Chapter 13: Out of the Woodwork
The dream clung to him like cobwebs, soft and stubborn. He couldn’t grasp the details—they dissolved the moment he tried to look at them directly—but the feeling remained. A profound, uncomplicated happiness. And Moonbeam was woven through all of it, her laugh a sound that seemed to color the air itself. He woke with the ghost of that feeling warming his chest, a stark contrast to the usual first waking thought of damp plaster and spectral roommates.
A more immediate, physical sensation announced itself. Morning wood. A full, insistent erection that felt almost foreign in its simple, biological confidence. It had been a while. He lay there for a moment, suspended between the dream’s echo and the reality of his body, before the needs of his bladder won out.
He pulled on yesterday’s jeans, not bothering with a shirt, and padded barefoot out of his room. The hallway seemed quieter than usual, the pre-dawn grey light leaching the color from everything. It was a false calm. As he descended the main staircase, a low murmur reached him, a susurrus of voices that grew with every step.
He pushed open the heavy door to the grand salon and stopped dead.
The room was full.
Not just with the usual cast—Seraphina by the cold fireplace, Jezebel lounging on a settee, Richard and Carol standing stiffly near the bookshelves. There were others. Many others. He saw a man in a tricorne hat and knee-breeches deep in conversation with someone in a sharp 1940s zoot suit. A woman in a pre-Columbian tunic stood silently beside a teenager in acid-washed jeans and a Motley Crue t-shirt. The air wasn't just thick with dust anymore; it was thick with the presence of layered time, a cacophony of silent histories suddenly made visible. He counted a dozen unfamiliar faces in this room alone, and from the main library and the study down the hall, he could hear more voices, more fragmented conversations.
“What the hell?” he breathed, the words barely a whisper.
Seraphina glided over, her mourning dress seeming to drink the faint light. Her usual sad smile was touched with something new—awe, perhaps. “Your dream, Elias,” she said, her voice low and resonant. “It was… potent. It fed the house. It fed all of us. You welcomed everyone to come forward. It seems they have taken you at your word.”
Elias ran a hand through his messy hair, his mind reeling. His dream. The happy, vivid dream about Moonbeam. That’s what did this? He looked out over the sea of anachronistic faces, all now turning, slowly, to look at him. The weight of their collective gaze was a physical pressure. He saw hope in some eyes, curiosity in others, a deep, weary skepticism in more than a few.
His stomach growled, a loud, profoundly human sound in the spectral silence.
“Okay,” he said, raising his voice just enough to carry. It cracked on the first syllable. He cleared his throat. “Okay. Look. This is… a lot. I’m going to make breakfast. And coffee. A lot of coffee. After that… I’ll try to… talk to everyone. Just… give me a minute.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He turned and fled toward the kitchen, the feeling of their eyes on his bare back like a cold touch.
The kitchen was no better. Mary was there, her form now solid enough that he could see the worried line of her brow and the strong shape of her hands as she wrung them together. The ghost of a Union soldier in a tattered blue uniform was peering into the empty icebox, while a flapper who wasn't Jezebel adjusted her headband in the reflection of a toaster.
Elias ignored them all. He went through the motions on autopilot: grinding coffee beans, the mechanical whirr a comforting anchor in the unreality, boiling water, scrambling a half-dozen eggs. He ate standing at the counter, shoveling food into his mouth without tasting it, washing it down with bitter, scalding coffee.
He was on his third cup when he felt a familiar coolness at his side. He didn't need to look.
“Hey,” Moonbeam said softly.
He glanced down. She was wearing the linen shift again, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She looked… nervous.
“Hey,” he replied, his voice rough.
“I felt it,” she murmured, her eyes fixed on the swirling blackness in his mug. “Your dream. It was like… a wave. It washed through the whole house. Woke up people who haven’t been awake in fifty years.”
Elias set his cup down with a hard click. “So I see.” He finally looked at her. “Were you in it? My dream?”
A faint, rosy blush colored her cheeks. She nodded, just once. “I think so. It’s hard to tell, sometimes. The feeling… it was yours, but I was wrapped up in it.” She risked a glance at his face. “It was a good feeling.”
Before he could respond, a new presence solidified near the pantry. It was Colin, the Irish construction worker. He was more substantial than Elias had ever seen him, the muscles of his arms and shoulders defined under his rough-spun shirt. He didn’t speak. He just looked at Elias, then gave a single, slow, deliberate nod. It wasn't a greeting. It was an acknowledgment. A sign of respect. Then he faded, leaving behind the faint scent of fresh-cut wood and tobacco.
Elias stared at the empty space, thrown. The silent man had warmed up enough to offer a nonverbal 'good job.' The gravity of what his own subconscious had unleashed began to truly sink in.
He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked back toward the grand salon. He had to face them. He had to try.
