Despite Winifred's tardiness and Daphne's first run through with the performance, the rehearsal went surprisingly well. Capitalizing on their limited time together, Emmanuel commanded each segment of the rehearsal with the confidence of being a consummate showman. His professionalism even impressed Winifred. She didn't care for his bravado or condescending tone, but seeing him perform gave her an appreciation for his strengths as a performer. Maybe this whole venture was smarter than she initially thought. 

Though she had her appointment at Mary's residence, Emmanual convinced Winifred to come to his dressing room for a private conversation before her departure. 

"A lady should never meet with an unmarried man alone," she replied. It was not a rule she often upheld, but with Betty not feeling up for attending rehearsal, it was a rare time she found herself without company.

"I wouldn't dream of putting you in a situation that didn't feel appropriate. We won't be alone," he replied .

After grabbing her coat from the box office, Winifred wandered toward backstage to locate Emmanuel's dressing room. Spying the lights on in the third door to her right, she lightly knocked on the doorframe as she let herself in.

"I hope this doesn't take long," she said, pausing when she realized there was no one there. 

Lit by a series of electric bulbs around a mirror, Winifred walked over and inspected the bureau, festooned with make-up and toiletries items. She touched her finger to the open tin of pressed flour, a stage requirement under the fiery lights. Closing her eyes, she inhaled the odd aroma in the room, a combination of tobacco and sweat, tinged with a strange earthy smell that reminded her of damp ground after rain. 

When she opened her eyes, a sudden movement near Emmanuel's chair made her gasp. Unsure what it was, Winifred assumed it was an animal of some kind trying to hide beside a chest; the same prop chest from the performance, a realization that gave her pause. How had it been moved into Emmanuel's dressing room so quickly, and how did this creature get into the room without making a sound?

"Emmanuel? Emannuel, are you here? There's something in your room." 

Winifred's voice trembled, and she felt her heart racing. Even if the creature was a simple rat, she felt every fiber of her being on fire with dread. Resolving to seek help, she turned toward the door. Then a lilting voice from behind her gave her pause.

"You're not leaving are you?"

Wheeling around, Winnifred gasped to find a woman now standing in the center of Emmanuel's dressing room. Not much taller than Winnifred herself, she was a soft featured woman with light brown hair that tumbled in loose curls. Eerily penetrating green eyes looked at Winifred and it felt for a moment like maybe they'd met before? Though her soft smile put Winifred momentarily at ease, her heart was in her throat when she realized the woman speaking to her did not have a reflection in the make-up mirror. 

"What are you?" Winifred asked, more curious than afraid.

She took a tentative step toward the mirror. But moving closer did not undo the vision before her. The women seem real, almost too real to Winifred's suspicious gaze. Her slight movements were too coordinated, her green dress almost bright. A parody of reality, like in a dream.

"My name is Lenore. At least that is what my name was when I was living," she replied.

"You're a spirit, then?"

"I am more than that," the woman replied, but this time without moving her mouth. 

"How are you doing this?" Winifred stammered, stepping backward.

"It was me at Mary's house. And in your bedroom. I've wanted to talk to you. Alone."

"But why me?"

"Because I need you to see what I can see." Lenore pointed at the mirror. "Go on and touch it. Don't be afraid. It will let me show you what I can see."

Trembling, Winifred reached out her hand toward the mirror. The moment she placed her palm upon its surface, it felt as if she'd been pulled under water. Darkness engulfed everything. Her body felt weightless, adrift in the void. She wanted to scream, but wasn't that she couldn't, it was as if the place in which she now found herself was a realm outside sound and light. A soft light glowed around her, and she could finally see something.

"I am here," said Lenore's gentle voice as Winifred watched a woman enter a bedroom. 

Unsure where exactly here was, Winifred could see with her limited vision a bedroom lavishly decorated with high ceilings and silk wallpaper. Through a window, she would see lazy willow trees wafting in the breeze through lace curtains. At the center of the bedroom, an enormous bed piled high with crisp white blankets and pillows, the center of which lay a sickly man.

The man's bare chest heaved as he struggled to breathe. His skin was pale and coated in sweat. His eye could only open enough for Winifred to see that they were a brilliant blue. Though he was alive, Winifred could see his eyes stared at nothing. Without being told by anyone or thing, Winifred knew she was watching a dying man in his last hour. 

Lenore stood at the man's bedside, clutching his hand. Her beautiful face was awash with tears, but there was not the resignation of dispair. And like a bolt, Winifred instantly knew this man on the verge of death of Lenore's husband. 

With that horrible realization came that sinking darkness, pulling Winifred down to the living room. Here she watched Lenore franticly pacing in front of the fireplace like a possessed animal. Screaming and pulling at her hair, the woman's face was a ruin of tears. He's gone, Winifred thought as the waves of Lenore's grief washed over her.

"I am here."

This time, though it was spoken in Lenore's voice, it was not a message for Winifred. Lenore paused her tirade, her face painted with terror as she realized she was not alone. She scanned the room, checking under furniture until arriving at the bookshelf. With a tilt of her head, she reached for a large, leather-bound book. Without knowing why, Winifred knew this book differed from the others on the shelf. Something was wrong with this book.

