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Death was strange.
Or perhaps it was undeath. If there was any distinction between the two, Verso had yet to tell. He knew a moment’s peace, a blissful stretch of silence between the screaming agony of the fire and the cottony nothingness of the now. It would have been the simplest thing in the world to pretend it was all a nightmare. He’d slept. He was awake again.
But that was wrong.
You’d best be moving on, a voice told him.
He couldn’t—not without knowing his family would be alright.
They’ll learn to make do, the voice continued, patient but not strictly kind—a matter-of-fact tone. They would learn because there was no alternative.
Soon, Verso promised.
It’d been months now, and still he lingered. Verso haunted the manor, walking from room to room, lingering at his family’s sides. He wondered if they felt him. He wondered if, in some capacity, they knew.
As the weeks wore on, he found it increasingly less likely.
~~~~~
MONOCO
~~~~~
Monoco had always been sensitive to stress. Far more than his predecessors, more than Noko. The hound wandered from room to room, nails clicking on the tile. Immediately after the fire, the manor still stinking of smoke and barely habitable, he’d paced the length of the manor, howling that low and mournful howl.
Clea had snapped at him. If she’d had the energy, Aline would have as well. She’d been too near delirium for that, all her tears wrung out, body wracked with dry sobs. In the face of his mistress’s fury, Monoco quieted his protests to low whimpers, curling by Renoir’s feet.
He’d never liked it when the family separated, preferring to keep all the Dessendre pack in one room, easily supervised. Alicia’s scent was all wrong. Verso’s smell was absent in its entirety. What was he meant to do but cry?
Monoco kept to his rounds. Verso strolled by his side, hands stuffed in his suit pockets. The young man found himself wishing he’d died in something more comfortable. A suit was too formal for eternity.
“I meant to change,” he muttered, glancing down at the hound. Monoco glanced up. He would have sworn the dog met his eyes. He tilted his head as if in commiseration. “No, you’re right. Spending forever dressed for bed would have been arguably worse.”
They continued their rounds. For months, Verso had nothing else to do. Alicia was still healing. Then came the Canvas. The dog and his master lingered in front of the atelier doors. Clea kept them shut. Monoco pawed at them, nails scraping the ancient wood, leaving pale abrasions etched in the surface. The staff would be horrified when they eventually returned.
“There’s nothing to see,” Verso promised, rapping ghostly knuckles against the door. Monoco whined in protest. “You can say whatever you like: Clea won’t let you in.”
A grumbling noise.
“Yes, I know. I miss them, too.”
Death was very strange, Verso thought again.
He was a dead man. His family still lived. Somehow, they were all ghosts.
Eventually, Monoco wandered back to the fire. Verso went with him. He tried settling in his usual spot on the sofa, but it felt wrong. Someone else occupied the space—the memory of a living man.
The ghost settled on the floor instead, staring up at the ceiling, wishing for music, wishing for any sounds of life at all.
~~~~~
CLEA
~~~~~
Clea imagined she was handling the situation better than their parents or Alicia. To Paris at large, his elder sister looked functional. He knew her better than that. She’d been set adrift. But where Maman and Alicia were determined to sink to the bottom of the ocean, and Papa was determined to dive after them, Clea kept moving. Not towards shore or any destination, just out to sea. If she stopped, she would drown.
He wanted to tell her she’d drown anyway. The waves would drag her under, or she’d be too exhausted to stay afloat. Clea went to the Council in Aline’s stead. She planned her war, meeting with other Painter revolutionaries, hungry for glory or battle, or whatever romanticized and bloody nonsense they’d decided on.
Verso frowned, staring up at his Canvas—their childhood playground, now his parents’ battleground. He could not follow after them; all he could do was watch Clea come and go, going about her work: painting her monsters, shrugging off her exhaustion. Ink streaked her face like tears, hiding the deep bags now rimming her eyes.
She rarely returned to her room. She never used the mattress in the atelier. If Clea needed rest, she straggled out to the sofa near Monoco’s bed. His sister fumbled for the blanket still folded over the couch’s back, missed, and didn’t bother to make a second attempt, already drifting into one of her broken, fitful sleeps.
