Hello friends. How long it's been. How long since I sat down to tell you a story. How long since I've been able to. 

And what I want to tell you is a simple story, tonight.  A ghost story, as it happens, of course. It must be a ghost story, tonight. And, incidentally, also a love story. I do enjoy those from time to time. I must have a love story tonight. 

I wonder why. I ask this sincerely. Because love, I think, is something that I understand very well on a certain level. I feel it, I feel it in a broad sense - towards you as my friends and listeners, towards all of your kind because I was once like you and I long to be with you even still. I feel it sometimes in a narrower sense - I have loved individual people, human, monster, spirit alike - but this is the hard thing. The idea of it - the idea of having one person in the world to belong to, forever and always, and who must belong to you - is heart-achingly beautiful. I don't know why, but it is. The exceptionally rare is always heart-achingly beautiful. And exclusive love like that is indeed rare. So rare, that I doubt its existence. At least in the way it's told in stories. Ahh, when I was a young, fragile thing, oh, I believed very deeply in it. I dreamed of it. I dreamed of a belonging like that. 

Now, I don't know that I should belong to anyone. Perhaps not even to myself. I don't know. I'm lost. I'm lost, I think.  Lost, and in love with far too much for my own good. 

Let me tell my story. Perhaps it will become clear when I tell my story. Not for you, mind you, but for me.  Stories somehow help me make all things clear, in my own time, and in theirs.

This is, as I said, a ghost story. A story of a ghost who was lost, too - lost and lovelorn. Aren't we all.

There was once a woman who worked as a governess for a wealthy family. The mother and father were callous towards her, and the children were spoiled and crude to her, and she had only a little love for them - greater than this love was her gratitude for her meager wages and the tiny room she was allowed under their roof. But even this gratitude was not very much, not lately. 

And so, when she received a strange letter offering her employment in another household, she immediately had her bags packed. She offered a quickly scrawled letter of resignation, a polite thank-you, and a quick kiss to the top of the head of each child, before heading out of the door and into the hansom cab that already waited for her outside the front door. 

On the journey to her new home, she read over the letter she was sent in greater detail. She was surprised that the position was not for governess, but rather for housekeeper. She had never had a position of such great standing in any household before; however, perhaps it was because this house was no longer in use by its owners. In fact, there was no mention of where the owners were, let alone who they were. It only stated that the house was empty and in need of someone to care for it, to make sure it was tidy and to keep a fire going to deter vandals and thieves. As long as she worked to keep the place in order, it was hers to do with as she wished. It was almost too good to be true. She had never had a home of her own; finally, finally, she would have a place with enough space for her to discover who she truly was without the gaze of a judgmental employer or needful children to affect her. She would be able to discover who she was, and what she wanted from life. 

When the hansom pulled up to the house, she almost went weak in the knees. From adoration, yes, for It was so grand, but also from fear, for it was so dark. Not for the lack of candlelight, but rather, it was a dark house. Black on the outside, dark velvet curtains, and from what she could see through the windows, dark damasque on the walls. It was a dark place. And this thrilled and terrified the woman all at once. 

A stranger greeted her and showed her the place. Every room was a new adventure. The main hall with its grandfather clock that ticked and tocked laboriously. The fully stocked kitchen with foods she was never allowed to share in at her previous home. The master bedroom, with a bed three times the size of any she'd ever slept in. 

Once settled, the cab took the stranger away, and the house was now hers. All hers. Her laughter echoed throughout the place, and the clapping of her hands sounded through every one of her rooms. 

Her rooms. 

She could barely sleep for the excitement in her bones. But when she did, it was the softest and deepest sleep she'd ever had. Full of dreams of her rooms, her gloriously empty rooms. 

But she dreamed of a door. It was tucked away, just under the main staircase. She hadn't seen it when she adventured in, the night before. 

When she awoke, she was unsure of the time, but the sky seemed to be dark. Not night time, but the grey of either early morning or early evening. She dressed quickly, and tied her hair up neatly - for though the house was her own, she did fear that perhaps someone might check in on their newest hire to ensure that she wasn't abusing her position. She quickly made her bed - the only thing so far that had been disarranged in the household - and ran down the stairs with a candlestick so that she could see if that door was there in reality, or only in her dreams.

There it was. 

Waiting. 

Exactly as it had been in her dream. 

But she'd never seen it before. Not in waking life. 

She turned the doorknob, and with a stiff jostle, it opened. 