For the next two hours, he moved through the rooms, a man conducting a census in a city of the dead. He learned names and fragments of stories. He met Abner, a blacksmith who died when the house was a fledgling structure in 1732. He met Lena, a Jewish refugee who hid in the walls during the Second World War and never left. He met a slick-haired car salesman named Tony from 1985 who was mostly concerned about the rust on his Trans Am.
It was overwhelming, a tidal wave of unmet need and suspended lives. Each one was a story, a closed loop of history waiting for an ending he had no idea how to provide.
He finally retreated to a relatively quiet corner of the library, his head pounding. Seraphina was there, tracing the embossed title on a leather-bound book.
“They all want something,” Elias said, the fatigue a lead weight in his bones. “A message to a descendant. A forgotten possession. Vindication. Closure. How am I supposed to… I’m one guy. A broke writer. I can’t be a cosmic switchboard operator for a hundred ghosts.”
“You asked them to come forward,” Seraphina reminded him gently. “You opened the door.”
“I didn’t know there was a whole goddamn army behind it!” he snapped, then immediately felt guilty. He sighed, rubbing his temples. “Sorry.”
“It is the energy,” she said. “Your dream proved you are a more potent source than any of us imagined. You are not just a battery, Elias. You are a catalyst. They are drawn to that potential like moths to a flame.”
“Great. So I’m a flame. And I’m about to get burned the hell out.”
He leaned his head back against the bookshelves, closing his eyes. The murmur of a dozen conversations in a dozen different eras of English was a dull roar in his skull. He felt a hand, then another, on his shoulders. They were small, strong, and calloused. Mary. She began to knead the tight muscles of his shoulders with a surprising, practical strength.
“Easy now,” she whispered, her 19th-century Irish-American lilt soft near his ear. “One thing at a time. That’s all any of us can do.”
He let out a groan, part pain, part relief. For a moment, he just accepted the ministration, this small, kind gesture in the midst of the chaos he had created.
The tension in his neck began to yield under her strong, patient fingers. For a moment, he just accepted the ministration, this small, kind gesture in the midst of the chaos he had created.
“Do you know why it was so strong, Elias?” Mary asked, her voice barely a whisper meant only for him. Her hands stilled on his shoulders. “That dream of yours? The energy it gave… none of us have felt its like.”
Elias kept his eyes closed, leaning into the pressure. “I have no idea,” he murmured, honestly bewildered. “It was just a dream. A good one, I guess.”
“I think you do know,” Mary insisted, her tone gentle but unyielding. She applied a little more pressure, a firm anchor in his swirling thoughts. “You’re just not letting yourself see it.”
“I really don’t,” he said, a flicker of frustration cutting through his fatigue. He started to turn his head to look at her, to argue his point more forcefully.
But Mary’s hands were faster. One moved from his shoulder to the side of his face, her cool, solid palm cupping his jaw. With a tenderness that felt ancient, she turned his head for him, guiding his gaze across the library.
His eyes landed directly on Moonbeam.
She was talking with the flapper from the kitchen, her hands animated, that wide, gentle smile on her face. The spectral candlelight seemed to catch in her hair, making it glow. Seeing her here, solid and real amidst the crowd, sent a jolt through him that was entirely separate from the strange energy of the house.
Mary leaned in, her lips nearly touching his ear. Her whisper was a soft, clear breath that carried a single, devastating word.
“Love.”
The word detonated in the silence she left behind. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact, simple and absolute. Elias flinched as if struck, pulling his head away from her hand. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, panicked rhythm.
“That’s not—” he started, the denial automatic, defensive. He looked from Mary’s knowing, calm face back to Moonbeam, who had just laughed at something the flapper said. The sound was like wind chimes. His mouth went dry.
He couldn’t form another word. The denial died in his throat, rendered hollow and false by the sudden, shocking truth of it. It wasn't just attraction or loneliness or a weird ghostly connection. The feeling from the dream, the warmth, the safety—it had a name, and Mary had just given it to him.
He pushed himself away from the bookshelf, his movements jerky. He needed air. He needed to be away from all these watching eyes, from the weight of that single syllable now echoing in his skull.
Without a word to anyone, he turned and walked quickly toward the French doors that led to the overgrown garden. The murmuring voices of the ghosts faded behind him, replaced by the frantic beating of his own heart. He yanked the door open and stepped out into the cool, damp air, fleeing the revelation as much as the crowd.
The garden was a mess of wet leaves and grasping thorny vines, the morning air cool against his skin. He sucked in deep breaths, trying to steady the frantic rhythm in his chest. Love. The word felt like a key turning in a lock he didn't know was there, opening a door to something terrifying and vast.
Footsteps crunched lightly on the gravel path behind him. He didn’t need to turn. He knew the particular quality of her silence.
