Chapter 12: Moonbeam's Request
Elias slid into the bathtub, hoping the hot water would soothe his sore muscles. He shouldn't be this wrecked just from carrying ancient tools, but here he was.
He had written nearly two thousand words of a new story with Seraphina's help. The main characters were a pair of swingers in the 1970s, which was in no way a coincidence.
Jezebel and Mary had talked his ear off through dinner. Jezebel talked because that's what she did. Mary talked because she finally could. As thanks, she talked Elias through an amazing recipe for a beef stew she had learned from her grandmother. It occurred to Elias that he might have been the first person in over a century to make that recipe.
Living in a house full of ghosts had some unexpected perks, he thought with a smile.
Living in a house full of ghosts had some unexpected perks, he thought with a smile. He sank deeper into the steaming water, letting the heat penetrate the deep ache in his shoulders and back. For the first time all day, the constant, low-grade hum of the house’s presence seemed to fade into the background, replaced by the simple, physical pleasure of warmth.
His eyes drifted shut, the day’s chaos—Jezebel’s demands, Richard’s crude bargaining, Seraphina’s chilling inspiration—finally receding. His muscles unclenched one by one, a slow surrender to the water’s embrace. This was peace, a fragile, stolen moment of silence in a monument to noise.
Then the air in the bathroom chilled, a sudden, sharp cold that raised goosebumps on his arms despite the hot water. The candle on the sink’s edge flickered violently, its flame stretching into a thin, frantic ribbon of light. A form shimmered into existence directly in front of the tub, resolving into the slender figure of a woman with long, straight blonde hair.
“I am never, ever doing that again,” she announced to the room, her voice a shaky, musical chime. She hugged herself, shuddering as if shaking off a profound cold. Then her wide, blue eyes focused, taking in the claw-foot tub, the steam, and Elias’s very naked, very startled form submerged within it.
“Oh,” she said, her ethereal features softening with apology. “Wow. Bad timing. I’m so sorry.”
Elias jerked upright, sloshing water over the tub’s rim. “Moonbeam? What the hell?” He instinctively sank lower, the water lapping at his chin. “A little warning?”
“I know, I know,” she said, raising her hands placatingly. She was wearing a simple, sleeveless linen shift that seemed to be woven from moonlight and shadow. “It’s just… going outside is… disorienting. It takes so much to hold myself together out there. I had to tell someone.”
She looked at him, her head tilted, her expression genuinely contrite yet hopeful. “Do you mind if I stay? Just to talk? I promise I’m not here for… that. I get it.”
Elias let out a long, slow breath, the initial shock receding into a weary acceptance. This was his life now. “Yeah. Sure. Talk. Just… maybe don’t look directly at the… you know.”
Just… maybe don’t look directly at the… you know.”
Moonbeam’s gaze dipped below the waterline for a fleeting, unguarded moment. A faint blush colored her translucent cheeks. “Sorry,” she murmured, though the word lacked any real conviction. She stepped back and perched on a wooden stool near the bathroom counter, folding her hands in her lap.
The steam from the bath curled around her, making her seem even more like a mirage. She fidgeted with the hem of her shift, her brow furrowed in thought. “Can I… make a suggestion that might seem a little strange?”
Elias raised an eyebrow, the water cooling around his shoulders. “Stranger than this? Go for it.”
“Would you mind if I got naked, too?” she asked, her voice soft but direct. She hurried to add, “I’ll stay way over here, on this stool. I just… I like being naked. It feels real. And I feel safe with you.”
She looked at him, her blue eyes wide and earnest. “I’ll admit, I really hope you change your mind about sex someday. But I will always, always respect your wishes if you don’t.”
Elias let out a slow breath, watching the candlelight dance on the water. He thought of Richard’s crude demands, Jezebel’s predatory glee, and the exhausting transaction with Carol. This was different. This was a request, not a demand. A weird, deeply personal, and utterly baffling request, but one offered with a vulnerability the others lacked.
He didn’t see how he could say no to that.
“Okay,” he said, his voice low. “Yeah. That’s… okay.”
A radiant, grateful smile broke across Moonbeam’s face. “Thank you.” She stood up and, with a simple, fluid motion, pulled the linen shift over her head. It dissolved into mist before it even touched the floor. She sat back down on the stool, completely exposed, and drew her knees up to her chest, making herself small.