[A melancholy and obsessively repetitive theme on piano is heard and plays under the following]

The glow of the candle revealed little as she followed a hallway full of portraits. She had to hold the candle up to see the faces therein. Most were faces of wealthy, cruel people, like the ones she'd worked for in the past. People she didn't care to give a second glance to. So she didn't. 

The hallway led to a second door that also opened with some difficulty. But it opened. 

It opened on a library. 

It had two floors lined with shelves, and the shelves were filled to the brim with books. All kinds of books, but it was clear that whoever had filled this library had a love of poetry and of classic tales. Books of poems, melancholy musings of dark, tortured souls she had heard of but never read. Heavy, dense epics of pain and pleasure, war and love, gods and men. She had never seen such a place as this. 

She spent the day here. Or was it the night? She wasn't sure. She opened one book after another, frenzied and obsessed at the notion of so many words at her disposal. 

No one came and found her. No one checked in on the performance of the new housekeeper. And if they did, what would she say? Easy. This room had been neglected for years, obviously. It would take her days to dust it properly and air it out. 

But she didn't, really. The air was thick and intoxicating, and silent as a grave. Which is why she shrieked when a book fell off a shelf from the second floor and thudded at her feet. 

This was no book, however. This had a man's name scrawled on the first page, and every page after was filled with frenzied, bold handwriting. This was a diary. 

In quotes, at the top of the first page, read the line: 

"Give me the waters of Lethe that numb the heart, if they exist, I will still not have the power to forget you." 

It was a quote from an ancient author. Ovid, it was. She had heard the name, but never read him. She had never been permitted to. 

"I will still not have the power to forget you." The words rang out in her mind. So loudly, that she doubted whether they were in her mind at all, or whether instead they were being whispered in her ear by a low voice that was not her own. 

As she turned the page, more was written. More words of pain and of love, from this Publius Ovidius Naso. This Ovid.  "We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us," the words came scrawled even more desperately. Another read: "Dignity and love do not blend well, nor do they continue long together", in even more frantic and relentless scrawling. And the next quote made the colour drain from her face, as big, bold letters read: "Turn your candle to the portrait on the wall." 

The voice was different. This was no quote from an ancient Roman scholar. This was a command from the writer of the diary. Her hands shook, as she slowly raised her candle, and turned towards the opposite wall. 

There was a fireplace and a mantle. Above it, there hung a portrait of a lady. 

A beautiful woman; dignified, elaborately dressed, wearing fine jewels and a grand gown. And her face....her face looked very much like the woman who held the candlestick herself. She had the same curious eyes, the same complexion, the same colour of hair, the same dimple the chin. The same high cheekbones. The exact same shade of lips. And yet...there was something quite different. A kind of mischief in the eyes, a kind of fiendishness to the smile. This woman had been fierce. Merciless. 

The book fell from her hands. 

And she ran from that room to her bedroom, where she locked the door, and wept in terror for the rest of the night. Or day. Or whatever time it was. Until she fell asleep. 

And dreamed of a shadow, waiting for her in that room. 

A shadow who wept.

When she awoke the next day, she paced around the home. She thought she might busy herself with chores and with work, but the idea seemed impossible to her. She couldn't even imagine dressing herself, so she wandered the halls in her white nightgown and bare feet and loose, long hair like a ghost herself. She tried to make herself a meal. Tea. Anything. She tried, but she failed. For all she thought about was the shadow in the room. And that book, with its passages of love and of pain. 

She had to go back. Though a pit sat in her stomach and she feared that portrait of that woman who looked like a hardened version of herself. She had to go back. 

Nighttime, it was in there. It was always nighttime in there. She lit a fire in the fireplace this time, and the room was a little brighter. She could see the book on the floor, and the page on which it had fallen open to where, etched in huge, angry letters, were the words: "HE LOVED A LIFELESS THING AND HE WAS UTTERLY AND HOPELESSLY WRETCHED." 

"You loved her," the woman whispered. "You loved a cruel, pitiless woman." 

And her heart ached for the owner of the diary. 

And she remembered the name at the beginning of the book. And she couldn't help but try and think back to the name of whoever it was who signed her letter, offering her employment. 

Who was it? 

How had she found herself here? 

Why hadn't she seen the driver of the carriage that brought her to this house? 

What did the face of the person who showed her to her room look like? She couldn't recall. 

"Why am I here?" She whispered aloud. 

She sat in the old armchair in front of the fireplace, the book in her hands. She kept her eyes on the portrait. That is not me, she thought to herself. It can't be me. And, in her heart, she knew that she was correct. She was no one but herself. And she was not merciless or pitiless. She was not a lifeless thing. She was full of curiosity, of excitement. Perhaps she had been haughty and distant with previous families she'd worked for. But she knew she had kindness in her heart. She believed in that. 

