Chapter Two
Since last night, when he vanished after threatening her without so much as a flinch, Anne couldn't shake the feeling of being constantly watched. It was as if at any moment, she'd run into him again. It was pure madness. She knew it. She must have completely lost her mind. Things like this didn't exist. At least, not outside of books. In real life, a ghost who was impossibly HOT—and possibly a murderer—showing up in your house was… well…
Insanity.
Madness.
A fucking constant hallucination.
Donnie Darko had his damn rabbit, and she…
"Charles," she said out loud, to no one, just to hear the sound of the name. She took one last drag from her cigarette before tossing it into the sink.
The owner of that name also had eyes as black as the night and hair so red it reminded her of lava flowing down from an erupting volcano. And beyond that… No matter how much she wanted to ignore it, he also possessed a maddening beauty—strong, threatening features that were absolutely magnetic.
If he were real… And as dangerous as he claimed and appeared to be…
Why the hell did she want to stay in that house?
The ghost had made it clear that the house was his. Only his, and even more so, from three to four in the morning.
That was when he took on a physical form. Like magic, appearing out of thin air. How? How was that possible!
It didn't make sense; it wouldn't go down her throat, it was…
"Crazy." Anne bit into the apple with an irritated expression, her brow furrowed in impatience as she chewed.
Defying all the laws of physics and each of her beliefs—well, her lack of them—Charles seemed to have appeared to sever her, once and for all, from society.
Thoughts spun in her head like a raging tornado. Everything she had always disbelieved was being put to the test. All the skepticism that gave her some semblance of courage had evaporated the moment she saw that man standing at the foot of her bed, looking at her with eyes that seemed to hold an entire galaxy.
She couldn't deny the growing fear as the morning wore on. She took a generous swig of brandy with the remaining bit of apple still in her mouth as she strode out of the kitchen, grabbing the car keys that had been sitting there for two days, the vehicle parked in front of the house.
Opening the door, Anne stepped out wearing pajamas, barefoot. Her hair was loose and slightly tangled, simply because she hadn't bothered to brush it when she woke up.
She deactivated the alarm on her 4x4 truck. A sedan wouldn't have made it halfway to this place, and she had actually grown to like it—it was almost like a cherry-colored tractor that required a step to climb into. She opened the back door, and her eyes lit up as she spotted the box, pulling it out with a triumphant smile on her lips.
"Here!" She grabbed the small wooden box from inside the cardboard one and hugged it to her chest, closing the car door and heading back to the house. Her bare feet moved quickly over the gravel, crossing the threshold and stepping onto the polished, gleaming wood of the living room floor.
Her long brown hair swayed as she, fueled by an energetic sensation of happiness, practically skipped up the stairs to the second floor. But that sensation was just the result of a generous gulp of brandy. After two hours… that was the kind of feeling that drinking again caused.
Anne slid across the floor, taking a sharp turn toward the completely silent attic. She was dancing, knowing she was either going crazy, or… he was real.
"Possibly, I'm going insane!" She let the thought that had been screaming in her head escape through her throat, reverberating through the attic.
She couldn't believe she was talking to a ghost. An entity. And if all of this wasn't just a figment of her lonely, alcohol-soaked mind, deep down, she didn't want to feel fear. The wooden box was clutched tightly to her chest as her slender hand opened the heavy door and pushed it in.
"But if I'm not, Charles…"
She wondered where the ghost-man was. If he was capable of doing anything other than watching during the rest of the hours. What did he do during the day? At dusk and in the hours before three and after four in the morning?
Anne had approached this in an unusual way. She was afraid, of course, but after the initial shock, all that fear had morphed into a curiosity that embraced the madness. Was it him, from the beginning, making her feel those sensations? As if the house were both magical and haunted. Was it him moving her glasses, cleaning her rooms, making coffee, watching?
Or was it her, from the start, losing her sanity and detaching completely from reality the moment she set foot in that house?
She looked around the attic, perfectly illuminated by the morning sun's rays streaming in through the large windows; and seeing them that way, closed, Anne placed the wooden box on the floor and walked over to the first of three old windows, pulling the rusty latch and swinging it open with a jolt.
A thin layer of dust scattered, releasing glittering particles into the air that tickled her nose. After opening all the windows, she found herself in silence once more, listening to the sound coming from outside. It was like a symphony, an orchestra of birds; there were so many different songs that she found herself imagining what their colors, the shape of their beaks, and the size of their wings might be, as her eyes wandered over the details of the room.
Life in the countryside was beautiful, full of secret pleasures she would slowly discover. She needed staff because the place was enormous, but she'd think about that later. It was still too early to bring people inside since all she wanted was to be alone.
Leaning against the window, Anne thought of her mother.
Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, in the black void, she saw her. Her smiling face, in white and opaque lines. Her relationship with her mother had always been turbulent. Full of intense arguments and slaps on the table. But despite all the yelling, the first thing she heard when she imagined her mother was her laughter. And the second thing was the warm, slow, and so comforting way she said, "I love you, daughter."
Her eyes stung.
"Can you hear the birds outside?" Despite her low tone, her voice seemed to echo throughout the attic. "Can you see me… breaking promise after promise? Or are you already in heaven, far away from all this crap?"
The laugh was desolate and uncomfortable, and she rubbed her face to wipe away the tears.
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Ann… The more you dwell on problems, the more they'll multiply, sweetheart…"
Her lips pressed into a tight line of unhappiness and bitterness. She didn't want to be so hard on herself by saying that she had probably caused her own mother's untimely death. Watching her daughter waste away in broad daylight had been… A burden she couldn't bear for long.
Anne knew how much her mother had suffered because of her addiction, knew how much it made her… disappear even while alive. Fade away, like a wick reaching its end… too quickly.
Leaning against the window, Anne felt that the sill was the only thing keeping her from falling, and perhaps it really was, given how her heart felt like a coal furnace, burning and spewing black, toxic, deadly smoke.