She rested her chin on her knees, her long hair cascading down. “It’s just… being like this, it’s the only time I feel like I’m not just a collection of memories and wants. Does that make any sense?”
Elias found he couldn’t look directly at her, not because of her nudity, but because of the raw honesty in her question. He stared at the opposite wall, at a crack in the plaster that looked like a lightning bolt. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It actually does.”
He risked a glance back. She was just sitting there, existing, her form more solid and detailed than he’d ever seen it. The freckles on her shoulders, the delicate lines of her collarbones. She wasn’t posing or preening. She was just being.
“So,” he said, clearing his throat and focusing very hard on her face. “You went outside. What was that like?”
Moonbeam’s expression darkened. “It’s like being stretched thin. Every part of you is pulling in a different direction, trying to fly apart. The world out there doesn’t want you. It pushes.” She shuddered, a full-body tremor. “I wanted to feel the sun on my skin one more time. But it just felt… cold. Empty.”
“Why did you do it, then?” he asked, genuinely curious.
Moonbeam wrapped her arms tighter around her knees. “I saw Colin and Eddie do it first.” She said their names like they were familiar, two more faces in the house’s crowded memory. “They just walked right out the back door like it was nothing. No hesitation at all.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide with the memory of her own shock. “In all the decades I’ve been here, I never knew that was possible. Not once. We all just… stayed inside. It was the only world.”
“When I saw them do it, something just clicked,” she continued, her voice gaining a firm, quiet strength. “If they could be that brave for themselves, I could be brave for you. I want to help you, Elias. Really help. Not just take.”
Her words hung in the steamy air, simple and devastatingly sincere. Elias felt the truth of them resonate deep in his chest, a clean, clear note in the house’s usual cacophony of need. He felt drawn to her, to this strange, naked honesty in his crumbling bathroom.
The water around him was cooling, but a different heat was building low in his stomach. He looked at her, really looked, at the way her blonde hair fell over her shoulders, at the gentle curve of her smile. The desire to slide over, to make space for her in the water, was a physical pull. He imagined her skin against his, the warmth they could generate together, a different kind of circuit.
He didn't say it out loud, but he realized that the only thing keeping him from inviting her into the tub with him and giving her everything she wanted was the memory of how he felt after kissing Carol. He remembered the leaden weight in his limbs, the hollowed-out sensation, as if a vital piece of him had been siphoned off. He didn't want his first time with Moonbeam to bring that kind of exhaustion. He didn't want their connection to be another transaction logged in the house's ledgers.
“I believe you,” he finally said, his voice rough. He reached for the towel on the rack beside the tub. “And I want to...you know...with you... It's just..."
He trailed off, the words sticking in his throat. How could he explain the transactional hollow feeling without insulting her?
Moonbeam nodded slowly, her understanding immediate and startling. “I know what you’re talking about. I felt it.” She hugged her knees tighter. “When you kissed Carol. The whole house felt it. A big, warm wave.”
She looked down at her own toes, a faint frown on her lips. “Carol can be greedy. She probably took more than you meant to give. It’s hard for her to stop once she starts.”
A spark of anger ignited in Elias’s chest. He’d felt drained for hours, his writing with Seraphina a forced, mechanical act. He’d been used. The warmth of the bath suddenly felt like a lie.
But then the memory surfaced, clear and sharp: Carol’s face in the grand salon, a mask of terrified desperation as she faded. The pathetic flicker of her form. She wasn't a villain. She was a drowning woman.
The anger evaporated as quickly as it came. “She was dying of thirst,” he murmured, more to himself than to Moonbeam. He stared at the now-lukewarm water. “And I handed her a bottle of water. It’s hard to blame her for drinking too much of it.”
Moonbeam was silent for a moment, absorbing this. “You’re kinder than we deserve,” she finally whispered. “Most people would be furious.”
“I’m too tired to be furious,” Elias said, and it was the truth.
The steam was thinning, the water now unpleasantly cool against his skin. He looked at Moonbeam, curled on the stool, and the desire to touch her was a dull, persistent ache. But the memory of that hollowed-out feeling after Carol was a cold knot in his gut. He opened his mouth, the question about cost and consequence stuck on his tongue.