Verso lingered beside her. The ghost scowled, swiping his fingers through the blanket. Goose flesh prickled along the length of Clea’s forearms and ankles. She was clearly cold; he couldn’t do something as damned simple as cover his sister.
He sighed, settling beside her on the couch. Clea’s dark hair fell across her face like a curtain, the majority of its length caught under her. Verso reached out, miming swiping it away from her face.
“Why are you still here?”
The ghost jerked, staring down into her face. Clea’s chest still rose and fell with the same steady rhythm, clearly asleep. He responded anyway. “Pardon?”
“You’re dead,” she grumbled, mouth barely moving.
“I am; thank you for noticing.” He frowned, reaching out again. His fingers passed through her. “How did you notice?”
“It’s a dream,” Clea said bluntly. She pursed her lips. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d teased about that habit over the years; it made her look years old, tightening her lips, forming hard lines near the corners of her mouth and eyes. It made her look like Maman, he’d always said; that only made her scowl harder. “Not a good one. I deal with your ghost enough during my waking hours.”
“Mm—sorry about that.”
“You should be—look at the mess you’ve left, baby brother.”
“It’s not as if I planned to die.”
“You clearly weren’t thinking of living either.” Her hands clenched into fists, blunt nails digging into palms. In life, he’d have threaded their fingers together, forcing her to relax. Now, all he could do was watch. “It was Alicia’s foolishness that saw us into this mess—perhaps if it’d been only her, we might have pulled through, but—“
“You don’t mean that—you believe it, maybe, but you don’t mean it.”
“Don’t I?” Verso wished she’d open her eyes. He missed their pale blue, a color they shared with their father. The ghost said nothing, waiting for his sister to reach her own conclusion. Clea sighed. “No, I don’t. It’s you that I hate.”
“I can live with that. Or die with it, as it were.”
She didn’t smile. “Of course you’re making jokes.”
“And you want to threaten to kill me for it—only we’re a little far past that, aren’t we?”
He watched, horrified, as a tear trickled down her cheek. Dozens of words jumbled and stuck in his throat, choking him; it kept the apology from tripping off his tongue.
“You left me, Verso.”
He tried to swallow. “I know.”
“I can’t remember my life without you there.” In another life, they’d been born twins. It’d been one of their grandmother’s favorite jokes, parents staring on, bewildered as they communed in their strange, near telepathic way. “Aline and Renoir mourn their son. Alicia has lost her brother. It feels like I’ve—“
—lost a part of herself.
“It doesn’t matter. Our parents have locked themselves away like children. You’ve abandoned us.” Clea bared her teeth. “It’s only me left.”
“You’re going to kill yourself, you lunatic.”
“You don’t get to talk.” He supposed that was true. Clea reached up in her sleep, absently swatting the tears away. “Go away, Verso. I’m too tired to dream.”
He wanted to tell her it would get better—the wounds would eventually scab over and heal. The words didn’t come. The ghost nodded and took his leave.
~~~~~
RENOIR
~~~~~
Time lost so much of its meaning as a ghost. The sun rose and set, but the manor was always dark these days. Verso imagined it’d been months. He’d been sitting cross-legged on the atelier floor, head tipped back to admire the axons painted across the ceiling, when his parents emerged from the Canvas. First Maman, hacking up ink, chroma, and blood. He’d lingered by her side, howling in protest, clutching at her sweat-soaked blouse when she’d thrown herself back into the damned painting. She’d emerged again, moments later, Papa on her heels.
The man collapsed, knees buckling, too weak to support himself on his cane. He’d insisted on staying in case Alicia followed after, even as Clea dragged his wife up to bed.
Verso thought that had been weeks ago, maybe more than a month. His father looked haler, if nothing else, though the haunted look never seemed to leave his pale eyes.
He followed the man out to the gardens.
Visiting his own grave felt surreal. He stared down at the headstone in dumb wonder. Looking at it made him itch. A part of him still wanted to protest, a dissonance registering in his head; he was dead, certainly, but he was still here. They could speak to him, not the damned rock.
“But I suppose you didn’t like to listen to me when I was alive either. Why should death change things?”
His father inclined his head to the side. “Is that what you think?”
Verso stood stark still. “You…heard that?”
The corner of Papa’s mouth turned up in an exhausted smile. “Death has done nothing for your manners, my son.”