She turned, and almost immediately, sat down, rubbing her face again, utterly exhausted. When she opened her eyes again, her gaze fell like an anchor on one of the holes left by the shots she had fired there. Her eyes widened slightly, and without thinking much, she began to crawl toward it. Her heart nearly stopped as she closed her left eye and focused closely on that small damage and what it had revealed.
Anne bolted.
She reached the kitchen in ten seconds, grabbed the biggest knife she could find, and quickly made her way back to the exact spot where she had been before. Carefully positioning the knife's tip in the gap between the wooden boards, she searched for a good angle and tried to pry the wood upward.
She needed a hammer.
She pushed harder, and the knife began to bend.
"Fucking shit!" And completely determined, Anne yanked the knife out of the gap and stood up, walking through the house. She quickly threw on an old sweatshirt, denim shorts, and slippers, took three long swigs from the bottle of bourbon, and got into the cherry-colored truck, speeding toward the town.
Oh, Walch didn't want an angry ghost in the house. Maybe there was a reason Charles had said little to nothing about that flask.
Twenty miles west, the car stopped at the first hardware store she saw and bought the first hammer she found. As long as she followed the rules, nothing bad would happen, right?
It was there that Walch had an epiphany. If she could fix, glue, or… replace the flask… If… if she could somehow gain that creature's trust, maybe she could get to know him better and… who knows… write about it all. Maybe that's where the next pages of her mystery would be written.
She stopped at the exit of the store and went back inside, this time with a mental list.
She needed much more than just a hammer if she wanted to make this work.
(…)
She placed the newly purchased toolbox on the floor, the weight of reality pressing down on her as if daring her to question what was real and what was merely a figment of her unraveling mind. Did such things truly exist, or was she teetering on the edge of madness? With a deliberate motion, she picked up the hammer, its cold metal comforting in her grip. The claw side easily found purchase under the nail's head, and with a smooth levering motion, she pulled it out. Each nail she removed seemed to echo with the tension that gripped her thoughts. She felt in control, didn't she? Her actions were deliberate, her mind clear—or so she wanted to believe. Yet, why did it feel like everything was slipping through her fingers?
As the final nail was extracted, Anne carefully pried away the old wooden plank, no more than fifty centimeters long. Her breath caught when she glimpsed the narrow gap it revealed, no wider than ten centimeters. Something was hidden there. The glint of something ancient, a hint of decay, caught her eye.
Her pulse quickened as her eyes sparkled with a mix of dread and curiosity. She reached into the shadowed crevice, her fingers brushing against the rough surface of what appeared to be an old wooden box. It was a small chest, the woven straw lid nearly consumed by termites, giving it a ghostly, skeletal appearance.
Heart pounding, Anne used the hammer to remove two more adjacent planks, widening the gap just enough to pull the chest out. In the dim light of the room, she brought it closer, the faint smell of earth and rot clinging to it. Opening the chest, she found a collection of bottles inside, each one a relic from another time—old medicine bottles, or perhaps vintage flasks. Some were cracked, others shattered, likely victims of the shot from her thirty-eight.
A distant sound broke the silence, faint but insistent. Her phone was ringing. But hadn't she left it behind when she went to town? The thought stirred a deep anxiety within her. Clutching the chest close, Anne descended the stairs, drawn toward the source of the sound, each step weighed down by a growing sense of unease. The further she went, the more the boundary between reality and something darker seemed to blur. She grabbed the phone and noticed 28 unread messages from Dave.
A sigh was inevitable. Anne placed the chest on the table and answered the phone.
"I'm alive, I'm fine, and I can't talk right now. Bye."
She hung up on Dave.
The writer returned to the kitchen, where the rest of her purchases still sat in bags.
She looked at the newly purchased vodka bottle and opened it without a second thought.
Today wouldn't be the day.
Certainly, not tomorrow, either.
Taking a generous sip, she grabbed some bags and headed back to the library.
Those bottles seemed like solid proof of her sanity. Everything seemed lighter now that she was sure she wasn't staring into a dark room fantasizing about bears nearly two meters tall.
Right?
She smiled to herself, taking another sip as she placed a record on the turntable and sat down, carefully sorting through the shards of glass in different colors that lay inside the old box.
And there, Anne Walch spent the next long hours listening to Lana Del Rey vinyls and meticulously gluing tiny shards of glass, without realizing that as the bottle reached halfway, so did the night, creeping across the sky and bringing with it a devastating drunkenness that, among shards, chords, and fiery sips, enveloped her in a kind of trance.
An energetic, intense, deep vibration.
Lost.
With the sound of the wind, Anne opened her eyes again. She was still right there, in the same spot where she had fallen asleep, slumped over the table in her library.
Hesitant at first, her brain was adjusting to the idea that this was reality. In the first ten seconds of total inertia, with her eyes open in the silent room, illuminated only by the orange light of the chandelier, the thought that time had passed quickly flashed through her mind before disappearing and giving way to a sense of unreality.
Her breathing quickened as she straightened in the chair, looking around. The windows in the living and dining rooms were open.
Wide open.
The curtains she had bought fluttered in the wind, which gusted in, howling and making the windows rattle.
There was still a flicker of doubt, only because of the silence. Her eyes fell on the vinyl, and the record was spinning at the end, emitting an almost mute sound.
Anne was about to get up when she heard the creak of wood in the distance. Her blue eyes darted toward the door as her heart began to race erratically. A strange fear was creeping inside her when the sound came again, louder this time, and Anne stood up at the exact moment the shadow revealed itself, entering the library.
It was a panther.
Completely black.
Her heart leaped, with a massive shiver running down her spine. She felt her feet cemented to the ground and her core freezing. As the sound of the wind whipped through the air, Anne realized…
She stared into those black eyes.
Terrified, her body trembled as that thought hit her. The enormous panther bared its teeth, starting a series of slow steps toward the table. Its fur gleamed in the night's light, moving coldly; in two seconds, the animal stopped in front of her.
