Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Marianne had ended up with the assignment at the house out on the far-flung edge of the Atlantic Ocean by virtue of being on the lowest rung in the office. Also for having been the only person to mutter, "Cool," when the job was proposed.

Sophie, a colleague with whom she was overlapping very briefly, gave her an equally brief tour of the kitchen.

"There's electricity in a few of the rooms - here, upstairs in the room I've been sleeping in, the one bathroom on this side of the house. It might go off though. There are lots of batteries. Gas in the bottle. Enough canned food to make it through the apocalypse. I'll be back in a few weeks with supplies, take your laundry."

Marianne knew all this - the isolation bordering on desolation. It had been presented to her as though it might make her want to back out of the job. Instead, it had acted as incentive.

"Will you be all right?" Sophie asked.

"Yes, of course."

Sophie looked unconvinced. "It's a long time. I've only been here one night and I can't wait to leave."

"I like being on my own." Sophie looked so serious Marianne almost laughed. "What is it?"

"Only, you might not be on your own."

Ominous! It got Marianne leaning in despite herself. "What do you mean?"

"There's a ghost. Everyone knows. They call her The Lady in White. A poltergeist."

Marianne scoffed, largely to cover the prickle of fear running down her spine.

"They didn't warn you?"

"No," she said. "I would have laughed if they did. There's no such thing as ghosts."

Sophie did a single, slow, pitying nod.

Unhurried and alone, the next day Marianne took herself on a meandering tour of the house. Bleached clean by the sunlight, the sand, the Atlantic winds, it was exposed. Far from naked though: it was piled high with furniture like geological strata.

The house's link to the present was tenuous, moored to the 21st century only by an intermittent electricity supply and very expensive satellite broadband. But Marianne could see the potential in the place.

First, however, it needed emptying and the initial phase of that was Marianne's job. To pick over all this furniture. The driftwood of centuries. To catalogue and turn into a neat spreadsheet. Thankfully this did not involve moving anything anywhere, which was likely to be a monumental task and one Marianne did not envy the organisation of.

And it was true, what Marianne had told Sophie. She liked being alone. She valued her solitude. This could do her the world of good right now: peace and quiet and a job to focus on.

Marianne let her fingers trail a path through the dust on the furniture, looking around at treasures untold.

Out of the corner of her eye... Impossible. A trick of the light, a breeze on a dust cover.

Paranoia was contagious. Marianne would never have considered any such thing left to her own devices. But now the spectre was quite literally raised she found herself second-guessing. Was that where she had left her book, her bowl, her towel? Had she left that door open or closed? Some ancient superstition stirred deep in her genetic memory.

Later that night on the way to the kitchen a ripple of recognition ran through Marianne. An animal instinct detecting the presence of another creature.

Without thinking she spun around. Ready to catch a flap of a bird, a scurrying mouse, even an inquisitive fox. Instead, for the briefest moment, a flash of a lady dressed in white. Then only a dark and empty hall.

Marianne turned to continue walking, a shuddering breath.

The first proper day of work had gone at a painstaking pace. Everywhere Marianne turned there were more objects, more stuff. Inside that stuff, more stuff. Inside that stuff, more stuff again. Half of everything was covered in dust sheets so no wonder everyone thought there were ghosts.

While the sky turned grey and the heavens opened Marianne bustled about upstairs trying to place buckets and bowls to catch drips and just to move furniture out of the way when she ran out of appropriate receptacles. By evening the sky was lit with regular flashes of lightning and an accompanying boom rolling over the sea.

There was an impulse to run outside and stand in that lashing rain. To be cleansed somehow by the raw power of nature. But Marianne couldn't open the front door - swollen shut with the wet, she presumed - and by the time she stopped trying to force it and decided to try the side entrance the impulse had mostly passed. To cement which, the lights gave a quick sputter then all went out. Marianne climbed the stairs to bed waving her phone around for illumination.

The lack of electricity obliged Marianne to go to bed early. This greatly extended the usual several hours that she spent tossing and turning trying to get to sleep each night. The wind howled through cracks and rattled the window panes and Marianne tried to ignore the creaking, slamming door caught in a draught somewhere upstairs.

Driven half-mad - she must have been - she finally disentangled herself from her sleeping bag and switched on her lantern. She allowed herself to turn on her phone. 03:21. As if the night weren't bad enough she knew in her bones that she would be seeing The Lady again. Plus, if she were a ghost, this was prime fucking-with-the-living weather and she would take full advantage.

Marianne crept through rooms with the lantern casting a harsh, uncompromising light. Thank goodness it wasn't a candle. Instead, she stood on the shoulders of giants wielding a hundred years of technology and scientific breakthrough. As though that were any defence against the deep mysteries of the universe.

"Turn around."

Marianne tried to hold herself together. This wasn't possible, but she was going to obey despite every nerve in her body screaming for her to run - out the door and away forever.

Head first, body only following when it absolutely had to. Remaining aligned to flee.

Shining with her own soft light: The Lady in White. Who appeared about as startled as Marianne felt. Thunderous look on her face, Marianne noted, along with the translucency of her dress, the passivity of her hands at her sides.

"No one has ever heard me before," The Lady said. With her scowl it was almost an accusation. Marianne wasn't sure if she ought to apologise.

Having delivered the message, the apparition began to walk away. Against all sanity Marianne followed her. "Wait, please."

The Lady shot a withering glance over her shoulder and disappeared.

Marianne found herself at the noisy door.

