if she wanted, but she would never stoop so low.

    "Think that if you want, Chad Woodham." As soon as she''d said it, a little deflationary, conflict-avoidant tactic, she regretted it. Someone needed to put Chad in his place before he got even more unbearable. Letting him basically win the argument could lead to losing more and more ground over time.

    Was it just her, or was he being extra dickish lately?

    Her phone lit up with a notification on the counter between her and Ginny. Ginny''s eyes flicked down, and she winced. "Ugh, you''re still subscribed to that yogi guy?"

    Kirsten yanked her phone off the bench and put it back in her pocket. "Yeah, my guru. What about him?"

    "You know he''s a scammer, right? He''s not even Indian."

    "Can you just leave it?"

    "Sorry," Ginny said, her eyes not meeting Kirsten''s. Then a beat later: "But I''m just trying to look out for you, and make sure he doesn''t use your name and make you look bad."

    "Look, is it such a sin to want to seek something higher than this existence?" Chad snorted into his coffee. "What?" she snapped.

    "It''s just, if you were a white lady, everyone would be pointing and laughing about this fake spirituality crap, you know? Like, you''re a Chinese Gywneth Paltrow -"

    "Kiwi-Chinese, thank you Chad."

    Maika called out from across the kitchen, as he sought more food. "Yeah, Chad. Stop bringing her race up anyway, bro." Kirsten deflated a touch. It was nice that the other person of colour in the room had her back. Then came the knife twist. "You''re in prestigious company now, my friends. Next year, our spiritually enlightened senpai might have won the Tomer - first Tomer of several, I''m sure - and then you''ll be lucky if you ever breath the same rarefied air as her ever again."

    Okay, now he really wasn''t helping.

    To make matters worse, Ginny chimed in, "Damn, I hope you''re going to be okay being an international superstar, Kirsten. The way you were green around the gills the whole time on the plane. Maybe you''ll find the jet-setting life difficult -"

    "Maybe she can astral project to awards ceremonies -" Maika layered over the top, drowning out Ginny''s next comment, and then Chad spoke over the top too.

    "Nauseous isn''t really a good look on Instablam -"

    Kirsten clamped her hands over her ears and screamed.

    The silence that followed was too hollow. Not even the lake, or the wind in the trees, or bugs or birds cut through it. Just the hum of the fridge and other appliances.

    Kirsten hadn''t done that since she was a kid. Overwhelmed by her two older brothers'' playfighting until she broke - that had happened a few times, she wasn''t sure how often, but often enough that it had been muscle memory when it had happened just now. Didn''t these three see they were all putting her on the spot? It was not fair! Yes, this was her idea to come here, but she had paid for everything, so did they have to tease her so hard? None of them could even begin to understand how fucking hard it was to juggle everyone''s expectations all at once!

    Chad was the first to break his silence.

    "So, she''s already freaking out, huh?"

    Ginny''s head was in her hands. "This is going to go well." Her mutter was light, but in her gaze, directed away, there was a distance already, a disassociation.

    Kirsten sighed and lowered her hands. "No, I''m fine. You know me, just... being dramatic."

    Maika laughed. There was perhaps a tinge of nervousness to the sound. "Watch out, or we might never leave this house alive."

    Chad sniggered. "Yeah, we know what you''re like. I wonder what other people would think if they saw the real Kirsten, rather than your manicured, curated Instablam self?"

    So much for being the rock in the river. Kirsten sighed again, if only to stop the tears that wanted to come out, then she poked her tongue at Chad.

    If only they could just see why she''d gathered them all here, really, past the walls of ego and defensiveness. She wanted to inspire them to write their masterpieces by taking them away from their mundane lives. Even Chad - especially Chad, actually! He could write far better than the claptrap he''d gotten famous for writing. She knew from his feedback over the years - cutting, but unfailingly accurate -  that he could do way better than he had been. And Maika, Maika needed a kick up the butt, needed someone to discipline him into a routine. Kirsten was sure she could be that influence. And Ginny needed encouragement to come out of her shell.

    Kirsten was determined: she would be the one to fix her friends.

    After all, after what they''d been through fifteen years ago, she was stuck with them for life.

    She shook her hands out, then picked up her coffee mug, rinsed it out, and left it to drain on the side of the sink. "Look, I''m going back to my room. Obviously jetlag has me on edge. We all need to think about what we''re going to want regarding the impending lockdown. If anyone wants to go home, I can arrange it. Or, so long as the hosts say it''s okay, I''m happy for us to stay for the whole time. Now, the hosts said they''d left a bunch of microwave meals for us to make use of if we were too tired after arriving, so I say we help ourselves to lunch and dinner or whatever, and we can reconvene tomorrow to organise our living situation." She was slipping into the role of trip mum, yet again. She hated it, but someone had to be the sensible one. "I''ll be in my room if anyone needs me. But unless it''s urgent... maybe let''s just not interact for the rest of the day, okay? Thanks all. Love ya."

    "Love you," Maika and Ginny echoed. Kirsten didn''t hear Chad''s voice in the chorus, but such affectionate cues weren''t really his bag.

    Well. That was a fine start to the writers'' retreat. Kirsten threw herself down on the bed again, this time with more bitter regret than the first time.

    After ten minutes with eyes shut, but unable to sleep, she got up and paced over to the window.

    In the time since she had last looked outside, a mist had rolled in across the lake. She could barely see the silvery waves beneath the cool puffs of fog. Shivering, she fetched her scarf from her handbag, then her writing tablet and stylus.

    If she couldn''t sleep, she might as well write.

    She took her phone out, turned all notifications to silent, but left the media volume on high. Flicking through until she found her guru''s meditation app, she placed it on the table facing the window, then sat with her tablet before her, the white-grey air pressing on the windowpanes and glaring into her eyes until she shut them.

    Usually she would start her writing sessions with a guided meditation. But it just wasn''t working today. Instead of the commanding voice holding her attention for the five minute practice, behind her closed eyes, the figure of a woman in an old-fashioned white dress wandered through the mists by the lakeshore, outside this very same house.

    Kirsten suffered through the last few minutes of the meditation, determined to see it out. As soon as it wound to a close, she snatched up her stylus, and began her story.

 INTERLUDE ONE - In which the woman in white enters the picture

    Emilie hovered at the edge of her world, caught between what was known, and a question.

    Behind her, the house. Solid, permanent, as much as such things could be.

    Before her, the fog. Was the lake just past the fog, as she knew logically it should be, or was it gone completely, as some deeper sense argued? If she were to keep walking into the fog, she would find it. Of course she would.

    Except, to walk toward where the lake should be would mean losing sight of the house. And then the house would not exist.

    No, that was silly. The house would still be there. Just because she could not perceive it, it would not stop existing.

    Nevermind the voice in her gut telling her it would. The voice asking her: Would she readily trade house for lake?

    None of this was sensible. She took a step forward toward the lake.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    Emilie looked back. The house was still there.

    She stepped two steps down the gentle slope, which she had thoughtlessly marched down countless times in her life. This time, she hesitated. She glanced back again.

    The house remained, its windows too numerous to be eyes in a face, and yet...

    She took three steps this time before turning back. The glass panes of the windows were less black in colour now to her perception, more silvered over with white fog. The house was still there, but the mist was thickening between her and it.

    Four steps. Emilie turned and froze in place. Now she could only make out the shape of the house. All colours were gone.

    She listened past the quickening of her breath for the hush of the lake, or the gentle lapping against the stony bank.

    Nothing. It wasn''t there.

    She could always hear that sound. Even from the house, and in the early hours of the morning, lying in bed, she should have been able to hear the sounds of the lake. Yet here, on the naked grass of the lawn which rolled down at the gentlest of inclines, she heard nothing. The only possible explanation was that the lake was no longer there. She could wander downhill in this fog forever and ever, and be lost, and never know the way back.

    Emilie turned and ran back to the house. Nevermind if someone saw her ungainly gait. They might think her strange. Better that than the fate of being lost in the fog.

    Her hands touched the solid frame of the door, and the house swallowed her.

 CHAPTER TWO - In which Maika fails to heed the call

    Maika woke, head clearer than it had been in years.

    The mountain air? No, they''d not felt this way last time they were in Switzerland. The quality of bed? There was something to be said for that, as a theory. Half the time they didn''t even make it to a bed. Fell asleep on the couch most nights.

    As their eyes floated open of their own accord (as opposed to the usual yawn and vigorous rubbing), the answer dawned on them, bright as the cool white ceiling above.

    They''d actually written something they''d liked last night, and as such, had been able to fall asleep with a clear conscience.

    Nah. Couldn''t be all that good. They had to have been fooled by the fatigue.

    Rising with an indulgent yawn and stretch, Maika shrouded their naked form with the patchwork cardigan of last night, and went to the writing desk.

    Outside, mist. It had been a constant presence, an inspiration yesterday. This morning, there was something cold and confronting to it pressing against the glass. They pulled their cardigan tighter to keep out the chill, and picked up their leatherbound notebook.

    At the top of the page, a title: The House by the Lake. In brackets beside it: (working title - I can do better than this!)

    Below that, the word ''by'', followed by crossed-out names (and with the benefit of a sober mind, they could follow their past train of thought perfectly down the page): <s>Michael Parker</s> - too formal, too P��keh�� - <s>Mihaere Parker</s> - no, they''d never liked the transliteration of Michael to Mihaere, it never sounded right to them, an ill-fitting shoe or hat - <s>Mike Parker</s> - almost right, but Mike put them in mind of an older man, hanging out at bars and talking about sports at the bottom of his vocal register like he was trying too damn hard. Nah, not for them, not Mike. <s>Maika Parker</s> - close, but not quite, the last name still hanging there like the vestigial arms of a tyrannosaurus, something the rule-abiding skeleton told you was needed even though you were way past the need for such patriarchal bullshit - no way.

    On the final line, unskewered by a strike-though, but one name:

    Maika.

    All right, yes, that was also the M��ori word for ''banana''. But if anything, that only made it appeal more. They were, indeed, a silly banana of a person. Such an appelation would serve to remind them never to take themself too seriously. And the ''a'' ending had a lovely androgyny to it. In M��ori, ''a'' endings were not gendered, not like they were in many European languages. But their brain was colonised enough to appreciate the veneer of feminisation the name produced in their mind. Not Mike. Mike-ah. Mike, with a femme twist. Like the mineral mica; delicate, loose, flaky, but in a pretty way. Maika.

    Nevermind they''d lived with the comfort of the name for the last decade. It made them happy every time they used it. Every attempt to wear the old clothes of other names was in vain.

    They moved on to the text itself, done with amusing themself with the pride of a name well chosen.

    A page passed, then another, words slipping across their eyes with fluid grace.

    The text... was good.

    It was good.

    The tale was solid, stirring, had a mauri all of its own. Maika paced the room as they read and re-read it.

    This was the best thing they had ever written.

    Go figure. For the first time in a long time, they had ignored the siren song of alcohol in favour of simply enjoying the act of writing in and of itself. Apparently, that had resulted in good quality wordsmithing.

    They couldn''t wait to see the others. To be seen. To share their words.

    But no. Tonight. They had to harbour this secret joy until then, and let it surprise the others too. Deliver the words unassumingly, let them stand on their own, without a preface of ''Hey guys, this might just be the best thing I''ve ever written''. Too easy to get shot down that way.

    They got dressed, loose-fitting jeans and a black tee, the patchwork cardigan on top again. It was a look they were trying out. What did someone wear when they were neither a man nor a woman? It was all very new to them. They wanted to tell the others, but Chad would take the piss, definitely. Ginny... Ginny might understand. Maybe she''d even have some tips about how to experiment with gender, though she was quite settled these days in her femininity. The one Maika was most unsure about was Kirsten. She''d accept them, right? Or would she roll her eyes at them? In the past, she''d done her fair share of both. Probably depended on her mood.

    She''d not been in a good mood lately. Hopefully some sleep would have solved that.

    Maika''s puku grumbled. Time for kai. Ah, but... they still had not set up their stash. They''d been so taken by the Muse last night. The poor plant was wilting already without the proper setup.

    The plant deserved some kai first. It had waited long enough.

    Half an hour later, Maika was done. They had not followed the instructions perfectly, getting confused in the middle of Christian''s neat-but-tiny handwritten notes. But they had done their level best. The wiring wasn''t exactly as the guide said, but it was working, wasn''t it? Within the closet, under the halo of a small lamp, their personal stash sat pride of place, finally able to suck up some aqua vitae through the roots. Not too long, and it''d be ready to harvest.

    Maika brushed off their hands, and went downstairs.

    Chad was in the kitchen when they got there. "''sup, bro?" he hailed, not even bothering to look up from his laptop screen.

    Maika chose to imagine Chad''s particular choice of words were chosen in good spirit, and not just because Maika was Chad''s one M��ori friend. They crossed to the pantry to grab some cereal. "Nothing much, bro. You always on that thing, eh?"

    "Wifi''s shit in my room, so yeah, I''ll probably be writing in here most of the time."

    "Oh, stink."

    "Is it good in yours?"

    "Dunno."

    "So what, you haven''t written a thing since we got here?"

    Maika pulled their notebook out of the cardigan''s large pocket, and waved it before putting it away again. "I prefer writing by hand."

    "Old school! You think you''re some old fancy Hemingway guy or something?"

    "Something like that." Maika poured the milk over the wheatey-biscuity cereal stuff, and went in search of a spoon. "Where the w��hine at?"

    "Ginny went out towards the lake a while back. And Kirsten took the car, said she wanted to check out what the town was like, go for an initial shop to grab supplies. But don''t worry, she said she''ll go again this afternoon or tomorrow if she misses anything you wanted. She didn''t want to wake you, in case you were hungover."

    Maika chewed their first mouthful after that, mulling over the comment. It wasn''t like they''d given the group any reason to trust in their attempts at sobriety over the years. But it would be nice if they were more supportive.

    Nah, that wasn''t totally fair. Ginny had said a nice thing yesterday. And Kirsten - the fact that she was out there on the first morning, in a foreign country, shopping for them all (classic Trip Mum!) - that was something Maika would never in a million years have the organisation skills to do, let alone the forethought to think of it. They were all lucky to have her here. Even if Maika felt waves of judgement from her every glance.

    But they did want to be seen by her: to be seen this morning; right now, in fact; fresh, not hungover. Seen, and acknowledged, that they were something better than her assumptions.

    Chad, that was a different story. Was there something smug in his tone when he''d delivered that final clause, ''in case you were hungover''?

    It didn''t bear too much dwelling on. The cereal tasted bitter with these thoughts. And Maika hadn''t actually been drinking last night, much as Kirsten and Chad might have assumed. They couldn''t resist adding, before their next mouthful, "Didn''t drink last night."

    Chad''s chin went back as he stared at Maika, giving him a double chin, before he went back to looking at his screen. "Far. I take it back. You''re nothing like Hemingway at all. So did you get any writing done, without your liquid muse?"

    Maika shovelled another mouthful in to hide any ill reaction. Was it just their imagination, or had Chad become more snippy over the years? Once they had swallowed, they were able to better maintain their even affect. "Yeah, actually, got tons done."

    "Damn. Same, but like... that''s so unlike you. I remember back in our uni days, you were all like, trying to wear your Irish ancestry on your sleeve more than your M��ori side. Louching about all drunken artist like, never sober, always talking a big game about writing this or that which never eventuated. Like some wannabe Dylan Moran."A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    Chad whistled through his teeth.

    Faaaaaaark. Maika had forgotten how much that sound pissed them off. It had been ages since they''d been around Chad for such a long period of time, enough to get annoted at him.

    And sure, maybe Maika had got a bit carried away at university, copying their grandfather''s Irish-born-and-bred accent because they loved the sound of it. It had taken them away from the realities of Aotearoa to the Dreamland of Ireland, with its emerald vales and misty glades - a fairytale far removed from the just-as-colonised-if-not-moreso reality of that distant island. Plus they''d picked up many a lover with that faked lilt. They had packed away the accent after university though, on their OE, when actual exposure to Europe made them feel embarrassed for that naive young pretender they had once been.

    Trust Chad to bring it up. Salt in the wound - or salt the earth, if he kept going.

    But Chad was not done. Almost like he was a shark smelling blood in the water, the excitement of the hunt danced in his eyes. "And now with the whole grow-your-own thing going on, it''s like you''re a walking stereotype, bro."

    Maika finished their bowl at the sink, having made the decision to not look at Chad anymore. The fuckwit was most definitely trying to get a rise out of them. They rinsed the bowl out, making a mental note to talk to the girls about Chad''s behaviour before confronting him, see if they had noticed anything out of the ordinary about him. If it was just Chad going at them and not the girls, then they''d need to have it out somehow. If it was Chad being nasty to all three of them though, perhaps all three could nip this in the bud (ha, like Maika would be nipping at certain buds later) and ask Chad to leave before things got too toxic.

    Bloody rich of the guy, though, calling them a stereotype. Dude was such a typical wannabe tech-bro himself.

    "Imma go for a swim."

    Chad said nothing more as Maika left the room. There was no being seen by Chad. The guy had his eyes perpetually shut.

    Maika changed into their swim shorts, kept their cardigan on with notebook in one pocket, cellphone in the other, and left through the French doors on the lakeside of the house. The fog was still out, thinner than last night, luminescent in the morning sun which had to be there even if they couldn''t see it. They saw the water before they saw Ginny, huddled up like a light-blue rock on the pebbly beach.

    "M��rena," Maika called.

    "M��rena," Ginny called back in her soft, singsong voice.

    Maika glanced over her shoulder as they passed. She was scribbling in her notebook. They looked like just odd notes, rather than proper prose. But on the large boulder at her feet, weighed down by a stone, sat some typewritten pages full of words. Ginny peeled these up as if to hide them, and gave Maika a wan smile.

    Fair enough. They''d do the same.

    They shrugged off their cardigan a few metres away from her, and jogged down to the water.

    Under the blanket of fog, the water was still and chilly. The mountains'' reflections were not to be found. A shame - they wanted to know by sight to whom these people belonged, which of these maunga were their ancestors. How could anyone possibly choose, in a country like this, with such a plethora of maunga to choose from? Still, they supposed, you''d need a plentitude of maunga to make up for the distance from the moana.

    They turned back to the house, and shuddered. How had they perfectly pictured the back of the house last night, when they were writing, before they''d come out here this morning? Well, logically, it didn''t look all that different from the front of the house.

    Still, for a split second there, Maika had felt something dire.

    They gripped their pounamu manaia on the cord around their neck. It felt like their ancestors had wanted to speak, and had been silenced by the weight of the fog before the message had quite come through.

    So far away...

    What was this feeling? Go back to the house? Don''t go back to the house? Return home?

    Maika stood in the water, chilled into stillness, frozen not by the touch of water once from glaciers on high mountaintops, but by the lake''s reflection in the windows of the villa.

    A ray of sunshine burst through the clouds to illuminate the house, obliterating the reflections.

    It was just a house. All was well. Maika laughed aloud, feeling ridiculous.

    "You all right?" Ginny asked from her perch.

    Maika laughed again, and emerged from the water, coming to sit between Ginny and their cardigan. It was a bit too chilly for a long dip anyway. "Yeah, I''m fine. Just felt this uncanny feeling for a sec, then it went away." They shook their hands out. The last of the lake water fell from them, though it would take longer for their shorts and legs to dry off.

    "I know what you mean," Ginny murmured. "The fog, the quiet... uncanny''s the word for it. Not to mention, the feeling of that other word again... ''lockdown''."

    Maika laid back and let the brief window of weak sunshine wash over them. Lockdown had been real hard on them last time. Alone in a shabby flat with no company but the booze cabinet... nah. No use looking back. This time would be better, with good company.

    "Let''s not talk about that, eh?"

    "So what do you want to talk about then?" Ginny asked. Maika glanced sidelong at her, getting a hint of flirtation in the way she dragged out the word ''do'', in the way she leaned a bit closer.

    Flirtation? Maybe that was wishful thinking.

    Wishful thinking, eh? Hmm, now there was something to dwell on later. Did Maika wish that Ginny was flirting with them?

    But there was a topic which came straight to mind. "Ahh... nah. It''s nothing."

    Ginny blinked, then looked back at her notebook. Then she narrowed her eyes, peered at Maika, then looked away again. Finally, she put down her notebook. "Hmm. I get the feeling I know what this is. You''re not the first person who has come up to me to talk and then gone strangely silent."

    "I''m not?"

    "Nope."

    "What do they usually want from you?"

    "Permission or encouragement to transition, usually."

    "Oh!" Maika nearly jumped. Well, that had been pretty close. Accurate enough, in its own way. "Funnily enough - I''m not wanting to transition to a woman, if that''s what you think. But I did want to tell you, I''m trying on non-binary."

    "Ah, I did wonder." Ginny gestured vaguely at Maika. "The name change, the new fashion choices being kinda androgynous..."

    "Yeah. I''m not sure if non-binary''s the exact word for what I am, but you know... just as I''ve been reclaiming my heritage, I learnt something that sorta resonated with me. In te reo, there is no ''he'' or ''she''. Just one pronoun for all sentient beings, ''ia''. And when I learnt that, I just felt so... I dunno, ''relieved'' I think is the word I want?"

    "Or seen?"

    "Yeah! Seen. Exactly."

    "Well that''s great." Ginny reached over and rubbed Maika''s shoulder. The way she bit her generous bottom lip as she did made Maika glance away quickly. It brought back memories: Maika had thought her lips to be her most attractive feature, back before she was she. They''d forgotten that - the little crush on Ginny before her transition, never at all followed through on because Maika had not been ready to admit any queerness of any sort back then. "So, what are your pronouns now?"

    "I''m trying on ''they''. It''s going... interestingly. I mostly have it down in my head now. Like I''m thinking of myself as ''they'', I mean."

    "I sense there''s a ''but'' here..."

    "But I wish I were thinking in te reo, you know? I wish I were thinking ''ia'', rather than ''they''."

    Ginny nodded slowly. Her hand had stayed on their shoulder, and she rubbed it again. "You''ve got an extra layer of stuff to contend with there, my friend. Gender, combined with colonialism; all that jazz."

    "Yeah. Nah, I''m sorting it out, eh?"

    "Do the others know?"

    Maika sneered back at the house. "I kinda don''t want Chad to know yet, you know? Guy''s being a jerkwad."

    "Oh thank God, I thought I was the only one who''d noticed."

    The two of them chuckled for a spell, surreptitiously glancing over their shoulders. "Nah, I''ve noticed. I was thinking we should maybe talk to Kirsten about it..."

    "Yeah, probably. Does she know?"

    "About my gender thoughts? Not yet. I kinda don''t want her to... like... dismiss me when I tell her, you know?"

    To Maika''s relief, Ginny nodded effusively. "I get you. Kirsten''s great, but she can be a bit blunt when it comes to certain sensitive subjects."

    "Exactly."

    A breeze kicked up, ruffling through Ginny''s pages under the stone. She pinned them down with her palm, and when the wind did not let up after a good twenty seconds, she took the stone off and gathered the pages into her snuggly poncho thing. "Sorry, I''ve gotta go back inside."

    "Yeah, it''s getting a bit cold, eh? I''ll be in too, soon."

    Her eyes were alive with glee. "I''m going to write some more, and get ready for tonight."

    It had been a long time since Maika had seen Ginny so excited. All the years they''d known her, she had trodden gently through all aspects of life. But now she was practically bouncing with enthusiasm. "Yeah! I''m looking forward to hearing your stuff."

    "Me too. Yours, I mean. See ya!" She turned swiftly and scurried up the low bank.

    Ginny had seen them. That felt so nice. Maika followed her with their eyes as she left, until the house pulled their attention to it.

    The house had seen them too.

    Maika whipped their head back to face the lake, shuddering. Only last night, they''d written something about the house having eyes. Again, that had happened before seeing the house from this angle, as if they''d been astrally projecting to see the house from the character''s point of view.

    They shook off the creeping feeling off their back and gazed pointedly at the lake.

    Maika stared out into the distance, trying to determine the line where fog ended and water began. The sight was unyielding, giving away nothing. After a while, they pulled their phone out to look into this lake, and this villa. They did intend to get back to writing soon. This mucking around on the internet wasn''t true procrastination, not really. This was research.

    They found two things during this time.

    The first was that the villa was named the Villa Delacroix because it was said that the French artist Eug��ne Delacroix stayed in the villa one summer in the mid 1800s. But other sources said the claim was likely untrue. Nevertheless, the apocryphal tidbit persisted throughout several different accounts of his life online. Maika looked through the catalogue of the painter''s works, getting lost in the drama of the compositions, searching for inspiration. Christ of the Sea of Galilee was a big contrast to the stillness of this silvery world Maika currently sat in. All the stirring romance of Delacroix''s art called to Maika, reminded them there was something outside this strange bubble of time and place they presently occupied. Somewhere in the world, there had to be a stormy sky like this. Somewhere else, there were crowds of people, bodies moving in masses of sorrow and even violence... nothing like this lonely grey haze.