Inevitably, Anne was barely able to breathe. She was petrified.
Feeling her legs knock against the side of the chair when suddenly, the animal lunged. Its heavy paws colliding with her chest, knocking her back into the chair with such force that she was thrown from the seat directly onto the floor. But before she could feel the impact, she felt the earth, and when she blinked, the creature that had leaped onto her had simply vanished.
Utterly terrified, panting, wondering how on earth this could be real, the writer tried to pull herself together. As she began to realize what was happening, her blue eyes darted around the space she could see, and she confirmed that she was alone.
Anne heard the sound of the wind passing through the foliage of the tall trees. The damp ground and the cold easily seeped through her flannel pajamas.
Then she heard branches snapping.
She turned, her chest heaving.
Something was wrong.
The fear lingered, sharp and unyielding, like a predator's gaze fixed on its prey. An instinctive sense that she was being hunted, toyed with, filled the air with a suffocating tension. And then, like a snake coiling around its victim, two hands suddenly gripped her sides. The sensation was electrifying, sending a jolt of adrenaline coursing through her veins, leaving her on the brink of fainting.
Long fingers traced a slow, deliberate path from her hips to her neck, their touch rough, as if they were trying to tear into her flesh, to rip her apart with a cruel precision. The scrape of those fingers against her skin was violent, the kind of pressure that would have drawn blood if they had claws.
But instead of pain, a strong chest pressed firmly against her back, pinning her in place. Heavy, heated breaths swept through her hair, brushing against her nape like a promise of something darker. The wind howled, branches snapped outside, and every creak of the floorboards echoed like a warning as he pulled her closer, tighter.
A quiet, almost inaudible gasp escaped her lips, a sound swallowed by the oppressive silence. Her mind spiraled into paralysis, caught between terror and a strange, seductive pull as a rough hand slid over her shoulder. The rasp of a beard scratched her fair skin, and with a single, forceful tug, the buttons of her flannel pajamas popped, the fabric parting like a wound.
The sensation was overwhelming, a surge of heat from within that seemed to cook her from the inside out. Every inch of her skin buzzed with an unbearable vibration, leaving her feeling more like a puppet in the shadow's grasp, powerless against the intensity that seized her.
Desperate to see his face, to confirm what she feared and craved to know, Anne tried to turn, but he held her fast, unyielding. The strength in his grip was absolute, and it wasn't just physical—it was a control that seeped into her mind, warping her thoughts and flooding her with a bizarre, maddening desire.
This was unlike anything she had ever felt before, more intense than any sensation she had known, and the line between dream and reality blurred until it almost disappeared. Her vision, hazy and unfocused, drifted shut as she reached up, fingers digging into the thick beard, pulling at it with an urgency that bordered on desperation.
She arched her neck back, exposing her throat in a gesture that felt both submissive and defiant. It was pure madness, an indecent, uncontrollable need that she couldn't resist.
This had to be a dream, a creation of her own twisted imagination, a secret fantasy playing out in the depths of her subconscious.
But when his hand closed around her neck, the pressure was real, the sensation unmistakable. The warmth of his breath against her lips as he leaned in, the weight of his mouth descending on hers—it was overwhelming, like being dragged into a searing, invisible ocean where the heat consumed her, leaving her without any semblance of balance or control.
Anne had never experienced anything like this, not in a dream, not in reality. And just as the intensity reached its peak, she was yanked back, as if pulled by an invisible rope, dragging her out of the abyss and into the harsh light of consciousness.
She awoke with a gasp, breathless and trembling, the remnants of the dream still burning through her veins. Disoriented, her chest heaved with the effort to calm the fire raging within.
And there he was, Charles, seated across the room in one of the burgundy armchairs, his presence undeniable, his gaze searing into her with a heat that matched the intensity of what she had just experienced.
His black eyes smoldered with a wildness that sent a shiver down her spine, a dangerous, untamed energy that seemed to promise everything she had felt in that fevered dream and more. The air between them crackled with a tension that was almost tangible, heavy with the unspoken, the unsatisfied. It was as if the dream had crossed the threshold into reality, bringing with it a desire that could not be contained.
By God and all the hells, the raw, primal power in his gaze set her pulse racing anew, her body reacting with an uncontrollable surge of heat. His silence was louder than any words, a dark, seductive force that pulled her in, making her crave the touch that had been so vividly real just moments ago.
Charles was no longer just a figure from her dreams; he was a living, breathing embodiment of her deepest fears and darkest desires. The wildness in his eyes blazed with an intensity that threatened to consume her completely, a primal force that made her heart race and her breath catch. Anne swallowed hard, feeling the raw, untamed energy that seemed ready to pull her into its depths. She felt he knew every one of her thoughts, fantasies, dreams, and desires. She felt that Charles was inside her, watching her with the same eyes as now, while she stifled a scream in her throat.
"Do you want to kill me?" she whispered, stunned.
"Usually…, that's the last option," he whispered back.
"It was a rhetorical question." The writer stared at him intently. "Are you a demon, Charles? Or… a ghost or… what exactly are you?"
And then, right before her trembling blue eyes, Charles vanished. The breath caught in her throat as she stood frozen, scanning the room with wide eyes for two agonizing seconds, only for him to reappear, suddenly so close that the urge to touch him was undeniable. Her hands pressed against his broad chest—hard as steel, yet radiating a heat that felt like it could consume her.
When she looked up, she found his strong face and those piercing, unnervingly dark eyes that made everything around her feel even more sinister.
"I don't know," the dark creature murmured, the unexpected softness in his voice sending chills down her spine. "But I know what you are…"
His large hand was so big that it completely covered hers, capturing it, fingers closing over her flattened palm, squeezing with a deliberate, almost possessive force. "An intruder. Someone who doesn't belong here," he whispered, his voice dangerously close, so close that she could feel the heat of his breath against her skin. "Someone who needs to leave if she doesn't want to lose her mind… or die."
His voice. His hands. The cold, so strong that became fire. The eyes.