Perhaps, Marianne thought, that was the end of it. Either her nerves had calmed and she had stopped these fevered dreams that had seemed so real - and yet clearly were not, could not be. Or the ghost had had her say. It had been two days.

The moment the thought occurred to her as she took a dust sheet from a mirror: the sensation of being watched. From behind. Though Marianne could see in the glass that the room was empty. She realised the choice in the turning - the challenge. So she did, without being asked. "Hello?"

Shimmering into existence, the woman appeared. Marianne took in the long white dress, the blonde hair, the defiant look. The apparition was faded in the daylight.

Marianne cleared her throat. "I'm Marianne," she said, with what she hoped was minimal shake in her voice. "Is there... anything I can do for you?" There was an echo of her brief career as a shop assistant. Clumsily delivered, yes, but utterly sincere.

"You can leave me in peace."

"That's what I want too. I'm sorry to disturb yours. It won't be for long."

The Lady nodded, though whether she was assuaged or not Marianne couldn't tell. After a moment, "Héloïse."

"It's very nice to meet you, Héloïse," Marianne said carefully.

Then she was gone.

Again Marianne began to think she had imagined that strange meeting. But the next morning she heard a noise in the hall as she was getting ready. An otherwise innocuous shuffle, except that Marianne was particularly listening out.

She went to the door and put her head out. "Good morning," Marianne said to the empty hall. Reasoning that there was no embarrassment to be had either way.

It was empty no more as Héloïse appeared a little further down. She was leant against the wall, frowning.

"Were you... waiting for me?"

Héloïse frowned some more but didn't disappear which Marianne took to mean that yes, she had been waiting, and this gave Marianne a good deal of amusement.

"I won't be a moment," she said. "You don't have to wait out here." She ducked back into her room but Héloïse did not follow. She put her head into the hall again.

"Do you need an invitation?" she joked. It fell flat.

"I have no wish to invade your privacy."

"I think I'm doing the invading." Marianne tried to make herself humble. "Come in."

Héloïse stalked in, rigid, looking about as Marianne wrestled her socks and shoes on.

"Your books?" Héloïse indicated the small pile. In response to Marianne's nod Héloïse picked one up and took it toward the window. At first this didn't seem strange at all - Héloïse was a spectral figure but a figure nonetheless. However as she got closer to the window the light seemed to interfere with her and she became more and more translucent to the point where at some angles it was just the book floating in midair.

"Ovid? This was ancient when I was alive."

"I studied classics at university. For a while." And had barely read anything since. When former pleasures all turned to ash. The idea was that at some point in this assignment even Ovid would look like entertainment. And that somehow reading it would prove something. Or that she carried it with her as a reminder of who she had once been.

Héloïse returned. "What's this? You use it often."

"My laptop. A computer. It's a machine, a device for... it's sort of maths and electronics and you can use it to... work." Héloïse's face was still uncomprehending and Marianne felt that more as a judgement on her explanations than the difficulty of breaching such a gap.

"And this?"

Next to the laptop was Marianne's phone. "Er, a smaller computer?"

Héloïse was surveying Marianne's makeshift bedside table: hairbrush, camping lantern... then she poked at the small cardboard box. "This?"

Marianne swallowed. "Medicine."

That made Héloïse look at her sharply with what could have been concern, though the hoping was probably more than the evidence. "You're ill?"

"No. Not now. Thanks to those." The truth in its most reduced form.

Héloïse nodded, satisfied. "You carry fewer possessions than your modern compatriots."

Marianne was aware but Héloïse made it sound honourable. And yet even with so few things there was always a mess. Truly a mystery. But Héloïse had almost paid her a compliment so one was necessary in return. "You live in a grand house with many beautiful things."

"Nothing here was ever mine," Héloïse snapped.

"I'm sorry." Marianne was startled though she immediately realised she shouldn’t be. She knew nothing about Héloïse but she should have known better.

Marianne rocked back on her heels and rubbed at her neck. She looked around the room. She was pretty sure Héloïse was there. "Héloïse?"

After a moment Héloïse appeared by the door.

"Do you want to go for a walk?"

"I can't leave the house."

"Oh." Ghost. "Well, will you point me in the right direction for a walk?"

Héloïse nodded and walked in front of Marianne down to the door, waiting for her to shrug on her coat. Héloïse herself opened the door and hesitated before putting a foot out onto the doorstep. Marianne hung back but Héloïse kept going down the steps and part way down the drive. Then she shook her head. "I can't go any further."

"Of course," Marianne said.

"If you take the western path the steps to the beach are easier. Watch for the tide."

"I will, thank you."

Héloïse nodded as Marianne walked away. When Marianne turned back, Héloïse had gone.

It was night-time and across the other side of the house Héloïse was moving around. Then Marianne heard the tread of the stairs and footsteps on the floor above. She had difficulty sleeping at the best of times and this constant back-and-forth across creaking floorboards was not helping.

Marianne put her hands to her head. " Héloïse!" she whispered in frustration.

"Yes?" came a voice from the door, startling Marianne into sitting.

She allowed her palpitations to subside. "Are you having trouble sleeping? You are being very... moving."

"I don't sleep. I have no need of it."

Marianne couldn't decide whether that was a perk - one could get a lot more done - or a serious problem - life without the sweet release of sleep was a daunting prospect. For an insomniac who was always chasing an elusive good night's sleep it was even more of a quandary.

"But you do."

Marianne was moved by the undercurrent of sympathy in Héloïse's voice.

"May I sit?" Héloïse indicated the chair covered in Marianne's t-shirts.