Moonbeam’s head tilted, her eyes soft with understanding. “We can find a way,” she said quietly, her voice cutting through his unspoken fear. “If it’s what you want, we can figure it out. It doesn’t have to be like it was with her.”
A weight Elias hadn't fully acknowledged lifted from his chest. “Thank you,” he breathed, the words filled with more relief than he’d expected.
She gave him a small, shy smile. “Can I do one more thing before I go? Then I’ll leave you to get out.” She uncurled herself slowly, her movements deliberate. “I want to show myself to you. Properly.”
He nodded, this time without a trace of hesitation. “Yes.”
Moonbeam stood up from the stool. She let her arms fall to her sides, no longer hiding. She stood before him, fully revealed in the flickering candlelight. Her skin glowed with a soft luminescence, and the only thing she wore was a long, multi-colored bead necklace that draped down between her small breasts, its end brushing her mostly flat belly.
Elias let his gaze travel over her. It felt natural, because she had asked him to look. He took in the clean lines of her legs and arms, the gentle swell of her small breasts with their pert, pink nipples, the smooth plane of her stomach. His eyes lingered on the thick, blonde tuft of hair at the junction of her thighs, a perfect match for the hair flowing over her shoulders.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he told her, his voice low and utterly sincere. He meant every word.
He meant every word.
Moonbeam started to thank him for saying that, but her voice cracked as she spoke. The sound was a small, broken thing in the quiet room. A shimmer passed over her, and the thin sundress materialized back on her body, covering her luminous skin. She gave him one last, watery smile and then faded from view, leaving only the scent of patchouli and a profound emptiness in the air.
The bathroom was suddenly, terribly quiet. The only sounds were the drip of the faucet and the ragged pull of his own breath. The water in the tub had gone completely cold, raising goosebumps on his arms. He felt hollowed out, but not in the drained way he had after Carol. This was different. This felt like loss.
He climbed out, water sloshing onto the cracked linoleum floor, and grabbed his towel. The rough fabric did nothing to warm the chill that had settled deep in his bones. He wrapped it around his waist and stood there, dripping, staring at the space where she had been.
“Damn it,” he whispered to the empty room.
He padded back to his bedroom, the grand house groaning around him like a living thing. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, the fabric feeling alien against his skin. Lying in bed, he stared at the water-stained ceiling. The memory of Moonbeam’s body, offered so freely and taken back so suddenly, played on a loop behind his eyes. He could still see the way the candlelight had caught the beads of her necklace.
He could still see the way the candlelight had caught the beads of her necklace. The memory was a warm, aching pressure behind his ribs, a stark contrast to the cold emptiness of the hallway. He trudged toward his bedroom, his body heavy with a fatigue that went deeper than muscle.
As Elias turned the corner towards his bedroom, Jezebel stepped into his path. She materialized from the shadows, her flapper dress a shimmer of black sequins, a knowing smirk playing on her red lips. "Well, hello there, handsome," she purred, her eyes tracing the lines of exhaustion on his face. "Since everyone else is getting a private viewing, how about I show all of myself to you?"
It was the same question Moonbeam had asked, but it landed with the force of a thrown knife. Where Moonbeam’s request felt like a fragile offering, Jezebel’s was a challenge, a transaction waiting to happen.
Elias didn’t break stride. He pushed past her, his shoulder brushing through the faint, cool static of her form. "Not tonight, Jezebel," he muttered, the words slurry with tiredness. He reached his door and shoved it open. "I like you a lot, I do. But I'm dealing with a lot of stuff at the moment and I really need to go to sleep."
Jezebel responded with a friendly, tinkling laugh that echoed a little too brightly in the dark hall. "Of course, darling. You get your rest." Her eyes, however, flickered down the hall toward the bathroom, and the smile on her face tightened at the edges. "We wouldn't want you to be too tired for... other conversations."
The implication hung in the air, sharp and clear. Elias caught it, a flicker of possessiveness that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the hippie ghost who had just shared her vulnerability with him He decided not to worry about that tangled web tonight, but filed the observation away. He would keep an eye on Jezebel just in case.