With that determination in her mind, she picked up her candle and returned to the hall of portraits. 

Wealthy people, lords and ladies. Mostly older and distinguished, dressed in clothes that were very antiquated. But only one man wore clothes from the same time as the woman in the portrait over the mantle. 

And she knew immediately that this was the man who wrote in that journal. 

A darkness to his brow, a sunken kind of pain in his eyes, and his mouth, an angry line almost carved in stone. His hands were large and tense. The painter had somehow captured restlessness and pain in this man, and yet it did not twist him into an ugly thing. It refined him, rather, into a poetic kind of hero. A man who had known dissatisfaction and yearning. Just as she had. 

Hours had passed, and she hadn't even realized it. She was exhausted, yet again. Time moved differently in this room, didn't it? But she suddenly couldn't bear to leave this place. She searched and searched for the book she knew was here somewhere. Publius Ovidius Naso. His favourite poet. He who wrote of love and transformation and loss. 

She devoured it. She found the pages that were dog-eared, where passages were circled. She read his favourite excerpts. And she too fell in love with the words. It was easy to see how the sad lover had become obsessed with them. How someone so deep in the throes of unrequited love might cling to them. She took the diary and opened it to a page near the end that was blank. It took only a little searching to find an old quill and a pot of ink that was still wet. She wrote in the book in her graceful, swirling writing, a quote of Ovid's that she'd found on her own: 

"All things change; Nothing perishes." 

And she left it open on her lap. And she fell asleep in that armchair. 

She dreamed of the man in the portrait, but he wasn't in the portrait. He was in the room with her. Standing in front of the armchair. Staring up at the portrait. 

She imagined herself standing and walking to him. Looking at his handsome, tortured face. She tried to touch him, to speak to him, but he couldn't hear her. He was lost. Completely and utterly lost. 

She awoke, hours later, to the loud and fearful sound of the door slamming shut. The force of it extinguished the few embers that were left in the fireplace, and she felt a chill as she realized she was still in her nightgown. She shivered. The woman clambered out of the armchair and fell to her knees, wide eyes trying desperately to see anything in the complete darkness, and her lungs suddenly panicking in the dusty air of the library. She felt she was almost swimming in that dust. She scrambled for to find the candle and tinderbox that she knew she'd left closeby. But instead, she found the diary. And her hands felt other hands holding it. Cold hands. Large hands. Strong hands. 

And from directly in front of her, a voice whispered: 

"'Look away, and what you love is nowhere.'" 

Her heart pounded in her ears. She tried to scream, she tried to breathe, but her voice and her breath caught in her throat at the same time as those hands clutched at hers desperately. "Did you not tell me that once?" 

She broke free of the grasp, and tried to find her tinderbox and her candle. She found the one and not the other - but the tinderbox was enough to create a spark, which was enough to show her the way to the candle, which she frantically lit again. She could not see her aggressor, however. She spun around, eyes searching. "Who are you? Show yourself!" 

A deep laugh echoed around the room. "Oh, you know me. You've always known me. And I've always known that I would find you again." And another quote came forth from this angry person's mouth: "'I can live neither with you, nor without you.' But now, you see, I live not at all. So I can finally have you. And you've come back. As I've always known you would." 

She shook her head. "I don't know you. I don't know who you are. I've never been to this place." 

A deep sigh. A sigh of longing. A sigh of pain. A sigh of fury. "Not in this life." A slash in the canvas appeared across the portrait of the woman. "But I would know you anywhere. You have changed just a little; but I would know you anywhere." And the journal on the floor flipped its pages furiously, and landed on another page. The page she had written in the night before: "ALL THINGS CHANGE; NOTHING PERISHES." And the voice echoed out again: "You can't forget how you treated me. How you laughed at me. How you mocked my devotion. And I have been devoted even still! Even still!" 

And the terrible sound of weeping and wailing blew around her like a terrible storm. 

The diary's pages fluttered open to one that read: "She will never love me back. She cannot ever love me back." Another flurry of pages, and next, the diary revealed a page that read: "I would do anything for her. I will do anything for her." And the pages tore themselves out of the book and flew all around the poor woman. She could still hear his weeping all around her. 

The woman trembled to even ask the question: "Did you kill her? Is that why you're still here?" 

He cried out and he laughed all at once. "Did I kill her?" The laughter swelled, and the diary flung itself against the bookshelves, knocking over several books in its path. "I wouldn't harm her for the world, no matter how badly she hurt me. I adored her. I loved her. I still do. I love you! Always, always!" 

