Lucille played the piano while Edith sat stiffly in the armchair where Artemis' drawings were hidden. She held her tea cup in her hands until the porcelain felt cool to the touch, the tea long gone but the bitter aftertaste remained. Edith didn't know what to do. She couldn't risk the drawings being discovered and destroyed.  

"Finlay! You can tell the men to leave! I'm done for the day!"

Thomas slipped through the front doors, his face red and raw from the cold. He strode to the roaring fireplace.

"Edith."

Shocked, she met Thomas' blue-green eyes.

"I would like to read the rest of your chapter...if I may?"

Thomas was sheepish. There was no hardiness in his features or his voice, unlike last night. But Edith did not trust this. 

"I've burned them."

Thomas' eyes widened.

"Why?"

Edith set aside her tea cup on its saucer. Thomas' gaze followed.

"It wasn't what the story needed. It's better that I leave it out," she said nonchalantly.

Thomas nodded his head.

"Very well."

Lucille stopped playing and two sets of footsteps faded out of the library. Edith listened until the only sound was the crackling fireplace. She knelt on the floor, sweeping the pages in front of her. She flinched away when she touched flaky dried blood. All of the drawings were rushed but one was drawn with more care than the others. 

Edith stared at Thomas' young face. 

The fireplace roared as the house breathed and groaned. She gingerly set the portrait away from the fire and focused on the others. A brutish boy with baby fat still on his face occupied a page. Edith didn't recognize him. Another page was half completed. Edith couldn't make out what it was. The rest of the pages were smudged by charcoal in Edith's' mad scramble to hide them or were depicting Artemis' attempts at conveying...something. She paused for a moment before throwing these into the fire, watching them curl and blacken.

"I don't understand," Edith whispered, scanning around the darkened library for signs of white hair. "You couldn't have just written what happened?"

The moment she said it, she understood why Artemis couldn't. If she wrote down what happened, and if Thomas found her writing...

Suddenly, Edith was glad she didn't write about a ghost haunting the school.

Soft scratching drew her attention. Artemis' fingers scraped across the incomplete drawing. Edith gasped softly when she saw dried blood, scorched skin, and ash smear across the page. A lantern. 

Thomas. A boy. And a lantern.

"Mark my words. There be ghosts...Two souls perished. Sent to heaven or hell in that great blaze." 

Edith pointed to the other boy.

"He died too?"

Artemis nodded.

"And the lantern accidentally caused the fire. Why were the three of you there in the first place?"

Edith watched, mortified as Artemis' face deteriorated back to how Edith remembered seeing it for the first time except only one shockingly aquamarine eye remained perfectly intact. 

"I'm sorry," Edith said hastily. "I just don't know what you want me to do or what you're doing here. Please, help me understand!"

Artemis seemed to consider this, her face restoring itself back to its half healed state.

"It wasn't his fault," she said, wincing in pain. Her voice scratched like a record. "He needs to know that."

"If it was an accident, then it was no one's fault." Edith said soothingly even though the idea of Thomas being responsible for someone's death, much less two, filled her with dread.

Artemis shook her head.

"It was mine."

Edith stared at the three drawings. Her eyes lingered on Thomas' picture.

"I don't think knowing that would help him. Or you."

"He needs the truth," Artemis rasped before coughing sharply.

"Will that be enough?"

 Thunk

Both of them snapped their heads towards the front door. Moonlight cascaded from the hole in the ceiling.

Thunk

Artemis rose slowly, not taking her eyes off of something past the hazy beam of grey light.

"You have to go," she coughed, smoke snaking from her mouth again.

Thunk

Thunk Thunk Thunk

Edith could hardly make out a figure moving in the distance, staggering, bumping against the wall. Her eyes flashed towards the staircase leading to the second floor before remembering the drawings. She folded them into her pocket and stood besides Artemis, watching the shadow move closer to the light. Her curiosity keeping her rooted.

"Go!" spat Artemis, clutching her throat as more smoke choked her.

Edith scurried towards the main staircase, fear growing in her chest as she's forced to draw closer to the figure.

It moved towards her and into the light. The adolescent boy wore tattered and smoldering clothes. 

Edith froze. 

He had no eyes; they were burned shut. His jaw was barely attached except for a few strips of tendon and ligament. His throat, crushed. His head lulled back and forth as he staggered towards Edith. Arms reaching, searching. Chunks of flesh has melted away. A large laceration across his bulging stomach, revealing an empty cavity. An unholy screech, almost a whistle, emitted from his trembling jowl. 

This shocked Edith to move. The stairs creaked under her weight and the figure turned in her direction. Before Edith could cry out as the pitch black carcass lumbered towards her, Artemis materialized in a plume of smoke between them. 

She dug the heel of her palms into his shoulders and threw herself at him with as much force as her slender frame could muster. 

Edith scrambled to her feet as she watched the two ghosts struggled. A meaty hand grasped Artemis' silver hair and yanked her to the side. Artemis dissolved into the air before making contact with the ground and reappeared behind the screeching creature. She wrapped her skeletal arms around its flattened neck and leaned back. 

Edith grasped the handrail when they both fell backwards. Instead of being crushed by the bigger body, Artemis melted into the floor like fog. As for the other ghost, when he hit the ground, he flattened into a shadow. A scorched silhouette, a scar, seared into the ground surrounded by a circle of moonlight.

Edith raced up the stairs towards the bedroom. She stopped at the apex, slowly peering down to the landing below. 

No shadow. No smoke.

Her hands shook as she opened the bedroom door, afraid that the monster would be there. But she was alone. The covers moved. Tousled hair peeked from underneath. Edith sighed in relief but her body still trembled. Hot tears threatened to surface in an effort to relieve the pressure built up inside her.  

She hasn't felt this way since her mother's ghost visited her in her bed. She had walked into her father's room and broke into tears as she woke him. 

Edith lowered herself onto the bed. Thomas moaned softly, his face turned towards her, but he didn't wake. She pulled the covers over her and rested her head on his chest. He twitched and stirred.

"Edith?" His voice was gravel.

She balled his shirt in her fist. 

"Hold me," she pleaded, her body shaking more violently. 

Thomas' arm pulled her closer to him.

"What happened? Are you not feeling well?"

"I had a nightmare."

Thomas' thumb rubbed her shoulder. Edith breathed deeply, focusing on his scent and heartbeat. He's here. She's safe.

A thought made her whimper, prompting Thomas to give her a gentle squeeze.

"Do you want to talk about it?" his voice warmed. 

Edith felt the earlier distance between them shortening. 

"I dreamt...that you were hurt. That you died."

Thomas' hand made its way into her golden hair and massaged her scalp lightly.

"I'm here. I'm right here," he said into her hair.

The thought that Thomas could have perished in that fire and came back as that...thing made Edith whimper again.

"Shhh," Thomas soothed. "It's over now."

Is it?