    They weren''t sure whether to be grateful for the isolation or not.

    The second thing they learned was that this holiday house had some very strange reviews indeed. Some people rated it 4 or 5 stars, but others dragged the score down with 1s and 2s because of ''a presence'', or in one account, "THIS PLACE HAS A GHOST I DONT CARE IF YALL DONT BELIEVE ME".

    Had Kirsten not seen these reviews? Or did she not care? As they read through the reviews, Maika''s mood sank. They didn''t believe in ghosts, but they didn''t not believe in ghosts either. There were definitely some things in this world which defied explanation.

    Like how right now, their hand whipped up to their pounamu again, and their heart panged with a feeling akin to homesickness, nausea and terror.

    Ancestors again? Maybe. If only they knew for certain if was that, and not just unmedicated anxiety.

    Maybe there was something to the reviews. They''d talk to the others tonight, in the safety of the writing share circle. Maybe Chad would laugh at them, but Kirsten and Ginny might give their feelings credence. At the very least, Kirsten might offer to send Maika home.

    Would they want to go home? It was hard to say.

    But before then, they would share their writing. Maybe it would be something they wrote right now, rather than last night''s work. As much as they loved what they had written then, Maika felt inspired to write even more at this very moment. With such a surge of creative soul, the word foraging could be even more potent now, in the light of day.

    They wrapped themself in their cardigan and took their notebook and pen out of their pocket. It was cold here, and the stones under their arse were hard, but the moment had to be siezed.

    Maika wrote.

 INTERLUDE TWO - In which the woman in white refuses to see

    Emilie stood at the threshold of the dining room, her lungs refusing to fill.

    She kept her eyes on the floor, tethered firmly to the tips of her shoes, not leaving their reassuring fawn leather.

    Should the room smell? Logic dictated it should, if memory served right. But memory was a tricky thing. Hers was a silk scarf falling through her fingers, a waterfall never grasped but dripping away as insubstantial as a dream on waking.

    Focus. Breathe.

    Her lungs refused. Still, smell eluded her. Perhaps she ought to be grateful for that. This was her dining room. She knew it to be an ordinary room; a room one passed through every day, several times a day in fact. Nothing untoward happened in a dining room.

    She stepped forward; one foot, the second. Her boot tips met the edge of the carpet. The pattern was one she had chosen herself from the furnishers, a fine example of Arabian workmanship, with light blue with yellow swirling throughout as if it were gold mined from the pale face of the moon itself.

    An incongruent dash of red marred the perfection of the treasured rug.

    She averted her eyes, but not before a wave of honest scent threatened to drag her gaze upward. To what? A sliver of memory, a sight which once seen may not be denied.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    Until it was seen, she might continue innocent of what had happened.

    An attempt to dash from the room had her close with the wall. She stopped short of hitting it, fearful less of hurting herself than of what it might mean if she struck the wall and it failed to hurt her.

    Shying away from it, she traced the skirting board around the room, a clean white line in the gloom. In time she reached the first window, with the curtains still drawn closed from when she was last in this room.

    She raised a hand to pull the curtain open, when a splash of dark colour on its silver-grey folds stopped her.

    The sight of the gore on the curtain''s hem brought the smell of the room crashing down on her like a breaking wave. The table was spread once with a hearty meal of various goodly, wholesome scents - rosemary on robust, roasted potatoes; sprigs of mint laid across the lamb; garlic peas in onion gravy; so many scents and tastes crafted for his palate, to serve him - but all scents now were one discordance of decay, a hand slammed down on the keys of an olfactory piano.

    Beyond all that, a deeper rot laid over all.

    She laid a hand on her stomach and waited to be ill.

    When minutes passed and nothing arrived, she shuffled from the room and back to the corridor, where the cold light, filtered through the mist outside, still reached its long fingers in through the open door.

    What remained of sensation had little sense to it. Smell, sight, hearing - what of touch? Why pain or revulsion or this unspoken yearning, when other things were gone completely? How much would vanish of her into the beckoning fog, and how much would remain, and why?

    There was something she had come here for.

    It was not in the dining room.

    What was it?

    Her failure to remember it was a tragedy far more affecting to her than the one present in the adjoining room. She fell to her knees and wept until her gut ached, and yet there were no tears.

    Emilie wept all the harder for that.

 CHAPTER THREE - In which Ginny seeks her joy

    Ginny returned to the room she had chosen. Or perhaps more accurately, the room which had chosen her.

    She had lost her way in the dark corridors yesterday. Never very good with directions, she''d gotten turned around. She''d thought she was looking for a bedroom on the lake side of the house. She found a small room with a large single bed (King or Queen single perhaps, she had no idea) with a crisp white coverlet and a golden metal headboard. The wallpaper was white with a pattern of pale blue flowers. The curtains were soft, flimsy white things, so sensitive that they wavered in the light breeze of her opening the door. Beyond them, she could see the road, finally realising she was not on the lake side of the house at all.

    But that didn''t matter, because there was something far more alluring in this room than a view of the lake.

    A writing desk sat between the two windows. On it squatted a typewriter. What''s more, beside it lay a stack of fresh paper, as if laid out just for her.

    For her to begin something momentous.

    This was the room Ginny came back to now, after having talked with Maika by the lake. She hadn''t told anyone about the typewriter yet, though Maika had seen her typed pages from afar, and surely one or more of them would have heard the clickety-clack of the keys echoing down the wooden-floored corridors. After Kirsten had issued her challenge yesterday, Ginny had returned to this clean, white sanctuary of a room, determined to master the old technology. It had taken her a short while to remember how to use a typewriter, from younger days spent playing around on her grandmother''s one. She''d searched on the internet to remind herself, ignoring all the notifications that came pouring through when she connected to the wifi. She was too filled with purpose to allow anyone or anything to disrupt her.

    And then she had written and written and written, well into the night, despite the jetlag. Something had possessed her. It couldn''t have been competitiveness. Although she was keen on Kirsten''s challenge to the group, Ginny never entered into such things in a spirit of hoping to do better than others. And yet something was gripping her, channeling through her fingers with little input from her conscious mind, until the hour was much later than she had intended, and she fell on the bed not so much in exhaustion, but practically in a swoon.

    Perhaps it was this room, and her sympathy with it, filling her with words. She felt too much a part of the four walls already, as if the room had presented itself in the perfect state for her to accept it. A dream room, the sort of light, airy, feminine space she''d ached to occupy in her teen years. A Room of One''s Own, as her namesake put it once. As if the room knew all her secrets already, and invited her divulge them.

    She relented once again, as she had the day before, and shed again the first secret the room had made her divulge. Off came the light-blue snuggie, which she folded at the end of the neatly-made bed. Underneath lay the secret she still hadn''t revealed to her travel companions: a vintage dress, or at least one cleverly made enough to convince her it was genuine, circa 1910. The creamy silk hugged her slim figure with its elegant lines. Gentle frills skirted the demure neckline. A line of fine, fabric-coated buttons ran down the front. The waist came in under the bust, then the skirt flowed with delicate grace down to her ankles.

    It was one of several such dresses she had filled her suitcase with. This was her newfound identity, at least in a fashion sense, though she was still trying it out, weathering the strange looks people gave her. Then again, there could be other reasons for their scrutiny. She was all too familiar with that. People had always looked at her oddly, even before her transition. Her life had always been one of reaching for some meaning which ever eluded her; feeling as if people could see how transparent she felt inside, how much of an empty shell of a person she truly was.

    She''d sought to fill the void in a number of ways. In her teen years, it had been a consumption of video games and nerdy media. Her twenties were when her head finally cleared enough to realise her gender feelings had some serious weight to them, and it was transition which became the quest at that point. Now in her thirties, there was something beyong gender still which left her unfulfilled, but she was unable to put her finger on it. Aesthetics filled the gap somewhat, her current fashion discovery giving her a sliver of that same feeling as gender euphoria.

    But still, there was something unnameable lying at the end of all of this. When would she find it? Her forties, fifties, later even than that? Did life ever become a quiet, placid lake like the one outside, or was it always to be this yearning ocean, reaching and withdrawing from the shore in constant tumult?

    Perhaps, she reflected, it was odd to keep her recent obsession with vintage fashion from her friends. But much like Maika tentatively coming out to her this morning, Ginny was unsure of what the reception would be. Mainly from Chad and Kirsten, of course. Chad would probably laugh at her, call it some gothic Lolita thing. Which, to be fair, yes, she saw a similarity between her fashion choices and those of the Lolitas of Harajuku. But their clothes tended to be more frilly than this, more frou-frou - not that Chad would be able to tell the difference. Nor would it stop him having his fun.

    And Kirsten? She might not say anything aloud, but Ginny would feel the familiar weight of judgement in her stare, she knew it.

    Easier to stay in the snuggie, and in the anime-catgirl terminally-online persona she''d crafted in her twenties instead, at least for the moment. All their jokes about that aspect of her had long been worn out.

    Ginny clapped her hands before her face. The inner monologue had frozen her in the room, dragging her into places where thoughts would stultify her if she wasn''t careful. She clapped again, and recalled the activity her therapist had given her.

    "I can''t dance," she said aloud.

    After a minute of arm-flailing and twirling, her breath fast and her cheeks red with the sudden activity, Ginny laughed quietly at herself. Rejecting her brain''s impulse towards negativity with disobedience and getting a short spell of exercise did wonders for her mood. Company, she decided, was called for, to avoid another slump. Not the physical company in the house, but the company of her sisterhood, who would understand. She lay on her belly on the bed, and cracked open her laptop.

    As soon as Cacophony loaded, her laptop rang out with a string of electronic bells pealing. 73 notifications. All right, perhaps she should have opened this up sooner. Sighing her chagrin, she clicked the icon for her friends'' private server.

    Ginny: Hello!

    Vix: Guuuuurl, where you been? It''s been DAYS.

    Artemisia: Ginnnnnnyyyyyyyy!!!

    It was just the two of them online right now. They were on the eastern seaboard of the US, so it was early morning for them, pre-commute. The rest would come online in time, but Ginny planned to be gone before then. Those who had missed her would at least see the evidence that she was still alive.

    Ginny: Well, it''s a bit of a long story. I meant to log on yesterday but I got distracted by something super cool. Hang on, let me send a picture.

    Ginny whipped her phone around the room, taking a picture in the panorama-style, and sent both that, and a panorama she''d taken of the lake earlier.

    Vix: OMG Gin! Where is that? It''s gorgeous!

    Artemisia: Don''t tell me, are you using that ~antique~ typewriter? That''s so you, hahahaha

    Ginny: I''m in Switzerland. And yes, I am using the typewriter. It still works really well and I feel like a real writer when I use it <(^_^)>

    Vix: Get it gurl. Whatever works for you.

    Vix: But anyway, deets! Why are you in Switzerland???

    Ginny''s hands froze up as she considered whether the truth was the best thing right now. These distant sisters of her knew some of the most intimate details of her life, and vice versa. They had been forged in the fire together, despite never having met in the flesh. But was talking about her connection with Kirsten Lee gauche?

    On balance, she decided the truth was the truth, and if it came back to hurt her, that was a them-problem, not a her-problem.

    Ginny: So I''m friends with a kinda famous author. I dunno if you''ve heard about her, Kirsten Lee? She''s a big deal in NZ but I''m not so sure about worldwide. We went to uni together. Anyway, she invited me on an impromptu writers'' retreat and so... here I am.

    As the ellipses of her friends'' responses formulating blipped across the bottom of the screen, Ginny''s anxiety flared. Her teeth gritted. She fought against their instinctual clamp while she waited for the replies to come in.

    Vix: GURL WHAT??? How could you hold out on me like this?! THE Kirsten Lee??? You KNOW I am Chinese-American, she''s a big deal

    Vix: in my community, at leastEnsure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    Artemisia: Oh, I think I''ve heard about her...

    Artemisia: Wait wait wait did she write Memories of the Goldfinch?

    Ginny: Yup

    Ginny was halfway through typing an addendum which started, ''I was one of her critique partners for that book,'' when the response cut her short.

    Artemisia: Ugh noooo, I hated that book. Sorry XD

    Vix: LOL why tho???

    Artemisia: Her depiction of the trans character in that. What was her name? Cherry something?

    Ginny: Cherise

    Artemisia: YES. UGH. Like... I dunno if you''re friends like that, Gin, but tell your homegirl to stay in her lane XD

    Vix: WHAT. You have to gimme the tea

    Artemisia: Oh not much it was just that she focussed way too much on the medical side of Cherise''s experience and like... stop me if I''m wrong GInny, it was so long ago I read it. But there was a whole botched surgery plotline. And to me it''s just like... ugh, can we not have another story from a cis writer that focuses on the medicalization of transgender bodies? Why couldn''t it have been a cis woman with a botched nose or boob job, you know?

    Ginny''s fingers arched over the keyboard, frozen in her indecision. She didn''t want to admit that she had kinda sorta okayed the plotline with Kirsten. Yes, it was about a trans woman and surgeries and that was tired old news, but Ginny had thought Kirsten had handled the story with so much nuance, and also it played into the wider themes of what every character in the book was experiencing. All of them had things they were striving for go horribly wrong, with consequences far outweighing the good that could have resulted. But of course, the community response to the book was also correct - trans characters were always getting this sort of treatment from cis writers, and yes of course it was possible that Kirsten Lee should probably have stayed in her lane; after all she herself was keyed into enough angles of being a minority that she could write from genuine experience without crowbarring in a cringeworthy stereotype. Kirsten was a big girl. She would have survived if Ginny had come back with a pickier critique, maybe suggested that the trans character could go through a trauma unrelated to being trans - after all, there was another character who had lost a child. Plenty of trans people had children. But Ginny had to admit, perhaps she was too soft on Kirsten sometimes. Or had it been bad solidarity on her part: a blindspot in her own reading, that she had let this slip? It was hard to pick apart all her motivations now in hindsight; Ginny had gotten very personally involved after the book came out and the controversy dropped, wanting to defend Kirsten because the discourse actually got quite disgustingly toxic against her - not so much from trans people but from chuds wanting to get in on the pile-on - and that urge to defend her had absolutely nothing to do with the flame Ginny had kept burning for Kirsten all these years (despite the fact that Kirsten was straight and Ginny might have actually had a chance with her if she hadn''t been true to herself, but the less she thought about that, the better); and so much for dancing the anxiety away because it was all flooding back right now anyway...

    All Ginny could say was:

    Ginny: Hahaha yeah

    She crossed her fingers that Artemisia wouldn''t ever read the acknowledgements page of Goldfinch, and see the name Virginia Black credited as ''a key critique partner and good friend''.

    Vix: ANYWAY let''s leave that there, shall we?

    Vix: Tell us moooooooore about this whole trip thing, GIn. Who are you with, just Kirsten?

    Ginny: Actually no, she also invited two other friends. We''ve kinda been a unit since university. Maika and Chad. Maika just came out to me as non-binary, bless them!

    Vix: Aw xx

    GInny: I''m actually quite grateful they did. I was a little daunted at first about spending such a long holiday with these three. The last time we spent so long together, I was in my default setting.

    Artemisia: But they''re cool right? Obviously you wouldn''t put yourself in that situation if not.

    Artemisia: Right, Gin? <anakin-padme.jpg>

    Ginny tossed her head side to side in real life, but in the chat all she said was:

    Ginny: Yep. Anyway I just wanted to pop in and let you know I''m alive. I actually want to shut this machine off and get back to the writing. Cos this is actually a writing retreat ^_^ and oddly, this lovely place is really inspirational and the words are just flowing, and I don''t want that feeling to go away!

    Artemisia: *gasp* is this the end of the dreaded writer''s block?!

    Ginny: I don''t want to jinx it, but... maybe.

    Vix: Get it gurl! K bye, go do your thing!

    Artemisia: Go happy for you GIn. I hope it goes well!

    Artemisia: *so happy

    Ginny: Thank you ladies xx <(^_^<) <(^_^)> (>^_^)>

    Ginny shut the laptop lid and sat up. In the past, perhaps she would have laid there in a daze. But not today. She rocked up to her feet, and decided that she would finally set aside the five minutes it took to unpack a little more. As opposed to yesterday when she had launched into writing as soon as she could.

    After hanging her other dresses up in the closet and putting her underclothes in the drawers, she took out her slim stack of inspirational books. She liked to take all of these with her whenever she went somewhere for any great length of time, especially when writing was going to be part of the trip. A volume of select short stories of Katherine Mansfield occupied the space reserved for her favourite author from New Zealand; her actual favourite author of all time, Virginia Woolf, came in the form of Orlando: A Biography (cliche? perhaps, and yet nevertheless, a favourite was a favourite, no matter how expected); the quintessential Sylvia Plath inclusion in The Bell Jar; these and a few other slim novels she placed to the side and behind the typewriter, within easy reach when she needed a word from her idols.

    The buzz of her phone jarred her. She picked it up off the wooden desk, determined to throw it onto the bed where its nagging vibrations would be more easily muffled. But on a whim, she checked what the message had been. The preview on the lock screen read: KIRSTEN: Dining room 7pm, dinner and read what we''ve got?

    Mention of the dining room set Ginny''s teeth to clamping shut again. What was it about that room? Was it what she had written last night? No, don''t be stupid. That was a product of her imagination. She shouldn''t be so silly about it. If not that, was it the fact that the whole kitchen-dining room annex reminded her too much of Chad, perpetually sitting at the kitchen island like the world''s most annoying landmark? As uncharitable as that thought was, Ginny couldn''t deny it; his presence, after his comments yesterday, had her on edge. Intuition was not to be ignored. (She felt especially strongly about that, given how she''d once had to defend her right to the phrase ''a woman''s intuition'' from a transphobe. She was a woman; this was her intuition.)

    With a sigh, Ginny unlocked her phone and typed a response on the group chat: Actually, how about the drawing room on the other side of the house? The one with the fireplace? The vibes are -immaculate-

    Kirsten responded quickly: Deal. See you then. Hope you''re working hard on that writing!

    Ginny locked her phone again and threw it on the bed, perhaps a little harder than she otherwise might have. It bounced inoffensively to a stop in the middle of the soft white bedspread.

    Why did Kirsten have to put it like that? Yeeeesssss, she was working hard. There was no need to snipe at her, or push her. She hated being pushed.

    Almost out of spite, Ginny unpacked the latest version of her other manuscript, her main project for the last fifteen years, Sir Britomart and the Faerie Queene. For the next half hour, she read over the latest chapter in her revision schedule, staring at the hateful words on the page with growing spite.

    Over the years, the whole damn novel had become entwined with bitterness towards Kirsten, the inspiration for the taunting and alluring Faerie Queen. At first it had all been fun and games: inspired by their English literature class, where first-year-students Kirsten and would-be-Ginny studied Spencer''s Faerie Queene, the novel had started as a joint response to the text, and then Ginny had kept running with it, channeling her feelings for Kirsten into it through the guise of the lesbian knight - not realising of course how much her subconscious had been trying to tell her the truth even then with that particular choice of viewpoint character - only for the various drafts of the over-revised manuscript to become tainted over the years with heavy-handed responses to Kirsten''s criticisms of the piece, detours and u-turns aplenty muddying the original intent and turning it into a labyrinth of many years'' labour. It was half-her, half-Ginny now, a twisted baby which sucked not life-giving milk from Ginny but the very life-energy from her the more time she spent on it.

    No. She put it aside.

    The typewriter, and the stack of freshly-typed pages, called to her. Better to lose herself in this new story from last night, which seemed to be going so well. She was tentatively confident about it being the best thing she had ever written.

    With the reverence of a lover, she stroked the pile of typed pages, trapped as they were under a time-polished blue-grey stone from the lakeshore.

    She turned to the pile of blank pages on the opposite side, picked up the topmost, and rolled it into the typewriter. A breath to gather herself, then she began.

    <hr>

    It felt as if no time at all had passed. Ginny raised her eyes past the page - grown dim enough that she almost could not read her own writing - and saw that the sun was setting on her side of the house. She picked up her phone from the bed: 6.55pm. Scurrying down to the drawing room, she realised as she stepped inside that in her haste she had completely forgotten her snuggie.

    The other three gazed at her. Maika''s smile grew slowly over their lips, and then they nodded in acknowledgement. Kirsten blinked in confusion, then tilted her head. "What a beautiful dress," she said, her smile still confused, eyebrows puckered together.

    Chad whistled through his teeth. Ginny fought the urge to cringe. God, she hated that sound.

    "You cosplaying as the lady of the house, Gin?"

    Ginny was frozen in place, waiting for the familiar jangle of laughter to commence. But instead, Maika sneered and tutted at Chad (who for his part looked wounded and chastised), and Kirsten rolled her eyes and moved on.

    "Come and grab your plate, it''s just under the uh..." Kirsten gestured vaguely at the cloche over the tray on the table between their chairs. "Sorry, I tried to call you down for dinner but when I looked for you, I couldn''t find your bedroom."

    "Thank you." Ginny hurried to join their meal. Kirsten had cooked a wholesome and delicious basic pasta. Knowing her, she''d probably made this tomato-based sauce from raw ingredients (the freshness of the whole basil leaves were a dead giveaway), and this conchiglie pasta was probably organic and locally-made. Ginny tried to appreciate it as best as her present mood would allow. She wanted the eating to be over soon so she could get to the reading aloud part. The text was calling to her. If not for food and friends, she would still be upstairs writing. But in the moment, she would settle for reading aloud. It would serve as a revision tool in its own way; to hear the words trip off her tongue, to taste their rhythm and judge their weight in the response of their audience.

    Strangely, her friends seemed off a mind, and as one, all four ate in hurried silence. Ginny was, to her surprise, the first to break it. "May I read first?"

    Maika gaped. Yes, Ginny supposed this was a little out of character for her, usually. Chad looked affronted, and as if he would speak, but Kirsten cut in, "I''d love that. By all means, Ginny."

    As she stood before the others, with the unlit fireplace behind her, her chosen excerpt in hand, Ginny found she was not trembling as she might usually have in front of an audience.

    No, this was right and correct. This was where she was meant to be.

    This story was filling her with a rush of euphoria, such that had been missing from her life for a while now.

    She opened her mouth and the words spoke themselves.

 INTERLUDE THREE - In which the woman in white hears a cry

    Something was crying.

    The wail was incessant, red with impotent anger, rattling with wetness and mucus.

    What was it? Did some beast suffer on the shore of the lake, cloaked by the mists waxing grey as night closed in?

    No. Attempt to ignore it as she might, it could not be denied: the cry came from within the house, in some upper reach of it.

    Then came the next question which required investigation: was the cry real? Was something upstairs, trapped in her house, unable to effect an escape? Or if not, what did that mean for her? What could this primal noise hint at; what was its significance to her?

    Emilie wandered the corridors of the house, looking for the source of the wailing. Time stretched the pacing of her legs, the carpeted halls taking an age to cross; and time collapsed her vision, whole doors bypassed at the speed of thought. She resorted to not looking, to shake off the disorientation: better to take a long time to cross a room, and feel the floors solid beneath her, than to trust the lies of her eyes. Best to see the doctor as soon as she could, to have such inertia diagnosed and treated.Stolen novel; please report.

    Still the wailing thing persisted. A wave of loathing passed over Emilie. Could it not discern the distastefulness of its own sounds, this hateful creature disturbing her peace? Then came a counterwave of guilt; the creature was in pain, the creature needed assistance, the creature was in a state of lack so raw that Emilie''s throat stung with tears unshed just hearing it.

    Would someone not help it? Surely someone else knew where it was.

    Emilie came to a window and stood by it, letting the horror of the sound wash over her.

    She could not find its source.

    Even if she did, she had the feeling she could be of no help whatsoever to the poor creature.

    Outside the window was only the curling fingers of the beckoning mist. Perhaps she could brave that frosted world, walk down to the road, turn toward town, and look for help.

    But the mere idea of stepping into that mist terrified her.

    It pressed against the glass like a child''s hot breath on a cold carriage window; as if, were the glass not there, it would caress her gladly, stealing some unnameable quality from her (the only word Emilie could find in the moment was heart''s-warmth).

    No. She could not face the mists. Not presently.

    That left only the company of the occupants of the dining room, and this unending drone of a voice losing power, rage turning to desperation, turning into softer, weaker mews as the light faded from the sky.

    Would not someone help the poor thing?

 CHAPTER FOUR - In which Chads chickens come home to roost

    "What the fuck, Ginny?" Chad roared, leaping to his feet.

    Ginny leapt back, almost tripping over the tiled lip of the fireplace before she caught herself, clutching her papers to her chest.