She felt a little relieved at the revelation. Her brow arched. "Then you...you killed yourself when she rejected you? That is why you're still here?" 

He roared and laughed again. "You ask questions you already know the answer to, my cruel love! Remember! You must remember! You must!" 

"I don't know! I don't remember! Tell me!" She screamed it. She screamed at the top of her lungs. She couldn't take it any longer. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, trying to concentrate, trying to breathe in the electric air. 

But then, suddenly everything was silent. And she opened her eyes.

The candlelight was undisturbed, its glow steady. 

And she clearly saw a man standing in front of her. Just as he had done in her dream. But he was facing her, this time. Looking at her, the same way he looked at the portrait. But there was something different from the way he looked in her dream, and from the way he looked in the portrait. 

His lips were blue. His eyes were clouded, not dark anymore. The blood had drained from his face. He had a terrible wound to his chest, she could see it. Deep and bloody. And at his side hung a scabbard and a sword. 

She shook from terror and she was faint from exhaustion and hunger - how much time had passed since she'd been in this dreadful library? -  but she took in everything in the silence. The sight of him. A terrible, defeated expression on his face. Anger, certainly, but not hatred. "I did not kill you. I would never hurt you. I did not kill myself; I was in pain, but I did not kill myself." He took a step towards the girl, reaching towards her, but seemingly afraid to touch her. His hand shook at the memory of pain and treachery. "I fought for you." 

She looked at his wound, and at his sword. She took a step towards him, her bare feet cold against the floor. "A duel." 

He arched his brow. "I fought a duel in your name." And tears - somehow - fell from his clouded eyes. "And when I lost, you laughed." 

The woman's mouth opened as if to say something, anything, but the only sound that came out was a shocked kind of breath. A statement of grief for him. Disbelief that someone could be so heartless. And looking at this man who she had somehow grown to know over her short time in this house, someone who loved beautiful words and images and adored books and loved to write his favourite quotes in his diary...

She wept for him. 

[That same melancholy piano melody again is heard]

At first just a little. Tears crossed her cheeks. But she couldn't look at him anymore. She bowed her head and cried like a child. She raised her hands to cover her mouth to muffle her loud sobs. She wiped at her eyes. She cried as she had never done before. 

And the man whispered, "...you're not her." 

She her eyes from the ghost before her and shook her head. 

"You're not her," he repeated, and she felt cold hands gently touching her hands, causing her to lower her arms so he could look at her face again. So that he could look at it more closely. So that he could realize that her eyes were actually quite different from the woman's in the portrait. Her bearing was different. Her mouth was softer. And his expression softened, too. "She would never have wept for me." 

And when her red, wet eyes looked up at him, she saw that he was smiling. 

And she smiled, too. 

He had such plans, this vengeful ghost, to win the soul of the woman who had tormented him in life. He had planned on making her fall in love with him, finally, in a way that she wasn't able to in life. But what he didn't realize is that this girl, this gentle, lonely girl, had fallen in love with him all on her own. 

She had fallen in love with a ghost. 

His arms wrapped her up in a warm embrace, and she pressed her head to his chest, where she heard no heart beat. 

No one heard from the girl after that. 

Well, I did, when I visited the house. 

I sat in that very armchair, in that very library. And I let them whisper their story to me. 

I don't know when or how she joined him. I don't know when she died, or if she did at all. 

Do you think that, if someone loves a ghost, they can simply decide to join them? 

Did she simply follow him to another place? 

Did she just disappear? 

Ovid once wrote: "My purpose is to tell of bodies that have been changed into shapes of different kinds." 

He spoke of Metamorphoses. Didn't he? 

Perhaps that is what happened to her. 

I have changed, too. So of course she could have. She wanted to be with him. And, as I hope I've shown you countless times: anything is possible. 

I have fallen in love with ghosts. 

I think I'm still in love with ghosts. Because you see, I am unable to be satisfied with those who are material, and right in front of me.  I am, instead, more fascinated with the shadows in the corner of my view; with the monster in my imagination with the broken heart. 

Is that what I am, after all? A monster of the imagination, with a broken heart? 

Is that why you love me? If you love me? Do you love me? 

Don't answer. 

Goodnight. 

Hi friends, this is Kristen - your podcaster, writer, producer, and host of On a Dark, Cold Night. Thanks so much for tuning in to Episode 84. I'm so sorry I took the last couple weeks off, and I'm sorry if my voice is sounding rough - I've been quite sick with some awful laryngitis. I didn't want to put this story off any longer, though...because I'm kind of in love with this story.