Verso laughed, sharp, like the sound was frightened out of him. He hadn’t realized how badly he missed being seen. “Untrue. They’re far worse these days. I’ve had no one but the dogs for company.”
“My apologies.”
Verso shrugged. After a moment, he ventured. “You’re remarkably calm about this.”
“After everything, madness seems perfectly natural. If I have lost my mind, there are far worse sights. You, at least, are welcome.”
He spoke quickly. “You’re not crazy. At least, I don’t think you’re insane. I am here.”
“Verso would say as much.” Papa chuckled, striding over to the nearby bench and taking a seat. The Dessendre patriarch grunted, massaging his knee. He’d been moving more gingerly since his return to the waking world, body badly diminished. “Have you come to offer advice?”
He chuckled again, settling beside his father. Verso leaned forward, draping his hands over his knees. “To you? I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Shame.” Renoir drummed his fingers against his cane. “I find myself entirely at a loss.”
“Maman and Alicia?” He asked. Papa grunted in agreement, staring towards the Eiffel Tower. He never looked directly at Verso, only glanced at the ghost out of the corner of his eyes. For as calm as he seemed, Verso felt fear and grief—the latter so intense it seemed to blacken the air, choking it—radiating off his father.
“I thought—" he began, voice halting, the low timbre rasping from disuse. “—if I could buy more time, it would be enough. Alicia was in no immediate danger. If I could wrest your mother from the Canvas—“
A solution to their grief would present itself; they would heal. The love that knit them together for decades would be enough. It wasn’t. Maman and Alicia wandered the manor, ghosts of their own making, still haunted by the fire; sometimes Verso would see it, flickering like an afterimage, licking up the walls and over their flesh. Alicia still heard his voice, whispering empty comforts. Maman heard him screaming. Hours and hours, and Verso wondered how she didn’t drive a nail through her eardrums, something, anything, to steal some quiet.
Papa broke the silence, voice hoarse. “It should have been me.”
Verso jerked in horror. “No.”
He offered him a bitter smile. “Yes. Come now, no words of comfort. It is the most natural thing in the world for a parent to die before their child. The reverse is—“ Papa shook his head. “It would have hurt them, but they would have healed.”
“Well, you didn’t. You survived. And you owe it to them to keep living.”
“And if they wish to die?”
Verso swallowed. Papa offered him a wan smile. “I envy the Writers—their stories end so neatly. We might have faded neatly to black when we left the Canvas, a happily-ever-after secure. It's unfortunate how life ambles on.
"You’ll find an answer,” Verso promised.
Papa leaned forward, hunched, looking so much older than Verso remembered. “Perhaps.” He turned his head, still watching Verso out of the corner of his eyes. A look of intense longing stole over the man’s face, a desperation for comfort that seemed nearly boyish. “It is selfish to ask you to stay any longer, but—“
“Funny, I find myself with nowhere else to go.”
They talked, falling back into familiar patterns, telling old jokes. Inside jokes, barely even funny, but they laughed anyway, high and a little mad. Renoir turned to look at him fully, tears shining in his eyes. The sun was setting. He’d have to return to the manor. He held out his hand. “Sleep well, son.”
Verso’s fingers passed through his father’s.
He stared at the other man, imagining he could feel the moonlight and night air on his skin. He sat cross-legged on his own grave, pretending he could erase the dates written there and all the accompanying hurts.
~~~~~
ALINE
~~~~~
He found her in the wilder stretches of the manor grounds. The plants in the glasshouse had grown riotously in her absence, still living due to Alicia’s attentions, but not tended. The gardens, by contrast, had fallen fully into disrepair. The sight must have bothered her. Aline gave both locations a wide berth, preferring to wander further afield. As far as her weakened body could carry her.
It felt wrong to follow her on these ventures. Today, Verso clung to her heels, broadcasting panic to anyone who would listen. Maman slipped into the kitchen, jaw set, shoulders back, making idle conversation with the staff. She slipped a paring knife into her jacket pocket, her smile widening, growing more genuine, the moment her fingers curled around the hilt.
He wanted to howl to Clea or Papa to stop her. Neither heard. Whatever higher power, whatever unknown force held governance of his time in this place, had decided to silence him. All he could do was follow her out into their patch of wilderness.