Before Marianne could leap up to make things tidy Héloïse just sat down atop the clothes. Marianne lay back down with a little smile. "Good night."

A pause. "Good night, Marianne."

Marianne sat cross-legged on the floor in front of a particularly imposing dresser. She traced the edges with her fingers, feeling the joinery and the wood, the condition of the varnish. She pulled her laptop closer and began typing.

A familiar ripple ran across the back of her neck. "Are you there?" she whispered. Duly Héloïse appeared, sat neatly on a sofa. Marianne smiled softly at her. She wasn't offended that Héloïse didn't smile back, or even make much of acknowledgement - she was here at least.

"What are you doing?" Héloïse more or less demanded.

"This is my work. I'm cataloguing the items, surveying the rooms. I haven't taken anything or moved anything."

"I know."

"What do you do?" Marianne winced. "With your day, I mean?"

"Walk, mostly."

"Are there other gh- people - around? That I can't see?" The etiquette of this was unclear.

"No. Most people just die. A few get trapped. Your ghosts."

"How do you know?" Marianne had been at least pretending to keep working so as not to scare Héloïse off with her intensity. Now her hands fell still.

"I've seen it happen."

"There were others?"

Héloïse gave a solemn nod. "A maid who needed to see her murderer hang. A woman who died in childbirth."

"But they aren't here now?"

"No. The mother - she was here for eighteen years. Watching her children grow up and leave. The open threads of her life tied off. She had her peace. And she passed on."

"On to what?" Marianne found herself whispering.

Héloïse shrugged.

"And the maid, she needed justice?"

"Mm."

"And you've been here..?"

For a while Marianne thought Héloïse was ignoring the question. She shuffled round, kneeling at Héloïse’s feet, looking up at her.

Finally, "What year is it?"

"2019."

A shadow passed across Héloïse's features. "Two hundred and forty-five years. I... I am two hundred and seventy years old."

"Héloïse..." Marianne breathed.

Héloïse reset her face to stone. "I cannot seem to find my peace," she said simply. "Do not pity me."

It wasn't pity that Marianne felt in any case. There was the burning desire to ask more questions, certainly. But mostly just this ever-expanding warmth.

Chapter Text

Marianne was currently working in what she assumed was the ballroom and at one point referred to it as such.

Héloïse looked around with great detachment. "In theory."

It was not lost on Marianne that Héloïse was a valuable resource regarding the house and could be very helpful with the work Marianne was here to do. It was equally not lost on her however that Héloïse was not a resource and, in any case, had a shaky relationship with the house. She hadn't asked her questions about the place but was more than happy to hear. She turned to look at Héloïse, waiting.

Who paused, considered, and continued. "We didn't entertain. No balls, no dinners. I only heard music in church. And there has been little here since."

"Big things have been happening in music," Marianne smiled gently. "Would you like to hear something?"

Héloïse gestured around her as if Marianne were missing a very important point. "How?" she demanded.

"Here." Marianne, in turn, gestured to the laptop.

"It plays music? With no instrument?"

"Mm."

"What music?" Héloïse peered closer.

"Any. All."

"Make it play something."

This was a challenge to which Marianne realised she could not rise. She laughed in embarrassment.

"What?"

"I don't know what to play. There's too much." Nothing too frightening, she reasoned. Something chronologically appropriate to break Héloïse in gently but she didn't know any classical music so resorted to Googling the question. Not the entire question, of what should be the first music a 270-year-old should hear. But the best classical starters. For extra impact she played it on YouTube so Héloïse could see the orchestra. This actually seemed to disconcert her, so Marianne turned the laptop around.

"It's very nice."

Marianne felt crushing defeat. There was no area in which she was qualified to be leading this experience. "It's not a good substitute for the real thing. If you went to a real concert it would be much better." Then, hopeful, "Maybe we can try again later."

"Yes," Héloïse appeared to agree, though so blandly Marianne feared she was being humoured.

"Shall we go for a walk now?" She needed to shake off this creeping embarrassment before it took hold.

Héloïse nodded her assent and immediately left the room with Marianne trotting behind her. Through the front door, further down the path than yesterday, and right to the cliff edge. There she paused and Marianne drew alongside.

Marianne's hair whipped about her. "It's beautiful," she said, looking out over the sea. A cold grey in patches, an unpleasant brown in others, and a luminous Mediterranean green-blue where the sun had broken through the clouds.

There was no response. Héloïse's lips were tightly pursed. Marianne examined her for some sign of what she might be thinking. She was inscrutable as ever. Even when she caught Marianne looking and frowned back.

Which left Marianne with only her own thoughts. Which were all about Héloïse anyway. Héloïse who was so distant. Héloïse who, despite the sunlight, looked as solid and physical as the cliffs and the sea themselves.

Venturing further from the house each day on their next trip they made it to the beach. Marianne leaning back on her hands with her legs sprawled out in front of her. The cold damp of the sand crept through her jeans, but she decided she didn't mind.

Héloïse sat with her legs concertinaed up under those skirts, hands folded in her lap.

Marianne tipped back her head, closed her eyes. The crashing of the waves, the chatter of the birds, the fresh air... she could almost feel her soul being scrubbed clean.

"This is so nice," she muttered.

"What is?"

"Freedom."

"What freedom do you need?" Héloïse snorted.

Marianne opened her eyes to look up. "The sky. Quiet. Open space. Freedom from."

Héloïse shook her head, frowning.