    Chad would grant her no sympathy; after all, that''s just what she would want, playing this charade of a pale waif when they all knew the truth about her. No, no sympathy, the fucking masquerading pilferer. "That''s not fucking funny. Give that here."

    He stepped forward to yank the stolen text out of her hands, when Maika stepped in the way. "Whoa, Chad, back off, man. What''s going on?"

    "She''s a fucking thief, Mike, now get out of my way." Still, Ginny cringed away, backing herself against the wall and avoiding his eyes.

    Kirsten had the gall to step up beside Maika, inserting herself in the way too. "Chad, calm down and speak about this rationally." As if she thought he wouldn''t strike her, if it came to that. Oh, she''d be surprised what he would do. He was equal opportunities in that regard. But still, she was right; truth and right were on his side in this case, so there was no need to get so unreasonably mad. As if she could sense the altered temperature of his mood, she continued, "What do you mean, calling Ginny a thief?"

    "I don''t know how, or why she did it, but she stole my work. That''s the story I''ve been writing. She has to be using AI or something, and it''s been leaching out what I''ve been writing through the wifi connection." He couldn''t help himself, he was already on tiptoes and pointing at her, trying to get at her between them. A part of him, just outside of himself, told him he was acting like an excitable dog; was embarrassed for himself. "Give it to me, I''ll prove, I wrote those words - or words very similar -"

    "Nah, bro," Maika said, putting his hands on Chad''s shoulders. Chad seethed, moments away from shucking him off. But Maika''s eyes were shaken. "Listen... this is fucked, mate, but... I wrote that story too."

    A silence descended between them. Kirsten stared at Maika, her lips open, trembling. Behind her, Ginny no longer cowered but gaped at the three of them. Chad looked Maika in the eyes. Dude really was shaking.

    No, wait. Chad was the one who was shaking.

    "The fuck?" he asked. Had he imagined the words out of Maika''s mouth?

    "Me too," Kirsten whispered. Her eyes were wide and brimming with tears. She stepped back and looked at everyone in the room. "This is too weird. Have we all been writing about the woman in white? About Emilie?"

    Ginny nodded, her eyes darting away from Chad still. Maika let go of Chad, and huffed. He scanned the others'' faces, gripping his notebook to his broad-shouldered chest. "Yup," he said finally.

    Kirsten looked at Chad now, though he was loathe to meet her eyes. What was this bullshit? Were they all in it together, playing an elaborate prank against him? They had all been whispering to each other at different times, after all. Or texting. He''d seen them all doing it.

    She blinked back the water in her eyes and spoke firmly. "Chad? You''re saying you did too?"

    He held the power of silence for a few moments, until he had them all in the palm of his hand. "Yeah. Yes. I wrote about a woman in this house called Emilie."

    Kirsten walked back to her chair, picked up her writing tablet, and went to stand by Ginny''s side. She linked arms with the pale, thin girl and dragged her forward. "Let''s compare, shall we?" She unlocked her tablet and passed it to Ginny. Ginny gave her loose pages one last possessive look, then passed them to Maika. Maika passed Chad his leatherbound notebook. Kirsten looked to Chad expectantly, waiting for his laptop to pass her way. But he closed the lid, leaned over it, and scanned over Maika''s scribblings.

    Yep. It was all there. Sure, the words weren''t exactly the same. And Maika''s attention to detail was earthier than Chad''s own, more grounded by mortal concerns. Hell, there was even some M��ori words in there - what the fuck did that have to do with some white Swiss lady''s ghost, the pretentious bastard? But still, the events, the feelings, they were all there, same as his own writing. Just wearing different clothes, looking through different eyes.

    He shoved the book in Kirsten''s direction and looked at Ginny and Maika. They were pouring over the words with confusion and concern too.

    Chad almost believed them for a second.

    Nah.

    Chad stood up and paced away. Fuck these guys. This joke wasn''t funny. "Nah. Admit it. You''ve found an exploit to get into my laptop, and you''ve been copying what I''ve been writing, as" - as revenge, he nearly said, except if they hadn''t figured out his mortal sin, then it couldn''t be, could it? - "as a big joke to scare me into believing in ghosts."

    Kirsten frowned and shook her head. "I don''t know how to do such a thing." God, she looked like such a stuck-up bitch with that proud, offended expression, chin raised all imperiously. While the others spoke, she orchestrated the return of everyone''s writings back to them, clutching her tablet to her stomach now with her eyebrows meeting in the middle.

    "Don''t look at me," Maika protested, hands up in front of his chest. "I don''t know a damn thing about computers, you know that. Stupid things go on the fritz around me all the time."

    Ginny clutched her manuscript to her chest once Kirsten handed it to her, like it was a shield against Chad''s onslaught. "I haven''t working in tech in years. I don''t know how to do any of that stuff anymore."

    "Yeah, but you did know back in the day," Chad pressed, "and we both know you could re-learn that shit if you wanted."

    "Yes, I could I suppose," Ginny muttered, "but the point is, I haven''t. See all this?" She ruffled the edges of the paper, and turned the stack around to show him, though still clutching it close to her like a precious baby. "It''s typewritten, see? There''s an antique typewriter in my room. With a fresh supply of paper and ink, spare ribbons in the desk drawers even..." Her confidence withered in an instant. "Maybe I shouldn''t have been using it, maybe the owner of the house was saving it all up for their own project. Shit. I didn''t think of that. Kirsten, would you be able to message them and find out how much money I owe them?"

    Kirsten waved it off. "Don''t worry about it, I''m sure it''s fine." While she said that, Chad''s vision resolved on the pages. They were indeed typewritten, the paper having that older quality to it, the ink clearly having that stamped quality to it rather than an inkjet''s grayscale haze.

    "But... you could have been working beside a computer -"

    "My computer is up there, but I''ve spent maybe twenty minutes on it since we''ve arrived, doing a bit of life admin."

    Chad''s gaze landed next on Maika. He waved his notebook, rifling through the pages with his thick black ink scrawls. "You saw for yourself: I''ve been writing by hand. And you know how much I hate using tech. I''ve had my phone off most of the time. I can show you my search history or whatevs. Just did some research into this place, but nothing else."

    Kirsten folded her arms before Chad even looked at her. "And I''ve been writing on my tablet. It''s not even hooked up to the wifi, because I didn''t want any distractions. Are you satisfied yet, Chad?"The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    "No. Because the only other explanation is too fucking stupid."

    "What explanation?" Ginny all but whispered. At some point she had drifted backwards again, and hugged the edge of the wall.

    Under the weight of all three of them looking at him, Chad felt electrified, buzzing with energy, a little fried, even. He wanted to jump out of his own skin from the wrongness of the whole situation. "That we''re all channeling some presence from the other side, or some shit."

    "Is that so hard to believe?" Kirsten asked, her eyes already glowing with fervour.

    "Well, of course you''d love some weird bullshit like that, Lee, but I don''t believe it." Kirsten recoiled from his words. Was he going too far? Only if she wasn''t faking.

    She had to be faking.

    Maika''s eyes narrowed. He folded his arms. "Dude, what''s up your arse lately? Why are you so agitated by all this?"

    The answer was on the tip of his treacherous tongue, ready to jump off at a moment''s notice. Maika had a look on his face like he could see it all unfolding on Chad''s - that there was a secret, and that it was being withheld. That he would be more vigilant of Chad from now on. Chad glared back, and put his hands behind his head.

    "Why don''t you all just fucking admit it? It''s fine. I''ll laugh. Haha, it''s all a big joke." His laughter was hollow, faked. There was nothing funny about their serious faces, and that fucked him off most of all. The joke was done. Enough of this deadpan shit. "It''s all just AI. Admit it," he said, dancing dangerously close to his own reflection.

    "Chad, it''s really not," Kirsten insisted. "None of us use that soul-sucking capitalist bullshit. We''re all better than that."

    "Oh, fuck you, Miss High-and-Mighty. Just because you''re the darling of all the little white ladies on the writers'' festival circuits. LIttle Model Minority -"

    He''d gone too far, and he knew it, bad joke or not. Kirsten drew back, her face reddening with trapped rage. But he couldn''t back down. Not now. They were liars, all of them. They had to be. It couldn''t just be him.

    Kirsten stumbled into Ginny, who caught her and steadied her. Maika meanwhile, thrust himself forward. "Oi! What the fuck, man? Say how you really feel, why don''t you?"

    "I''m not scared of you, mate. You''re about as far as anyone can get from that Once Were Warriors shit. Soft."

    Maika drew back too, a sneer on his shaking head. "Geez man, I knew you were a dick, but this?"

    "Chad -" Ginny began.

    "Don''t you fucking start, Vincent."

    Ginny made a sound halfway between a gasp and a sob. Her papers clutched to her chest, she left the room, a blur of soft white dress with barely a footstep to be heard.

    "I think you should leave, Chad," Kirsten stated, facing away from him. Locking eyes with Maika instead. Conspiring, just like he knew they had been. "Leave the house, I mean. Tomorrow morning. I can get you a flight back to New Zealand."

    No. They weren''t going to win. They didn''t get to do this to him. It had been all of their faults, what had happened, not just his. Parker''s first, then Lee''s, and Ginny had just gone the fuck along with them, too catatonic to make sense of anything. Besids, if it was anyone''s fault, it the one who wasn''t here. But she''d paid for her part in it already. No, the four of them remaining; there was no backing out. They were all in this together.

    All of them should be scared of ghosts. God knew, they had good reason to be.

    Chad sidled up to her. "You can''t tell me what to do, Kirsten," he muttered into her ear. "I took all the orders I''m going to take from you."

    "I can call the police," she said, calmly, still not looking at him but at Maika, as if for strength.

    "You call the police, and I''ll tell them about Maika''s little gardening project." He looked between their two shocked faces, revelling in the deliciousness of their realisation. He had the power here. All of it. They couldn''t do a fucking thing. "Now, I''m going to bed. Perhaps in the morning, you three can explain why the fuck you think it''s so funny to gang up on me with this ghost shit. And I suggest you do. Good night."

    He picked up his laptop and left the room.

    His bedroom was a short stomp up the stairs. It was nowhere as grand as Lee''s bedroom, but it was large enough for his taste, with a King bed and an ensuite and an off-centre view of the lake during the day, though it was cut off by a tree. He stopped by the window to see what he could see, as he fought to get his breath back down to something of a calm state. No lake; only tendrils of the fogbank pressing against the window, reflecting what little light the bulb in his room put out. He shut the blinds and breathed in.

    Again, that electrified feeling coursed through his body. He let the air out of his lungs with a long whistle between his teeth. The breathing exercises were ones his mother had taught him to control his rage, but the whistling between his teeth, that was all his father. He used to do that. The old man used to do a lot of interesting mouth sounds actually, before he drank himself to an early grave; man could whistle any tune no matter how difficult, could imitate any bird, could click and cluck and wolf-whistle enough to turn every stuck-up bitches'' head on a given street, ready to accuse him of whatever misogyny she fancied. It was almost all he had left of the man. The greater share of its father''s earthly possessions had gone to his older brothers, successful in sport and business respectively. To the weird f-word writer son of the family went some albums, some clothes, the neglected guitar which needed restringing. And the f-word appellation, passed down as a pet name for him, from his father to his brothers, unshakeable despite the inaccuracy of it.

    But he had the whistling. He had always imitated that better than either of his brothers.

    He placed his laptop on the charger and cracked it open, sitting down before it on a broad-backed wooden chair. His slamming of the lid earlier hadn''t interfered too much with the operation of his latest creation. It resumed after a few seconds, reiterating over and over the text per his instructions.

    They had no idea how much work this took. They thought they were so much better than him, just because they picked their words by hand from the tree of inspiration. He''d made a machine to harvest. If he kept that machine secret, it was only because they could never understand. It wasn''t shame. No.

    Besides, what was the bet they were using AI in secret anyway? Lee had cranked that last novel out way too fast. She''d said in an interview it was a ''pure flash of inspiration'' - whatever. He would have placed good money on AI being involved somewhere along the way. And Maika and Ginny had to at least have tried it out, right? How could they not have? It was like a genie in a bottle. Well, not perfectly so, not yet anyway. It still needed a human hand to guide it. He was that hand. He was so good at being that hand, that nobody had caught him yet. Not a single Bestreads review with even a whiff of suspicion.

    The way he figured, if this was his path, then so be it. He had tried for so long to carve out a path to success similar to Lee, only to be faced by rejection after rejection. He didn''t have her gender or ethnic appeal, as he saw it; nothing like the wasted potential of Maika with his ethnicity and wastrel addict appeal; nor Ginny''s whole transgender thing or her not-of-sound-mind artiste aura; no, he was just a boring white P��keh�� straight cis male able-bodied sound-minded guy. No advantages in that regard. No sop story to glom onto. A few years ago, mid-30s, getting nowhere with this whole writing biz, he''d seen the opportunity, and he''d taken it.

    And now he was making enough money that he''d been able to leave his soulless corporate career, a decade and a half of bouncing from one tech startup to another to bullshit his way through some coding which he was perfectly able to do, so long as he put a sheet over his soul to make it shut the fuck up for just a second. He''d rigged up a few servers of his own, overseas, difficult to trace back to him, and they ran custom AI instances dedicated to churning out possible manuscripts for C. T. Woodham, bestselling thriller and crime writer.

    The weird thing was though, the AI was doing a shit job with Emilie''s story.

    As soon as she''d wandered into his imagination through the fog, he''d fed a series of prompts into his engine and waited to see what it spat out. Everything it had sent out was wrong. <eleanor-chidi.jpg>, ''You''re not getting it and my thing is different, so shut up''.

    Instead, the previous afternoon, he''d opened up a blank document and written the words himself for once. Tentatively, not trusting it like the first steps on an previously-injured foot coming out of a cast, he''d felt for the words Emilie was whispering to him; tentatively, he''d read them back and thought to himself, ''I''ve still got it.'' He hadn''t felt this way about something he''d written for maybe a decade, back when he was deluded by youth and optimism.

    He''d been so looking forward to tonight. To reading it aloud. To seeing them smile at him. Genuinely, even.

    Fuck Ginny. Fuck all of them. They still weren''t over that fucking night fifteen years ago, were they? That had to be it.

    He ran a scan on his laptop, but there was no trace of any malware which could explain their plagiarism. Feeling crazy even as he did it, he climbed on his chair at each corner of the room, feeling for a pinhole camera or something, anything to explain how the hell they''d done it.

    Who knew how much later, he stopped, a thin sheen of sweat from the effort coating his upper lip.

    Seriously, fuck those guys.

    He opened the tab with his private cacophony server, the one where he was the only member. He clicked on the channel #scream-into-void.

    He typed:

    They hate me. They''ve always hated me. They always will. They still blame me for what happened to Tessa.

    He gazed at the words in white on a charcoal grey screen for a good ten seconds. Then Right-click, Delete.

    The words were gone.

 INTERLUDE FOUR - In which the woman in white sees the man with the tall hair

    There was a man in the second-best bedroom.

    Who was he? A friend of her husband''s? She didn''t recognise him. Should she recognise him?

    Emilie clung to the doorframe, then pushed herself back into the shadows. The man turned around and looked straight at her. Pinned to the wall opposite by his blue eyes, she swallowed all sound and waited to see what he would do.

    His eyes were wide, his lips pursing to cage a tiny tremble. He was... frightened?

    He turned around as if he hadn''t seen her.

    Emilie crept back to the doorframe. The back of his head made a strange silhouette, brown hair sticking up high. An odd fashion; where could such a style come from? His clothing was somewhat like a vagrant''s: some rough material for strange trousers with holes at the knees, and what surely had to be an undershirt, with its lack of collar and short sleeves. And yet it had some text emblazoned across it in bold letters. The text looked English, a language of which she possessed only a few words.

    This couldn''t be one of those men her husband had threatened to invite in? The kind he said would ''see to her'', at those times when she was being, in his words, objectionable?This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    No, the young man did not have such a bearing.

    How could he linger here, unaware of the carnage in the dining room? And the wailing, ever calling from some unknowable reach of the house?

    "Help," she spoke, her voice clear like a bell to her own ears.

    To him, she may as well have not spoken. He continued facing the curtained window and whatever personal effects he had spread out before him on the writing desk. She had no wish to come into the man''s room for a closer inspection, even though she was the lady of the house. Even though it would be improper to do so, she might enter, demand to know who he thought he was, taking up residence here. But there was an air of bristling anger to his hunched shoulders which warned her to remain outside the door.

    There was no help to be found in this man. He was an ally of her husband''s, clearly, and not her ally. He might as well be him; but for his clean-shaven face, he was as indistinguishable to her as her husband had been, even throughout their courtship and on their wedding day. An acceptable shape to fill the gap. The only way out; another dead end. Right down to the animal growl threatening to burst out of the shape constrained by that thin undershirt.

    Emilie withdrew from the doorframe. As soon as he was out of sight, she could breathe easier.

    If breathing was indeed what she was doing.

    There were others in the house. She could hear them talking even now, the hum of voices resonating through her feet.

    It would be easier to look at them on their own. She would wait to understand these strangers in tableau, in their own places; she alone, they alone. On as equal terms as she could arrange.

    Perhaps one would hear enough to answer her.

    One would be enough.

 CHAPTER FIVE - In which Kirsten goes out, then comes in again

    Kirsten waited in silence with Maika until Ginny came back into the room, drawn by her text message.

    "Thank you," Kirsten said, her voice quiet, careful. She stood, and opened her arms. "Would a hug be good right now?"

    Ginny nodded, and walked with head down into Kirsten''s arms.

    "Me too," Maika said, and barrelled into them from the side. Rocking slightly with his intrusion, Kirsten laughed lightly, and patted both of them on their backs.

    "That was officially horrible, and I''m sorry I invited him."

    "It''s not like you had a choice," Ginny murmured. She pulled away, chewing her lip, and plopped herself down in an armchair, avoiding everyone''s eyes.

    "Yeah, he kinda has us by the balls - er, pardon the turn of phrase, ladies." Maika rubbed the back of his neck.

    "He does, and he doesn''t," Kirsten insisted, taking her seat and speaking with calm authority. She''d had a moment to think and breathe. It was going to be all right. She was going to salvage things. "He acts like he''s got us over the barrel, but he doesn''t. He''d be in just as much trouble as us if he told anyone what happened that night. No, when things are calmer in the morning, I''ll have a chat to him. I''m sure, once he calms down, he won''t want to be stuck here with us, as much as we don''t want to be stuck here with him. Now..." She sighed, closed her eyes, and opened them with a smile. "Before we move on from this topic to our next, I suggest we all have a turn ranting about him."

    Before Kirsten could continue, Ginny burst. "I hate that spiky-haired incel fuckboy," she seethed, bunching her fists before her, then hiding her eyes against them.

    "Guy''s a douche nozzle!" Maika stage-whispered.

    "He can go suck a pus-filled ingrown toe," Kirsten muttered, then made herself gag at the thought.

    "No more," Ginny waved her hands, eyes squeezed shut. "I hate speaking ill of those less fortunate than me."

    "Yeah," said Maika. "Besides, we have more important things to talk about."

    But instead of talking about them, he sat there, and so did Ginny, both of them staring in the vague direction of Kirsten''s knees.

    Of course she would have to take the lead.

    "So. How the hell is this whole... all of us writing about Emilie thing happening?"

    The other two looked at her, then each other, then back to her. Maika shrugged in his usual pantomime style of over-exaggerated gestures. Ginny simply pouted.

    Kirsten filled the silence again. "I haven''t been copying anyone."

    "Nor have I," Maika said, a hint of defensiveness in his tone, his hand limply brought up to his chest.

    "Nor I," Ginny contributed, "and I believe both of you, of course. I wonder if... if there was a woman called Emilie who lived here once."

    "Fuck," Maika whispered, and got his phone out.

    Kirsten ignored his outburst. "You don''t believe in ghosts, surely, Ginny?"

    "Don''t you?" Ginny countered, looking directly at Kirsten for once, her eyebrow quirked. "You practice transcendental meditation and things like that, don''t you? Are you really so sure that other dimensions don''t coincide with ours, that we might in certain places and times be capable of a kind of..." She rolled her hands, looking for the word, "cross-pollination with those who have passed?"

    Kirsten pursed her lips. Suppose she did. She was split right down the middle. One part of her wanted to say of course ghosts weren''t real. The other wanted it to be true, desperately. What a wonderful, unique honour, to be channeling the experience of a spirit in some fashion!

    If that was indeed what was happening.

    "You''re not like... pumping some kind of illusory drug gas through the house, are you, Maika?"

    Maika screwed his nose up, looking up from his phone. "Bro. One, I don''t have some magic hallucination gas. Two, I wouldn''t subject you to it without your consent."

    "Of course." And of course, there was the other reason she felt funny about the whole situation. Ghost-channelling or not, she was disappointed. She''d been so excited by the story she''d started writing thirty-six hours ago. Sure, a ghost story was well out of her wheelhouse, as a historical literary writer. But she looked up to fellow kiwi writer Eleanor Catton, who''d done something similarly sidestepping, going from award-winning literary fiction to a pacey eco-thriller. Kirsten had been excited about the prospect of surprising, challenging and maybe even delighting her reading public with something a little unexpected.

    But if the other three had been writing the same thing, there was no way she could safely release this. Not without risking accusations of plagiarism.

    Could they do something collaborative?

    But then they''d have to include Chad, wouldn''t they?

    Was it possible the other three were all stealing from her, and Chad''s outburst had been choreographed to convince her of what was happening? Imagine that. The other three of them, catching onto her coattails and being propelled into success. It wasn''t the most out-of-this-world theory, was it?

    No, that was so uncharitable. Neither Maika nor Ginny had ever given her a reason to suspect them like that. And Chad... well, Chad had his ghost writers, didn''t he? He didn''t need to copy her work.

    Damn it. The whole situation was a let down.

    But then, ghosts. Could they really be real? She tried to remember what her grandmother had told her, folk stories handed down from her gold-mining and fruit farming ancestors - but even if she could remember them, did Chinese ghost stories have relevance in Switzerland, when this was some Swiss lady''s ghost most likely?

    "Fuck," Maika murmured again. He sat back against his chair, dragging his hand over his mouth and jaw.

    "What?" she demanded.

    "I got a hit. Emilie, and the name of the nearby village which I still can''t pronounce - it brings up a murder-suicide from the turn of the century. Husband killed the wife then killed himself. Her name was Emilie. It doesn''t mention the Villa Delacroix at all, but... that''s gotta be it, right?"

    They all looked at each other. Kirsten sunk into her chair, swallowing the nerves back. It had to be.

    "Do you want to know more?" Maika offered, breaking the silence after what felt like minutes.

    "No," Ginny practically yelled, though by anyone else''s standards, she was still quiet. "No, I don''t want to know. I want to maintain the purity of what she is trying to tell me. I think I''d guessed what had happened to her already anyway. But anything else might taint this... whatever it is that is going on."

    "I agree," Kirsten said. "I don''t care if you read it, Maika, but I don''t want to know either. Not yet. Maybe when the story''s told, I''ll compare it. But not right now. Not during the first draft." She sighed, and ran her hands over her eyes. "Maybe let''s just... check in with each other every now and again, yeah? Make sure this whole... whatever this is... is... like... safe, I guess?"

    "I think my ancestors were trying to warn me about her," Maika said, touching his pounamu.

    "Do you think they want you to leave?" Kirsten sat up taller. Perhaps if Maika said yes, she might think about leaving too. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    "Pfft. Nah. I wanna know more about this Emilie lady, eh? She''s reaching out for a reason."

    "My thoughts too," Ginny murmured.

    "Then it''s a deal. We look out for each other."

    "Deal."

    "Deal."

    Kirsten sighed. "I''m really tired, but there was just one more thing I wanted to talk about. I know it''s maybe a little taboo, but I also don''t want either of you panicking about money and things while we''re trapped here, so, I wanted to say; if you''re worried at all about money, paying for anything you''ve left on hold back at home, or about a hole in your CV or anything like that, just let me know, all right? If you need, I can say you''ve been working for me, for however many months you''ve been here. I can cover rent for your places back in New Zealand if you need. Just let me know, and I''ve got it all sorted."

    Maika fell back against his chair back again. "Geez, Kirst. What did we do to deserve you as a friend?"

    "After all the critique and reading you''ve done for me for free over the years, it''s about time you got some kickbacks."

    "Thanks, e hoa. I was between jobs when you organised this, so yeah... all I had to look forward to was a big old nothing in my resume. I''d really appreciate it if you said I was doing something for you."

    "Not a problem, Maika. Ginny?" Kirsten turned to Ginny, to find a small smile on her face. For a second, irritation tickled her, but the sensation faded as Ginny spoke.

    "I still have people contacting me for freelance design jobs," Ginny answered. "I should be all right to cover my share of rent back home. But thanks."