The red flags were everywhere, so why couldn't she just… take the wise advice of that ridiculously hot demon and get out of there?
"I…" Her eyes stung. What was she doing? "Why does everything feel so… intense?" She was honest. "The fear, the curiosity… and… even this." She referred to the touch, and that made Charles release her immediately.
Because he felt it too.
Like a wave of energy pushing him. Propelling.
"I've been thinking…" Anne's voice was hoarse and shaky. Her whole body trembled. "You can't be arrested, right? Like, by the police…"
The redhead laughed derisively.
"I guess that's a no." She shrugged. "So you can kill me, like,… without consequences?"
"Exactly." With his eyes fixed on hers, Charles had the strange feeling that this woman was manipulating him.
"That's great…" Anne smiled, feeling relieved.
"What?" The red eyebrows arched as he looked her up and down, perhaps never appearing so intimidating.
Anne's heart skipped a beat.
"You can kill me without consequences."
"And how can that possibly benefit you to the point of thinking it's great?"
"Well, since you're the new guy around here, let's just dive right in. I'm pretty sure I've already given you the trailer: Mom's dead, my siblings despise me—well, except for my baby sister, who's too busy pitying me to hate me properly. My life? Oh, it's a train wreck in slow motion, mostly because I can't seem to stop drowning in booze. The media? They've turned me into their favorite punching bag, and my reputation? It's not just in the trash; it's buried so deep it's probably fossilized by now. So, if the universe decided to gift me a killer to save me from the hassle of doing the deed myself, well, isn't that just the kind of cosmic efficiency I should be thanking my lucky stars for?" And somewhat slyly, she smiled.
"You really are crazy, lady." Charles had a deep wrinkle between his eyebrows. Why did she seem to awaken some kind of… humanity in him?
"So, I was thinking… Could you maybe hold off on killing me until I finish my last book? You know, just a little professional courtesy. I'd hate to be stuck in limbo forever with an unfinished manuscript hanging over my head. Plus, if I off myself, my sister's going to be a wreck—like, lifelong therapy and a collection of cats kind of wreck. But if I get murdered? She might actually get some closure. You'd be doing us both a favor, really."
But he disappeared before he could respond, and looking at the clock, Anne realized it was four in the morning. Her eyes fell on the two glued but still shattered flasks since the bullet had pulverized much of the glass.
With her heart galloping in her chest, she collapsed into the armchair.
(…)
The wooden bed, even in pieces—headboard, footboard, and sides—was ridiculously heavy. And those "damn stairs," as she'd affectionately started calling them over the past half hour, weren't making things any easier. But hey, progress is progress, right? Only the slats and the mattress left.
Gasping for air, Anne finally reached the highest room in the house, clutching the wooden slats like they were some sort of trophy. Now, just the mattress. Not exactly a comforting thought—more like a reminder that she still had a battle to win. She placed the slats down next to the other pieces, casting a quick, proud glance at the small wooden box she'd safely tucked in the corner.
It was late, already past three o'clock, and the sun would set soon. Anne hurried down the stairs, once again confronting the beast of a mattress like it was a monster taunting her from the guest suite. She grabbed its padded edges and stood it upright, dragging it through the obstacle course of tools scattered on the floor. Reaching the stairs, she realized the obvious: pulling it up was the only option. With a deep sigh, she climbed the first step, lifting the mattress and using every last bit of strength she could muster.
"Damn… weight!" she huffed, cursing her life choices and the existence of gravity after nearly seven minutes of grueling effort.
Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, she got the mattress to the top, letting it drop with a satisfying thud as she flopped down on it, panting like she'd just run a marathon. Her blue eyes scanned the room, taking in the disassembled bed parts and scattered screws. The open windows let in a cool breeze that felt almost too kind, as she wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
The first three buttons of her pajamas had to go—wasn't that hot outside, but she was pretty sure she was slowly roasting from the inside out. Maybe it was the house. Or maybe it was just Anne, turning into a human oven.
With a mix of stubborn determination and sheer exhaustion, she began assembling the bed. Some hidden genius for this kind of thing seemed to kick in, though she couldn't resist cursing loudly enough to make a sailor blush. Half an hour later, the bed was finally put together. The room, bathed in the soft, warm light of the setting sun, was starting to cool down, and for a brief moment, everything seemed peaceful.
She threw the mattress onto the slats with the last of her energy, then dragged in a bedside table, a rug, pillows, and bedding. After setting everything up and putting the tools away, Anne stood back, surveying her handiwork. It wasn't just a bed—it was a victorious battle against the forces of chaos and the cruel gods of heavy furniture. And damn, if that wasn't the most satisfying thing she'd done all day.
Triumphant but utterly spent, she shuffled downstairs, grabbed whatever food was closest, and downed some guava juice that had been languishing in the fridge since her arrival. It wasn't until she nearly fainted after raising her arms to stretch that it hit her—she smelled like a coal worker who'd spent sixteen hours in the furnace room.
With a groan, she took the glass of juice with her to the bathroom, where she turned on the shower. The water, heated by a boiler that must have been designed by someone with a sadistic streak, came out scalding, fogging up the shower and mirror almost instantly. Taking another sip of juice, she started unbuttoning her flannel pajamas, ready to wash away the day's sweat and grime—and maybe, just maybe, regain some semblance of humanity. Maybe it was arrogance to think he was aware of her dreams. Perhaps Charles's true intention was solely to drive her out of there through mind games and tricks that felt like hallucinations. After all, who was she kidding, he had been as clear as day.
Hidden beneath that fabric, a body full of curves was revealed. Anne Walch's arms were slender and long, with delicate shoulders and prominent collarbones, in an elegant way that highlighted her shoulder blades. Her round, ample breasts complemented her delicate ribs and slender waist, which moved as she walked around the bathroom. She let her hair down, which cascaded down her white back, reaching her lower back in waves of deep brown, a stark contrast to her pale skin.