Aline settled under the bows of a willow tree, arranging her skirts with fastidious neatness. She slipped the knife from her pocket. In a fit of desperation, he said, “After all the dramatics with the Canvas, this is how the great Aline Dessendre would have things end? Anticlimactic.”
Her brow furrowed. “Pardon?”
“You’ll look terrible on the front page—covered in blood, all pale. Gauche.”
Maman’s face curled back in instinctual distaste, wanting to snap at him, before realizing precisely who was speaking. Her gaze jerked to his face, dove-gray eyes widening. In a quiet voice, just about a whisper, she asked, “Verso?”
“Yes, Verso. Put the knife down, Maman. God in heaven, doesn’t anyone in this family want to live?”
She scoffed. “How rich, coming from you.” She rested the knife on her thigh regardless.
Verso favored her with a dark look, shrugging and settling beside her on the grass. “My death was a matter of circumstance. Not…this.”
“Suicide?” She asked, sweetly.
“Yes. That.” Aline turned the knife over, the light catching off the blade. Verso set his hand over it, amused at the way it reflected through his translucent skin. Verso tipped his head back against the trunk of the tree. Grumbling, he said, “You could at least try to move on.”
“I have.”
“Don’t lie. I’m a far better liar than you, Maman. I recognize one of my own.”
She offered him a weary smile. “You are, aren’t you? I always wondered why you felt it necessary."
“To keep the peace. To make you happy. Because it was easier.” Verso shrugged. “There was no shortage of reasons.”
“All of them selfish.”
Verso scoffed, tipping his head towards the knife. “Pot, kettle.” Aline nodded in concession. His mother looked at him, searching his face. Her expression twisted in naked pain. Verso glanced away. He’d never handled her hurt well. The sight of it made him want to lie, to offer some pretty platitude if only to see her smile again.
“I’ve handled this badly,” she murmured.
“What? The knife?” Verso said, imbuing his tone with a levity he didn’t feel. “You’re right. It doesn’t suit you.”
“The situation, impudent boy. I keep expecting this to break—it’s always broken in the past—but…” Maman shrugged. “It doesn’t. The numbness stays. The shape of your absence.”
“Do you want me to say I’m flattered?”
“No. I think we can afford the truth now.”
He nodded. Verso set his hand over hers, pretending he could thread their fingers together. He imagined draping an arm around his mother’s shoulders, pulling her to rest against his chest. She’d been a delicate-looking woman the entirety of her life. Now, he feared she’d break. “The truth, then. You’re being selfish, mother.”
“I know that, too.”
“Alicia needs you. And Papa. And Clea, as much as she’d like to say otherwise.”
She looked so miserable, eyes full of tears. “And what of you, mon ange?”
“What about me?” He laughed. “I don’t find myself needing much of anything these days.” Verso forced himself to swallow, leaning forward to press his forehead to hers. “I’m alright, Maman.”
She dragged in a ragged, choking breath. “I don’t believe you.”
“No more lies, remember?” He kissed her cheek. “Please, Maman. Please, live. Not forever, just—just a little longer. Will you do that? For me?”
He felt his heart break. Maman tried and failed to speak, finally managing a jerking nod. “Fine. Alright, Verso.” She tried to laugh. It came out a hiccupping little sob as she scrubbed the back of her hand across her face. “You should feel ashamed—using guilt on your mother.”
Her son shrugged. “And why not? A favorite tool of yours, if I recall.”
“I'm beginning to realize the errors I made with your Canvas-self, mon ange. He was a presentable boy.”
“And what am I?”
Her smile wobbled near the edges. It was still a smile. “A little shit.”
He laughed, high and bright, slumping down enough to pretend to rest his head on her shoulder. “Profanity? What will Papa think?”
She left the knife by the tree. She lived another day. And another. And another.
The hurt never faded entirely. Eventually, Aline would learn to live again.
~~~~~
ALICIA
~~~~~
His baby sister found him in the library.
The fire had eaten all of their collection. It’d gone up like hay soaked in lamp oil. Papa, desperate to restore some semblance of normalcy to the manor, had spent a small fortune at various secondhand stores and collectors around Paris, purchasing novels by the hundreds to fill the empty shelves. Renoir didn’t seem to care what he bought, so long as it took up space.