    "Just let me know if that changes," Kirsten offered. "It''s okay. I''ve got you."

    "Thanks," Ginny said, her smile a mirrored shield.

    Kirsten stood. "And Chad, of course, can go fuck himself." She waited for their chuckles to die away before she said, "Good night to you both."

    She took to the stairs, her smile unshakeable. Who could fault her for her kindness? She might be a gnarled and bitter root inside sometimes, but her actions were what mattered, and those were kind. Taking her less fortunate friends under her wing was simply her duty as a more superior being.

    With a sigh, she rolled her eyes, and shook her hands as if to dispel the thoughts. God forbid anyone ever heard what was said in her head.

    She got ready for bed and laid down under the sheets, with the duvet pulled all the way back. This was nothing like an Auckland summer, when a sheet was too much but no sheet was not enough. The bed was perfectly comfortable, the sheets crisp and cool.

    And yet sleep eluded her.

    It was the strangest thing; despite the similarity between the hush of the lake and a white noise machine, made to help one sleep, the sound of the waves lapping at the pebbly shore was driving Kirsten to distraction. She tossed and turned, threw the pillow over her head, tried putting an arm over her ear, but to no avail. The constant shushing of the lake suffused its way into her bones, like it would erode her teeth which were sore with how she clamped her jaw, like it would melt her bones which ached with how tired she was.

    She needed to get out.

    Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she could leave the house for another shopping trip. She''d not gotten everything they needed. Her fault, for not taking a better stocktake of their needs before leaving this morning. But it was fine. She wanted the excuse to leave anyway.

    Maybe if there was clarity to be found out in the wider world, the fug in her head might lift, and she might be able to see what was happening clearer.

    Because part of her, the know-it-all seven-year-old she used to be, was trying to shake her from within. What are you doing? Staying in a haunted house? Are you insane? We need to leave.

    But Kirsten with thirty years on her ignored the child. A ghost was a chance not to be discarded. A chance to transcend the flesh. To understand what lay beyond the veil. She would be a fool to run from this, no matter the fear.

    At some point, she must have fallen asleep, with the lake''s voice modulating to a chorus of night-singing insects, and before that, to a soft song sung by a woman; a lullaby.

    <hr>

    Driving away from the villa, the fog lifted almost immediately as the road climbed out of the valley. Kirsten felt her mood rise, and a haze over her head, like the feeling before a headache, peeled away too.

    That was it. The house was bad. This was all the confirmation she needed. When she got back, she would start the proceedings. Get them all out of there. Not just Chad.

    She pulled the rental car to a stop in the town''s supermarket carpark. The familiar sight of queues of masked people waiting outside met her, dragged her back for a moment into the recesses of recent years. Kirsten shuddered. She took her time getting ready: reusable bags all packed into one, ready to unpack at need; shopping list in hand; reading material on her phone to keep her from impatience; and of course, the quintessential face mask. Between the oversized sunglasses and the nose-and-mouth covering, she felt shielded against the perception of the outside world. Not that people would necessarily recognise her here. Most people in the Anglosphere had no idea who she was, let alone the people in this mountainous little village.

    Yet when she lined up, the eyes of the others in the queue turned to her regardless. Odd. She buried her head in her phone and forgot about them, losing herself for the moment in the latest online release of a New Zealand literary journal. As she scanned the website to figure out which short story she was up to (failing to recall from the memory hole that was airport transit), her feelings of sensibility - that of course they needed to leave the house - transmuted further into a touch of resentment.

    Was it possible, if they had all been a little more chill, that the holiday could have been nice, and maybe they wouldn''t have attracted the attentions of a ghost? After all, there were plenty of good reviews for this place by honeymooners and family groups.

    Then again, none of those holiday-makers had their secret in common -

    No. That was a forbidden topic to think about.

    But seriously. She had just wanted a nice holiday. Now they had Chad freaking the fuck out, lashing out at them and getting cagey about something; Maika with his secret drug stash upstairs; Ginny withdrawing into herself as usual - though Chad was mostly to blame for that. Things used to be better when Tess was here to balance them all out...

    Again. Not allowed. Kirsten jabbed the link to a story she was sure she hadn''t read, and started reading, gritting her teeth as if that would help her focus on the words on her screen.

    She didn''t raise her head again until she made it into the shop. Then she was too busy picking items and checking them against her shopping list to pay much attention. It wasn''t until the checkout that she finally felt again the weight of eyes on her, from all directions.

    Patting her hair, looking down at her clothes, she tried to figure out what it was. It took a few minutes, but while the checkout operator was putting her items through, she finally heard the hint of a word: "... Chinoise..."

    Oh. Oh, no. For fuck''s sake. Kirsten was glad for her glasses and mask. She kept her head forward, paid and got out of the shop as fast as she could, as her mother coming home crying replayed in her head. Her stifled sobs in the bathroom as she washed her face rang in Kirsten''s head until she shut the rental car''s door, sealing herself off from the world.

    Maybe they hadn''t been talking about her. Maybe she was imagining things, or misheard. Maybe someone was just innocently commenting on her ethnicity. Or maybe it was exactly what she feared.

    If she had hoped cosmopolitan Europe to be a little more tolerant, well... she should have gone somewhere more cosmopolitan, rather than a tiny mountain town. Then again, she''d hardly anticipated there being another lockdown. Nor had she anticipated the possibility of the return of racism against anyone who merely looked Chinese - after all, this bird flu had started in the US, not in China! And yet already in the last two days she''d seen the old hatred stirred up online again. With everything going on in the house, the possibility of a resurgence had only crossed her mind a couple of times.

    Perhaps nothing would happen, if she continued to be the one doing the grocery shopping in the future. A repeat of the incident with her mother, when she got spat on by some racist fuckwit while trying to do her shopping in a well-off suburb of Auckland in 2020, might not necessarily occur with Kirsten here in the Swiss Alps.

    But why chance it? Why not send someone else next time?

    Maika? No, not only would he forget half the shopping probably, but his skin was just dark enough that he could be a victim of racism too.

    Ginny? Risky, with her crippling shyness, and not to mention, who knew how rampant transphobia was in this part of the world, with everything going on right now. You couldn''t exactly tell by looking at her, but there was no point subjecting the poor girl to the risk.

    Chad? Kirsten''s eyes rolled back as far as they could. Why did it have to be that bigot who had the absolute freedom to move and be unquestioned? Like hell she was about to rely on him.

    No. She was going to get them all out of here anyway. There would be no next shopping trip. Before she started the engine, she fired off a text to the group chat - even Chad.

    Dinner meeting. We need to make arrangements to leave. Staying here isn''t healthy for any of us.

    That being done, she started the engine, and made her way back.

    She didn''t want to. Every mile the car got closer to the villa, the more reluctant and heavy her heart grew. But that was silly. She had to go back, at the very least to pack her things.

    When she got into the kitchen with the bags, no one was there to help her. She huffed back her resentment, restrained herself from shouting out for their attention, and unpacked the bags herself. God only knew where they''d put things if she let any of them unpack. Teabags in the fridge? Biscuits in the dishwasher? No, far better for her to do it.

    With it all done, she faced the sink and huffed again. She was giving into negative thoughts once more. So uncharitable. She wanted to write her allotted words for the day, but before that, she ought to meditate, to clear her mind of the cobwebs of irritation.

    Of course, as soon as she was up in her room, trying to do so, she found she could not focus. She wanted to be writing instead. But when she put her stylus to her writing tablet, she found herself reluctant there too.

    She threw her head back and stared at the ceiling. Little waves of light danced on the white paint. She sought its source: a rare beam of sunlight on the lake, bouncing its way through to her room on the wavering peaks of water.

    That lightness, that dancing: why could it not be her now, the pen, the flow, the transcendence of heavy flesh to bodiless words?

    Where was her elusive muse now?

    "Emilie?" she whispered to the empty room.

    Stupid. She looked down at her writing tablet. The screen had gone dark in idleness, and her own face stared back at her, warped slightly by the protective plastic covering. Her heart raced, and she looked again - no. That was silly. It was her face in the greyness, not that of Emilie.

    "I am your vessel," she address the screen, flicking it on and poising her pen once more. "Please, use me as you will."

    When the words came, there was no stopping them.

 INTERLUDE FIVE - in which the woman in white recognises the mother of the house

    The invitation had been given. Emilie stepped into the room.

    A woman from far-away countries sat in the master bedroom. How forward of her.

    Emilie felt affronted to be commanded so, and in her own house no less. At the same time, the woman had a presence which demanded attention. There was a promise in her, of scaling heights as great as the mountains beyond the fog. She was like a mother to the assemblage of strangers; Emilie had heard her voice ringing through the house, cajoling and guiding. She had felt her exasperation too. It drew Emilie toward her, even as she wished to pull away from the woman. Love, duty, resentment, forgiveness; love, duty, resentment, forgiveness. The woman sitting at the writing desk had a tidal pull to her, in which it would be all too easy to lose oneself.

    The bedroom looked all wrong to Emilie. That bed was not her bed. It was far too grand: a four-poster, like something out of a painting. Had her husband really permitted such changes to happen? How had he afforded it? The foreign woman''s belongings were strewn across the bed and other furnishings. They barely could be called outer clothes, so thin - and were those trousers? Yes, on the chest before the bed lay a pair of dark trousers, and the woman from far-off countries wore a pair right this moment, similar to the man in the second-best bedroom. At least her trousers were neat, form-fitting (scandalous), and had no holes at the knees. Her hair was done up tidily in a plait over her shoulder, and for all that her clothing was odd and too revealing, there was an elegance to its lines and the subtle choices of pastel colours. In this; in her posture; in the fine angles of her face; and in the way her hand wrote on the strange tablet; there was a studiousness to her. One might assume she was someone of an improper trade, given how she had put herself in this occupied bedroom. Yet there was only the air of a scholar to her, nothing of licenctiouness.  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    And yet.

    This woman was not quite right. She could not hear the cry. The roaring hush of the lake water was too loud in her ears instead, stultifying her.

    Emilie could not stop here. She needed someone more sensitive to the wail which rent her heart with every moment it went ignored.

    Then the woman stopped writing. She spoke some words to the air, and Emilie rose to her fullest height. Had she been summoned? Though she did not understand the English words, she was sure the woman from far-away places had spoken her name.

    After speaking, the woman closed her eyes and placed her hands flat on the desk. Her breathing grew deep. Emilie was drawn in, as if every breath was the haul of mariners pulling a long boat out of the waves. The woman at the desk sought her for some purpose; knew she was present even if, like her companions, she could not see Emilie; her questing desire reached from within her to summon Emilie in -

    and just as Emilie was sure the woman would pull her within, the woman huffed with frustration and slapped her palms on the wooden desk. The pull was gone, and Emilie was allowed to escape to the doorway.

    She looked back at the black-haired woman from distant lands. Emilie felt pity for her. There was a strong, powerful desire in her to know the unknowable; so too, was there an impassable barrier within which would not allow her to find it. She was too much in the world. Accolade and achievement surrounded her; how Emilie knew this, she could not say, only that it was in the woman''s bearing; and these things anchored her here, grasping which only begot yet more grasping, never satisfaction.

    Emilie fled. She could not allow herself to be pulled into this woman''s tide, not if she wanted the plaintive cry to be answered.

    This woman would never hear it; her ears were trained to listen to the music in herself alone. Not the lone voice keening, yet undiscovered.

 CHAPTER SIX - In which Maika talks to each housemate

    So. A ghost.

    Maika lay in their bed, staring up at the ceiling.

    What would their ancestors say? If it weren''t for colonisation and urbanisation dividing their family from their t��rangawaewae, maybe Maika would have a better idea of the tikanga for this situation. Stay, and engage with this messenger from the other side? Or flee, and whakanoa somehow after being in this tapu state? Washing their hands when leaving the urup��, they knew that much tikanga. They''d immersed their entire body in the lake; was that not enough?

    And there was of course the other side of the problem: they didn''t want to leave. They wanted to understand.

    Was it safe to chase that kind of understanding? After all they had been through?

    Their eyes flicked over to the closet. Around its frame, a rectangle of light escaped, a doorway to a grow-your-own heaven. The plant Christian had given them was close to maturing. Maybe when Maika opened the door, they''d find something to harvest.

    Maika sighed out a long breath. All things considered, they didn''t feel so bad. This bed was way more comfortable than the one in their own flat. They''d slept better these last two nights than... well, maybe any other night in the last fifteen years. There was something about this bed, or this quiet lakeside atmosphere, which saw them at peace. Able, if not to ignore the gaping black hole at the centre of their being, then to maintain an even orbit around the edge of it where they weren''t being pulled in all the time. So maybe they didn''t need medicinal help to rise above those bad thoughts just yet?

    They pried gently at these new feelings, as if too close an observation would shatter the equanimity like a soap bubble, and see them diving into another binge.

    Their phone buzzed. They grabbed it up and wiped at their eyes to wake up properly.

    Kirsten: Dinner meeting. We need to make arrangements to leave. Staying here isn''t healthy for any of us.

    Geez, why was she so abrupt about it? Ah - it was in the group chat which included Chad. Fair enough.

    She was right, of course. They shouldn''t stay, for any number of reasons.

    Which meant that, if Maika intended to find anything out about this house and this ghost, they would have to find out today. Maybe tomorrow at a stretch, depending on how fast Kirsten and her wallet moved.

    Maika rose and dressed in a fresh t-shirt and not-so-fresh jeans, throwing the habitual cardigan over their shoulders once more. They took their phone and notebook, just in case anything needed documenting on this little fact-finding mission. Room by room, they combed the level of the house they occupied. They knew that Kirsten and Chad were in the two largest bedrooms on the floor below. The location of Ginny''s bedroom was still a mystery to them. By the end of their investigation of the third storey, they surmised that it couldn''t be on this level: the only other bedroom was unoccupied, and the rest of the rooms were either bare or minimally furnished with a hint of mustiness indicating their lack of use.

    When they were down on the second storey, they peeked through an unused bedroom''s window to see that the car was already back in the driveway. Geez, Kirsten was organised: awake, gone and back before Maika had even risen from bed, so far as they guessed.

    They stepped away from the window only to come back a second later at the strangest sight. It was so strange, they had to traipse downstairs and out into the driveway to actually believe their own eyes.

    Down the passenger''s side of the little blue rental was a scrape which travelled the length of the car. Scored into the electric blue paint were twin canyons of flakey white and an underside of metal. It was dented too: no handmade scrape, this. The car had most definitely driven right up against something, another car perhaps - although there were no rival paint chips amongst the flecks of blue, so that suggested some other roadside object.

    When the hell had this happened?

    Maika shook off the anxious breath that started up: it wouldn''t matter. Kirsten was rich, she could cover this easy.

    But still... when had she gotten into an accident? This morning? It had to be her, surely. None of the others were insured to drive it.

    Maika went back inside the house at a determined striding pace, wanting to make sure she was all right, that she had talked to someone, that she wasn''t too shaken up. They were dreading the idea of a knock on her closed door if it came to that, interrupting her flow. Luckily, they found Kirsten having a break from writing, drinking coffee in the kitchen.

    "Kirst! You okay?"

    Kirsten turned from the sink, mug between her hands. It wasn''t quite a jump, but it wasn''t a completely calm turn either. The liquid in her mug sloshed and swayed, threatening to breach the rim, but falling short. An over-reaction, surely? Maika was certain they hadn''t snuck into the room, their flat feet always too noisy for such roguery. But then again, maybe she was just shaken up from the near-miss.

    "Yeah, I''m okay. Why do you ask?"

    "The... car...?" Maika waved their hands vaguely in the direction of the driveway, unable to quite school their face into hiding their incredulity.

    "The car," Kirsten repeated, staring into her coffee.

    "Yeah, the car."

    "What about it?"

    "The big scrape down the side?"

    "The big... what?" That final syllable was shouted. Kirsten put down her mug and charged past Maika toward the front door. Maika followed, teeth already stuck in a rictus cringe.

    Kirsten threw open the front door and stood in front of the car, hands either side of her head, breathing exaggerated. Her silence was almost more terrible than any loud noise that might follow. When she spoke, it was deadly soft. "Who did this?"

    "Uh... I was going to ask you the same question."

    "Was it Chad?"

    "So far as I know, no. You''re the only one who was allowed to drive - though I suppose, if he was feeling spiteful enough, Chad might have stolen the keys. Did they go missing at any point? I mean, you were planning to go grocery shopping today, right?"

    Kirsten stared at her hand and did not answer.

    "Kirsten?"

    Was she shaking?

    "It was awful, Maika."

    "What was?"

    "At the supermarket." To their horror, her eyes were welling up. "I heard someone whispering about me. At least, I think. I heard someone say what I think is the French word for ''Chinese''. I think they were blaming my presence for the bird flu."

    "Oh. Fuck. Kirsten, I''m sorry." Maika closed the distance between them, wrapping their arms around her. "That''s so fucked. I''m sorry."

    "I''m okay. Really, I''m okay," she murmured, but she wiped her tearful face against the shoulder of their cardigan nevertheless. "I wasn''t going to say, but you get it. The other two... they can''t understand this. But you do."

    Maika patted her back and nodded. "Yeah, fam. I get it. And it''s all right about this little accident. You''ve got the money to cover it -"

    Kirsten pulled out of their arms. "You think I did this?"

    Maika raised their hands defensively. "Sorry, I''m confused. Are you saying Chad did steal the car keys off you?"

    Kirsten narrowed her eyes, then patted her jeans pocket. A finger hooked, and she extracted the keys. "No..." she said, her voice ominously quiet.

    What the hell were they supposed to say right now? She still looked as if she were shaking. Yep, the hand holding the keys definitely was. "Hey, um... don''t worry too much, eh?"

    "I don''t remember scraping the car. I would remember scraping the car... wouldn''t I?"

    "Maybe it was the stress of the supermarket incident. Or maybe it''s this whole... ghost thing, yeah? And the argument with Chad last night. If it was you, I mean. Which I''m not saying it definitely was. But if you don''t remember for sure, then... maybe come inside, and eat an early lunch, yeah?"

    "Yeah... yeah, all right. And I should probably have a sleep afterward. I haven''t been sleeping all that well."

    "It''s a plan. Come on, I''ll put one of those microwave meals on for you."

    Kirsten rolled her eyes, smiling briefly, the corners of her lips turning down before long. "How gallant of you."

    Maika went about the business of caring for Kirsten without asking any of the burning questions inside. Now was not the time. Never mind her intentions for tonight over dinner, or what might have occurred on the drive. All that could wait until she looked a little less frazzled. This was very unlike her. While she scoffed her food down, Maika heated up their own. A very simple mac and cheese.

    "Thanks, Maika. I''ll see you at dinner time. I''ll cook."

    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

    Maika''s eyes boggled at her empty plastic tray. That had been fast. "You must have been hungry. Up you go. Sweet dreams."

    They took their food out of the microwave, peeled off the lid, and had just sat down to enjoy it when into the room walked Chad.

    If Kirsten looked frazzled, Chad looked positively haunted.

    "Hey man. You okay?" Maika called over, through his mouthful of nuclear-hot pasta and melted cheese.

    Chad glared over, and threw the pantry door open between them, blocking their view of each other. "What''s it to you?"

    Maika took another bite of mac and cheese, savouring the taste as they thought about what to say next. "We had a blow-up last night, but I want to make sure you''re still okay, man. I think - I hope - that there is something salvageable of our almost two decades of friendship. Though I have to say, you have made me question if it''s worth it, when last night you exposed yourself to be something of a racist, and a transphobe, and..." Was it right to press him on this? Yeah. Fuck it. Dude had been a little shit last night. "... and I had a little theory about you a while ago. I discarded it out of the generosity of my friendship towards you, but it became very interesting and relevant last night."

    "The fuck are you going on about?" Chad muttered, bringing cereal and a breakfast bowl out with him.

    Maika got a thrill from getting a rise out of him, but took their time eating another mouthful in order to not press too soon and rile him right up too obviously. "You got real defensive, accusing us of using AI. Which struck me as really odd, actually. Why would you bring that up, of all things? And then I thought about it some more. None of us are all that technical. Sure, Ginny has a bit more skill in that area. But then there''s you. You did a double degree, with CompSci being your other major, as I recall. You''re always posting on socials about computer shit that goes way over my head. Blockchain, NFTs, crypto, whatever the fuck that stuff is. So I came to the inevitable realisation..."

    Maika paused, and relished in the obvious hate seething from Chad''s face: bared teeth, narrowed eyes; and the way his fists clenched and unclenched. Dude couldn''t even hide it.

    "You''re the one who''s been using AI." The rage didn''t change, but there was perhaps the most imperceptible nod of Chad''s head, as if some part of him wanted the truth to come out. "I''m willing to bet some of your books were written by AI." Maika watched his face boil, red spreading all over, and they pressed further, astounded even as they asked, "Wait, all of your books? Holy shit dude, are you for real?"

    "You can''t prove it," Chad spat.

    "You''re right, I can''t, but I don''t care about proving it to anyone. It''s enough that I know, and you know I know. And I can see by your face, how right I am about that." It was amazing, how the red drained slowly from Chad''s face at this point. He was still pissed, but the fact that Maika wasn''t going to blab seemed to calm him down a smidge. "Damn, am I the first person to realise this? Man... full credit to you, honestly. You must have been doing a good enough job at editing whatever dribbled out of the arse of your machines, in order to fool so many people. Honestly, that''s a fucking talent! Why don''t you use that? You could be a freakin'' kick-arse editor for someone - oh, but no, of course, I know why. Because no matter how amazing an editor you might be, it wouldn''t say Chad Woodham on the cover, would it?"

    "Fuck you," Chad growled, and turned away to face the sink, his hands gripping the bench.

    "So the accusations you threw at us last night, yelling and ranting and scaring the fuck out of Ginny - that''s because you were using AI to write about Emilie, eh?"

    "No!" Chad shouted, rounding on Maika again. His volume lowered, and his tone was earnest as he insisted, "Never that. This place... this place has inspired me again. My words about Emilie are my own."

    "Ha. Sure. I bet this place inspired you. Not like... the sugar plum fairy instead?" Maika couldn''t hide the shit-eating grin that spread across their mouth.

    Why that? Behind their grin, Maika winced. Why the fuck had they brought that up? It was too close to talking about what had happened - and hadn''t Chad stopped using after that night? But Maika didn''t feel like backing down now, not with all he''d just learned.

    Chad''s teeth gritted, and for the first time in this entire conversation, Maika was aware of how close the two of them were to the knife block. They put their hands on the kitchen island between them, protectively poised either side of their mac and cheese.

    When Chad spoke, it was a hissing whisper. "You really going to bring that shit up, with what you''re doing in the closet of your room?"

    "Better that than the shit you were on in uni. That stuff was nasty."

    "I told you back then, I''m done with that stuff."

    Maika made a conscious effort to keep their voice down. "Then why can''t you keep calm for a second, bro? You''re acting all hyped up, like you''re back on nose candy. Why have you been the first to jump down everyone''s throats at a second''s notice? First day we got here, you''re dropping all these microaggressions all over the place, pissing everyone off. Next day, you''re accusing us of stealing from you and using AI... The problem is you, man. The rest of us are chill. The way I see it, you''re lucky Kirsten''s even considering helping you get home, rather than just ditching your ungrateful arse."

    His red face, growing redder again throughout Maika''s rant, paled once more. "Wait, what? She wants us to leave?"

    "Yeah, haven''t you checked your phone?"

    Chad pulled it out and tore at his hair with his free hand. "No, we can''t leave. This is way too... how can you guys even want to leave? We''re in touch with something from the other side. You fucking cowards."

    "Well, geez, okay man, don''t hold back. But actually, do. If you have a case for staying, then present it at dinner tonight, but calmly, instead of raving about it. Because I know hearing this might piss you off, but you''ve been the fucking poster-boy for toxic masculinity this trip."

    Chad grimaced, but had already turned away from Maika, typing furiously on his phone. "God, you''re such a traitor to your gender, bro."

    Maika puffed, pushed back from the kitchen island, and crossed their arms. The mac and cheese could come with them. They were done being in the same room as Chad. "First of all, Chad, I''m not your bro. Not while you''re like this. That''s a nickname you have to earn, and right now I don''t trust you enough to call you that in earnest. Second, as much as I know you''re going to call me woke or some shit like that, I''m non-binary. I don''t expect you to understand. But I''m done having you think I''m ''on your side'' or whatever, just because we were born male. Fucking shape up, man, or you''re going to lose the longest, realest friendships in your life. Remember friendship? That used to be us. Not the fucked-up so-called friends you''ve made on quad-chan or whatever."

    The silence was thick for a good ten seconds. Chad''s voice was dull, as he said, still facing away, "You''re only friends with me because you''re stuck with me."