She untied the drawstring holding her sweatpants, and the garment fell to the floor. Her legs were long and shapely, her muscles not toned, so the delicate, youthful appearance remained. Though alcohol was ravaging her skin and organs over the years, she still appeared, outwardly, to possess some semblance of health.
The writter took another sip of the juice, watching the steam fill the entire bathroom. She was tired. Anne needed that bath to rid herself of the nauseating smell and the pain that had taken hold of her back.
With an exhausted sigh, Anne slipped off the white lace panties, letting them fall to the floor.
Naked, she wandered back to the bedroom, reaching for the brandy stashed in the nightstand drawer. A long, defiant swig followed as she savored the burn, bottle in hand, before heading back to the bathroom. She took three more swigs before stepping into the shower.
In a way, Walch was committing suicide.
The hot water hit her pale skin until it turned red, relaxing her muscles. She washed her hair and body, taking some time to soothe every aching inch and let herself be carried away by the daydreams that, even without admitting it, had motivated her all day.
The fear, the grief, and the drunkenness intensified and, at the same time, blurred everything. A short while later, the writer was focused on combing through her tangled hair as she walked down the hallway toward the attic.
The late afternoon was approaching when she arrived up there and saw how the light hit the bed she had spent the entire day assembling. A warm feeling took over. The hairbrush slid through her strands as her bare feet carried her to the bed. She sat on it, leaving the brush aside to pick up the box from the nightstand.
Anne opened it, revealing an old perfume bottle. It had belonged to her grandmother, then her mother, and now… It was her time to keep it. Collecting dust somewhere, u ntill that day.
Her grandfather, a Turkish perfumer, had crafted the glass of the bottle, the silver clasp, the straw, and the sprayer. A true master of the art of enchanting the woman he loved, he had gifted her with a unique and secret fragrance. Her grandfather had filled that bottle with a scent that said more than anything else about his honest feelings for Zara, her grandmother, until the day of her death.
Arut died first, but Zara passed away three days later. People said her grandmother had died of a broken heart.
The truth? That little bottle had been a solid memory of her bond with Daisy, her mother, since she had passed, and it must have been the same with Zara when Anne's grandmother died.
She lay down on the bed, thinking of her mother.
Daisy Walch had given birth to three girls and a boy. First came Samantha, then Jordan, Anne, and then Eliza.
Anne's blue eyes slowly closed, and she was thinking about the real reason she had rented that house when she fell asleep. But Anne didn't dream of anything. She just rested, a necessary rest that felt cradled by an extremely cozy bed and a delightful warmth that contrasted with the cold outside.
When she opened her eyes, she was lying in the bed she had spent all day assembling. Her breathing suddenly quickened, cutting through the sound of the wind coming through the open windows. Anne sat up in bed, a nervousness taking over her spirit, and she had to stretch her neck and close her eyes, breathing deeply to get up.
She closed the windows. It was night. Her stomach churned.
The damn thirst was coming, sooner or later, crushing.
Anne descended the stairs, turning on all the lights as she moved through the house, and turned on the outside lights as well, swallowing hard. She returned to the kitchen just to grab the first bottle on the counter and drink until she couldn't stand the burn anymore. She pulled the bottle away with flames shooting out of her nostrils and even teared up as the bitter taste of brandy filled her tongue.
With the fatigue under control, she glanced at the clock, and realizing it was two-forty in the morning, her fingers tightened around that bottle. Her heart raced as Charles's voice echoed in her mind. Every hair on her body stood on end, and the brunette shook herself off like a wet dog. She mustered the courage to walk to the front door, and when she stepped outside, Anne lit a cigarette and leaned against the doorframe. She would never sleep through the night again. It was as if her brain was being reprogrammed to wake up at three in the morning or close to it.
She couldn't think too much. If she did, she'd end up in a mental institution. He was a ghost. A fact, not a hallucination. She had made an offer to postpone her murder so she could write one last book, setting aside the fact that that book basically summed up her encounters with Charles.
Feeling the cold of the early morning embrace her body, she inhaled the air that smelled of wet earth, grass, moss, and wood. Life in the countryside wasn't just silence. It was a storm of sensations, aromas, and visions.
Anne held the cigarette between her teeth and took a deep breath. Even if she clung to a single and probably very weak thread of lucidity, it was the only thing she had. The vague feeling that she still had some control over her own life. But the truth was that she had been in a spiral of fire and defeat for so long that she no longer knew how to distinguish the bad from the worse.
She smoked that entire cigarette as the drinks she had taken earlier were absorbed by her system and closed the door, going back inside. She felt her muscles tensing again as she climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Was this what they called a haunting? Charles was haunting her.
Manipulating.
Those dreams haunted her—the faceless man who always remained just out of sight, his presence a blend of searing heat and bone-chilling cold. The scents lingered, intoxicating and dangerous, never letting her glimpse his eyes. Yet, deep down, she knew. It was him. The same man she found herself waiting for now, heart pounding in anticipation and dread. A terrifying shiver ran down her spine, so intense that when the alarm clock blared through the house, its sound felt like a bolt of lightning striking her.
Anne stopped in the hallway leading to the attic as the shrill sound overwhelmed the house. Her heart now beat in a morbid rhythm.
Was it fear?
Nothing happened. He didn't come as she thought he would, appearing in the air like a mirage, a hallucination. Maybe that was it.
Maybe there was nothing.
After all, physical hallucinations were just that. Seeing what didn't exist. Feeling what didn't exist. Hearing what didn't exist.
Maybe she was going crazy.
The writer swallowed hard, taking slow steps down the hallway until she reached the silent staircase leading to the attic. The sound of the clock echoed in the distance, and nothing else could be heard by the woman's keen ears as she placed her left foot on the first step, unsure if she had the courage to take the next.
The wood groaned beneath her feet, echoing the haunting memory of the dream she had in the very room she now approached. As she reached the second step, a cold dread clawed at her, but with a sudden surge of reckless courage, Anne skipped the third, leaping from the fourth to the sixth. Fear had no place here; she had to confront it, to understand it… to apologize before it was too late.
