You may think of her as dead and buried
—or rather, you need not think of her at all.
—Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Papa doesn’t like it when I walk at night, but that’s when the lady comes. I see her in empty rooms. Sometimes she’s only a wall of flames. Sometimes a hand reaches through. Tonight I see her face, the heart of a flower circled by red petals.
Are you my mother? I ask the lady.
I’m not your mother, child, she says, but perhaps you’re mine.
Are you a ghost? I ask the lady.
She says a ghost is an echo of what’s gone, not a shadow of what will be.
Is Mama a ghost? Papa says she is very sick and can’t come home, but the Sisters look after her. When he tucks me in at night he says I must pray for her. He says I must be good, for Mama’s sake, and not wander after dark.
I feel most alive in the dark. When the air cools, but the patio stones still hold the heat of the day. You are my night-blooming jasmine, Mama said to me once, stroking my hair, dark and thick like hers. Papa says night air brings fever.
Once my brother heard me talking to the lady. Papa scolded, and sent me to bed without supper.
Talking to the wall, Brother said. What if she’s going the same way? A taint in the blood. Who’ll marry her like that?
We must marry her off young, Papa said. Find some foreigner who won’t know.
I don’t know what a foreigner is, but there’s a man who waits at the window. A shadow man. His body bends forward, powerful and cruel. I don’t like to look at him.
Are you a foreigner? I ask the lady.
No, little Bertha, she says. I’m not foreign to you.
Papa says I must marry a foreigner, I tell her, and the lady’s flames surge. They crackle like the great fires I’ve seen outside, when the drums call and I go to watch the dancing. Sparks light her eyes, wild black hair floating around her, and then she is all flame, but no warmth.
I can only tell you three things, she says. All vows are lies. All chains break. And fire ends every sentence.
The lady is gone, but the shadow man waits in the window. The floor is cold on my bare feet, and I shiver. My thin nightdress sways like a bridal gown.