    "You can look at it that way, if you want," Maika said, the bitterness draining out of his voice as Tessa''s face sprung to mind. They swallowed hard. "Or you can look at it as a legacy for someone who never got to grow old. At least, that''s what I thought this was, our friendship. Not an absolution... but a balance, utu,  between us all. I still believe in that, don''t you?"

    Chad''s knuckles around his phone grew white.

    "All the anger aside, Chad... I''m worried about you. What happened to you? You used to be just..."

    "Normal? The fuck, Maika? How can you even try to be normal after what we did?"

    The breath caught in Maika''s lungs. Chad had a point. Maybe freaking out was the only reasonable response to what they had been through. How could they ever try to be normal again? Maybe none of them deserved normal.

    But they couldn''t leave it like this. Convention dictated that something be said now, something to smooth over the emotional bruises. "What we did, we did for all of us, man. And I seem to remember, you were throwing the blame on me, and you were begging for normality most out of all of us."

    Chad looked at Maika for a split second, then turned away once more. "No wonder the ghost has it out for me."

    Had that been fear in his eyes? "What are you talking about?"

    Chad paused, his back to Maika. Seconds passed, then he left the room, feet loud on the hardwood floors.

    Maika was alone again, but they still didn''t want to stay in the room. Not with the chill that had run down their spine at Chad''s final sentence. Picking up their half-eaten dish, they made their slow way out to the patio through the already open doors.

    To their surprise, Ginny was out there. She was frozen, eyes already looking in Maika''s direction when they entered. "Sorry. I heard all of that. I didn''t want to move past the door in case he saw me."

    Maika waved a hand and sat at the painted iron table. "No worries. Nothing in there I wouldn''t want you to hear. Chad, however... I don''t know. I can''t get a fix on the guy."

    Ginny lowered herself to sitting delicately, like she was a porcelain doll in that silken dress. "He''s gotten more and more extreme over the years. I think we all gave him the benefit of the doubt a tad too generously. Though..." She glanced sidelong at Maika, the evasiveness in her light green eyes and the grin playing her lips both engaging, attractive. "What was that he said right at the end there? He was too quiet for me to hear properly."

    Maika shook their head, and chewed a mouthful of their cooling food before answering. "Something about the ghost having it out for him?"

    "Huh." Ginny faced out to the lake, her hands folded in her lap. After a good ten seconds'' contemplation, she said, "Is it wrong that I''d get a kick out of Chad getting haunted by a ghost?"

    Maika snorted, and Ginny chuckled, her head lowered, looking at Maika through her lashes.

    Damn it. She was too unbearably cute. It was time for them to take their shot.

    "So Ginny, what''s the deal? You single?"

    "Who, me?" she replied, playing up the coquettishness with a hand to her chest. "Yes I am, why do you ask?" Then her face fell and she dropped her hand and tone. "Hang on, why do you ask?"

    Maika shrugged. They were sure their friendship would survive the following admission. "I like you - of course I like you, I''ve been your friend for nearly two decades. I find you attractive. I just thought... why not? You miss every shot you don''t take, right?"

    Ginny sighed, her smile underlied by her blush and her eyes refusing to meet Maika''s. "Except... you could never hit the target when it comes to me, sorry. I''m a lesbian."

    "Ah." In a way, it was a relief. No chance of losing a friend after being a disappointing partner. "Oh well. It''s probably for the best. You deserve the finer things in life anyhow, not a worn-out old man-slut like me."

    "Maika!" Ginny reached out and slapped his hand. "You are not a ... my goodness, my friend, that is not a healthy way to talk about oneself. Besides, you''re not a man slut, you''re a... them-fatale."

    Maika clicked their fingers. "Yes! Love that. I''m stealing that."

    "I didn''t come up with it, but I don''t remember where I saw it, sorry. But please, use that now. Not the other words you said before. You''re a beautiful person, Maika, and if I weren''t a hundred percent inclined in a certain direction, I''d give you a chance. I swear."

    Maika blushed, and rubbed the back of their neck. "Thanks, Gin." A silence extended between them, on the verge of uncomfortable. Once the hush of the lake''s waves felt as if they''d been going on too long unbroken, Maika spoke. "So... women, eh?"

    "Yes. Emphatically. Obviously. Doubly so, in my case." Ginny gestured at herself, face flushing as she chuckled.

    Maika waggled their eyebrows. "What about Kirsten?"

    Ginny cringed, and Maika regretted asking, but she answered, gazing out over the water, "I had a crush on her, once. But not anymore. Every now and again, it''s like I have a... ghost of the old feeling..."

    "Pun intended?"

    Ginny rolled her eyes and snorted. "What about you?"

    "Me and Kirsten?"

    "Yeah?"

    "Fuck no. She''s way too uptight. I''d drive her mental. She needs someone who has their shit together, cos she''s like a million miles out of my league."

    "Oh, but I''m not?"

    Maika gaped. "I didn''t mean..."

    "No, no, I know. We''re both more... broken than she is. And that would either lead to us helping one another grow, or..."

    "Or we''d get co-dependently tangled up in each other and it would be a fucking disaster."

    "Got it in one." Ginny smiled and patted Maika''s hand, then rose. "Love you, Maika. As a friend."

    "Love you too."

    "I''m going to go upstairs and write some more. I know Kirsten wants us to talk about leaving all of a sudden, and maybe we should, but... I want to write with the ghost of Emilie for as long as I''m allowed."

    "Sure. Go hard."

    Maika watched Ginny vanish into the house. They wanted to write too. That was a surprise to them, after so many years of wanting to write in principle, but dreading the actuality of the thing. Crazy. Upstairs sat a lovely, pungent plant and a duty-free shelf''s worth of booze, but for perhaps the first time in their life, they wanted none of it.

    They had everything they needed right now, albeit it with the complication of Chad''s presence. A reprieve from the rush of capitalism out in the big wide world. A break from the post-colonial and gender-binary context of home. A good friend in Ginny. And a story to be told.

    That was the weirdest one of all. Perhaps that was the answer to why they weren''t chasing a drug-fueled high. Channeling a ghost was a different kind of high altogether. Something speaking through them, like they were a mad prophet.

    They opened their notebook, over-extending the spine with a purposeful creak, and put their pen to the page. It felt alive, like a lit match.

 INTERLUDE SIX - In which the woman in white contemplates the idea of a person

    Now that it was empty, Emilie went into the attic room.

    The person who occupied it had only sparsely filled it with the contents of their barrel-shaped bag. There was something interesting happening in the wardrobe: electricity used to cultivate a plant. Some foreign form of worship, perhaps? She had no frame of reference to understand why the person hadn''t planted it in the garden.

    Except for the mist grasping its way across the lawn. Perhaps it was noxious in some way, or its chill fingers would wither the plant. Certainly Emilie felt as if it could wither her.

    On the nightstand sat a few tattered yellowbacks, some wedged open, pages coming out of their cheap binding. Emilie perused the splayed pages, understanding neither the short English sentences nor the annotations in the margins - and how the person had marked the page with some lurid translucent ink was completely beyond her. She browsed the authors'' names of the volumes which sat closed, not wanting to disturb the open ones: Hemingway. Palahniuk. McCarthy. She hadn''t expected to read a familiar name amongst them, but it unsettled her nevertheless.

    Had her husband invited this person too? Who were they? The guest had brought the smell of tobacco into this room, but other than that, and the plant and the books, there was so little else of them. They were a cipher. She needed to know more.

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    The person was outside, alone, the three other guests all in their chosen bedrooms. Emilie stepped through the door to the patio, blinking against the harshness of the midday sun filtering through the mist. On the patio table sat the person''s notebook and pen, but the guest themself stood a good ten metres away.

    Smoke haloed the person, mingling with the mist with every polluted breath they exhaled. Emilie used the opportunity while unobserved to look at the guest''s notebook.

    The breeze ruffled the pages, revealing to Emilie the toil of weeks, months before. She could not read the words, but she could see the terseness of the sentences in imitation of the passages upstairs, and the lines struck angrily through words too inadequately expressed. There was unhappiness here, striving, emptiness, seeking.

    She could relate very much to these feelings.

    Emilie turned to regard the guest. Could they be the one she was searching for? The person let out a huff of smoke again and as it wreathed their head, Emilie lost sight of them for a moment.

    Between the smoke and the mists, the guest was being erased, bit by bit. Claimed, consumed. The smoke was not the only vague fogginess around them: so too was there a cloudiness from another land emanating from them, and a fog of memory, of inebriation, of constant tussles with oblivion.

    It would be too easy to disappear into this guest. She wanted to be seen and heard; they wanted to vanish.

    Much like the other two she had considered so far, this one could not hear the cry. The cry coming from the heavy stone around their neck drowned it out.

    She supposed that was for the best. The lament coming through the pendant was their burden to bear. The plaintive wail in the house was hers.

    Emilie stepped back inside to pursue it once more.

 CHAPTER SEVEN - in which Ginny makes contact

    Ginny stepped lightly on the stairwell, hoping to pass like the mist outside, soft and inoffensive, undetectable after a while. She needn''t have worried; she ran into no one as she ascended, and found herself in her room safe and alone.

    It was funny, or would be, if it wasn''t so frustrating. First Kirsten was keen to sit with the ghost, then she was wanting to leave; first Chad refused to believe in ghosts, and now from that overheard conversation, apparently he did believe and actually wanted to stay. If those two, usually the more decisive ones in the group, were wavering back and forth, what hope did she and Maika have?

    And yet, the two of them seemed the calmest about it all. If anything, Ginny wished she were having a stronger reaction. She would readily invite visitation with a ghost, especially a ghost like Emilie who seemed pleasant enough, not some vengeful shade. Perhaps it was a silly thing to want, given her past experience with death. But she wanted more than just the whisper-touch of Emilie''s presence flying through her fingers on the typewriter. Was it possible to speak with her? Or perhaps to see her?

    Looking around the room, Ginny caught her own reflection in the small oval mirror on the wall, and froze.

    Wasn''t it supposed to get easier over time? In both regards: wasn''t she supposed to see herself as she should be, and wasn''t she supposed to heal from her loss?

    Because it never went away, creeping up on her at times, weeks or even months apart: the sight of her twin sister in the reflection, older than she ever had been in life. The idea that Ginny was trying to replace Tessa never quite left her, despite the fact that she knew in her heart, and logically too, that her identity was true, had predated Tessa''s loss.

    Replacing her. The notion settled on Ginny''s gut like nausea. Maika had just asked her out. At the time it had been awkwardly charming, and he''d brushed off the rejection with grace. But was he also trying to replace Tessa with Ginny?

    Ginny didn''t even want to broach the subject with him. If he hadn''t been thinking that, then it would be a horrible disservice to him to remind him of his dead girlfriend. And if he had been thinking it, even subconsciously, then that was worse, and she wouldn''t want to know.

    She shook her hands out and dove, not for the typewriter as she originally had intended, but for the laptop on the bed, and the company of her Cacophony friends.

    Ginny: Hiya ladies ^_^

    Vix: Gin <3 how''s the jet setting life, babe?

    BlackCat13: Ginny! Those photos you shared were EV.ER.Y.THING

    Ginny: Haha, thanks! Yeah I''m doing fine, I

    Her hands hovered over the keyboard as she fought the impulse to brush everything under the rug as she always did.

    Ginny: Haha, thanks! So... things -could- be better. I don''t want to be all first world problems, but...

    At their cajolement, she laid it all out for them: the uneasiness during the travelling and the arrival; Kirsten''s snappishness, Maika''s sweetness, and then Chad''s outright unrighteous rage; the discovery that they were all writing about the same dead woman, and therefore there must be a ghost present; ending with the change of hearts of Kirsten and Chad. She did not mention Maika asking her out. That was still to fresh, and she wasn''t sure yet if it qualified as a wound, like all the other trials so far.

    Vix: GURL. Uh... have you seen Get Out? Need I say more?

    Vix: Not in the racism part, obvs, but in the like�� you know you''re in a horror movie, you know you need to get out, right???

    BlackCat13: You''re having us on, right? About the ghost shit. That can''t be real.

    Vix: RIGHT????

    Ginny: Hand on heart, 13, I shit you not. We are seriously all writing the same story, with no prior planning. I wouldn''t believe it either, if I wasn''t experiencing it myself.

    Vix: GET OUT.

    Ginny: I don''t think Emilie is a bad ghost.

    Vix: Gurrrrrrrrrl what are you doing, get OUT

    BlackCat13: Ok, ok, Vix, just shh for a min. Setting aside the whole ghost thing, which like... Vix does have a point there. But look...

    BlackCat13''s typing went on for a while. Ginny watched the screen, tucking her hands into her armpits so she didn''t respond pre-emptively.

    Vix: Cat, what?? You''re killing me with the suspense.

    BlackCat13: Ummmm... far be it from me to say this, Ginny, but... why are you even friends with these people? I mean, Maika, they seem lovely, so I''m not including them. The other two though. Chad seems downright hostile. And Kirsten... sounds... difficult? I suppose you get mad perks like this trip you''re on for being her friend, but... is it worth the drama?

    Ginny whipped her hands out to reply, but her fingers froze, many answers at war to spill forth from them. Why? Because she still had a crush on Kirsten. Because the group put up with her always sending her same story to them time and time again, year after year, through all the rewrites and overhauls. Because she knew in her heart that they were all good people and loved each other. Even Chad, she had thought, though she wasn''t so sure about that anymore.

    The main reason could never be said, of course.

    Ginny: It''s... really complicated. Some people, you know, you just... have like, a history with, yeah? And you can''t get rid of them because if you do, you''re excising a part of yourself

    BlackCat13: Ginny, I love you, but that is some co-dependent asshatery right there

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    Vix: Cat?!?!?!

    BlackCat13: and I''m pretty sure you know it

    BlackCat13: sorry, but it needs to be said xoxox

    Ginny: maybe

    BlackCat13: Sorry Gin. You know I''m only saying this out of love, right?

    Ginny: Yeah. I know.

    Vix: You could -maybe- have put it a little nicer?!

    BlackCat13: True, but... I think it''s time for tough love. Ginny, Vix is right, but for a different reason. Get out - not just of the house, but away from Kirsten and Chad too, before one of them murders you, or each other. That shit is TOXIC.

    Ginny: I''ll give it some thought.

    Most of her wanted to do nothing of the sort. She made her excuses, said her goodbyes, and shut her laptop lid, dropping her head on it with a sigh.

    After a moment, she faced the typewriter, trying to drum up the will to sit in front of it. No. Her mood was ruined. A trip to the kitchen for a hot chocolate might help.

    She met Maika coming back inside while she waited for the jug to boil.

    "I thought you''d be writing?"

    "I got distracted, then I got into a weird funk, so I decided a hot drink might help shift my mood. Do you want one? I''m making hot chocolate."

    "Mean! Yeah, hook us up."

    Ginny went about the motions of getting the mug out, spooning powder into them, not ready to face Maika completely in case they saw in her eyes how ragged her online interaction had left her. But Maika spoke instead. "Gin, I think... I think I might have sorta... felt Emilie with me just now. I had a smoke while you were gone, and then I sat down to write, but... it was like a waking dream. It was like she was looking over my shoulder. I wonder if the others have felt this. Have you?"

    She shook her head and forced a smile as she brought over their steaming mug. "No. Nothing quite so intense yet." She hoped they couldn''t see or hear the intense wave of jealousy rollicking through her gut at present. Why hadn''t the ghost touched her in such a manner yet? Did Emilie not like her, or approve of her? Could a ghost be transphobic? That would be pretty fucked. Maybe Vix was right. Maybe she should get out.

    The hot drink burned the roof of her mouth as she rushed to finish it. There was only one thing for this feeling: get back upstairs, sit at that typewriter, and hope to feel Emilie''s presence.

    Too hot from the drink, breathing heightened from the dash up the stairs, Ginny sat at the typewriter and stared at the blank page.

    Come on, Emilie. Where are you?

    Her gaze floated past the page and the keys to the small assemblage of books arranged to the side. She picked up Orlando: A Biography and stroked the cover. A painted figure of hard-to-determine gender graced the cover, between the title and the author''s name.

    Ginny rested her hand there, and looked vaguely up, letting her eyes unfocus, as if that might help her find Emilie. "If I could tell you to read one book and you''d understand me, this is the one," she murmured to the room at large. There was no discernible response. She pointed at the artwork on the cover. "This is like me." She pointed to the name Virginia. "And this is where I got my name." Okay, that part was a lie. Or a personal myth, but Emilie didn''t have to know that. How would a ghost from over a century ago understand picking a name from a popular children''s book only to regret doing that when the author revealed herself through tiny electronic missives to be a hate-filled mould-dwelling swamp creature? No, the reimagined origin of Virginia Woolf as the source of Ginny''s name was far better a tale.

    "I''m closer to you than you might think," she whispered, putting the book down on the desk. "I''m half dead. My twin sister... she''s gone." She squeezed her eyes shut. "All right, maybe that''s a little melodramatic when I say it like that, but... but it feels true."

    A breeze stirred the curtains in the room, and that was not possible. The door was shut. The windows were all closed. The trees outside, silhouettes in the mist, were still. There was no wind at all. Ginny stayed as still as she could, and closed her eyes.

    "I''m here, Emilie." Nothing. "I''m -"

    Something touched her. Ginny fought every instinct to move, resisting her eyes opening, her hands wanting to flail. The only thing she couldn''t fight was the harsh inhale and the stiffening of her spine. "I''m here," she gasped out, her hands finding the keys and flashing across them before she knew what was happening.

    She opened her eyes.

    Virginie, c''est toi?

    Struggling to get her breath back, Ginny gripped the sides of the paper. Her hands were shaking.

    Oui! she typed back.

    And then she was typing, the fever gripping her as the words spilled forth, more rapidly than any of the previous writing sessions of the last two days. Another dimension of Emilie was opening up to her: something about the neighbour was important - no, so much more than just important. Ginny wept as the truth came into being at the tips of her fingers, without the intervention of her own imagination, or so it felt.

    When it was done, Ginny clasped her tired hands to her chest and sobbed. When she had her breath back, she whispered to the room, "Thank you. I''m so sorry this happened to you, Emilie. I will write for you. I will let the world know what happened. I see you, Emilie. You don''t have to stay trapped like this. If I could hold you and comfort you, I would. I''m so sorry."

    Ginny closed her eyes, and breath from another mouth brushed against her lips.

    She fell, and arms took her up, until she was sure she was floating. To look would be to break the spell. She kept her eyes closed, and surrendered to the questing sensations roving over her body - even when the rending of her precious dress tore through the stillness of the room, even when she felt for mere flashes of moments breath on her neck, real flesh under her hands, moisture against her lips and tongue.

    Yes, she either thought or said, it was hard to know which in her breathless state. The urge of ecstacy was upon her. The insistence of why and how, negligible, as her body twisted against the impossible.

    When she returned from that place, she found herself sprawled on the floor, her chair lying on its back, as if she had fallen backwards in it. But her dress was dishevelled - no, more than that, torn in places, but she didn''t mind - and something had definitely happened, if a certain moist feeling was anything to go by. She hurried to the nearest bathroom, still thankfully undiscovered, cleaned herself up and changed into a fresh dress.

    Looking in the bathroom mirror, she saw only herself this time. A woman, affirmed by another woman - especially now that she understood what exactly had happened with Emilie in life, who she was, her secret life. Ginny smiled and sighed, then giggled and hid her blushing face.

    None of the others were going to understand this. Okay, maybe Maika would. One day, eventually, she might tell Maika what had happened. They might even believe her.

    In the meantime though, she needed to tell all three of them what she had written on the typewriter. "They need to know what happened to you, Emilie. Is that okay? I can understand if you wouldn''t want people to know, but you have to understand, in this time, people are somewhat open to these things. It''s all right. They''ll understand. If you don''t want them to know, give me a sign."

    There was no response.

    Ginny rushed past her room, chucking her ruined dress in through the door and hurrying down the stairs. She''d left Maika in the kitchen, so hopefully they were still there. Chad and Kirsten had bedrooms on the floor below, so she went in search of them first.

    She came to Chad''s room. The door was ajar. She knocked, and when there was no answer, she peeked her head in. "Chad?"

    He wasn''t there. She turned to leave, when she heard it.

    Ping, ping, ping, ping, wa-ping, ping, wa-ping - a constant barrage of notifications, the sound turned low enough that it was only just audible from the doorway. What was going on over there, on Chad''s open laptop?

    Ginny stepped closer. The screen was lit up, and the right hand side was a constantly-updating screed of the same notification popping up over and over again.

    Your remote machine ''AI Writing Slave #69'' has suffered a critical error and needs to be manually restarted.

    Your remote machine ''AI Writing Slave #69'' has suffered a critical error and needs to be manually restarted.

    Your remote machine ''AI Writing Slave #69'' has suffered a critical error and needs to be manually restarted.

 INTERLUDE SEVEN - in which the woman in white finds a connection

    "Do you hear it?" Emilie demanded, but it was too late. The delicate woman had written much, and now she wept and clutched her hands, massaging her long elegant fingers. The depth of connection had altered, and words were no longer working.

    Not right now, at least. But this was the one to hear her, out of the four. She was receptive. Perhaps it was her name, the same name. Or the dress she wore, not unlike something Virginie or herself would have worn, unlike the strange garb of the other guests. Whatever it was, Emilie intended to make use of her for as long as she could. Get everything out there. Win the battle in the end, the battle that had been going on so long, she''d forgotten how long exactly.

    He would arrive soon. She''d forgotten this. Always did forget it, only dimly recalled that it had happened before and would most likely happen again. When she was alone, she was confused. When she was no longer alone, it all beame too horrifyingly clear. He would come home for dinner, at sunset, and then it would begin in earnest all over again. Except, one difference: he would be mad about the uninvited guests. Even though it had nothing to do with her.

    Always the same, every time.

    Emilie scanned the pages the woman''s writing - the pages on top, lying askew, which she could see without touching them - but it was no use. The delicate woman had written in English, so Emilie could not check if she had told the tale accurately. But someone knew now, and that was enough. That was cause to be celebrated. Next time, she would get the woman to look for the source of the wailing in the house. Surely that was the way to put an end to all this.

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    Wait. Would there be a next time? What if his arrival terrified the delicate woman into leaving? For she was so like a frightened deer. Emilie had seen her start at all sorts of things that the others had said and done. Especially the uncouth man with the tall hair.

    She couldn''t be allowed to leave. Emilie needed to impress that on her. She needed to stay, and hear the whole tale out.

    Emilie reached for her, touched her shoulder, and the delicate woman was gone.

    Virginie was there instead.

    "Virginie, can it really be you?"

    Emilie dove for her mouth, then remembered herself, hesitating before her lips with a quivering breath. Maybe this was still the delicate woman, and Virginie was a figment of her imagination.

    Then Virginie leaned in and kissed her.

    Emilie surged forward into her, the reunion electrifying, revivifying, making flesh real again where surely there was nothing more than spirit. There was no question: this was Virginie, returned, just for her. Emilie did not seek a contradiction to this, as her hands made solid, her mouth warm again, sought only Virginie, Virginie, after all this time.

    At the culmination of her pleasure, the coming violence entered her mind. It did not ruin the feeling, but seasoned it bittersweet.

    Was it too late to protect this one?

    She looked down at the woman on the floor as the rapture and certainty faded. A rush of guilt rode through her. This was not her Virginie after all. The delicate woman did not seem perturbed, lying there in a happy glow, post-ravishment. But Emilie felt as if she''d used her, just to taste mortality again.

    Not fair.

    But this one - Virginie? something similar enough to the name, pronounced differently - would have to suffer her presence many times more before the end.

    If she made it that far.

    "Sorry," Emilie whispered, and fled the room to seek another window.

    There, the mist turned peach as the sun winked toward the horizon.

    Emilie wrapped her arms around herself, the pleasurable sweetness within her remembered body turning sour with the fading of daylight.

 CHAPTER EIGHT - in which Chad is brought low

    Back in the drawing room again, the scene was a repeat of the night before. Only this time, Ginny had her arms folded, and the anger on her face burned all the habitual fear out of it.

    Standing either side of her, Maika looked annoyed, but Lee was the worst: her face was contorted to almost mask-like proportions with rage.

    Chad almost wanted to laugh. Then Lee spoke.

    "Care to explain what the fuck ''AI Writing Slave'' is, Woodham? Because whatever it is, it''s shooting out a bazillion error messages on your laptop right now."

    His legs wanted to turn and run, to rescue both his tech from useless idle spinning and his own self from the confrontation. But his accelerating heart, his gritting teeth, his clenched fists, they all got the deciding vote: fight, not flight. "Who the fuck went into my room?"

    Ginny had the gall to speak, not losing any volume with nerves this time as she answered, "I popped my head in to see if you were asleep, when I saw the huge wall of notifications popping up. I can''t believe you, Chad. I thought you had more self-respect than that."