"Stop apologizing."
A faint wave of tranquility washed over Anne as the door creaked open. The moment she stepped into the attic, a gust of wind tousled her hair, sending goosebumps racing across her skin. The scent of lavender hung in the air—a smell that hadn't been there before. The wind, too, was new, despite her clear memory of shutting the windows.
The room was noticeably colder. Her gaze landed on the empty bed, but it took less than a second to spot him, standing by the last window, where the horizon had held her gaze just the day before.
The tall figure stared out into the night, and as soon as he was noticed, Charles turned, his black eyes catching the moonlight filtering through the glass. Goosebumps prickled her skin, an uneasy silence filling the space between them, tension thick enough to choke on.
"What you've done to this place… is unforgivable."
The words froze Anne in place. His voice, so different—cold, hollow, void of life—sent a sharp pain twisting in her stomach.
Eyes wide, fear trembling through her, she tried to mask it with a stammered, "I… thought you'd like having a bed."
"I only have an hour in this world; do you think I'll spend it sleeping? Are you out of your mind?" His words, icy and sharp, cut through the air like the bitterest English winter. Lips tightened into a thin line, disappointment biting at her.
"Sorry," was all she could manage, but before another breath could be drawn, Charles materialized inches away, forcing a startled step back. The cold clung to him like a shadow, seeping into her bones and leaving her breathless. Let's adjust that first part:
Her heart pounded in her chest, each beat echoing the rising tension, but she refused to let fear win, to let him see the panic creeping into her every move.
"I told you to stop apologizing." Charles's voice was a menacing growl, more a threat than a request.
The chill of his presence was unbearable, but she couldn't help but mutter, "You could at least show some gratitude..."
It was always like this. Ever since she was young, she'd been known for not letting anything go, for never backing down from a fight. Sure, the drink had turned her into someone who avoided people and conflict, even if it meant apologizing when she wasn't wrong. But old habits die hard.
"Gratitude?" His voice dripped with sarcasm. "For cramming this place with furniture? As if I were some bug trapped in a matchbox!"
The ridiculousness of it all was almost too much. "Well, excuse me for not knowing your interior design preferences, Mr. 'I Only Have an Hour to Haunt'! Next time, I'll just leave the bed out for the raccoons. And, guess what, I did that because you also live here!" she growled back, stamping her foot. She was drunk, and unlike all the other times, suddenly, looking for a fight.
Her blue eyes glared into his black ones, and they locked in a battle of stares for a full minute until Anne's teeth began chattering uncontrollably. She would need a lot more brandy to kill the cold. It felt like standing naked in a freezer, counting the seconds until she froze solid.
"I tried to glue the pieces of the flasks I found, but I couldn't," the tone was one of pure defeat, and at the same time, absolute rage, "So, I left the damn perfume bottle that belonged to my grandmother…. my mother gave it to me after my first overdose. Why the hell do you have to be such a monumental prick? I mean, a bastard. No, scratch that, a real fucking asshole! I mean… You get it, right?!"
Anne swallowed hard in the funereal silence. He was staring at her so intently, and even so, she couldn't decipher even a sliver of what was going through Charles's mind. He gave no hints, no expression other than a naturally menacing demeanor.
With her breath caught in her throat as the seconds dragged on and began to cover her with invisible shovelfuls of dirt, she decided to start that conversation over.
"I'm trying to make this fucked-up situation work, trying to share a goddamn roof with you, which is already insane, and you're not making it any easier, are you?" she hissed, the frustration and booze making her bolder than she'd ever be sober. "I'm freezing my ass off, pissed as hell, and if you keep this shit up, I swear I'll drag in a priest or whatever the hell it takes to exorcize your sorry ass and send you straight out of MY house!" The words tumbled out, reckless and fueled by the alcohol coursing through her veins. She hated being bossed around, and right now, Charles was looking at her like he owned not just the house, but her too. His presence was suffocating. "If you think I'm some scared little girl, you're dead fucking wrong!" And after two seconds of facing that same stare, she saw her own courage begin to vanish. Walch held her breath, as the absolute silence stoked her fears and every sensation that seemed to surface in his restricted presence.
For a split second, Anne felt an overwhelming sense of self-loathing. She was brave, but to what extent? How far was it safe to be fearless? She couldn't shake the growing certainty that Charles harbored a deep disdain for her, as if every glance he cast her way was laced with contempt.
It wasn't just that he didn't like her; it was the unsettling realization that whatever humanity he might possess was overshadowed by a darkness far more potent than any flicker of kindness. His soul, if he had one at all, seemed to be a battleground where malevolence held the upper hand, leaving little room for anything but the cold, calculating edge of his nature. Her breath turned to vapor, but his didn't.
"Because Charles is cold inside too", was the thought that crossed her mind.
"My chin is trembling," she whispered, her movements paralyzed by the icy atmosphere.
"That's because you're dangerously close... to me." Charles's lips barely moved, the words slipping out with a chilling detachment. He watched with a burning intensity as the fine hairs on Anne's arms slowly rose, reacting to his presence like a whisper against her skin. It was a sight so simple, yet so profoundly captivating that it nearly stopped him in his tracks. The way her body responded, so instinctively, so vulnerably, sent a shiver through him that he hadn't anticipated. His black eyes traced the path from her trembling arms back to her gaze, and in that moment, it was as if the world around him dissolved into nothing.
This wasn't just tension—it was a raw, electric current that crackled between them, igniting something deep within him that he had never felt before. Every breath she took seemed to pull him closer, each flutter of her pulse was like a drumbeat in the silence. For the first time, he was acutely aware of the space between them, a fragile boundary that could be crossed with the slightest move, a boundary that both thrilled and terrified him.
