The End of the Sentence Read Free

I didn’t mind it. I didn’t. There were worse things in the world. Never mind that I’d never seen a ghost before, or felt one in my presence. I was at a point of exhaustion where I didn’t care about what was real and what was not. 
    I heard the sound of the mail flap being lifted and closed, and an envelope falling to the floor below.
    I would not look.

4.
     

    I set about making the house my own. In the bleary October heat, I hauled out what was broken beyond repair, stacking it in heaps in and around the bathtub out front. Once I was a bit more settled in the area, I’d figure out where the dump was. But for now, best to have it out of the house. It felt like progress. I was being responsible.
    The house— my house—had clearly been lived in a long time. There were the broken and faded things, yes. Mismatched plastic dishes, pasteboard furniture, chipped jelly jars. But there was also a set of dishes I was pretty sure were real Wedgwood, and a desk of beautiful golden pine that looked to be hand-carved.
    Inside the desk were more letters. The same long white envelopes, the same Approved stamped in red ink on the outside. These, though, had been opened, read, and bound together in order of date of correspondence. I wondered if Olivia had ever written back.
    My fingers left streaks of grime and dust across the envelopes. I heard the screech of a faucet, long unturned, and then the thumping splash of water into a tub.
    The tub was clawfoot, a white curtain strung on iron rings hiding the end of it, and half-full of steaming water when I walked into the bathroom. Written on the fogged-over mirror, one word:
     
    Bathe.
     
    I hesitated, but whatever it was in the house with me had been benign so far. Much easier to poison me than to drown me in the tub, despite the horror movie I was suddenly viewing on repeat inside my head. Drowning was hard. The house didn’t feel angry. It felt full of something quieter than anger, anticipation rather than rage. There was a clean kitchen, and a gleaming tub. Whatever ghost or ghosts lived in my house, it was a tidy one. The longer I stood there, the more I could feel the grime and cobwebs on my skin. I stripped, and lowered myself into the water.
    When I stepped out, there were clean towels waiting, and a pair of old-fashioned men’s pajamas, thin blue pin stripes running down white cotton. They were slightly frayed at cuff and collar, but soft and comfortable. My jeans and t-shirt were nowhere to be seen. 
    I paused at the door. “Um. Thank you.”
    Sconces had been lit against the darkness of the hallway, flickering orange light that might have been candles, or might have been some bulb, clever enough not only to counterfeit flame but also to shine without electricity. I looked at the sconces for a moment, wondering who’d installed them. In the half-light, the fixtures looked like hands, though I hadn’t thought so during the day.
    A storm had come in while I bathed, painting the sky in streaks of purple. Burnt ozone hung in the air like someone had walked the property, smoking menthols. Thunder echoed in the distance.
    The sheets had been folded back, and the letters piled into stacks by the bed. I opened one.
     
    Seventeenth June
     
    My dear Olivia, 
     
    By now someone will have told you, though the traditions are not as they were meant to be. The town will have told you of the pair of lovers, and of the blood, and all of the things that I have been found guilty of doing to them behind the great iron door.
    The house will have given you the key.
    The prison will have told you the date of my return.
    We belong now, to each other, Olivia, and so I feel that I can say to you that I did not do the things of which I have been accused, and found guilty, and served one lifetime in atonement of already. There are appeals, and the process continues. They say I will be released. There is no proof of crime. 
    I will tell you, Olivia, the truth, if you wish it.
    I will