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a quote: “Our feet are planted in the real world, but we dance with angels and ghosts.” ~~ John Cameron Mitchell
I’ll start with a story …
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I called the picture “Bride on the stairs”- found taped to the underside of a drawer in the butler’s pantry.
I was mildly intrigued, but I had a crew and looming renovation deadline, so into in my briefcase she went.
She was on the butler’s pantry the next morning. Day 2 in the attic. I confronted my crew about messing with me. Suspicious stares had me drop that line of questioning.
Five more times she ended up in the attic until one night I visited alone to open walls and pull floorboards.
Oh God, here’s the dress. It’s not empty.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe stock standard license.
GWB says: Creepy girl.
Would not marry.
Probably wouldn’t murder, but she seems stalker-ish and I might have to.
Next owners of this house would hate me.
Sheila Garrett says: “Have you gone mad!? Marrying a man just on a picture? For a TV show!?”
I want to shake her until her teeth rattle. I want to throw something through the wall.
“And what about graduation? You’ve got one more semester to go…”
I want to scream at her. But the camera is focused on my face.
I grit my teeth. “I thought it was your dream.”
“Getting married was my dream too. But since David…” She can’t even say the word. “It doesn’t matter who anymore, I don’t want to be alone.”
My face and my heart break. I open my arms for my little girl.
“This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween.”
The cosplayer has it playing on a loop. These days digital music players can be small enough that they can easily be hidden inside a costume, and not just a bulky one like a fursuit. Those filmy chiffon skirts would provide plenty of hiding places for such a device.
She’d certainly gone all-out on the makeup. Applied less expertly, it would’ve looked cartoonish, but the lights shaded into darks perfectly around her eyes, making them look hollow and haunted.
And the longer I look at her, the less certain I become that I was looking at a master’s costuming work. Before this day was called Halloween, All Hallows’ Eve, my ancestors called it Samhain, the day when the elven-howes open their doors to all visitors, when the hidden ways become accessible to mortals.
I like to think of myself as a hard-nosed businesswoman who lives by the numbers: return on investment, profit and loss. But my mind keeps going to that line in Hamlet, about there being more in heaven and earth, and I remember that bards and poets are frequently prophets as well as storytellers.
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