“Hey,” Moonbeam said, her voice soft.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” Elias replied, his own voice rough. He finally turned to look at her. She stood a few feet away, the linen shift seeming too thin for the damp air. “The house. It’ll pull you back. You said it yourself, it stretches you thin. You’ll be trapped for hours.”
A small, determined smile touched her lips. “I know.” She took a step closer, her bare feet seeming not to feel the cold gravel. “It’ll be worth it.”
She closed the distance between them in two quick steps. Before he could form another word of protest, she reached up and grabbed his face in both hands. Her palms were cool, but her touch was firm, insistent. She pulled his mouth down to hers.
The kiss was not gentle. It was a collision, an answer to every unspoken question hanging between them since the bathroom. Her lips were soft but demanding, and Elias felt a jolt that was pure lightning, straight down his spine. He groaned into her mouth, his own hands coming up to clutch at her back, pulling her slender frame flush against him.
Their lips tangled, a desperate, hungry conversation. He could feel the fine tremble in her body, the shocking reality of her solid form in his arms. His fingers splayed across the linen covering her back, and he felt it. A ripple of tiny bumps rising on her skin. Goosebumps.
She broke the kiss with a soft, gasping breath, her forehead resting against his. Her eyes were still closed, a look of pure, stunned wonder on her face.
“Elias,” she whispered, her voice trembling with awe. “I feel the sun on my skin.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when a violent shudder wracked her body. Her form flickered, a staticky distortion in the air. The solid weight of her in his arms suddenly dissolved, becoming insubstantial. Her hands on his face faded through his skin like smoke.
Her wide, startled eyes were the last thing to vanish, leaving him clutching at empty, cold air. The scent of patchouli hung for a moment, then was gone, pulled back into the house with her. He was alone in the garden, his lips still tingling, the ghost of her touch burning on his skin.
He was alone in the garden, his lips still tingling, the ghost of her touch burning on his skin. The cold air where her body had been was a hollow accusation. He stared at the empty space, his hands still curled into the shapes that had held her. A profound, stupid hope had flickered in that single, perfect moment, and its extinguishment was a physical pain.
He knew, logically, that she would reconstitute inside the house. He’d see her again in a few hours, maybe less. That knowledge did nothing to dull the sharp edge of loss currently sawing through his chest. It was the cruelest trick the house had played yet, giving him a taste of real, solid connection only to yank it back into the ether.
He dragged a trembling hand over his mouth, trying to preserve the fading sensation of her. A movement in his periphery made him flinch. He turned his head slowly. A face was watching him from a grimy second-floor window. It was Lena, the refugee, her expression one of solemn understanding. Then Abner the blacksmith appeared at the library window, his gaze steady and heavy. Another face, then another. They populated the windows like portraits in a gallery of the dead, a silent, spectral audience.
He knew some of them, and others were strangers. They didn’t stare with hunger or demand. They looked at him with a deep, unnerving respect. They were witnessing his heartbreak, and they understood that this raw, human emotion was the very current that was giving them form, granting them another day in the light. His pain was their sustenance.
He couldn’t bear their silent witness. He looked down at the gravel, shoving his hands in his pockets. The weight of their collective gaze was a mantle he hadn't asked for.
A soft clearing of a throat came from the French doors. Mary stood in the doorway, her form more solid and detailed than he’d ever seen it. She didn’t speak. She simply looked at him, her deep brown eyes full of a compassion that felt earned, and motioned for him to come back inside.
He obeyed, his legs feeling numb and foreign. He crossed the threshold, the house’s warmer air enveloping him. Without a word, Mary reached up and placed a soft, cool kiss on his stubbled cheek. It was a gesture of pure, simple comfort. Then she took his hand, her calloused fingers firm around his, and led him away from the crowded rooms.
She guided him to a small, forgotten sitting room tucked behind the main staircase, a space he hadn’t even known existed. It held a single armchair and a worn velvet settee, everything shrouded in a clean, white dust sheet. She pulled the sheet from the settee, releasing a cloud of motes that danced in a sliver of light.
“Sit,” she said, her voice quiet.
He sank onto the velvet, the fabric sighing under his weight. The silence in the small room was a blessed relief, a pocket of stillness after the storm. He looked at Mary, who remained standing by the door, as if guarding his solitude.
“Don’t leave,” he heard himself say, the words sounding small and young.
She nodded once, a simple acceptance. She moved away from the door and sat on the floor beside his feet, leaning her back against the arm of the settee. She didn’t look at him. She just sat there, present and solid, her long brown hair cascading down her back.
They sat there in silence for a while. The only sound was the ragged pull of his own breath slowly evening out, and the soft, almost imperceptible sound of hers. He stared at a water stain on the far wall that looked like a lost continent. He didn’t think about the ghosts at the windows, or the army of souls waiting for him, or the impossible task ahead. He just existed, anchored by the quiet woman on the floor, waiting for the feeling of heartbreak to become something he could carry.