If she would only talk about it, Marianne thought desperately. "I know it's not the same. I have the freedom to do almost anything. Freedom to. Honestly, though, that has its own disadvantages. I'm sorry."

"Why? What have you done?" The challenge was shot back.

Existed, Marianne wanted to say. Not been able to take advantage of all her freedoms to. Let down, somehow, everyone without those freedoms very much including the willful and headstrong Héloïse who goodness knew would have made a much better job of life than Marianne felt she was doing.

"You have some freedom now," Marianne pointed out gently. "Is there anything you would like to do?"

Apparently there was. A flicker surfaced instantly on Héloïse's face though it was a while until she said, "I lived here all my life but I never got to swim."

"Do you want to try? At least we know you aren't going to drown."

Héloïse failed to suppress a smile. "Or get cold."

"Perfect," Marianne grinned. And it was.

Héloïse narrowed her eyes then stood and marched toward the waves. The train of her dress floated along behind her. Marianne watched her bobbing about for a while. When she got back on the beach she looked totally dry.

"Well?" Marianne stood to herald the triumphant return.

"I'm not sure." Héloïse tipped her head in a question. "What is it? You seem troubled."

There was precisely one thing really bothering Marianne at that moment which was that she wanted desperately to reach out and touch Héloïse. She tried to sound casual about it. "I would just really like to give you a hug."

Héloïse's lips quirked. "I do not believe that is possible."

Marianne felt daft but she was going all in. "Let's just pretend it is." She held her breath for Héloïse's reaction - no doubt somewhere between scathing and pitying.

Fascinatingly, she smiled a little in one corner of her mouth. "Very well."

Marianne opened her arms and beckoned Héloïse into them. Héloïse smiled indulgently but seemed also serious in the attempt. Even raised her own arms to Marianne's waist. Stiffly, with a low exhalation, Marianne tried to fit her arms around Héloïse's incorporeal form. She leaned in, mindful that she wouldn't be buttressed by Héloïse's weight and not wanting this to end sprawled on the floor. She put her arms where she knew Héloïse to be. The slope of her shoulders, the curve of her neck: Marianne didn't need to feel to know they were there. She let out a little laugh. "What do you think?"

"It's nice." Héloïse sounded more bemused than not. Then, "Thank you." She stepped back and for a moment Marianne imagined she felt a curl of hair against her cheek. It was as if Héloïse felt it too - pausing her withdrawal and looking into Marianne's eyes. She was frowning but whether in concentration or consternation Marianne couldn't tell. She stayed frozen in place. "I understand," Héloïse said quietly. "I have wanted to touch you, also. To offer comfort. To..."

They gazed at one another, words forgotten. Despite still not being able to touch, Héloïse had never seemed so real as she was now.

Héloïse acted as Marianne's advance party: opening and ordering, tidying and dusting. Sometimes she could provide information about the objects but lacked specificities. She knew the order things had arrived in, but often not the year. Marianne knew, and separately Héloïse had implied, that the house had been unlived-in, though certainly not empty, for many years at a time.

"Is that usual?" Héloïse had asked, so casually that Marianne knew it was important.

"Well, apparently - I don't know if you've heard this - but there's a ghost."

"Oh yes." Héloïse smiled.

"No, not particularly. You certainly could have been less alone."

"And now? Who owns it now?"

Marianne was so busy thinking how odd it was that Héloïse hated the place and yet was so tied to it that she failed to realise the importance of the question. "Some property developers are going to turn it into a big hotel, golf course, the works."

"More people?" Héloïse closed down. "When were you going to tell me?"

"I'm sorry, I..." Why hadn't she?

Unimpressed with this apology Héloïse simply vanished.

"It's really not fair that you can do that," Marianne told the empty space where Héloïse had been, could still be. She didn't know - so much of Héloïse's existence was lost to Marianne, unseen and out of reach.

Héloïse made a good deal of noise during the night to voice her displeasure at Marianne. Doors swung shut in Marianne's face as she went to brush her teeth. Each time she apologised to the door for her thoughtlessness. She would be just falling asleep when furniture would start moving across the floor upstairs. She sighed and apologised again. The pipes took up a terrible clanging. She apologised again and called out Héloïse's name but there was no visit.

The next morning Marianne felt rough and knew she looked rough yet still had the twitch of a smile when she felt Héloïse fall in step behind her on the way to the kitchen. She didn't appear but Marianne chatted to her anyway as she ate her cereal, outlining her plans for the day.

"I am sorry," she said finally. "About the house. And for not telling you. I should have done."

At which juncture Héloïse did appear. She had been stood at the end of the table. Marianne dared to glance at her.

"All I want," Héloïse said, "is to be alone."

This Marianne knew not to be entirely true because they were together a delightful but unnecessary amount of the time.

"So that you can have your peace? Pass on?" She was so careful saying the words. Fearing their impact on Héloïse but, more, on herself.

Héloïse nodded. "My entire life - and death - all I have wanted is to leave this place."

Marianne understood. But what she didn't understand was: "How do you know being alone is what you need though?"

"All my life I was a tool only for others. I existed only for others. Without others I should be able to find the freedom I was denied in life. Become complete. Escape this existence."

"Which you've been trying for two hundred and forty-five years. Have you not once in all that time considered you might be wrong?" A risky manoeuvre but a necessary one, Marianne decided on balance.

"You ought to understand. You came here for some solitude. Freedom."

Yes, Marianne thought. But I was wrong. In any case, "Solitude is only freedom when you have a choice."

Héloïse spat back, "You would know."

