You hesitate to approach the vanity, as it is without a doubt the most expensive, most elaborate piece of furniture here. Not only that, but a chill radiates from it, giving you goosebumps as you move closer. Despite no visible power source, the globe bulbs around the mirror glow, refracting off the mirror dizzyingly. The mirror seems to call to you, begging your attention. A lone perfume bottle sits upright on the surface of the vanity, but its contents have likely long since evaporated. There’s a locked drawer with no visible keyhole, but your eyes are drawn to the odd set of typewriter keys set below it.
You watch with mounting curiosity as your reflection fades into a dark pool and is replaced by what appears to be a glowing number “1”.
You gently lift the beautiful glass bottle, for some reason expecting to be scolded. You can’t shake the feeling you’re handling things you shouldn’t. However, you can’t seem to stop yourself from testing the bottle. It’s empty, which doesn’t surprise you after all this time. Nevertheless, for a brief moment you’re surrounded by a soft, floral scent.
“I do wish you’d respect my belongings.”
You turn to the figure of Vera McDermott herself perched in front of her vanity, her reflection’s eyes on you. You get the feeling she’d look ethereal even if you weren’t able to see the soft globe lights both illuminating and shining through her.
“Manners would say you should leave a calling card if you wished to speak with me, not let yourself into my home and dig through my family’s belongings.”
“It’s about the night you all… passed.”
“Uncouth even to the point of conversational topics. As you wish, what would you like to know?”
“No sense of privacy, conversational or personal, hm? If you must know… A lovely side table I had ordered arrived in town, but there was no way I was allowing the brutes at the post office to deliver it whenever they got around to it. I brought our lodger along to do the actual lifting, so I had to bring Jane as well for security’s sake, you see. Virgil had been holed up in his room for too long, so I insisted he come too. We hadn’t even made it to town, before that awful car broke down, and just as a storm had begun to roll in. We were given a lift back home by a passerby, that salesman fellow. He was a bit talkative, but pleasant nonetheless, and I invited him in with the hope that the storm would pass shortly and he could return us to pick up our vehicle. Once inside, well… there were refreshments to be made. That awful neighbor was there, who knows why, and that’s where things get rather blurry for me. I’d rather not discuss this anymore right now.”
“Oh, my poor Charles. He had been away on business. A different time zone entirely, in fact, three hours behind. What an awful thing, to have to watch your husband discover your cold, dead body. It was… unpleasant. He was such a clever man, though, cleverer than some might think. He figured out how to speak with the deceased. Well… Elsie specifically. He wouldn’t speak with me. I feel as though he mistakenly thought I might have had something to do with it, that I was but a suspect amongst the other spirits here. Then came the worst of it. I had to watch in horror as my dear husband went mad in this house trying to discover what happened! He was obsessed with finding the murderer, and it consumed him when I needed him the most. When he died, all I wanted was for him to join me here but… he simply ceased to be.”
“Who wouldn’t, if they knew him like I did? Quiet, at first, but what love lay in him! We met by chance when he was on a work trip, and I knew I’d never truly known love until he spoke to me. The moment he smiled at me that first time, I was lost. I’d go to the ends of the earth for him, even to this tiny nowhere town, and apparently even to the ends of the afterlife. Oh, Charles!“
