Always
by Lauren Siegel
Like always, Celeste sits alone.
Decaying books, mouse carcasses, and floorboards stained crimson with blood cocoon her sanctuary of stillness. She’d been holed up in this attic since 1804, when her youth was frozen by the fangs of the odd dinner guest. When she couldn’t see her reflection in her silver-backed mirror. When her innocence wasn’t enough to stop the burning in her throat, the ensuing feast in which family was the main course.
Isolation seemed the only repentance.
So, Celeste sits alone.
She is alone when a cacophony of footsteps and shuffling boxes rings into the house, the stench of fresh blood fueling the pangs in her stomach. It’s likely another new family, convinced they can set down roots between the cobwebs. It doesn’t matter to Celeste.
The moment the sun surrenders to darkness, she opens her door and slips into the second floor hallway. It’s a process she’d repeated hundreds of times, guilt eroding into concession with each kill.
Celeste is about to turn into the bedroom when something moves in her peripheral. A figure, standing in the doorway across the hall. Looking right at her.
The girl sits alone. Her eyes glow with fear, apprehension plastered over her tired face. Her hair is unkempt, her clothes wrinkled from sleep. Celeste freezes, but the girl doesn’t look away. Doesn’t say a word.
Celeste backs up into the attic until she is out of sight, nearly sprinting once she reaches the steps. Hunger burns holes into Celeste’s insides, but she can’t risk returning. She spends the night poised for attack, perplexed when the next day comes and no one races in with a wooden stake.
It is days before Celeste ventures downstairs again. And, to her utmost shock, she is greeted by the girl, standing hesitantly in the same door frame. Maybe it’s because she hadn’t alerted anyone. Maybe it’s the sadness in her eyes. Nevertheless, Celeste can’t force herself away from the girl’s gaze.
Every night thereafter, Celeste sneaks downstairs to meet her girl. She loves sitting close to her, sharing communal, cathartic silence. Loves the engaged sparkle always present in her eyes. Loves how the moonlight falls just so upon her disheveled locks.
The girl always remains in her room, never passing the threshold of the doorway. And for a while, Celeste prefers it that way. But one evening, Celeste looks over at her girl and a foreign feeling overtakes her. Her heart brims with admiration, her chest erupts with bliss. Hunger is suddenly nothing but a little hum in the back of her mind. Celeste sees the love in her paramour’s eyes, and the longing for something else.
Celeste flutters her eyelids closed and leans in, pursing her cracked lips.
A cold, hard substance greets her.
She opens her eyes, and sees a smudge print staring back.
The realization of her own face in front of her crashes down, threatening to shatter the aluminum-backed mirror before her.
Like always, Celeste sits alone.