Marianne was desperate now, feeling the seconds tick down before Héloïse just vanished into thin air. She jumped to her feet, moved forward as if - as if what? as if she could take hold of Héloïse? "I know that what you want isn't always the same as what you need. That you can get stuck with ideas that are supposed to protect you but that become the problem. What if you've made a new trap for yourself? Héloïse, please -"

But she was gone.

"Shit!" Marianne sat back down and put her head on the table. She knew Héloïse wasn't there to see it.

Marianne worked straight through to the late afternoon. She was desperately tired thanks to Héloïse's antics the night before and feared another night of the same thanks to her latest transgression. But the house felt different without Héloïse there to breathe life into it. Though Héloïse did not breathe, nor was she alive.

So Marianne took herself out for a walk and it was not long before she saw a familiar figure in white stood at the cliff edge.

She drew alongside Héloïse. Who was clearly aware of her presence but said nothing. Nor did Marianne.

They stood until the sky began to turn orange. An indistinct sunset with the cloud cover but all the same it was -

"Do not say it is beautiful," Héloïse warned, their first words an hour or more.

Marianne said nothing but looked sideways at Héloïse finally.

Who turned to meet her gaze. "What if you are right? And I was wrong all this time? What do I do now?"

"I don't know," Marianne said gently. "We can find out."

In another attempt to induct Héloïse into musical appreciation, Marianne opened up the laptop while she made her dinner. Héloïse took a great deal of interest in the machine and sat obediently in front of YouTube absorbing adagio after concerto after symphony. She watched intently when Marianne leant over to type in new suggestions.

"Does it do anything else?" she asked.

"It has other things, yes." How to explain the internet? "People write on it, put videos, music... here." Marianne tabbed into the search bar. "What do you want to know?"

The breadth of the question was too big for an eighteenth-century mindset, Marianne realised as Héloïse stared blankly at the screen. What would you like to ask the combined knowledge of all humanity accessible via invisible data on a machine barely larger than a book?

To Marianne's surprise, Héloïse reached out and started typing. This need not have been a surprise. Héloïse was a perfectly functional single-finger typist because of course if one knows the alphabet one can type. Then all it took was figuring out the trackpad - which to be fair even Marianne struggled with at times - and understanding where to click and within five minutes she was ready to be unleashed on the internet.

"Just - oh god -" Marianne put her hand to her head, "you need to be careful of the porn."

"Porn?"

Marianne died a little inside. "Um, pornography. It's about, er, lovemaking."

"Erotica?"

Though really wanting to pursue what a nice girl like Héloïse knew about that Marianne concentrated on the matter at hand. "Yes, but more - a lot more - and moving and sometimes very graphic and violent."

Héloïse raised an eyebrow. "You have this here?" She indicated the laptop.

"No! No, not me personally but it's there, on the internet. Just... here." Marianne reached over quickly. "Stay on this website." She pointed to the Wikipedia logo.

"What 'website'?"

"Type in this box here." She redirected Héloïse to Wikipedia's own search box.

While she ate her dinner Marianne checked back a few times on how Héloïse was doing. Then she just sat and watched the waves of recognition, surprise, delight, or consternation passing over Héloïse’s face. Every so often she would ask what Héloïse was reading about.

Australian moth species. Paleobiology. The French Open. Zen temples in Japan. Geometry. The War of the Spanish Succession.

"Nerd," Marianne said fondly before she realised there was no way she was going to be able to explain it.

The waves crashed against the cliffs. Héloïse moved with the confidence of someone who had grown up traversing the rocks and had no legs to break. Marianne, in contrast, definitely had a physical self to keep intact. She tried to follow Héloïse's footsteps but the slip was inevitable - a slick, smooth rock under her foot and the other pushing off too quick - and Marianne let out a little whoop.

Instantly Héloïse turned and an arm thrust forward to steady Marianne, who managed to catch it. She righted herself before she looked down at the hand in Héloïse's. Then up into startled eyes. Immediately Marianne's hand passed through as if through air. Héloïse was breathing hard and still looking at her arm suspended there. Marianne brought her hand back up and it passed through Héloïse’s visage. But it had happened. Marianne's lack of broken limbs and the energy that had passed between them, still humming, was evidence.

They continued with greater care despite now being desperate to get to solid ground. Then on the beach all else was forgotten.

"Can we..?" Marianne lifted her hand, wanting to try again.

Héloïse stepped forward, frowning in concentration. She raised her hand, fingers a little curved. Marianne stayed still and let Héloïse move as if pushing a great force, millimetre by millimetre. She gasped as Héloïse's fingers met her outstretched palm. Héloïse's frown broke into a smile and her hand slipped through Marianne's, into it. Still.

"You did it," Marianne beamed. Taking in Héloïse's confused and shaky exhalation she noticed that Héloïse's hair looked different. Damp, almost.

Marianne was making some toast for breakfast when she realised Héloïse was there: her mind snagging on some presence. "I know you’re here," she told her.

Héloïse appeared: seated in the chair opposite Marianne.

"Do you do that a lot?"

Héloïse raised an eyebrow, requesting a clarification.

"Watch me."

"You're getting very good at knowing when I am there."

"That's not an answer."

Héloïse smirked. "Would it bother you?"

"That's not either."

"Not in your room, in private."

"But you do elsewhere?"

Marianne was smiling at her and that seemed to encourage Héloïse. "I like to sit and watch you." Was that a smile? Yes, Héloïse couldn't seem to keep it in and it bloomed over her face.

