ghost

longing for autonomy, existence defined by another

“He was nothing but a man who devoured those around him,” My King had hissed, his forehead pressed against the mantel of the fireplace on the evening of his father’s burial. His fingers whitened around a crystal glass of amber, the bitterness of his breath snuffing out the charcoal of the fire, the cedar of the wood. It seemed to be the evening of his father’s death that I first belonged to My King’s chambers, had first heard his choked gasps, seen the hardening of his dark brows, the glistening gold in a deadened forest of curls. Grief pushed against the window, rug, and throw like smoke. Outside, he said the kingdom mourned. Even though I belonged to his chambers, the crackling of a never-ending fire, the dark velvet drapery, and the expanse of wood floor, I could do nothing to expel the stale air from it. I held no form before him, had no fingers to scratch on the scruff of his peppered chin, no limbs to grasp the burdensome band and pull it from his crown, or the blood-red cloak from his solid shoulders. I was no physical being in his presence, a ghost, without a name on my tongue except that of My King’s, pulsing like a memory around him.

At first, I could only find myself inside his chambers, though I had no desire to experience anything beyond, no need to lose myself in the darkened, hollowed hallways of the castle, when a King spent his nights on a settee before me, alone in his thoughts. His chest bared to the sky, a twisting thicket of hair that reached towards the beating of his heart and paving path that darkened where he loosened the ties of his britches. Aglow in firelight, warm before me. It seemed it was he, this way, who first awakened me to an alluring pulse within me that radiated toward wherever he found himself draped in his room. As if hearing a voice after centuries in solitude, in another place, alone in a quiet forest, in a place I didn’t know and couldn’t reach. Often, the shattered sound of a slammed door, heavy footsteps, the clatter of crystal and gulp of liquid, rolled-up sleeves and the view of his forearms, strength stretched beneath his skin, on guard, a haunted expression pressed against his lips, a kingdom awaiting. Alone, I watched him.

I had no way of telling how long it took, many evenings or only one, long enough for a dent to appear on his brow, his grief to become a glimmering look instead of a thundering clap before his silence began to devastate me and I began reaching for him. Reaching in the form of a soft wind blowing next to his ear, the extinguishing of a candle flame, the creak of floorboards, his chin jutting suddenly toward the darkest corner of the room. I knew he felt me, the way I had felt him. If I breathed deeply enough, though I possessed no lungs, no throat, the air would grant me this one desire, and I could utter a struggled whisper of his name. Thus would begin a game of seek and find. Before me, his ears twitched, his gaze sharpened, his pulse quickened, each movement a stroke of calculated lethality. A terror in knowing he would find me as I had nowhere to hide and he would not let me go. He would devour it - this heart of my own, beating because of him.

The chase began in the confines of his chambers, with me perched on the window’s ledge, pressed against the bedpost, spreading myself across the settee. He would follow my whispers until his breath tickled me, his hands reaching for my hips, his lips brushing greedily against the side of my nose, my cheek, until he reached the corner of my mouth. My being took its physical form beneath his touch. He melted into me like a lover, heart beating against mine.

“Margery, is it you?” he would ask when I allowed him to catch me, the wall against my back, his lips pressed to my neck, my fingers dancing in his hair. Is that my name? The name was a chorus of bells in my ears, the taste of lemon and sugar on my licked off my fingers, the chill of the first fall of snow, running, running far. His voice only echoed in the chamber, sharpening my eyes on the man before me. His eyes still held the gaze of a predator darkened slightly with the subtle sheen of agony.

“I’m losing my mind.” He would cling to me, shaking hands pressing against the expanse of my skin. A womanly figure suddenly bare beneath his calloused palms, feeling his roughness as he explored my hips, shoulders, forearms, hands, and the back of my head, now filled with thin hair that cascaded like water beneath his fingertips.

Why am I here? A break within me, a flood of questions that extended far beyond the confines of this singular room. Legs fueled by fire and fear, rushing through the door, a known path through the maze of castle halls, the wintry dead of night, a clearing deep in the woods, a small stone resting against fresh earth beneath a towering pine. A place I had never known but yearned dearly for.

“I miss you, my love.” He doesn’t hear me. Instead, his breath deepens into his chest, his tone dropping low as he guides the form beneath his fingers to his bed, laying me to rest, pressed against him. I wait patiently for his hands to grow still, his pulse to quiet, the fire to grow dim. I remind myself to ask about the forest when he is finished. But the question, my thoughts, my heartbeat, would quiet too, and I would not remember. I would not remember an existence outside of his arms. No forest beckoned to me. I could only feel my wintry cold, a ghost pressing against his warm body.

Why am I here? The question, again, would always be the last of my breath before the moon’s glow swallowed the room whole, my being ceasing to exist, floating away from his hands, from this place. In the quietest of moments, I knew one thing. I knew it was true. He was nothing but a man who pined, who captured, who wounded, who killed - My King. I would always appear the next day in his chambers, waiting to see him again, but in the moments between sleeping and waking, I could almost make out the sounds of his sobs, his choking breath like a trapped animal crying out to the darkness, to me.

"Margery, please… I’m sorry.” I had no breath to speak, and his bed had grown stiff beneath me, his slumbering form growing cold beside me. The forest outside had fallen silent.