Thomas POV

The tiny gray-painted kitchenette alcove serves as a cabinet, pantry, and staff kitchen table, tucked between the larger kitchen and dining room. I enter the room as Annie is taking a jar of cherry preserves off the shelf, getting everything out for tomorrow's breakfast. She spins around with a scream and the jar goes crashing to the floor, spraying red everywhere. I squeeze my eyes closed involuntarily. It looks too much like blood.

"I know what you are, sir, you're a shade, you're a specter!', she yells. "Well you can't have my mistress, and you can't have me!" Trying to make herself as tiny as possible, she squeezes into the corner.

I hold up both hands surrendering. "You're smart. You're right, Annie. But we have to keep it in the family..."

"The police", she squeaks.

"No, no, Annie. What's the first rule of service?", I ask.

"You don't talk about them you work for", she answers automatically.

"Exactly. This is a family secret, Edith's secret, and I need you to be loyal and keep it for her. I know you care about her."

"What did you do to her?!", she screeches.

"Unforgivable things", I sigh quietly, rubbing my forehead. "But...she's forgiven me anyway."

"That's your baby isn't?", she asks, her face tight with disgust.

"That really isn't any of your..."

"Business?", she finishes, more aggressively than I thought. "The mistress is my business. She had a bad time. She had a bad time when her mother died, and then when her father died, and then she went away with you and came back different. The leaves blow outside and she jumps", Annie says.

"Fuck", I whisper quietly and she jumps again. I did this. To the woman I love. "I apologize for my language. I just...didn't know it was that bad. And it's my fault. But she's mine and so is the child..."

"Child of the devil!", she screams again.

"I wish there was a way to argue with you", I say, holding up my hands again, "But you're not that far off. But she loves me, Annie. And I love her. I swear to you I will never hurt again. I will spend eternity protecting her. And I encourage you to watch over her like a hawk. Watch me. I'll earn your trust eventually."

"How long you stayin?", she asks.

"I wish I knew. Why don't you go on up to bed, and I'll clean the mess?"

"No sir, I can't allow you to clean the floor..."

"You can", I answer back with certainty. "Go on." There's no way to question my tone.

She scoots past me, terrified of my touch, as if she'll become my possessed by my mere presence. I scoop up the jam and glass, and wipe it off the floor. "Ow! What the..." Glass is jammed into my pointer finger. "I feel this." I'm getting more alive by the day.

"Doesn't make you alive."

I look up. "McMichael. I thought you were tucked into the sofa for the evening. That olive green velvet one in front of a roaring fire in the parlor. You can't be uncomfortable."

"I was asleep until I heard voices. A woman screaming. I had no idea what you were up to, but I was damn sure going to find out", Alan growls.

"I startled Annie. She dropped a jar and it was loud. That's it", I answer.

"I bet you did. It's not every day you run into the ghost of a murderer in the pantry."

"Can you please let the animosity between us die for Edith's sake? Or least until Lucille is gone? I need your help. Edith needs your help", I beg, tossing the rest of the glass into the rubbish bin.

"I will be here for Edith the way I'm always here for Edith, and I will save her from your vile sister, and from you too, and finally break the hold you have on her!"

"So much for a truce."

"I heard Annie call the baby the "devil's." Don't you wonder if it won't be...right? I mean, the sins of the father, and all that...you know I begged her to get rid of it. Someday she'll realize she can't love a corpse." He rubs his sleep eyes. In the morning light, he would not say such things.

My jaw falls open. It's too much, he says too much.

"She told me who she loved. Earlier", I taunt. "She told me all about you and how you admired her from afar. Maybe you were afraid of her, maybe you thought you'd find better, who knows, but you did what was best for yourself and let her get away. She loves you as a friend; she never loved you as anything else. Your love never shook the chandelier she said. She cares about you, she's passionately in love with me. I'M the one she married, McMicheal."

"Yes, and then you killed her, or nearly did."

I advance on Alan and squeezes my eyes closed, my sweaty fist squeezing. All see is red and my ears are ringing. I take a deep breath. "Forget it, go to bed."

"I can offer her a living husband! Certainty, a home...", Alan starts.

"And she still prefers a dead man to you", I hiss. Alan is the one to have violence in his eyes.

"You son of bitch, I can't wait to banish you, or drive a fucking stake through your frigid English heart, whichever happens first", Alan snarls

"Quiet!" Annie is on the bottom stair hissing like a wildcat. "You'll wake the mistress and she's under enough stress!"

"You're right, Annie, my apologies", I say and head up the stairs.

"She loved me her entire life", Alan calls after me.

"And I'll be inside her the entire night", I whisper, loosening my cravat. I don't look back.

"Bastard!", Alan screams after him.

"Shhhh!", Annie commands.

I head up the creaky staircase, and can't stop smirking.

I push open the door. "What was that all about?", Edith complains, sleepily. Dressed in her nightdress, exhausted, hair disheveled, I just want to comfort her until she can fall back to sleep.

"I'm so sorry we woke you, my love, go back to sleep."

"First tell me what it was about", Edith orders.

"McMichael hates me. So I was mean", I offer.

"Mean?", she asks, wide eyed. "But you're not mean, Thomas, you go straight from flawlessly polite to terrifying."

"Terrifying? Really, Edith."

She raises an eyebrow. I can't help but smile again and sit down, running my hands through her hair.

"Maybe", I concede.

I crawl in next to her. "I don't want to think about it."

She gives in and cuddles back against me. I'm not happy until my nose is pressed against the back of her ivory neck, the scent of her perfume in my lungs, her warm body pressed tight against me.

I hear a noise. My eyes blink open.

"Thomas."

I know that voice. My insides freeze, then turn to jelly. I can't look. I can't look. I'm scared to look. This can't be happening.

There, lying next to me, her perfect skin like white marble, blue veins just under her translucent skin—on her cheekbones, in her neck, under her eyes- like violet butterflies. Her long hair black as a raven's wing. My sister was beautiful, but it had been so long since I'd looked on her with anything by hatred.

"Thomas. Aren't you going to greet me?"

"You're not here. This is a dream", I say. She smirks and I want to beat her to death. I want to pound on those high cheekbones until they're shattered. But she's already dead.

"Come home with me." She reaches for me and I jerk back. My skin crawls as she my touches my arm. "Come home with me."

"You don't belong here", I say.

"We belong together. We're in this together." I nearly burst into tears hearing that again. "You belong to me, in that life, and in this one. Come home with me, brother. Or I'll kill your whore. I promise." She kisses my cheek and I squeeze my eyes closed.

I awake with a scream and look next to me. "Thomas?"

Edith is bundled tight beneath the covers next to me.

"Edith, thank God, thank God", I squeak, holding her tight.

"Thomas, what's wrong?!"

"I need to go for a walk."

"A walk?! Its 2 a.m. Thomas, what happened? You saw her, didn't you?", she gasps.

"Yes, and I need to start working on some protections for this house." It's nearly impossible to pull myself from the warm bed, from her arms, but I do.