"I think I can tell when you are."

"Now. Often. Not always. And not at first."

"The whole time?"

Héloïse looked down at her lap, chewing her lip. "The whole time you've been here I've hardly been able to take my eyes off you."

This admission meant Héloïse was absent for the rest of the day. Marianne heard her moving around in an upstairs room and the memory gave her a foolish grin each time.

At dinnertime Héloïse finally reappeared for her nightly Wikipediaing.

Marianne rounded a corner in the hall, cheerfully engrossed in some thought or another, when she looked up and came to a screeching halt. Even though it could only be Héloïse wandering about the house there was still a split second of panic in Marianne until she recognised her.

It was the dress. Gone was the flowing white, in with a neat navy blue. Marianne was transfixed.

"It just... happened." Héloïse spread her arms. "Do you like it?" She was uncharacteristically shy for a moment and it was beautiful.

"Very much. More importantly, do you?"

Héloïse nodded. "That white dress was a torment. It was my wedding dress, you know."

Marianne wouldn't classify that as knowledge so much as a very strong suspicion. Héloïse rationed out information about herself strictly. This, however, felt like Marianne was being offered a chance. "You were married?" she very gently attempted to clarify.

"No," Héloïse replied, leaving Marianne perplexed beyond measure and trailing in her wake.

Marianne sourced them an astrophysics documentary and invited Héloïse to join her. After dinner they generally sat in the kitchen until Marianne went to bed. Héloïse had only been in Marianne's bedroom a few times, earlier on. But Marianne, sick of the hard, wooden chairs in the kitchen and wanting to extend her evenings with Héloïse, proposed they sit on the comfortable and warm bed. Of course such things were no impediment to Héloïse but she agreed.

Héloïse was totally engrossed in the documentary, which Marianne was only half watching because watching Héloïse was far more enjoyable. They lay together, side by side. Marianne vaguely recalled they had begun the programme more properly sat up. It felt like a very long time ago.

After some more subsidence had occurred Marianne became very aware of Héloïse's arm against her own. There was no imagining it. Their upper arms were touching. Very slowly and discreetly Marianne tipped her foot against Héloïse's leg. It passed through into thin air. She started to extend her fingers sideways.

"Stop that," Héloïse said, not taking her eyes off the screen. "I cannot hold it if you keep poking me."

Marianne was startled into behaving herself but it made her smile to know Héloïse, however engaged she might look, was diverting energy into this. Héloïse glanced at her quickly. And smiled too.

When the show ended Marianne was yawning and while she could tell Héloïse was impatient for another the matter was not pressed.

They sat up on the edge of the bed. Marianne meant to say good night but there was something off about Héloïse, who was looking at her feet, her posture slumped in a way Marianne rarely saw and was, frankly, alarmed by.

"What is it?"

"I'm changing."

Marianne knew that, plus she knew that Héloïse knew Marianne knew. But it was the first time either of them had spoken the words aloud and perhaps now they needed to. "Is that what happens when you..."

"Yes."

"How does that make you feel?"

"A little afraid, perhaps. Relieved, finally. But not... it is not how I thought it would be. Finding peace is different for all of us. And I can feel it growing in me. But the more I find of life, the more I want."

"Should we stop?" Stop what, would be the real question, but Marianne wasn't ready to really answer that. "Should I go?"

Héloïse's reaction was swift. "I don't want you to go."

The conviction made Marianne smile. "Good, because I really don't want to. I don't want to leave you alone."

"But if you stay then you will be alone."

"I understand."

"You would do that for me?"

Héloïse's incredulity seemed preposterous to Marianne. "I would do anything for you." She tried, and failed, to make it sound all perfectly normal.

Chapter Text

Marianne woke fully clothed one morning. They'd been watching something the night before. Never in her life had she fallen asleep so easily as when Héloïse was near. Which was an embarrassing and frustrating paradox as this was when she wished to stay awake most. But she'd had such lovely dreams of the sea and the stars. And woken with a blanket over her - one she'd not seen before.

Héloïse made no mention of Marianne's indiscretion or her own delicacy as she sat watching Marianne have breakfast.

As usual they ran through the agenda. There was a rather different event for today. "Sophie is visiting."

"I remember her," Héloïse said absentmindedly, pushing a teaspoon around the table.

"She told me about you. Warned, I suppose."

"She knows nothing about me."

"Your reputation precedes you."

That made Héloïse smirk delightfully. "Then why do you people still come?"

"Sorry about that." Except now there was none of the usual grumbling about Héloïse only wanting to be left alone. "So she didn't see you?"

"I did not wish to be seen."

Marianne pressed on. "But other people have seen you, obviously."

"Briefly. Even if I let it happen not everyone can really see."

Despite this apparent detachment Héloïse hung around in the kitchen even as Sophie arrived - the motor of the buggy making her arrival known some distance away.

When Marianne went to help Sophie bring the supplies in she was surprised to see Héloïse had followed them and stood in the doorway. And even more surprised to see Sophie walk right through her. Héloïse only seemed amused. She moved aside with the tiniest of flourishes to let Marianne pass.

Sophie shivered and rubbed at her arms as she put her bags on the kitchen table. "How have you been?" she asked. Héloïse stood next to her and trained the same questioning gaze on Marianne.

"Oh, fine."

"What have you been up to?"

Héloïse glanced at Sophie then back to Marianne. "Yes, what have you 'been up to'?"

"Just... work." Marianne tried to give Héloïse a glare but it was impossible under Sophie's steady gaze. "Walking."