Her skin, so close, seemed to radiate a warmth that he could almost feel, despite the coldness that usually enveloped him. The delicate rise of the hairs on her arms was like a beacon, drawing him in, making him question everything he thought he knew about himself. He had seen fear before, had thrived on it, but this was different. This was something he couldn't quite grasp—an inexplicable pull, an undeniable desire to close the distance, to feel that warmth against him, to see if her body would respond the same way when he touched her.
He suppressed an overwhelming urge to play tricks on her.
Scare her as he had done with all the previous occupants before Anne.
The memory of his mouth pressed against hers wouldn't leave his mind.
"You're close to me," came the nervous reply. The woman took a step back, drunk, stumbling but unable to tear her eyes away from the man before her. "You're the one intruding on my house… And threatening me!" She stomped one foot on the ground, suddenly determined to make Charles understand exactly who was in charge here. "All I did was apologize for breaking your home." She was struggling to keep her tone calm, but she couldn't help it; before she knew it, her lips were trembling, and it wasn't from the cold anymore. "I spent the entire day dismantling a bed, piece by piece, dragging those damned things up here like I was in some kind of twisted home improvement show. I actually thought this was the perfect way to get along with the ghost—yes, the ghost—who's decided to make himself at home in my house! But oh, silly me!" Anne's voice was sharp, each word dripping with the kind of biting sarcasm that could cut glass.
She fixed Charles with a glare that could wither flowers. "You, instead of, I don't know, saying 'thanks' or maybe, just maybe, realizing that I'm going out of my way to make this insane situation work, decide to tell me that what I did was unforgivable. Un-for-giv-able! Like I just violated some sacred ghost code or something."
Her eyes narrowed as she leaned in, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "An unforgivable sin, huh? You're an absolute and complete jerk, you know that? And not just any jerk—a special breed. The kind that doesn't even realize what a massive pain in the ass he is."
She straightened up, her eyes blazing with drunken defiance. "And you know what? I'm going to drag that bed right back down those stairs, and you can float around and mope wherever the hell you want, but I'm not lifting another finger for you. Congratulations, you've officially won the title of the biggest, most ungrateful ghost in existence." And with that, she turned and left the attic, closing the door and hurrying down the stairs. Anne locked herself in her room, despite knowing it was pointless. When she found herself alone, in the silence, she noticed that the cold had disappeared, along with the scent of lavender.
A sigh escaped her.
One of those slow, controlled sighs that only serve to make you even more nervous. She looked up: the light-colored ceiling reflected the suite's lighting, and that was all. She couldn't hear a single sound. No dragging, no sinister footsteps, no eerie thuds.
The man's face came to mind, like a sting, and she forced herself to close her eyes.
The chiseled jawline, the strong chin, and the mouth naturally tinged in a paler shade. His profile nose and the black eyes framed by thick red eyebrows. There, while the last expression Charles had shown her lingered in her mind, Anne stopped.
Her long, wavy hair spread across the pillow as she lay down. She couldn't let that suspicious ghost take over her thoughts. She couldn't allow him to appear and force her to follow rules, after all, Anne lived alone for the simple, genuine, and only reason that this way she didn't have to follow any rules.
She ate when she wanted, woke up late, and went to bed at dawn. She smoked as many cigarettes as she wanted, and drank as many bottles as she pleased. She'd crank up the volume at three in the morning if she felt like it. She had only been there for thirteen days. She barely felt like the house was hers.
She couldn't consider leaving. Not now, with such a powerful story falling into her lap like a… gift.
If Charles was bothered, he could leave. That was what she was trying to staple into her thoughts, lying on the huge bed, hearing nothing but silence. Unlike the other night, there was no storm as she decided to close her eyes, determined to finally sleep.
But she couldn't stop dwelling on that conversation… and after a few minutes of tossing and turning, burying her face in the pillow to stifle the urge to scream, she concluded that maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to call the demon living in her attic an idiot.
"What's this bottle?" Suffering an involuntary spasm and with her heart nearly exploding, the writer sat up in bed with her hand on her chest and a scream involuntarily escaping her throat.
"You can't do this!" Anne's eyebrows were curved in irritation as she got out of bed.
"This?" Charles was categorical. "Wh—"
"Invade my room!" Anne snapped, cutting him off before he could even get the words out.
Charles started, "This house is mi—"
"Spare me the 'this house is mine' bullshit!" she fired back, jabbing a finger at him with all the force of her pent-up rage. The fact that she'd managed to catch him off guard—again—only added fuel to the fire. "This house isn't yours, you insufferable, overgrown ghost! I'm the one who signed the lease, paid the rent, and moved my life into this dump! So if anyone's the intruder here, it's you, Casper!"
She took another step forward, her voice dripping with acid. "You don't get to waltz in and claim every inch like you're some kind of Victorian landlord. I paid for this place, and as far as I'm concerned, that means you're just squatting in MY house! Let's give it another shot:
And then she did it—marched right up to him and, with both hands flat, shoved his chest with all the force she could muster. It was supposed to be dramatic, maybe even send him reeling. But nope. Not even a flinch. Charles stood there like an immovable statue while Anne stared at her hands pressed against his chest, her face betraying that instant, unmistakable 'oh, fuck' realization. It was like trying to push a boulder off a cliff, only to discover it was superglued to the ground.
"What do you think you're doing?" came the whisper that made Anne withdraw her hands from his broad, rigid chest and take a step back. Secretly scared, because trying to push him was like trying to push a solid wall.
"Get out," she demanded, frightened by his dangerously penetrating gaze.
"I'll leave when I want to."
"You'll leave in 39 minutes…, whether you want to or not."
Charles widened his eyes, clenching his fists. What exactly did she have in mind? All that audacity!
That crazy woman had no idea with whom she was dealing.
"So this is where you'll stay?" she insisted, crossing her arms and pacing impatiently back and forth in front of the man. Charles followed her with his eyes, silent, and Anne was starting to get more agitated.
"Do you always do this? Haunt the residents?"
Silence.