    Maika clicked their tongue, and it took all Chad had not to step forward and deck the guy. "You fucking knew anyway," he growled in Maika''s direction. "Why didn''t you just tell them?"

    "You what?" Kirsten shouted at Maika.

    As always, his hands came up to placate Lee, open in front of his chest. <u>Their</u> chest, Chad reminded himself, then thought, wait, why the fuck do I care? Fuck his pronouns.

    "I guessed, earlier today," Maika admitted. "I confronted him about it, but decided not to say anything because... well, it''s not relevant, is it? We were all mad at him as it was. Besides, Gin, I thought you overheard part of that conversation anyway?"

    "What?" Lee seethed at Ginny, and this time the snooping little bitch did flinch.

    Her eyes flicked over to Maika. "Oh. No, sorry. I thought I''d heard all your conversation by accident, but I must have walked up in time to hear the end of it. The part about the ghost, and how he''s not doing okay... I didn''t hear anything about AI."

    Conniving little cow. He fixed her with a glare, and she glanced at Kirsten like the pathetic lost lamb she was.

    Kirsten closed her eyes, raised her hands to her temples, and let out a frustrated shriek that would have put a boiling kettle to shame. "Right. You know what? I don''t care anymore. I''m getting us flights out of here tomorrow. We can''t stay here, and I sure as hell can''t stay more than another night in the same place as him." She whipped out her phone and started thumbing through her security lock. "First class for us three, but you can go in economy."

    "Fine, then leave!" Chad shrugged, trying to bring his voice and aspect down a few notches. She had no control over him. No need to get all hot and bothered. "You three leave, but I''m staying here. I''ll take over paying for the place. I''m good for the cash."

    Kirsten peered at him over her phone. "You want to be alone? With the ghost?" She shook her head. "No, you know what, I don''t care. I said I don''t care. Be haunted if you want, it''s none of my bloody business. Right. Plane tickets." She threw herself down on an armchair. "I assume you lot are coming back with me?"

    Maika hesitated, then sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, let''s go home. I''m curious about the ghost, but not enough to ruin my mental health over it."

    Ginny gaped at Kirsten, lips flapping like a fish out of water. Her eyes flashed towards Chad, then back to Kirsten. He had the distinct impression that she wanted to stay for some reason, but the idea of staying here with him was the dealbreaker. He couldn''t help himself: he spoke.

    "What is it, Vince? Wanna stay here and cosplay some more? Sad you''re leaving the place where you finally wrote something other than that sad lesbian self-insert-character drivel you''ve been writing since uni?"

    After a moment of watery uncertainty, Ginny''s eyes hardened. That was new. "Nah. I don''t want to spend another minute longer than I have to with ChadGPT over here."

    As Ginny stalked over to Kirsten''s side, Maika snorted and chuckled, and Kirsten sniggered. "Good one, Ginny," she muttered, and continued scrolling through her phone.

    This was how it always was. The three of them, gathered around that chair, just like his brothers winging his father as they assembled for the kill almost every night of his teens.

    "Cowards," he shouted. "Cowards, the lot of you. But I''ve known this ever since that night. You might have talked a big game, Lee, but you made me do all the dirty work. And you two... you were the ones closest to Tess. But you couldn''t even bring yourselves to help. Too busy blubbering, ya big girls'' blouses. Don''t you know how much it fucked me up?"

    "They were your drugs, Chad," Ginny murmured.

    Chad stepped forward. Maika stepped in front of Ginny, intercepting him. Chad backed off, but threw his words over Maika''s shoulder. "My drugs, which your stupid bitch sister stole."

    Ginny burst into tears at that. Maika moved to comfort her. As he wrapped his arms around her and put his chin over her shoulder, the waterworks were starting in his eyes too. Weak.

    "You would have gone to jail, Chad," Kirsten said, laying her phone in her lap. Compared to the other two, she was made of steel. He nearly admired her for it, except he was too pissed off. "Just you. We all panicked that night, but ultimately, you''re the one who would have gone down for it. Not us. Except by covering for you, to protect your reputation and your scholarship and your perfect little middle-class white boy life, we tied our fates to yours. You would think that would have made you eternally grateful to the three of us. But instead, you''ve gone down such a dark path that none of us is even much interested anymore in putting in the hard yards to rehabilitate you. So here''s my advice. Stay the fuck out of our lives, after tonight. Never speak to us again. Forget about what happened that night, just as all of us will. Be at peace, and leave us in peace. If you ask me, it''s more than you deserve."

    "Fuck you, Lee," he said, pointing down at her. "Fuck all of you. Get the fuck out of my holiday house tomorrow morning. I don''t want to see any of you ever again."

    "Fine by me," Kirsten smiled with her mouth, eyes glaring. "Goodbye and good riddance."

    Chad stomped out of the room, tromped up the stairs, and slammed the door to his bedroom.

    "Fuck!" he whispered, heading straight for his laptop. He clicked the notification, tried the remote desktop to reach his AI server. It was down. "Fuck, fuck fuck!" He whipped off a support ticket to the server administrators for a restart of his machine.

    Pacing around the room as he waited, he grabbed at his hair to stop his hands from punching the wall. Then he rushed back over and checked on the state of his other servers. Everything else was going fine. The fifth Detective Inspector Greenwich novel was coming along nicely.

    Not enough.

    He jabbed at the keyboard until he was in his analytics pages. Sales were good. His star was on the rise.

    Never enough.

    He patted his jacket pocket out of a long, long lost, but still ingrained, habit.

    But no, it was empty. Had been for a decade and a half now. But fuck, he wished it weren''t. He needed to score right now, to take away the rabbit-in-the-snare feeling.

    They wouldn''t expose him, right? Not for the cover-up, that would damn them all too. But for the AI. Surely they wouldn''t. Kirsten had said as much just now.

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    But what if she changed her mind? What if Maika or Ginny decided that her promise didn''t count them, or that their grievance went beyond that, went full scorched earth tactics? It''s what he would do, except he didn''t have anything on them. Well, he could make each of their lives hell with the help of a certain crowd online, that was for sure. But there would absolutely be a dip in his sales if he did that. Making Lee a target of racial harassment, or Ginny the target of the transphobic zeitgeist, or Maika a target of either (or both): any of that would forever put him in that basket with all the deplorables. Right now, C. T. Woodham was a neutral value proposition, only masculine-coded perhaps through dint of his gender, his main character''s gender, and the gritty dark crime content which appealed mostly to a male audience (according to his analytics). But the margin was thin enough that losing large swathes of female readers would hurt him. Not to mention that, if he leaned on the racial or queer aspects of any of his former friends, he''d lose non-white readers and queer readers. He didn''t have great visibility on his sales by ethnicity, sexuality, or other orientations, but still... you never knew, these days. If he became controversial before he was a mainstream big name, then it would tarnish him forever with that. He wasn''t in the position to go there. Not yet.

    So that couldn''t happen. He couldn''t self-cancel, and they couldn''t cancel him, not when he still had so much left to give. He had huge plans. DI Greenwich was just the tip of the iceberg. With the help of his multifarious AI slaves, he was finally going to get his sci-fi manuscript to where it should have been years ago. Then he was going to branch out into epic fantasy. Then, horror - and then, like his idol Stephen King, he was going to finally reveal the secret: that it was all tied together, it was all a big multiverse with him in the middle of it, and how clever he would look then.

    But none of that was going to happen if they revealed him.

    He crouched on the ground and moaned into his knees, arms over his head, rocking back and forth. Even as he was in that position, he couldn''t help but reflect that it was the sort of position he would have been in some thirty years ago, crying in his bedroom after his brothers and father tore into him for the tiniest perceived weakness.

    Three against one. Always, his life kept coming back to this simple equation. He was so sick of it.

    But here it was happening again: and who was to say that they weren''t faking it, still? Just because, since last night''s argument with them, he had felt a presence in his room, had known that he was being watched, well... that proved nothing. They could be watching him. This could all still be their trick.

    Except he''d dreamed her. A waking dream, as he wrote. She saw him, the ghost of Emilie, and she judged him through a lens of her time, and she was frightened of him, and that...

    That was the worst part. Because of who he was, she wasn''t even going to give him a chance. Just because she''d been murdered by one angry white dude, Emilie looked at him now and saw danger in him. Refused to make a deeper connection with him.

    "Fuck," he murmured into the hollow made between his thighs and body, certain this was all a sign that he was going crazy.

    No. It had to be them.

    Groaning as he uncrouched, Chad clenched his fists, resolved. As his vision adjusted to the light after the darkness of his self-made cave of sorrow, the room appeared for a moment in red. He made up his mind.

    There was one secret in the house which had revealed itself to him, which the others did not seem to know about yet.

    The walls.

    With a snigger, he slipped out of his shoes but kept his socks on. Then he opened his room''s closet, and removed the panel at the back. Laying it aside, he turned on his phone torch, and bent his tall body through the small secret entrance to the world beyond the walls.

    I will find their secret means of spying on me. Then they''ll regret fucking with me.

    The space was just wide enough for a slim man like himself to slip through, sometimes having to turn his body sideways at tighter junctions. Cobwebs abounded, slung like hammocked bridges between pale-brown planks of wood. It was a good thing he didn''t have dust allergies, though he still raised his t-shirt over his nose to prevent a potential sneeze giving away his presence.

    He began in the direction of Kirsten''s bedroom. Hers was on the same level as his bedroom. She''d be so paranoid if he moved a few things around while she wasn''t in the room. It''d be great.

    Images of retributive violence flashed in his mind - stealing into her room for other purposes entirely - and he stumbled blindly into a rafter at head level. Stifling a cry, and clutching his sore forehead, he crouched again and breathed into his knees in order to catch up with himself.

    What the actual fuck had that just been, that thought? He''d never thought anything like that before. That was ten kinds of fucked. Was he really so mad at her, at all of them, that he''d stoop to that?

    "Nah," he breathed out, shaking his head. "That ain''t me." And yet he couldn''t help but think that maybe Emilie had been right - if his imagination of her looking at him and assessing him unworthy had been real, and not some self-hating delusion. It wouldn''t be the most unlikely thing, writing a character who hated him. DI Greenwich would probably have found him dull, or annoying, or distasteful if it were ever possible to meet.

    He stood again, his thighs aching from all the crouching, and tiptoed towards Lee''s bedroom. His intentions were pure jackanapery now, consciously discarding the vile suggestion of earlier. He would fuck with her mind, and nothing else.

    As he found the secret door to the back of her closet, an odd feeling crept down the back of his neck.

    Someone''s coming.

    He was sure of it. Behind him, Emilie stalked the secret path between walls, a kitchen knife in hand, an avenging spirit protecting the women in the house -

    Chad hurried through the gap and into the bedroom, shutting the secret panel with his heart thudding in his chest.

    He went to the door to the corridor, and peeked out. No sound of any feet approaching. He turned around and closed with her writing tablet and notes. Take them? That''d fuck her right up. Disorganise them? Sure, that would fuck with her too.

    But as he was thinking about what to do, idly lighting up the screen of her writing tablet to take a peek, what he saw stopped him flat.

    He read the first paragraph of her ghost story again and again, trying to parse it.

    "Nah," he murmured, then backed off from the tablet, the desk, back into the closet and into the walls.

    That was fucked. Why had she written that? That wasn''t what she''d said she was writing. Well, no. No, Emilie was on that page too, so she was writing about Emilie as they had all said they were. But that bizarre opening paragraph...

    What was she thinking?

    Maybe I''m not the bad guy in this house, Chad reassured himself. Maybe she is orchestrating something here. Not what I thought, but...

    He realised he was stroking his own arms, as if he were chilled, as if he were an upset child. Disgusted, he threw his hands away from him, in his rage whispering at himself the word his brothers and father had called him all those years. He slipped further away from the back of Kirsten''s room.

    Maybe he should warn the other two about Kirsten before they left. Sow some discord... or save their lives, if there was something more sinister behind those words. If he found Ginny''s room, he could use the typewriter to leave an unidentifiable message.

    He passed through the secret ways, peeking through the holes in the walls to find room after empty room. At first, it was nothing to panic about. He ascended the steep internal steps at the northwestern corner of the house to get to the next storey. But Ginny''s room was nowhere to be found on this level either. The longer he looked, his spine grew stiffer and more tingly with the feeling of pursuit.

    Emilie was looking for him - and so was someone else. Someone with breath like a raging bull. Someone with fists dripping red.

    Someone who felt a kinship with him.

    Chad hurried, tearing his clothes against loose nails, bruising his bare arms as he pushed through the gaps between the walls. He had to warn them. Fuck every bad thought he''d had about them: these were his friends, his only friends. He should have leaned on them, should have talked through the painful times with them, instead of bottling it up, instead of listening to those who said that people like them were the problem. He had gotten too used to living in two divergent mindsets: that the rules of the world were fucked up and against him; and that his friends were exceptions to the rules even if everything about them was what he was supposed to hate. He''d let the first narrative slowly consume the other, and now here he was, chased by two ghosts, not sure which one should catch him, nor which one would be less cruel to him if they did.

    He ascended the ladder into the top floor, giving up on the hope of finding Ginny''s room. Maika''s room would do fine. He''d write the guy a note, warning them. No way would Lee bring herself up here, into their tobacco-smelling den with drugs in the closet.  Maybe he was wrong about her, and about what she''d written on her tablet. It could have been imagination; it could have been the power of a human-crafted opening line. But it wouldn''t hurt to warn Maika, just in case it wasn''t that.

    And just maybe, there was still time for them. He could apologise to Maika, repair the friendship. Learn from them. Fuck, he could even troll for good, if he allied himself with Maika. He could take a selfie of himself and Maika kissing, send it to his brothers, as one last confusing ''fuck you'' to them before cutting off contact for good. That''s what he''d always wanted to do, leave the two of them with their toxic cookie-cutter wives in his dust. He could push back against the real problems in the world with his shitposting, rather than contributing to them. Ginny probably knew some trans shitposters Chad could learn from. He''d always admired the way they''d fought back online with humour as a weapon, with nails and teeth bared.

    Because their lives were at stake. And his had never been.

    Not until right now.

    He came to Maika''s closet, the shine of an electric lamp and the trickle of water within giving it away. Of course, the hydroponics setup. Chad took a moment to calm his shaking hands, deep breaths in and out, ignoring the sense of something chasing him through the warren, cornering him. It wouldn''t do to fuck up Maika''s setup while climbing through the gap. He breathed out one last time, and removed the panel.

    Exposed wires; uncovered water; that lazy son of a -

    The light of heaven is bright; but when it becomes too bright, perhaps that is hell instead. It all happens so fast, it''s impossible to say.

 INTERLUDE EIGHT - in which the woman in white, by accident, escapes the first attempt

    The light was a pleasing distraction from thought. One could bathe in it, staring up into its tinted warmth, its imitation of sunlight. Far better this than the weak watery light which attempted to pierce the mists most afternoons; and far better still, to have this light in the gloom of evenings such as this one, to pretend that the sun had not dipped below the horizon, and instead imagine that this was one unchanging, eternally sunlit afternoon.

    The pungency of the plant was not all that offensive, once one got used to it. Boxed in this closet, it was so inescapable that it became like the proverbial water to the fish; unnoticable, inconceivable. It made of itself a landscape for her. Freed of her body, she need not obey her original mortal dimensions. She could lie on a plush leaf and gaze upwards, the water''s flow below her lulling her not to sleep, but allowing her a moment where she could ignore all else. No voices, no footsteps.

    No cry echoing down the wooden-floored corridors.

    With a sigh, she raised herself from the leaf. That cry was her duty. She must find it out. Rising to her full height, she stepped back into the walls.

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    What was he doing here?

    The man with the tall hair had made his way into her secret paths. His shirt was torn, exposing him indecently, and his eyes rolled with some heightened expression.

    Fear? Anger?

    Emilie sank back through the wall and away, cleaving like Daphne fleeing Apollo to the sanctuary of the plant with its own heavenly light.

    Some emotion had been rolling through him. Now she could hear him through the walls, his breathing exaggerated. He was mere inches from her. It had to be anger, surely, from the speed and urgency of his harsh breaths. What if he was the first? He, the conduit for her husband''s rage toward her? It seemed only appropriate that the shade of her husband find a connection in this man. They were so alike. If Emilie could connect with the delicate woman, why not her husband with the man with the tall hair?

    And then she heard it: a sliver of sickle-moonlight on the ear, the whetstone on the axe''s blade.

    The panel moved, and she thrashed out without thought.

    An explosion of light filled the tiny room, then all was dark, including the brown-black scent of something burnt.

    In the darkness, Emilie froze. What had she done? She had made the first move this time. That was never how it played out before. What if she had hurt someone? Hurt the plant?

    She sank away from the place, her strange Eden which through her actions could never be revisited.

    The cycle had begun, but something was different this time.

 CHAPTER NINE - In which Kirsten takes control

    Kirsten lay on her bed, fighting the closing of her eyes. Every time she closed them, she found herself going back to a certain feeling of godhood which she missed so much. That was too heady a temptation, and should not be given into.

    When she had been in the midst of writing Miner Minor Mynah, she had been at her peak. Every day, shucking off the concerns of mortality, she would put her stylus to the tablet screen and write for hours on end, existing in this plane only in her hand. She was in complete control: the nineteenth century Chinese gold miner Chan Wei Shi was a puppet who danced to her music, the runaway biracial child Wikitoria needed some reining in but otherwise did as she was told, and the titular mynah bird with its split tongue spoke only the thematically appropriate words with just the right amount of foreshadowing. Those were halcyon days; and how perfect, then, that the world should agree that she, among so many who wished it so for themselves, was allowed the pleasure and the privilege of doing this, not just for a living, but for significant sum of money such that she was raised above the rest of humanity to a frankly obscene standard? And yet the main thing she took joy in during those quiet, solitary days, was the choreography of her characters, the instrumentation of her story, the notation of her words. The complete domination of all of these elements which she had worked so hard to master: that was the feeling she sought.

    How nice it would be, if it were possible, to be so in control in real life. Kirsten would be a kind master to them. Maika would benefit from the diligence she had imparted on Wei Shi; Ginny from the fun and confidence of Tori; and oh, if only Chad could be restricted to the tiny vocabulary of that bird!

    Yet life was not a book. Life was far more complicated and much less narratively satisfying.

    Her phone rang, and she scooped it out of the crater it had made in the blankets. She dropped the frustration down a few pegs when she saw the name on the screen: Justine, her literary agent in New York.

    "Justine! Good evening."

    "Kirsten, Good... evening? Oh, sorry. I thought it was 8 or 9am for you."

    "It would be, but I''m in Switzerland."

    "Oh. Oh, right, that was this week, that''s right. Oh my goodness, Kirsten, in the middle of an international pandemic...?" Kirsten pursed her lips and waited to see if there was any follow-up coming on that question which was not a question. What was Justine doing... chiding her? She had never needed to chide Kirsten for anything before. Kirsten met deadlines, she pleased editors, she wore her public persona perfectly. So what was Justine''s issue?

    When nothing was forthcoming, Kirsten stated, "We were already in Switzerland before the announcement." Her tone had been flatter and harder than she had meant it to be, but it was too hard to stop the frustration leaking through.

    "Right. Listen, is now a good time?"

    Not really? Not given the hour, not when she was feeling like this, after chewing Chad out, after failing to get flights or alternative accomodation, after the spooky feeling that someone was always watching - but a good client must make themself available for the agent where possible, Kirsten believed. "Of course, Justine. Go ahead."

    Kirsten tried to judge the flavour of the momentary pause, to predict the nature of the coming words in the timbre of Justine''s inhale. Was it going to be congratulations on an award nomination? Was she going to put out tentative feelers as to what Kirsten''s next project would be? Was it going to be the talk of film rights again? The screen rights to her first book had been the main driver of her fame and financial success, but upon further reflection with others in the industry, she''d learned just how lucky she had been to have gotten the experience she''d had with Song of the Snake God. The adaptation could have been terrible, or the parts miscast (imagine if they''d tried to cast a white actress as Gao Biyu!), or the promotion or distribution could have been botched, or worst of them all, the whole thing might never have actually happened: plenty of authors saw their film rights optioned but never actually produced. If Justine was going to talk film rights, Kirsten had made up her mind to be quite staunch about making sure everything was done a hundred percent right by her. The name Kirsten Lee should always be seen as a mark of quality -

    "It''s your mother."

    She nearly choked on her own saliva. Swallowing thickly, dreading the idea that it might be some terrible news (don''t be stupid, why would it be Justine calling her about something like that?) she asked, "What about her?"

    "It''s just... uh... well, frankly, she''s been pestering us here. I have no idea how she got the number for the office, or my email address, or how much money she''s wasting on international calls - it can''t be cheap to keep calling us, but, your mother keeps calling every day to ask me to please ask you... will you please talk to her?"

    The sigh rushed out of Kirsten before she could stop it. Damn you, Mother. This is my professional life. "Did she say at all what she wanted?"

    "I don''t know, she just says she wants you to call her... Kirsten, I''m willing to do a lot of things for you, you''ve made the bank balances of everyone here very, very healthy... but will you please just call your mother and at the very least ask her to stop calling us? She won''t listen to me when I tell her to stop."

    "Just... block her number. And her email address."

    Justine huffed into the receiver. Kirsten could just see her there, in her New York office: morning light pouring through the full wall of glass to her right, everything in the room shades of creamy white - floor, walls, carpets, picture frames and bookshelves, desk, laptop, her pantsuit, her perfect bob of hair, and of course her skin. "Look, Kirsten, I don''t like to see things like this. Remember, I lost my own mother a couple of years ago. This matters. Your mother is in a great deal of pain, if I''m not mistaken. She seems, like you, to be quite, um, what''s the word, uh, withdrawn? Reserved? But her pain is so great that it shines through, even past that inscrutable exterior. She needs to speak to you. Please, won''t you consider it? Even if you can''t quite find the ability to do it alone, there are some excellent family therapists who could facilitate a conversation in order for the two of you to move forward. I don''t know about in New Zealand, but I have contacts here who could do a video call consult -"

    "Justine?" Kirsten took a moment to modulate her voice down from the higher pitch with which she''d squeaked out her agent''s name. Inscrutable. She''d actually used the word inscrutable. Did she have any fucking idea what a pleasant little microaggression she''d just dropped into Kirsten''s ear canal? "Thank you for informing me. I don''t wish to pursue this conversation any further. Please disregard all future communications from my mother. Understood?"

    Perhaps she had been a little too pushy with that; Justine huffed audibly through the phone yet again, and there was a pause. But her tone was perfectly friendly when she replied, "Understood, Kirsten. I hope you don''t feel I''m prying -"

    "No. My mother has been annoying you, and you want to get on with things, I understand -"

    "Not annoying -"

    "But don''t let it happen again. Block her number, and cut off all contact with her. Thanks."

    "Of course." There was the sound of a smile in her voice, but the kind of smile which was tight and forced.

    "Thanks, Justine. You''re the best."

    "Ahaha, no, no, you''re the best. Good talk, Kirsten. You enjoy your vacation now."

    Kirsten let the phone fall back in its puckered cradle of blanket. She pinched the bridge of her nose as tears threatened. It was enough; they subsided again after a moment.

    She''d known years ago that the path she''d picked meant she would forego certain things. When she''d found fame, right at the beginning of it, she''d had to make a decision. If she became personally famous, she would never know certain things, or at least never be certain in her knowledge of them. Unless she were to find the kind of person who never entered a bookstore but simultaneously had enough in common with her to be of romantic interest, she was never going to be able to date or fall in love without the suspicion that the other person might only be interested in her for her clout or her cash. So she''d made the call: let fame take her, wash her down over its waterfall, and let go of believing that a life-defining love awaited her.

    What she hadn''t thought of at the time was that the loves she thought she''d already had, the loves she thought unmovable and irreplaceable; those loves might also change, or fade, or sicken. That her need for control might clash against another''s. If she''d really thought about it, she would have seen all this coming a mile off. But she''d wanted to believe in happy endings, at least in some regard.

    She wanted to believe her and her mother could avoid the stereotypes. Both the cultural ones, and the more mainstream ones.

    Kirsten sighed and blinked up at the ceiling. She knew she ought to get up, go through all the pre-bed motions. Storming up here in a funk, she''d only thrown herself on the bed for a little self-observed moment of theatrics. Who could blame her for that? The entire trip was a bust. She''d gone looking for commercial flights to New Zealand and had found, of course, that there were none. Everything was being run through the Ministry of Quarantine again. Unlike 2020, where she had listened to her friends'' gripes about MOQ with sympathetic nods and smiles, only to feel internally like oh well, that was just how things were and really the government was doing the best that they could; now she was on the outside looking in, and in this position she could very much understand how one became aggrieved about the situation and the government''s over-protectiveness. Unless she could come up with an expedient alternative, she was going to become one of the aggrieved in short order.

