"Always" by Lauren Siegel
Photo by Max Nüstedt on Unsplash
Like always, Celeste sits alone.
Decaying books, mouse carcasses, and floorboards stained crimson with blood cocoon her sanctuary of stillness. She’d been confined to this attic since 1804, when her youth was frozen by the fangs of the odd dinner guest; when she could no longer see the reflection of her green eyes in her silver-backed mirror; when her innocence wasn’t enough to stop the burning in her throat, the ensuing feast in which family was the main course.
Isolation seemed the only repentance.
The echoes of Mother’s screams are Celeste’s haunting lullaby, the phantom grips of her sisters’ fingers an illusion of embrace. Solitude assaults her frail figure, tearing away at Celeste day by day until her body becomes numb to the pain. Nothing is alive in this lonely attic. Not even the girl who’s made it her home.
So, Celeste sits alone.
Celeste is alone when a cacophony of footsteps and shuffling boxes rings into the house, the stench of fresh blood fueling the pangs in her stomach. It’s likely another new family, convinced they can set down roots between the cobwebs. It doesn’t matter to Celeste. The moment the sun surrenders to darkness, she opens her door and slips into the second floor hallway. It’s a process she’d repeated hundreds of times, guilt eroding into concession with each kill.
Celeste is about to turn into the master bedroom when something moves in her peripheral. A figure, emerging from the shadows into the open doorway across the hall and looking right at her. The figure is a girl, and the girl stands alone. Her green eyes glow with fear, dread plastered across her tired face. Her hair is unkempt, her old clothes wrinkled from sleep. Celeste freezes, but the girl doesn’t look away. She doesn’t say a word.
Celeste backs up until she is out of sight, nearly sprinting once she reaches the attic steps. Hunger burns holes into Celeste’s insides, but she can’t risk returning. She spends the night poised for attack, perplexed when the morning comes and no one races in with a wooden stake.
It is days before Celeste ventures downstairs again. And, to her utmost shock, she is again greeted by the girl, standing hesitantly in the same door frame. Maybe it’s because she hadn’t alerted anyone. Maybe it’s the sadness and desperation in her eyes. Maybe it’s because, for the first time in two hundred years, someone is willing to give Celeste what she hadn’t realized she ached for: their presence. Nevertheless, Celeste can’t force herself away from the girl’s gaze.
Every night thereafter, Celeste sneaks downstairs to meet her girl. She loves sitting close to her, sharing company with someone worth more than pumping arteries. Loves the engaged sparkle always present in the girl’s wide emerald eyes. Loves how the moonlight falls just so upon her disheveled locks. They sit in a communal, cathartic silence, Celeste too afraid to utter one syllable that would break the magic bond between them. A bond of shared understanding, a balance that could crumble to dust as easily as it was fortified.
The girl always remains in her room, never passing the threshold of the doorway. And for a while, Celeste prefers it that way. But one evening, Celeste looks over at her girl and a foreign feeling overtakes her. Her heart brims with admiration, her chest erupts with bliss. Hunger is suddenly nothing but a little hum in the back of her mind. Celeste sees the love in her paramour's eyes, and the longing for something else. In that moment, she is no longer afraid of ruining their delicate bond. She only desires to make it stronger.
Celeste flutters her eyelids closed and leans in, pursing her cracked lips. A cold, hard substance greets her. Celeste opens her eyes, and a smudge print stares back. The realization of her own face in front of her crashes down, threatening to shatter the aluminum-backed mirror before her.
Like always, Celeste sits alone.
Lauren Siegel is seventeen years old and from Summit, NJ. Scribbling stories in notebooks ever since she was little, Lauren has always been passionate about exploring universal human experiences and the human condition through fiction. She particularly loves to write horror and fantasy stories, hoping to use things that are other-worldly to make sense of the world we live in. When she's not writing, Lauren loves competitive swimming, reading, painting, knitting, and spending time with friends and family.