His black eyes fixed on her. Her chest heaved, and it was as if Charles could feel that breath brushing against the back of his neck. The red hairs stood on end, and he narrowed his eyes as he watched the vapor rise from her delicate mouth. Suddenly, the brunette stopped, staring at the wall and turning her back on him.
"How can you be a ghost if I can touch you?" she whispered.
Charles pressed his lips together. There was a strange feeling churning in his gut.
"Am I going crazy? Are you just a rotten fruit of my imagination?" She paced back and forth, his eyes following her in an almost hypnotic state. Unnoticed like a summer rain, a small smirk curled on the tall man's lips.
Anne Walch reached for the bottle on the nightstand, her movements deliberate, slow, almost teasing. The room was steeped in darkness, but Charles's gaze was unyielding, tracking her every move with a cold, predatory focus. He watched the way her slender fingers curled around the neck of the bottle, the way her delicate wrist twisted as she brought it to her lips. She drank deeply, her throat working as the brandy slid down, and he could almost taste it on his own tongue, the burn of it lingering in the air between them.
His eyes followed the line of her jaw, the shadowy flicker of her pulse beneath her skin, the way her chest rose and fell with each measured breath. Her long brown hair cascaded down her back, catching the faint light and shimmering like dark silk, and yet there was nothing soft about her. She was tense, guarded, and something about that tension pulled him in, a dark magnetism that made it impossible to look away.
He wasn't admiring her—he was assessing, calculating. The way her hand trembled ever so slightly as she lowered the bottle, the way her breath hitched, just barely, as she exhaled. There was no affection in his gaze, only a cold, detached interest. She was a curiosity, a puzzle to be solved, and every small gesture she made only deepened his intrigue.
Charles's black eyes remained fixed on her, his thoughts as dark as the room around them. He didn't need to speak to feel the tension that thrummed between them, the unspoken challenge in the air. She was a fragile thing, caught in his web, and he relished the way she tried to pretend otherwise, to hold on to some semblance of control in the face of his silent scrutiny.
There was no warmth in his stare, only the icy grip of a predator studying its prey. He watched her like a hunter, waiting, knowing that this was only the beginning. The shadows around him seemed to deepen, and in that dark, heavy silence, he knew he had already begun to ensnare her.
"I'll leave," he announced, for the first time in centuries, feeling what resembled… fatigue.
And finally, Anne turned around.
"What?" She couldn't help the word that slipped out of her mouth uncontrollably.
"If you're already doubting your sanity, then I've got nothing to worry about. You'll be carted out of here, strapped down and drooling, while I linger in your head, grinning like the devil in the corner of your padded cell. Even when the meds kick in, I'll be the whisper that keeps you from ever knowing what's real again."
She was silent, petrified, watching him leave the room and step into the hallway. He then turned to her again.
"Is here good enough?" His voice was empty, cold, as if stripped of all humanity. The way it wavered, just slightly, hinted at something dark and twisted beneath, something that made her blood run cold.
Walch nodded, and then the door began to close, very slowly, on its own, finally closing with a loud bang that seemed capable of making the walls of the house vibrate. With her heart racing, Anne sat down on the bed, raising her hands to see them trembling.
Who… or what the hell was he?
Damn Charles and those black eyes, damn the scent of lavender and the cold he brought. Damn the kiss they shared in that dream. All she wanted was to be alone… to be away from everything and write, yet she couldn't think of any other scenes besides her last dreams.
She lay down on the bed when her heart slowed down, and even though that room was unbearably cold, Anne closed her eyes, feeling her body warm.
But she couldn't sleep because she knew he was somewhere beyond that door doing something she could only imagine, and even then, she still had no idea what it could be.
She opened her eyes and sat on the mattress.
Her gaze fell on the clock. Three fifty. It was enough to make her stand up, pacing the room until she reached the door. Her delicate hand touched the doorknob, turning it. The complete absence of light in the hallway made her heart beat faster. She wondered if this was really what he did; terrorized people until he drove them insane.
Forced everyone to leave, even if it meant wearing the face of evil.
Anne stopped in the hallway when she thought of that. Charles, whatever he was… Was he evil?
That's when the sound of a spoon stirring in a mug reached her ears, and holding her breath, she strained her ears to listen more closely. It was coming from the kitchen, and suddenly, she found herself tiptoeing down the stairs.
When she reached the bottom, she crept over to the pillar, feeling like the ghost in this situation.
Anne saw the man's silhouette.
His hands were resting on the counter, staring intently at something outside her field of vision.
For incredible minutes, he remained in the same position, and her knees were already aching when Charles vanished into thin air before her watchful blue eyes.
Anne straightened up, walking over to the kitchen. The clock read four o'clock and a few seconds.
Everything felt strange. She was filled with anxiety, rushing to the counter where she could now see a mug; when she placed her fingers on the handle, she felt the warmth that radiated through the porcelain.
"Coffee?" She inhaled the familiar aroma of roasted beans as she cradled the mug in both hands.
Anne stood there for a few seconds, staring blankly at some random spot in that dark-brown liquid filled with aroma as her mind dived into a huge lake of questions, and for a fleeting millisecond, it felt like she was drowning there, too tired to swim to the answers.
Exactly like him, less than two minutes ago.
She found herself sitting in the cushioned chair in her library. The taste of coffee lingered in her mouth.
Why had that insolent ghost messed with the coffeemaker and poured a dose of strong coffee into the mug she always used? Anne wondered if Charles knew that this was the mug she most liked to use for her many daily doses of coffee, tea… and whiskey.
She lit a cigarette, exhausted from thinking, but her eyes wandered, almost uncontrollably, to the laptop screen. Her heart leaped inside her chest as she searched the library for someone who was no longer there.
Apparently hastily written, the note contained only a single, solitary word in the middle of a large sheet of stationery, with distinct handwriting.
Anne didn't notice the small smile that crept onto her lips as she relaxed in the chair, looking up at the ceiling as if she were looking at the sky.
"You're welcome." It was the murmur that escaped her lips before she picked up the mug and took another sip of that hauntingly delicious coffee.