    It had also proven difficult to find alternative accomodation locally, with a lack of websites in English, and hand-wavey messages on those websites which were in English about how, given the pandemic lockdowns, they weren''t open for business. She would have to make some phone calls in the morning, local time.

    But for now, she needed to stand up. She wasn''t even changed into her pyjamas yet. Her cue to move seemed to come in a loud thump above, and a flickering of the lights.

    She rocked up into sitting, just in time for a man''s yell to erupt above her, splitting the stillness of the early evening.

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    Staggering to the hallway, she shouted up, "Who was that? Guys, are you all right?"

    From the other end of the house, either on this storey or the one above, came the distant answer of Ginny, "Kirsten? Did you hear that?"

    "I did - meet you at the stairs?"

    Her shoulders hunched, her neck aching with prickles, Kirsten ran for the stairs, and found Ginny had just beaten her there. "Well if it came from above us, it must be Maika, right?" Ginny said. Her voice was calm, but her hand gripping the bannister was white at the knuckles.

    "Good thinking. Let''s go... Maika?" Kirsten finished by yelling up the stairs ahead of them. She took the lead, and after a tentative step or two, hurried up.

    "Help! Help!" Maika roared from his attic room. Kirsten wanted to throw up. That tone of voice; she''d heard it before. That sheer panic, that glimpse of mortality; it was just like that night -

    Kirsten and Ginny stumbled to a stop in his doorway, to find him gripping onto Chad''s limp body.

    "Help me!" Maika yelled up at them from the floor, his eyes frightfully wide. "Help me, he''s not breathing."

    Kirsten pitched forward, falling more than kneeling, and took Chad up by the collar. Half his face was beyond red, a brownish-burnt red, and he smelled of smoke - the whole room smelled of smoke, and something misshapen lay under Maika''s strewn duvet to one side, spilled out of the closet - and Chad was most definitely not breathing. He was heavy, and he was already growing colder. Kirsten, repulsed, felt his wrists and neck for a pulse.

    "Nothing. No. No. He''s gone. He''s already gone."

    Ginny gasped, and pressed herself against the wall, sobbing into her hand. Maika folded over himself on the floor, his long hair hanging down between his knees. Kirsten shuffled away from the corpse, then rose to her feet.

    She pointed to the open closet and the mess of wall panel, circuitry and equipment. Her hand was quivering. She dropped it to her side and wrestled words out. "What happened, Maika? Explain this to me. What happened?"

    Maika breathed slowly three times, then started speaking, looking up while keeping his head down, gesturing to everything he spoke of with shaking hands. "I wasn''t here when it started, I was still down in the drawing room chatting things out with Gin. But when I was on my way, coming up the last flight of stairs, I heard something in my room. Then I heard a shriek and a big thump. I came running in, and I found Chad on the floor... not exactly where he is now, I dragged him out a little way because my plant was on fire. I threw the blanket over it to kill the fire, then I checked the plug and everything - it was already pulled out of the wall by the force of his body falling. But when I turned back to try to help him, he already wasn''t moving. I think he got electrocuted in there. That''s my best guess."

    "What, he just came up here to help himself to your stash?"

    "No, that''s the thing - from the position I found him in, it''s like he had climbed through the wall." Maika pointed an unsteady finger at an unsightly hole in the back of the closet. Kirsten could feel a scream building up in the back of her throat, rage and disgust and hatred burning like reflux. "It''s like he was trying to come through the wall, but he brought some of the hydroponic wiring into contact with the water, and then he must have fallen into the electrically charged water and... and that was it. Boom, electrocuted."

    "Coming... through the wall...?" Kirsten murmured, then paced over, gingerly avoiding the corpse and the smoky blanket. Water was everywhere, and the white paint inside the closet was marred by black, and the wall was hanging open - what the hell was everyone doing to this house they had borrowed?! But then she saw that the wall panel could be slipped back in, no damage had been done there; and staring beyond that, she saw that Chad could have indeed slipped between the walls and come in here on his own initiative. For what reason, she''d never know. But Maika''s strange story seemed true. With a shudder, she replaced the panel and blocked the hidden world behind the walls from view.

    "What are we going to do?" Ginny whispered. "We have to call the cops -"

    "You want me to go to prison?" Maika cried out, finally coming out of his low to the floor stupor and rising up, getting away from Ginny. "Me, and my mate Christian, for supplying me? And this, this''ll probably become a manslaughter charge or something because it was my wiring job which ultimately killed him -"

    "We have to tell someone, Maika -"

    "Oh what, so we let him get away with his drugs when Tessa died but you won''t cover for me -"

    "It''s not like that!" Ginny shouted, her voice rising to a shriek as her tears spilled over. "We were stupid kids. We''re not kids anymore. We have to take responsibility -"

    Kirsten''s scream crashed through the room. She closed her eyes and clamped her hands down over her ears. Fuck them. Fuck all of them. Fuck Ginny, Maika, and especially Chad. This was all his fault. All of them had fucked up her holiday. She screamed and screamed and screamed because when she did this, it was the only way to get her older brothers to stop picking on her, because they knew if they got caught doing that then they were in for it, and if she just screamed then her mother would come running and she''d assume her youngest child was the victim every time, and Mother would take care of everything -

    She choked on a stifling hand. Her eyes flew open to find the hand over her mouth belonged to Maika. She backed away and he let her go, hands up again in his usual gesture of peace.

    "Kirsten, shut the fuck up, okay?" he said, his voice shaky. Behind him, Ginny clutched at her own elbows and sobbed in silent shock. "You need to stop. We all need to stop, and calm down, and think this through. You''re the boss lady. I''m going to listen to you, okay? If you tell me we''re calling the cops, then we call the cops. But if you say we cover this up, then I''m going to do every single thing you tell me to do to make sure it''s covered up."

    "Maika," Ginny pleaded.

    He waved a hand at her. "Gin, no. We got away with this once. Tess deserved way better than what we did to her. Chad can get fucked. Kirsten, tell me what we''re doing."

    Mother wasn''t coming. Of course she wasn''t. Kirsten drew in breath until she had mastered its even rhythm again, and pulled herself to her fullest height. No point screaming for mother. She had to do it. She always had to do everything. In front of her, Maika and Ginny waited on her command, two pathetic wastes of space without a thought of their own.

    Time to live up to the name ''Trip Mum''.

    Yes. They would cover this up. Why on Earth should she, or Maika or Ginny, take a fall for Chad Woodham? The drugs were not hers, and she was not the one creeping around in the walls, but what would her fans think if she was caught up in this sordid little affair? Her persona was that of a good girl, a studious and thoughtful literary genius. If anyone connected her illegal drugs, or if it came out in investigations about Chad and his filthy AI fakery, she''d never escape that shadow.

    No, he was not taking her down.

    "Right. First things first, Maika, where''s the nearest bathroom?"

    "Just there." He pointed down the hall.

    "Does it have a bathtub?"

    "Yes. Why?"

    "Because Chad is sleeping there tonight. In the morning, first thing, we''re burying him."

    "I don''t know if we have shovels -"

    "That''s for tomorrow. Do what I say right now, as I say it. We''ll deal with the rest later."

    All three of them worked on picking up and carrying the corpse through to the bathroom. Kirsten willed her conscience to leave her body as she did so. Not here, she wasn''t there, not really. Things were happening in front of her eyes, her hands felt the heaviness and roundness of Chad''s calf and the slipperiness of his greyish-white sport sock as she almost dropped him. But she wasn''t entirely here, through sheer force of will. They settled him into the bathtub with sighs of effort and relief, and though he couldn''t have appreciated it from his position, they laid him down gently into the cold ceramic tub.

    As they left the room, she caught Maika patting Chad down. A small tin left Chad''s pocket and entered Maika''s. She could only guess at what was in there, and it enraged her.

    She went back to his bedroom and stood facing the mess on the floor, ignoring the other two for a good moment. Then she turned, hands in pockets. "I cannot fucking believe you, Maika. Chad just died over your drugs, and you went and took whatever drugs were in his pocket just now?"

    Maika didn''t meet her eyes. "It''s not like he can use them, is it?"

    Her teeth hurt from clamping her jaw shut. She jabbed her finger toward him, punctuating her words. "None of this would have happened if you hadn''t brought drugs into this house. This is on you, Maika. You are the one we are saving this time."

    His pale brown face went from red to white in quick succession, then he nodded and hid behind his shaggy mane. "Got it. What do I do next?"

    "You tidy this room up. All the evidence... you''re going to bury it in the morning, or otherwise dispose of it in a safe and discreet manner. I''ll buy a replacement blanket and have it delivered. We''ll work on getting the smoke smell out of the room over time. White paint for the closet�� we''ll make everything look and smell exactly as it was. Time... we have enough of it, we can make this work. Now, come on, Ginny."

    "Wouldn''t it be better if I stayed up here and helped Maika?"

    "No, it in fact would not, because you''re coming with me to Chad''s room, and you''re going to use your tech savvy to set up his stupid bot things to run his online presence as if nothing has happened to him. Publish fake books, post scheduled posts, answer emails, pay bills; whatever you need to do to ensure no one goes looking for C. T. Woodham."

    Ginny''s eyes wobbled, but she swallowed and nodded. She glanced at Maika over her shoulder, and he nodded to her. Kirsten grit her teeth, a wave of jealousy irresistibly washing over her. Oh her, they needed her. But they actually liked each other. She would never have that. Always necessary, never wanted.

    "Come on," she growled, and stomped ahead of Ginny down the stairs.

    When they reached Chad''s room, Kirsten couldn''t actually be of much help to Ginny. "I''m a bit rusty on some of this," Ginny warned, but then proceeded to gain access to everything that Chad had left lying open, scraping passwords, history of pages frequented, gleaning his daily habits from all sorts of things Kirsten would never have thought to look into. "All right... give me a few days to really figure this out, and... and I think I can do this." She lowered her head and looked up at Kirsten through her eyelashes. "I''m not sure about doing it, but... Maika''s worth saving. So I will."

    Kirsten swallowed the spite and the envy, and smiled. "Thanks, Ginny. We''d do the same for you too."

    "I know. I know."

    Kirsten stalked away to look around Chad''s room. She considered his cellphone, then disregarded it. Better to leave that to Ginny. Kirsten knew enough from Chad, or the Chad she used to know better of a decade or so ago, that he wasn''t close to his remaining family. His father had died, brothers were not close. His mother might prove a problem, unless Ginny were able to rig up a convincing AI voice thing that could speak for them over the phone to her. That could be done. This was all imminently doable.

    He lived by the stupid robots, and now he could live in death through them. In a way, the justice was quite poetic.

    She came to the closet, where she found the wall panel pried open. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she peered closer, turning her head towards the direction of her room. Yes, there was space to sidle through the walls and get behind her room. Had he? The thought enraged her.

    Perhaps she ought to be more horrified. What if he had spied on her, recorded her?

    But then, perhaps she ought to be more horrified by the fact that he''d just died and they were, his so-called friends, scrambling to cover up his death.

    Instead of horror, all she felt was an incredible sense of waste. What a damn waste, a crying, infuriating shame. He had been so full of talent when they''d first met. Up until that night with Tess, Kirsten had actually had a bit of a crush on him. But since then, and most definitely since the revelation of his sinful conduct with the cheap trick of AI, she''d just been... disgusted. Disappointed. All that talent, gone to waste - before his death, long, long before it.

    Soon enough, she was in her own bed again, this time in her pyjamas. There wasn''t a lot she could do for now. She''d found gardening equipment in the shed, tall figures of shovels and rakes and hoes and whatever, wooden handles pale in the torchlight from her phone, staring back accusingly. Since it was now the middle of the night, purchases could wait until the morning, when she had her wits about her and could check the exact type of blanket needed, the precise shade of white paint. So now, she faced the ceiling again and let the horror of it all wash over her.

    There was a dead body in the house. Two floors up, turn left then first door on the right.

    Shouldn''t she feel something more about this? Because right now all she could see was how much work Chad Woodham had left each of them by doing something as stupid as dying.

    And in a horrible way, hadn''t she gotten her wish? Maika now laboured at detailed, grueling, physical work; Ginny now tinkered with something which she knew intimately and confidently enough to achieve her aims; and Chad''s vocabulary was forever silenced, his corpse a heavy puppet soon to be discarded.

    Yet she did not feel like a god, as she had supposed such dominance over others might achieve.

    Instead, by controlling all the others, she felt more out of control than she could remember. Maybe even more so that the night with Tessa. That night, at least, she had been drunk, and certain of a failure which never eventuated.

    This time she was stone sober, and uncertain any of this would ever be discovered; yet somehow that was far, far worse.

 INTERLUDE NINE - In which the woman in white regards matters as they stand

    The peace of her sanctuary had been disturbed, first by men present and men past, second by loud voices, shrieking, fighting. She mourned the ruin of the plant lying under the blanket. It had been an odd retreat for her, its fleshy leaves and its artificial sun a reprieve from the gloom perpetually haunting the house.

    Now it was gone.

    Would it leave a ghost, like herself? Or were plants blessed with the ability to depart fully, leaving what should be left behind, without the taint of consciousness binding them?

    And yet... she knew perfectly well that it was she who was keeping herself here. Perhaps it was time to do something about that.

    The lawn was almost grey under the night''s blanket of mist. Only the faintest hint of green peeked from the edges of the blades to combat the drear wash of colourlessness. Emilie walked down towards the lake, towards the thickening of the mists, towards what she always suspected lay beyond: a true ending. There had always been a line she''d never crossed. She had never had the courage to broach it, but perhaps if she did, tonight, events might slow to a conclusion in her absence. Perhaps the tension in the house would ease, without her presence. Or they might all become a new batch of ghosts to haunt the place. Who knew? At that point, she wouldn''t know or care.

    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    She made the mistake of turning to look back at the house, at the point where she had never been past before.

    The glint of a lit window winked at her, the only sign of the house.

    Then from within, the faintest echo of the cry drew her back up the lawn at a sprint.

    How could she even have thought about leaving the house without finding the source of the cry? She collapsed against the door and beat the frame. How dare she? The depth of her betrayal sickened her.

    She stumbled into the house, and in her self-loathing daze found herself in the dining room.

    Like a gale, something rushed at her, something which stank of the rot of a century. By luck more than skill she stepped backwards into the corridor, and the door flew shut in front of her.

    Good. She wasn''t ready to confront him yet.

    She climbed the stairs, part of her urging the continuation of the search for the cry. But there was something else she wanted to see.

    Entering a room facing north, Emilie gazed through the mists, hoping, if even for a moment, to penetrate their denseness and see the neighbouring house through the trees.

    She had remembered something new since the afternoon: that Virginie had lived in that house. They had spent time together there, long, tireless hours, in which the concerns of the everyday were forgotten, and there was only her; her voice, her ready laughter, her direct stare, her steady arms.

    Could something about this new memory be the key to ending it all the right way? Hearing the cry, and taking the being who cried through the mists with her, to the lake?

    She didn''t know. Being dead was much like the worst sleep-deprived and thirst-fuelled headache; it made thinking clearly ever so difficult.

 CHAPTER TEN - In which Maika can only look to the past, regardless of direction

    Night fell again, after a day which had felt like it would never end.

    Maika had read somewhere that people steeped in Te Ao M��ori - those who spoke it every day, those who grew up in that context - thought about time differently. They''d heard about it at roughly the same time as they''d watch the film Arrival, and could never quite separate the two ideas out in their head. To them, the idea took on the significance of a superpower in speculative fiction. When really, logically, they knew it referred instead to a simple linguistic reversal in contrast to English ways of thinking.

    In te reo Ingarihi, one looked forward in time, in a kind of questing manner, not knowing what was ahead. One who spoke of time in English spoke of looking back at the past, turning, regarding it over one''s shoulder like a shade stalking up behind.

    In te reo M��ori, one looked forward to the past. The past was known, spoken of, passed down, so it could be seen more clearly. When one walked, one looked where one was going. The steps then, that someone M��ori took (properly M��ori, Maika would think, not themself, but someone who didn''t have impostor syndrome about their own ethnicity), would be steps into known territory; I do this because my ancestors also did this, and it is the right and true way of things, tika, pono. The wisdom of those who had forged these paths was there to light the way. Even in times one might consider unprecendented, there would exist some guidance of some sort, which just had to be applied cleverly to the context at hand.

    There were the times when Maika thought both perspectives were wrong. In the darkness of that perspectivelessness, that loss of any meaningful language, they would lie for whole afternoons and post-midnights in a stupor of existential dread.

    Both were wrong. One did not look back at the past, or forward to it. The past was at least as unknown as the future; tainted by the foibles of memory, twisted by consecutive retellings, penned by the victors, written in that most biased and coagulating of inks - blood. When Maika tried to regard the past - to remember her voice, her smile, the feel of being in her presence - it was all fake, and they knew it. Being with Tessa before her death was nothing particularly special. It was in death that everything about her had transmorphed into tragic poetry, into something that must be remembered reverently.

    It was in such a mood that they partook of the last recreational drugs left in the house. Thanks a lot, Chad.

    They lay back, letting the feeling move past something consumed, to something seeping into the bloodstream, becoming a part of them. They hadn''t wanted this, but with everything that happened, and now the added pressure of having to stay here longer when escape had been so tantalisingly close... if there was ever a time to indulge, it was now. Despite what Kirsten thought of them. Fuck her judgement.

    There was something up with her. Something more than the obvious. But Maika was blowed if they knew what the hell it was.

    The looseness set in, and their mind drifted away from Kirsten, back to the last time they had ever known a moment''s true peace.

    ---

    "Michael!"

    Michael. The way she says his name, like it''s a prayer. In her mouth, his name sounds almost right to him, or at least, he stops hating it so much.

    Tessa ran up the driveway to him, wrapping an arm in his. "Hey." She dragged him down on the one side, grinning up at him, cheeks dimpling.

    He pulled against her playful weight, crushing his lips to her forehead. "Hey babe." He glanced behind and waved with his free arm. "Hey Vince!" Vince, for his part, waved with his head angled down, a bit of a smile on his lips.

    "Have you got...?" Tess murmured, and started patting Michael''s pockets.

    "Shh, shh, let''s get off the driveway, but yeah, I''ve got it. Just wait until sundown, yeah? The neighbours might see."

    That was perhaps too cautious of him, but it paid to be so. The bach they''d rented for their graduation celebration stood alone atop the west coast cliff, the nearest house down a steep embankment of flaxes and stunted seaside trees. The sight of them toking up would be telegraphed for miles, and the smell would drift down to the neighbours unless that sea breeze picked up again.

    He led the twins up to the house atop the driveway, its jagged dark-grey weatherboard stabbing the fading sky, all angles, and a lemony glare of large windows reflecting the sunset.

    Chad and Kirsten were already inside heating up the oven pizzas. Kirsten had driven the two of them in earlier, from their houses via the supermarket where she stocked up on everything anyone could possibly need, and more. Michael, dozing in the backseat, had put up with all their banter the whole hour''s drive out here. Maybe tonight the two of them would finally admit they were into each other. It seemed even more likely as, when Michael and the twins entered, the two of them stopped laughing abruptly and looked sidelong at each other for a long moment.

    "Vince, Tess! You made it!" Kirsten came around the kitchen island and gave them each a hug. Michael winced at the way Vince hugged Kirsten, and clung on for a second too long as she tried to break away. Guy had been nursing a crush on Lee the entire time they''d known each other. It was painful to see.

    "Help yourselves," Chad said, gesturing with his elbow at all the beers and RTDs lined up on the huge kitchen windowsill, while his hands sliced up the first pizza out of the oven. "And take a plate and a slice."

    Soon enough, they were all sat at the huge glass and wicker table. "A toast!" Chad held his beer up, and everyone followed. "Here''s to the successful completion of our Bachelors - well, for four out of the five of us." Tessa nodded, chuckling along.

    "Here''s to Chad getting a scholarship for his Honours year!" Kirsten added amidst the clinking of bottles. Chad grinned, and tipped his head as always to get the too-long floppy fringe out of his eyes.

    Michael raised his bottle one more time. "Here''s to getting shitfaced!"

    They cheered, and another round of bottle clinking ensued.

    ---

    Michael went with the flow of the evening as he always did, never one to take the lead. Once the pizzas were cooked and mostly consumed, and the oven was safely turned off, the five of them found their way down into the large garden, down the steep slope with bright paths of crushed seashells lit with little footlights. It was one of those fancy modern gardens where everything was all rocks and succulents, and the outdoor furniture was dark and attractively uncomfortable. Covered in insect repellent thanks to Kirsten''s insistence, they all sat there getting drunk, munching on chips and dip, and shooting the shit, until the sun was well below the horizon.

    The girls made their way inside when it got too cold, and the boys stayed outside. The timbre of the conversation got stupider and cruder, as it always did when the company was solely male, Michael had noticed. Well actually, it was mostly Chad''s fault for that. Vince was mostly quiet, only occasionally nodding and laughing, a haunted look in his eyes whenever Chad said something particularly borderline.

    He left Chad and Vince to it, stumbling off to take a slash in the bush. The bathroom seemed so far away right now. It was only after he was done that guilt set in. He looked down at his hands, then up at the house, so far up the hill. But fuck, was he really going to touch Tessa with these hands? Nah.

    So up the hill he went.

    Coming out of the bathroom with hands that smelt of some fancy coconut and orange peel soap, he followed the grey and silver abstract art on the walls until he heard voices. Kirsten and Tess, in the lounge, chatting. The sound of his name gave him pause.

    "Yeah, but Michael? You could do so much better." Kirsten. He found it hard to be angry at her saying that. It was true.

    "Kirsten!" Tess cried out, her tone of voice suggesting she was in the act of nudging Kirsten in the arm. "Don''t say that. You don''t say that about any human being."

    "Ugh, you''re such a psych major sometimes."

    "It''s true though. No one is a waste of space."

    "You can''t seriously tell me that, Tessa. Michael has so much talent, and it''s all going to just go down the drain when he dies of alcohol poisoning at age twenty-seven."

    There was a pause, and then Tess said, "I can save him. I can help him overcome his addiction."

    "Um... isn''t that explicitly what you can''t do? Isn''t it established fact that people can only save themselves?"

    "I mean..." Her voice quavered with emotion, and a smidge of drunkenness. Michael leaned against the wall, his ears and cheeks burning. "Yes, people have to want to change themselves, it''s true. But you have to understand... Michael has such a beautiful, sensitive soul. This drunkenness, carrying on like he''s an Irish transplant, it''s all... he''s trying to escape pain in his past, you know? It''s all a cover for that. So I''ll help him resolve his past, and then he can recover in the future."

    Kirsten''s tone was brassy. Without seeing her face, Michael couldn''t tell if it was teasing or insistent. "Oh my God, Tess. Give it up. You can''t change people."

    "Maybe not, but you can help people. It''s true, you know. Just ask Vince. He had some... episodes when we were in high school. I helped him through them. I mean, I don''t want to take all the credit. He''s had to really work on his shyness and stuff. But he told me himself, I helped him turn his life around. He''s kinda the whole reason why I''m doing psych."

    "Yeah, you''re not wrong, Vince did say something like that to me."

    "And well... that''s not entirely true I''m doing because of him. I mean, it is true, but... I have just as much reason to study it for myself, as for wanting to help others."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I''m my own sort of mess."

    "Oh. Tess. You want to talk about it?"

    "Um... not right now. But maybe in time."

    "I''ll be here when you need me." There was a pause, full of warm sounds from the two of them, as if a particularly performative hug was happening. Then Kirsten broke the silence. "So how many more years are you in for?"

    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    "I need to do another two years at least, and honestly, I''ll probably go straight into my masters from there."

    "Bet you''re pissed at us Bachelor of Arts wankers, huh?"

    Tessa chuckled, and another pause followed, in which Michael sank further back against the wall, his hand against his heart.

    She believed in him so much more then he believed in himself. Kirsten was right, he didn''t deserve Tessa. But he would try to do better. With her help, maybe he could confront some of the things which haunted him from his past. The estrangement from his Dad''s side of the family, that wasn''t helping. The doubts about his identity, the turn to alcohol and drugs at fourteen to tamp down the pain of everything... He had no illusions. It wouldn''t be easy. He''d tried to face these things before, but always ended up relapsing into bad habits. With Tessa''s help, maybe; with her psychology training applied to the mess of his life; maybe there was hope for him yet.

    And at the very least, she thought so. That made it easier for him to believe too.

    "Ladies," he addressed them jovially as he stumbled past, on his way to reheat a slice of pizza.