Lenore sat down with the book in her lap. The moment she turned the first page, Winifred felt the energy radiate from it. An intense sense of foreboding overwhelmed her and it reminded her of the helplessness one feels watching an angry thunderhead approach. Nothing good will come from this book, she thought.

"I am here."

Pulled down into the darkness again, Winifred found herself back in the bedroom. The willow trees through the window were dark, twisted shapes in the night, and the book lay open on the floor at the foot of the bed. Lenore's husband lay in bed, limp and no longer breathing. Winifred wondered fleetingly if it had been a blessing for the pain to end.

In a frenzy, Lenore tore garments out of a trunk at the foot of the bed. Winifred realized as she watched her pull the pillowing layers of white fabric from inside that it was a wedding chest. It wasn't until Lenore had completely emptied the thing that Winifred realized that this was a trunk from Emmanuel's magic show.

Glancing quickly at the book, Lenore drew a kitchen knife from her apron pocket and dug the blade into the trunk's wooded lid. Grunting with the effort, she painstakingly etched circles and lines into the lid to match how it was illustrated in the book. Winifred didn't understand the purpose of the markings, nor Lenore's intent.

Winifred watched as Lenore moved her dear husband from the bed to the floor. His limp body tumbled to the hard floor with a heavy thud, but Lenore did not flinch; he could feel no pain no more. Lenore was a small woman, so it took all of her strength to drag him across the floor to the trunk. She stood for a moment with hands on her hips that there was a problem she had not accounted for. After a few moments, she left the room and returned with a butcher's knife and a mallet.

"I am here."

Lenore lifted the blade above her head, and Winifred closed her eyes. When she opened them, the bedroom floor was a ruin of blood. Though the lid of the trunk was closed, but Winifred knew what was inside. Blood leaked from the sides, and Winifred was sick with the thought of how Lenore fit her husband inside.

Lenore stood over the trunk with the book in her arms. She read aloud a strange incantation, her husband's blood caked on her naked skin to the elbow. She repeated the words until they became a nonsensical musical song.

"I am here."

Lenore gasped and dropped the book, then stared at the chest as if it'd spoken the words. Then, in the still quiet of the room, the chest moved. Lenore laughed until it turned to frantic cries as pulled back the lid. Expecting the horror of her husband's mutilated remains, Winifred was shocked to see the man not only fully intact, but alive. 

Lenore embraced her husband, weeping as she buried her face into the crook of his neck.

"I am here."

Down Winnifred sank into the darkness, back to the living room where Lenore stood over her husband on the floor, dead once more. Her entire body heaved with exhaustion as she struggled to catch her breath. She still held the bloody knife still in her hand. Putrid, black liquid drained from the man's body and soaked into the rug. Winifred knew because Lenore knew that whoever had emerged from the trunk may have looked like her husband, but he was someone else; som thing else.

A flicker of light out the living room window and Lenore approached for a closer look. Winifred watched outside as the source of the light came into view. A dozen men on horseback approached the front door, shotguns and torches in hand with murder in their eyes. Panic seized Winifred as they barged into the home and the darkness engulfed her once more.

"I am here."

Lenore screamed as the men dragging her through the yard in the dark. They demanded to know why she killed her husband, and though she told them she was innocent, they would not listen. Pulled by an unseen tide, Winifred followed as the men drag Lenore past the summer kitchen and the other outbuildings. She was taken past the swaying willow trees and down to the swampy, brackish waters in the woods. She pleaded with the men for her life as the men forced her into the trunk. 

"I am here."

Before she fully processed what happened, Winifred realized she was seeing the men from Lenore's perspective from the inside of the trunk. Terror seizes her as she gazed into the strange men's faces, their horrible scowls visible in the flickering light. There was no remorse as they slammed the lid closed and secured the latch. 

In the darkness, Winifred instantly felt the air grow heavy and stale. The terror of her prison engulfed her as she realized she was moving; sinking down once more. Water leaked into the chest where Lenore and Winifred were now trapped together in the dark. No room to move. Lenore's fingers clawed at the lid as they sank deeper and deeper into the swamp.

Winifred's eyes snapped open and she fell backward into Emmanuel's chair. With her hand removed from the mirror, the spell was broken. Winifred's face was hot with tears and she felt her heart racing. Looking up toward the mirror, Winifred saw Lenore for what she really looked like; a muddy, broken husk of a human with piercing green eyes that never blinked.

"That.. that was you?" Winifred said.

"They left me to die in that trunk, but the spirit door allowed me to pass through," Lenore replied, "The living may pass through the spirit door, but as you can see, it is not so easy to pass back to the mortal world."

Shaking her head, Winifred tried to push her fear aside and understand the strange vision she'd just witnessed. "How long were you—"

"I lay at the bottom of that wretched swamp for forty long years, Winifred. Forty years of being not quite dead and not quite alive."

"I'm sorry for what they did to you." Winifred felt sympathy for Lenore, knowing firsthand how cruel and terrible her last moments alive truly were. "What happens to you now?"

"Now I need your help," she said, a smile curling on her lips. "I need you to help me to pass through the spirit door and return to the mortal plane once more."

"How do I do that?"

"All you just need to do is perform the trick as Emmanuel has shown you. When you enter the trunk and he closes the lid, you will pass through the spirit door and then you will bring me back with you," she replied.