For the past week, Alicia had busied herself with plucking the repeat novels off the shelves, tossing them in a pile. Some—the ones she liked—she’d move to her personal collection. The rest, they’d donate. Alicia looked up, gaze fixing on him instantly. He nearly shrank back, scrubbing the back of his neck. Ghosts couldn’t blush. He still felt like he should, flashing the young woman a lopsided grin.
“Noticed me, did you?”
“I’ve seen you around.”
“And you never thought to say hello? Rude of you.”
Alicia didn’t smile. “No one wants to believe they’ve gone insane.”
Another shrug. “If you have, it’s a family-wide madness. Or my dead mind spiraling. I’ve visited everyone else at this point.”
“And you never came to me?” She tossed another book on the pile. “Now, who’s rude?”
He made a show of settling into the armchair. “Best for last, and all that. Besides, you seemed like you needed time.”
“Everyone thinks they know what I need.” Another book tossed into the pile, this one with more force. Alicia shot him a withering look. “It’s why I’m still here.”
“I won’t apologize for it, either.”
“Verso, look at me. Look at this family.”
“I’ve seen everyone.” He pursed his lips, expression softening. Verso looked at his sister—sweet Alicia, always so different from the rest of them. Beautiful Alicia, now scarred, her eye socket glaringly empty. He smiled. “I see you—what exactly am I looking for?”
She rolled her good eye. “Idiot.”
“You sound like Clea.”
His sister stood up straighter, lips curling back in a snarl, somewhere between genuine anger and hurt. “You sound like yourself.” He cocked his head to the side. Alicia continued in a bitter voice, “The you in the Canvas. Maman painted another Verso, you know. Another family.”
“Was he as dashingly good-looking?”
Despite herself, she snorted out a laugh. “He was just as stupid. And just as blind.” Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. “Neither of you stopped to think about what I’d want—or that we’d have to go on without you. You’re selfish, Verso. And you—"
“—would make the same choice. In every life. In any life.” He smiled. She didn’t return it. “I won’t say I’m sorry.”
Alicia looked away. “You should have lived.”
“I decided otherwise. And I was bigger. And older. You’re meant to listen to your elders, you know.”
“Again: you're an idiot.”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead.” His baby sister shook her head. Verso stood. He knelt in front of her. Alicia reached out as if to touch his face. Her fingers passed through his cheek. He turned into the touch regardless.
“I miss you,” she murmured. “Papa says it will get easier, but…Verso, I’ve lost so much.” Alicia sat amongst the ruin of their library, a bitter smile turning her lovely face. “You’ll leave me too, won’t you?”
Verso considered lying. He nodded. “I think I’ll have to—whatever’s keeping me here won’t last forever.” He sat beside her on the floor. “But…I’m here now.” He smiled. “Tell me about it? The Canvas? Everything? I find myself with a sudden abundance of time.”
She told him of the Canvas. Of the hurtful facsimile of their family, of that other Verso. Of another brother she’d loved and lost.
“You need a new story,” he told her finally, the pair lying side-by-side on the library floor. “The dead brothers have really run their course.”
Alicia snickered. “I think so too. Only not yet. I’d like this version to last just a little longer.”
Verso nodded. “That much I think we can manage.”
~~~~~
They will have to make do without you, the voice said, its tone softer this time. A pitying note had stolen into the words over the course of the intervening months. Verso felt a hand settle on his shoulder, squeezing. He squeezed back.
Soon, he promised. They’re doing so much better, and—
You’ll find a new reason to stay. First today, then tomorrow. Maybe they’ll be better next week, next month, next year. You’ll find reasons not to move on, Verso. Love binds us to these places.
He heard the unspoken truth: you have to say goodbye.
He walked the manor again, visiting his parents, visiting Clea, lingering by Alicia’s bedside. She slept more easily these days. The nightmares came with less regularity. One day, she might even have good dreams again.
Verso chewed the inside of his cheek, slipping his hand into his baby sister's. One more day? Please. Just one.
After that, he could consider the job finished. After that, Verso Dessendre would allow himself to rest.