"Sure," Sophie said.

Héloïse shrugged. She moved closer to the table, as though to reach out to the shopping.

"Uh," Marianne blurted out, "we had a good storm. My first night."

"Second," Héloïse corrected but stayed her hand.

"Yeah you did. Everything was okay? I did think about you."

"Fine, yes."

"Fine?" Héloïse echoed.

"You haven't -" Sophie leaned in, conspiratorial, "experienced anything strange?"

"Strange indeed," Héloïse said. And picked up an apple.

Marianne felt cartoon perspiration forming on her forehead. "No!" she said quickly. "But would you mind having a look at the... oven... for me. I think I need instructions." She steered Sophie away from the table and gestured frantically behind her back for Héloïse to cut it out. Héloïse tossed the apple in her hand then put it back on the table. With a final, defiant, flick of her wrist she let it roll to the floor. The thump startled Sophie back around. "What was that?"

Marianne seized the apple, her hand passing through Héloïse's skirt. "Just this."

Sophie looked reasonably convinced and resumed her demonstration. Then she loaded up Marianne's prepared bag of laundry, took the rubbish bag, and made to leave. "Well, take care. Let me know if you need anything."

"Thank you." Marianne was more concerned with keeping an eye on Héloïse, who was now stood demurely by the fireplace.

As Sophie left Marianne sunk into a chair and fanned herself. Still, it was worthwhile to hear Héloïse laugh.

"This Sophie, are you acquainted?"

"Barely."

"Perhaps you ought to get to know her. Become friends."

"I think she thinks I'm a bit odd. Especially now. Thanks to someone."

"You should try," Héloïse said and before this could be questioned she had moved on. "What in heaven's name has she brought you?" She was busy examining Marianne's groceries. "Why are these mushrooms 'tinned'?"

"Canning," Marianne said. "Very helpful."

Héloïse took to Wikipedia growing more and more horrified as she read about modern agriculture, industrial farming practices, preservatives, factory farming. "But!" she kept exclaiming without expanding on the specific objection. "But!" Finally, she resolved their afternoon walk would be to find Marianne some real food.

They argued about the relative merits of pasteurisation as they went. Marianne not feeling they were relative at all, Héloïse claiming no one ever died from milk poisoning, Marianne asserting that they most certainly did but that people died from so many apparently mysterious things in the past that was hard to tell one from the other.

She related the ways she would have been dead several times over had she been Héloïse's contemporary: the risk of being born in the first place, any number of childhood diseases prevented by vaccination, chickenpox, tonsillitis that resulted in the offender's extraction, the abscess on her wisdom tooth, and all the cuts, bruises, fevers, or common colds that could have been life-threatening but were inconsequential.

She did not elaborate on vaccination or antibiotics when pressed. That could keep Héloïse happily in a state of awe on Wikipedia that evening.

Marianne also felt confident ruling out digestive issues, and probably all illness, as the reason for Héloïse's current predicament.

Their robust conversation petered out as Héloïse slowed down. "I must have forgotten the way," she said, looking about.

"Understandable," Marianne consoled her.

"Or..." But Héloïse was scanning the horizon. "It's gone."

They had been walking along a hedge across a field - trespassing probably, Marianne realised. Only more fields lay beyond.

Marianne felt she ought to have anticipated this and prepared Héloïse for the possibility. "Let's go back." She tried to reach for Héloïse to tug her away but there was nothing to grasp onto.

Héloïse seemed to shake herself out of it. "If we take the cliff path we might find samphire instead."

"I don't even know what that is," Marianne owned.

This earned a tutting from Héloïse. "You only eat this 'canned' food?"

"No," Marianne defended herself. "Takeaways too." It was little defence because Héloïse didn't even know what a takeaway was and would not have been impressed in any case.

That night Héloïse made the dinner, instructing Marianne as she went.

Héloïse was teaching Marianne how to play chess. To hear Héloïse tell it. Marianne's version was 'to play chess better', arguing that she knew the rules it was just some tactics that eluded her.

Yet Héloïse was a surprisingly patient teacher. Marianne could always tell she was onto the right move by the tiny smile that pulled at Héloïse's lips. If she moved slowly enough she could course-correct by watching Héloïse's face carefully.

It was easy to forget. Think that they were just... hanging out. Until Héloïse would muse on how she had developed her chess game over time - learning more modern techniques from 'the soldiers' - that brought back in a rush how long she had been here and how much she had seen.

"You can play chess against the laptop, you know," Marianne pointed out conversationally.

"You do not wish to play anymore?"

"No, I do," Marianne said quickly, then realised she was being teased. "I like playing with you," she said anyway. She went on, "A computer beat the best chess player in the world."

Héloïse considered the board. "Why would you want to play a machine? Aren't people more interesting?"

Marianne, who, when she had attempted to play chess before had done so on her phone, agreed that yes it was more interesting to play against another, fallible human, but then you would have to interact with another human and that was a whole other matter entirely. It might even involve having to leave the house.

"Why do you not like to leave the house?"

This was a fair question from someone who had been, until very recently, physically incapable of leaving the house for nearly 250 years. It didn't make it any easier to answer. "When we have dinner remind me to show you a video of the city." She was thinking of the crowded streets, the traffic, the pollution, the sheer overwhelm of modern existence that Héloïse couldn't possibly understand. And even that failed to capture it.

Héloïse had developed a deep furrow in her brow and Marianne suspected she was about to get told off for wasting her advantages in life. Instead, "What is to be done with you?" Héloïse muttered and shook her head.