    "Hey babe!" Tessa leapt up to follow him. His body rocked as she hugged him from behind. Once he''d slipped the plate into the microwave and pressed a few buttons, he spun around to encompass her with his arms. He kissed her on the top of her head, Kirsten''s eye roll across the room visible even from here past the thick waves of Tessa''s brown hair. Tess pulled away to look up into his face. "Hey, is it time?" she poked at the pockets of his trousers, and his jacket, still not finding the stash.

    "I dunno, maybe we don''t need to have any to have a good time, right?"

    Tess tilted her head at him, then reached past to open the microwave. She pulled out his hissing slice of overheated pizza and handed it to him. "We don''t need it, sure, but this is a celebration."

    He couldn''t blame her for the little bit of hypocrisy. What was it, making her suffer in silence? It wouldn''t be right to pry. But he wanted to help her too, like she wanted to help him. "I was just thinking about cutting down, you know?"

    "Sure. I''ll join you in that. After tonight though."

    He blew on the sizzling cheese before biting, then dug around in his chest pocket - the one Tessa always forgot to check because apparently chicks'' clothing didn''t have chest pockets usually - and brought out the baggie. "Aight, babe. Best do this out on the deck, with the lights off so the neighbours can''t see."

    They took a blanket out. Michael cuddled up with her, facing the stars, and they passed the joint between the two of them, talking about nothing much, laughing and sharing a kiss or two when the slow mood took them. He didn''t feel bad for leaving the others out: Kirsten never partook because she was judgy and stuck-up; Vince abstained for fear drugs would interfere with his anti-depressants; and Michael didn''t feel like cramping his and Tessa''s style by adding Chad to the mix.

    "Babe?" Tessa''s voice was higher than usual.

    "Yeah babe?"

    "You''re not going to break up with me, eh?"

    "Eh? Why would I do that?"

    "Cos I''m still at uni and you''re moving on."

    "You know I''m not going to do that. Babe, what put that in your head?"

    "Ha. It''s nothing."

    The stars stared down throughout the pause, compelling Michael to keep her speaking. "Nah, what is it?"

    "It''s just... it''s the funniest thing. Sometimes when I look at you, I feel like... like we''re not going to get all that long together." She looked up at him, her head lower than his where they lay. "You don''t think I''m being to clingy, do you?"

    "Pffft, no. I''d be a dick to say that." He pulled her closer. It was all his drinking and the drugs that made her feel insecure like this. Stuff like what Kirsten had said, like how he''d be dead at twenty seven. No, he wouldn''t keep scaring her like this. He''d cut it all out, show her that he''d be here for the long haul. "Babe, I''m here to stay, all right?"

    She smiled at him again, but her smile was hollowed out by the wideness of her eyes. What insecurities was she harbouring? For a second, under the light of stars so far away and long ago, it hit Michael - as it did from time to time - that she was just as distant as those stars, in some ways. He would never know what was truly in her head. Was she as sweet as the words she had said about him to Kirsten? Would she grow to resent him, if they did stay together and he didn''t stick to his word, like he''d seen time and time again in his own family? She was about as close as she could ever be to him, and yet... that was where it stopped.

    "I promise," he said, rubbing her shoulder. "After tonight, I''m going to cut out the drinking and the drugs, okay?"

    "Okay. Me too." She nudged him in the ribs. "The joint''s done. Have you got anymore?"

    "Geez," he laughed, "I thought we were giving up."

    "Yeah, tomorrow. Might as well live it up today. Although actually... I''ve never taken LSD. Maybe we can have that as a free pass, for if we ever get the chance, right? I''ve always wanted to like, transcend, or whatever."

    She stared at Michael, waiting with a smile for his assent. "Yeah, sure, why not?"

    Tessa stood, brushing down her clothes. "But for right now, I bet Chad''s got something. I''ll go ask him."

    Michael sat up. "Whatever he''s got, it''s probably uppers."

    Tessa shrugged. "I''m not ready to sleep yet. Joint made me too sleepy." She wandered back into the house, into the indoor lights which obliterated his night vision for a few seconds.

    He didn''t want to get up. Unlike her, he was perfectly happy to lay here and feel sleepy. Only one thing kept him holding onto consciousness a little longer. She never used to be into drugs, before him. Perhaps he ought to feel more guilt for that.

    But she was also going to join him on the climb up out of this hole his life was in. So maybe this wasn''t the terrible sin part of him insisted it was. Maybe it was just the story of their lives, a charming anecdote to share at the rest home in sixty years time. Yeah, we used to get stoned together. What of it? Didn''t you?

    ---

    Michael woke to yelling. He sat up, head hazy.

    "Help her!" Kirsten''s voice. "Someone call the ambulance."

    "No, don''t call." Chad''s. "Hey, that''s my tin - what the fuck?"

    "Your stash did this to her? What the fuck did you give her?"

    "I didn''t give her anything! She must have stolen it out of my jacket. I left it on my chair."

    "What is it? How do we help her?"

    "I don''t know how much she took - oh, fuck, is that powder on her nose?"

    "Yeah? Why?"

    "She wasn''t supposed to sniff it! It''s not... fuck, man! Haven''t any of you guys seen Pulp Fiction?"

    "What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

    Michael stumbled off the porch, down the seashell path bouncing back the moonlight, down to the jumble of four bodies further down the path. Kirsten knelt - Chad paced with his hands in his hair - Vince stood apart, hands cupped over his mouth - and between the three of them lay Tessa, like someone had poured her out of a bottle.

    "Pulp Fiction?" Michael murmured.

    "Fuck, she''s going to OD," Chad muttered.

    Michael dropped to his knees beside Tessa, and touched her neck, then held his ears close to her nose and mouth. In his copacetic chemical mood, it was all so far away. The chill of the nighttime sea breeze had cooled her already. Nothing would warm her again. "She''s not breathing." His voice was far too calm for the shattering present.

    "We need to call the ambulance!" Kirsten shrieked.

    Chad fell down beside Michael, feeling for a pulse too, putting the back of his hand beside her airways. Michael wanted to push him over the side of the path, down the hard and spiky garden. How dare he fucking touch her. It was only the delay of the drugs in Michael''s system that saved Chad, as he stood up and backed away. "It''s too late. She''s gone."

    Next it was Kirsten beside Michael, invading Tessa''s space. Unlike Chad stumbling away from the horror of Tessa''s body, Kirsten stayed touching her, holding her hands, as sobs started in her throat, then rocked through her whole body. "Tessa," she cried, her voice muted. She covered her mouth and backed away on her seat.

    "What are we going to do?" Chad asked.

    Kirsten glared at him, then gathered up a handful of pebbles from the garden and threw them at him. Chad backed away, covering his head. Still, Vince stood downhill of them all, tears streaming down his face.

    "We should report you to the cops!" Kirsten hissed.

    "Please, no," Chad moaned, falling to his knees out of Kirsten''s pebble-throwing range. "My scholarship..."

    "Fuck your scholarship," Michael said, his voice low but hard.

    Kirsten wiped her face, then stood up. "No... No, he''s right, Michael. Fuck, but he''s right. If we call the cops, we''re all fucked by this. You''re high right now, and Chad was the one who had the drugs, even if she stole them from him. Tessa''s system will be full of the evidence. I don''t know if Vince or I would get in trouble too or not, but my parents would fucking disown me if I got caught up in this."

    "So what the fuck are you saying?" He gripped onto Tessa''s fallen hand, where Kirsten had dropped it. Her skin, so soft, lay against the dirt and grit of the seashell path. He picked it up, brushed the hard particulate off her skin. Cold. So cold.

    "We do something to cover it up."

    "How the hell would we even -"

    "I don''t know! Let me think!"

    ---

    It was all a haze then, and no amount of distance from the events would help clarify them. At some point while Kirsten staggered around the grounds, Chad and Michael had carried Tessa up to the house, Vince following at a distance like he was already chief mourner. Michael kept touching Tessa''s cheek, as if he expected to find warmth returning, breath stirring. She looked as if she were only asleep.

    By the time Kirsten had come up with her plan, they were all mostly sober again. The night had entered a thirteenth hour which never ended, the sky its darkest. Shadows cut across the moon and stars, obliterating them with no warning as the wind whipped the heavy dark clouds forward at a fair clip. Over the eastern mountains, the lights of the city cast an ominous glow. In the darkness of the unlit lounge, three boys sat around the corpse of one girl, unspeaking.

    "Here''s what we''ll do," Kirsten announced to the darkness. "We''ll hide all the evidence we had drugs here. All the alcohol evidence is fine: in fact, the more the merrier, to support our cover story. But we''ll burn citronella candles out on the porch where you were smoking. Wash the blanket and clothes you were in at the time to get rid of the smell, throw it in the dryer. And we''ll get rid of any other physical evidence in the car."

    "What car -?" Chad asked, but Kirsten steamrolled over him.

    She explained the rest of the plan. Vince burst into howling tears. Kirsten went over to him and wrapped herself around him, holding him hard, pulling him away from Tessa when he clung to her.

    "We have to do this. I''m sorry, Vince." She looked at Michael. "When the cops come, you admit that you had a fight with her, all right. In her drunken state, she wanted to break up with you, and wanted to get well away from you immediately. We all tried to stop her from drunk driving. But she wouldn''t listen. She was too upset with you. If you''re crying while you''re lying, all the better. We need to sell this, if we want to get away with it. If we all want to stay free."

    She stared each of them down until they were nodding, even Vince, who said not a thing but finally gave one jerk of a nod before dissolving into a puddle of tears. Kirsten stood, hands shaking. "I''ll get Tessa''s car ready."

    Her absence was glacially slow in passing; her return was all too soon. "Come on. Pick her up", she directed Michael and Chad. They carried Tessa out at Kirsten''s direction, to where the car sat in the near-dawn gloom, idling in park, angled oddly on the deserted coastal road. "Quickly now, we don''t want to be spotted."

    They put Tessa in the front seat. Michael strapped her in - she always insisted he wear his belt, it seemed only fitting - and kissed her cold cheek one last time. Her head slumped forward, long hair obscuring her face from view. Then Michael and Chad backed away.

    Kirsten popped her top half in through the door past Tessa. Two wrenches of the mechanisms within, and she was out again, slamming the door shut as the car began its roll down the steep road.

    The Tasman Sea waited, the choppy whitecaps already visible in the first light of dawn. As the little silver second-hand car careened off the cliff towards it, Kirsten put her hands on her head and screamed, "Tessa, no!"

    Michael roared out his impotent pain into the ever-present hush of the ocean, and ran down the road as if to look over the cliff, as if to hope against hope that the girl he knew was dead had somehow survived the manufactured tragedy.

    Neither car nor body were ever recovered.

    ---

    Their fault. Even fifteen years later, in the haze of the last drugs in the house, Maika couldn''t shake the idea that it wasn''t the drugs which had killed her, but the inaction. If they had called an ambulance, maybe they could have made it in time. It was impossible to know, but impossible too to ever let the idea go.

    Chad carrying the drugs? Couldn''t be mad at him for it. Tess took the drugs without asking. Kirsten''s insane plan? Saved them all probably. Couldn''t blame her for trying. Ginny''s inaction? Completely fair. Maika didn''t blame her for going catatonic in the face of her twin''s death.

    But Maika''s part? Getting her into drugs in the first place? Maika would always know, deep down, it was their influence that had killed her. As much as she said they were trying to run away from things in their life by using, so was she. Whatever it was - just some nasty little insecurity maybe, that she let peek through from time to time - it was eating her up inside, just like they felt. And instead of helping her, they had dragged her down to their level.

    And not just her. They''d fucked up everyone''s life. Their own most of all, but still, you just had to look at the lot of them. All of them singletons, unable to love each other, unable to love anyone else. Their shared secret was way too heavy to allow a genuine connection to ever spring up. How could you ever trust another human being, after doing something like that to one so dear? Maika had never been able to get close to a partner again, and they were sure the others feel the same.

    They tried to lift a limb, but the heaviness of it was all too much. Eyes staying open, that was too much too. Their grief was a heavy stone statue, shaped like a loathsome toad, sitting on their chest, pinning them down to the bed. It hurt to try too hard to breathe, so they just exhaled, and waited for the next breath, then the next, then the next.

    Each one more than they felt they deserved.

 INTERLUDE TEN - In which the woman in white tries to raise the idea of a person

    Emilie had been there before.

    The person lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, until with a long exhale, they closed their eyes. Emilie moved closer to look down at them. The room was a mess, even if it had been tidied up from the disaster it had been last night. There was no cleaning some things. Now the worries and cares all sat on the chest of the person on the bed, gathered up like a stone, crushing them, heavy and insubstantial all at once.

    Emilie decided to use her power, little as it was, to help them.

    She entered into the person, settling back into them in waves, copying their breathing pattern until she was fully inside of them, looking at the back of their eyelids.

    Then she recalled, sending her memory as images, trying to be understood.

    He is coming. He will be here. He will find me - you - us. Get up. Get up, and find the others. Find the source of the crying, and take it with you. Leave this place. Nothing matters so much as that you simply leave - and live.

    There was a stirring in the person, around the area of the dark green stone on their neck. Emilie cupped her hands around it - moving the person''s hands too; she hadn''t thought she could, yet up they came - and tried to reach the danger-sense within. Yes, someone was trying to reach the person who wore this, trying to amplify her warning to them. The spirit on the other side of this was an ally of hers, even if they did not speak the same language or have the same level of presence here.

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    Emilie repeated her message: Listen to me. Listen to this stone of your ancestors. Leave now, while you still can.

    She was in the middle of trying to move the person''s legs when she heard the footsteps.

    Sinking back into the person on the bed, she kept as still as possible. The top floor of the house creaked with the weight of the new arrival. Maybe he would ignore her, if he couldn''t see she was here. The pace and the heft of his boots were all too familiar. He was coming. He was here.

    When he filled the doorframe, he was not solid, and yet he was there, an emptiness in the air which magnified the room around him and through him. Emilie held her breath - what her spirit remembered as breath - and did not move from inside the person on the bed.

    Her husband''s shade stalked closer.

    He had the axe in his hands.

    He raised it.

    She could stay still no longer. Her presence endangered the person she was inhabiting. Emilie flew out of the person''s skin and at her husband''s face, clawing at him. She erupted through his revenant presence, and kept going, out into the corridor, crashing down the stairs and landings, fleeing for the misty lawn.

    Her only regret was that, in order to save herself, she couldn''t look back to see if the person on the bed had survived the encounter.

 CHAPTER ELEVEN - In which Ginny thinks of the dead

    don''t think about it don''t think about it don''t think about it -

    "Help me, Emilie."

    Ginny felt stupid for breathing the words out into the air, and for the way they hung there unanswered. What would a ghost help her with anyway? Well, a connection to the dead, perhaps. Besides, for a ghost, Emilie seemed to have some kind of tangible power-set.

    If their last interaction had been real.

    If Ginny wasn''t going out of her mind.

    Perhaps talking to the dead wasn''t the answer. There was too much of that happening right now. Since last night, everything had changed. All of this was a lot more serious, a lot more scary. Now with the sun going down on the next evening, Ginny lay on the crisp white bedspread and faced the ceiling, all the indecision and grief in her brain manifesting in the inability to so much as move a finger.

    please don''t think about it, forget it, don''t think -

    "I miss Tessa," she confessed to Emilie, if she was there. "So much. Every single day. I wish I had died in her place." Such a confession might have brought tears in the past, but tonight, it was the bare truth.

    In the silence, her curtains fluttered in a light breeze. The first dip in the evening temperature brought goosebumps out on her arms, below the lace-scalloped short sleeves of yet another cream-coloured vintage dress.

    "I don''t want to think about last night. Can we go back to what happened yesterday, around this time? Can you explain to me what that was? Why it happened? Maybe you can tell me more about your lover. I''m more than happy to listen. I''m like you, in that regard. I''m like you both were. I understand. I don''t know what you would have called it back then. Homosexual? We call it lesbian these days."

    Ginny blushed and covered her face. It was mortifying explaining all this to a ghost; worse still if she wasn''t even here and Ginny was talking to no one.

    Her phone buzzed on the nightstand, and she snatched it up, eager for a distraction. The icon for Cacophony popped up, a string of notifications, and she opened the app. She prefered to check it on her laptop, but that was over on the desk, and she didn''t feel like rising just now. She browsed through the various things she''d been tagged in, dropping emoji reactions here and there. By the time she''d caught up on the chat, Vix had clocked that Ginny was online.

    Vix: hhhhheeeeeeeeeyyyyyy Ginny, how''s the rich bitch villa life???

    She couldn''t possibly tell Vix or the others who would read it later the truth of what was happening in her mind right now, let alone in the house. The burden of death, and the claustrophobia of being stuck here with Kirsten and so much guilt and blame, with sickness hovering like a miasma out in the wider world, an invisible cloud. Especially not with everything her American sisters were currently going through under the assclown dictatorial regime over there.

    She''d better think fast, and make something up.

    Ginny: it could be a bit better, to be honest. How are you?

    Vix: gurrrl, same old bullshit. What do you mean, a bit better?

    Ginny: there was an argument last night. One of our housemates was um... -sneaking through the walls-?!?!

    Vix: Um, I''m sorry, WHAT? <the-what.gif>

    Ginny: Yeah. Yeah, it was super fucked. We all laid into him about it. He''d busted up some of Maika''s stuff by accident, but it was trashed. Like, he knocked over a few bottles of duty-free alcohol, and the glass smashed, it all got everywhere. Then he got all weird and defensive, and then accused Kirsten of wanting to trap us here for some sick revenge story or something. It was really weird. The vibes around the house are so cooked right now

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    Vix: GURL. What did I say to you? GET OUT

    Vix: Can you? Please, say you can?!

    Ginny: Um, unfortunately, it''s a little complex with our country''s Ministry of Quarantine and stuff

    Ginny explained it in brief. Of course, MOQ was only part of the problem. Kirsten had said she''d get them a private charter, when they''d first arrived and learned of the lockdowns. But over breakfast that morning, she''d tersely explained that, apparently, it was going to be much harder to arrange than she''d first thought.

    Who was Ginny to complain? Kirsten was bankrolling this whole thing. She''d be the one bankrolling any chartered flights home, that was for sure. Ginny didn''t have the money to scrape together for a trip home, even in cattle class. Her parents had little in the way of liquid assets, only just having finished paying off their mortgage. They couldn''t help.

    So in truth, Ginny was trapped on all sides.

    But it wouldn''t do to share all this with her sistren.

    She dragged on the conversation for a little while long, defensive and lacking in detail as she left out the unpalatable truths of what was really happening to the group. Her email app sent her a notification, which she ignored for a few minutes while she finished her conversation with Vix, then said goodbye. She flicked open the email.

    Her thumb hit the notification as quick as it could.

    It was from Kirsten''s mother, and it said:

    Dear Ginny,

    I hope you don''t mind me writing out of the blue like this. I got your email address from your social media, I hope that''s ok? I know we''ve never spoken much except hello, how are you, goodbye, but I am becoming desperate.

    You''re on holiday with Kirsten right now, aren''t you? I haven''t been able to get a hold of her in a while. We had an argument a month ago, and now she isn''t speaking to me. Please, will you tell her that I am sorry, and I only want to speak to her again? Tell her I won''t bring up the topic again, I promise.

    I just want my daughter back.

    Kind regards,

    Sharon Shufang Lee

    Ginny swallowed, scanning the scant paragraphs again and again for meaning. What was Kirsten arguing about with her mother? Bad enough that she wasn''t even taking to her about it? This wasn''t like her.

    She opened her text app to message Kirsten, typed out a message, then deleted it. After doing this some five or six times, she finally sent:

    Hey, can I come and speak to you? It''s about your mother. She emailed me and said she wants you to know she''s sorry and she just wants to talk to you. I can send you the whole email if you like? Or I can talk about it if you want? Let me know.

    The reply came within half a minute.

    Disregard all communications from her. Nothing to talk about.

    Ginny stared at the screen, her stomach tight with an ill feeling. How was she supposed to just ignore an email like that? Besides it going against every instinct of politeness drilled into her, it made her heart hurt to think of Mrs Lee worrying, half a world away.

    But this was Kirsten''s business, not hers.

    Still, her heart didn''t accept that answer. Family mattered so much. You never knew when they might be taken away from you. What if the pain of Mrs Lee, and the reflection of that pain that Kirsten must be feeling, could be resolved with a conversation?

    don''t think, she tried to tell herself, but it was too late, she was thinking -

    Had there been a conversation Ginny could have had with Tessa which might have saved her? A digging into why, when she always talked about how bad addiction was and how she was going to save Maika from his, why was it that party drugs seemed to hold such an allure for her? Had there been a secret pain Tessa had buried under the fun-loving, easy-going personality? For all the times that Tessa had talked Ginny out of depressed funks and even a close-call attempt of self-ending, had there been a reciprocal line of inquiry which could have saved Tessa''s life?

    Ginny stood abruptly, her eyes watery. She needed company. The impulse to wallow had always been a strong one in her. She owed it to Tessa to go and find a sympathetic human ear right this minute.

    She picked up her phone again.

    Maika, can I talk to you?

    Minutes passed, and there was no response. Her patience ran out.

    She didn''t really want to go out into the corridor, but she did. She didn''t want to go up to Maika''s room either. It would bring last night screaming back to the front of her brain, when all day long she had been trying to avoid thinking about it. But Maika wasn''t answering her messages. She needed to see them.

    So she went.

    When she arrived in their doorway, she found them sprawled on the bed, completely dead to the world. She stood and watched for a while, amusement spreading across her lips.

    Like the moon waning, the grin faded back to a frown.

    "Maika?"

    She stepped forward, to shake them awake.

 INTERLUDE ELEVEN - in which the woman in white signals to the next house

    It was a clear night between the houses. The lake was still, as ever, draped in its habitual shroud of mist, but the foggy tendrils had receded from the land. Perhaps, if she were lucky tonight, Emilie would catch the flame of red hair through the windows of the neighbouring house. If she could just get Virginie''s attention, then Emilie would know there was a way out of this.

    Never mind how many years may had passed. Surely it couldn''t have been too long.

    In between the walls, she found her lantern. It was not strictly hers per se, but it was familiar, and from her place in time. It was one of the things she could affect, as opposed to the haunting things brought in by strangers, objects which slipped through her fingers, ignoring her presence. Perhaps the lantern was a ghost of a lantern. Either way, when she picked it up, always it sprang to life with an eerie, cold white flame.

    Yes, a ghost lantern. There was no other way to explain it. It remembered its purpose. If only she could say the same for herself. But on reflection, perhaps her purpose was a complex one, harder to understand than the simple act of bearing light.

    She made her way to the window which afforded her the best view of Virginie''s house. Pushing the curtains aside took a great strength of will; they were out of her time, but so too were they light and malleable. With the way cleared, she sat the lantern on the windowsill, and raised and lowered her hand between it and the glass, as she had many nights before.

    In times gone by, the signal would be answered by Virginie''s hand at her lantern. Then they would meet in the garden, Emilie slipping through the break between wall and hedge which divided their grounds. There, to sink into Virginie''s arms; strong arms, because the widow kept no staff of her own, cutting her own firewood and doing for herself in so many wonderful, independent ways. Emilie could only dream of living that way.

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    And if there were rumours around town that Virginie had lifted that wood axe before she was a widow, well. Emilie didn''t care. In fact, Emilie would have understood, if that were the case.

    Thank the heavens Emilie''s husband had not killed Virginie too. He was jealous, he was so sure she had taken a lover. But no matter how correct he was in that; to his mind, it was inconceivable that Emilie''s lover could be a woman. And so Virginie had escaped Emilie''s fate. Though perhaps if he had tried, Virginie may have come off better in the fight than Emilie had.

    This was not one of those nights long ago, and no answer came from the neighbour''s window. Instead, the plod of heavy footsteps echoed down the corridors.

    Emilie slipped back into the walls before her husband could discover her.

    She placed the lantern back in its nook, and picked her way through the darkness out into the garden. There, she tried plucking roses from the bush nearest the corner of the house.

    Instead of coming away with her hand, the colour of the bloom drained away with her touch, and the flower died on the branch.

    She tried again, only to kill yet another rose.

    With a sigh, she compromised, picking up the wilted fallen blossoms below the bush. Wandering through the garden, she picked more fallen flowers for her lover. Once, she''d constructed whole bouquets of secret meaning for Virginie, a language only the two of them understood. But now, she would have to put up with whatever entropy had provided.

    She made her way to where the gap in the fence should be, where so many nights, she''d met Virginie.

    There was, of course, no gap. Now a fence stood to the height of her neck, stately in white brick.

    Her husband''s wolf-breath sounded around the corner of the house, his boots crunching on the leaves. She looked at Virginie''s house one last time, then threw her jumbled assortment of dead flowers over the fence.

    Hoping for the mercy of insubstantiality, she threw herself at the walls of her house. The embrace of this place which had trapped her was also the only safe shelter available.