In an instant Marianne knew what Héloïse was thinking - had been thinking for days as the cooking lessons and references to making friends with Sophie came back to her. She did not like it one bit. "Don't," she said softly.

Forcefully, but not unkindly, Héloïse replied, "I must," just as Marianne knew she would. "What will you do when you go back?"

All sense of time had been abandoned here. For Marianne there was no after, there could only be now.

"I don't know."

"We should decide. I would like to know. I... I need to know."

Marianne took a deep breath. "I've never been very good at the future. I made a mistake about it, once. A pretty colossal mistake. Now it's like I don't trust myself."

"What mistake?" Héloïse was still that combination of firm and gentle in her voice and her eyes. Marianne unspooled.

So Héloïse heard about Marianne's childhood, the endless procession of gloomy apartments, then, at eleven years old, two gloomy apartments, alternating weekends. The agonising and interminable teenage years to which university was the light at the end of the tunnel - her reward. The escape from everyone and everything she couldn't bear. The real start of her life that she had been deferring all her happiness to.

Then getting to university and finding herself utterly unable to cope. Knocked down, laid low. Unable to sleep and unable to get out of bed. Unable to read, study, write, get to lectures. Unable even to eat. Able only to drop out feeling betrayed by her own self. Stranded in this great mire of depression that still tugged at her now, five years later.

After that, the careless behaviour - not revealed in too much detail, Marianne had some pride. The succession of terrible jobs she couldn't hold down. The five roommates she disliked, and who disliked her even more.

But also the medication, the therapy. How getting out of bed had become easier this past year. How she was learning what she needed. The lingering distrust, though, in her own judgement. The residual anger at herself: blaming herself still. The horrifying thought of how far she still had to go if she was to have any of what she thought of as a real existence.

She finished her story but the thoughts trailed on. How she tried not to think about what might be ahead for so many reasons. Unable to bear the thought of the future she simply chose to ignore it. That had never been more true than it was right now, here with Héloïse.

In response, Héloïse took a deep breath and reached out to place her hand on Marianne's shoulder. The effort was visible in her eyes. Her thumb crept over Marianne's collar to the bare skin of her neck.

"You have so much to live for."

"I don't think I am very good at it," Marianne confessed.

Héloïse drew herself nearer, looking stern. But she placed her other hand on Marianne's other shoulder. Spoke to make herself remembered. "You are a gentle soul. This makes life difficult. It is the fault of the world, for being how it is. Not a fault in you. You must hold onto your goodness. Do not let the world take that from you.”

"Marianne!" Héloïse called with such urgency that Marianne tripped over herself racing across the kitchen to where Héloïse was pointing at the laptop screen. "What is this?" she demanded.

Marianne's heart sank. The porn had caught up with them. But no, Héloïse had dutifully remained on Wikipedia. The title: Same-sex marriage in France.

"Oh." The blush was creeping in already. "Yes."

"What 'yes'?"

"I don't..." Marianne held up her hands in surrender. "I don't know what you are asking me."

"You knew about this?"

Marianne smiled at Héloïse's consternation. "Yes. Everyone knows about it."

"Everyone knows? That there are people like this? And they can -" Héloïse struggled, "they can get married?"

"It's not perfect," Marianne felt compelled to point out. "It's still hard. There's still opposition."

Héloïse wiped at her face though there were no tears Marianne could see. "Not in a thousand years..."

Marianne panicked and knelt down, putting a hand over Héloïse's on the table. The solidity of Héloïse throbbed. Marianne gave her a reassuring squeeze. It was nowhere near enough.

Eyes still trained on the screen Héloïse spoke again after a long minute. "You can live freely?"

It wasn't clear who Héloïse's 'you' referred to. Considering all possible versions were correct Marianne just said, "Yes," feeling apologetic. Héloïse shuddered and Marianne was unable to help. "I'm sorry."

"I am glad." Héloïse was trying hard to compose herself. "You deserve that."

"You deserve it too," was all the reply Marianne could make.

Marianne and Héloïse sat on an ottoman the size of a dining table while Marianne had her morning coffee.

Héloïse tipped her head, considered something. "You have not been in the attic yet."

"No. Is there anything good?"

"No. There is, however, a painting of me."

That sounded very good indeed.

Although Marianne would have been making her way into the attics at some point, she wanted a sneak peek now - managing to wait until a respectable workday was done but no further.

There was a good deal of acquired detritus and yet still enough room that no one had needed to throw the old out in favour of the new. Héloïse knew offhand what each chest and crate contained.

A wooden pallet, only a corner visible, was pointed out. They dragged trunks and crates away stirring up dust that had Marianne coughing while Héloïse stood unaffected.

Ever the professional, Marianne pulled out her multitool to crack open the pallet.

"Be gentle with me," Héloïse murmured, lips turned in a teasing smile.

The lid removed, Marianne turned back to the portrait, eager. But flinched. It was a traditional-looking painting in every way - bar the minor detail that there was no face. Once recovered from the shock, she peered closer. Héloïse stood at her elbow. "Unfinished, as you see," she remarked, triumphant.

Marianne looked at the dress, the arms, the pose, that was all intact. Just a blur where the head should be. It made her sad but Héloïse seemed about as cheerful as Marianne had ever seen her.

"It was to be my engagement portrait." Héloïse did come over a bit grim then. "But I refused to sit. It had to be given up."

So Héloïse had in fact outlived her portrait - Marianne had assumed for an awful moment it had been terminated by her death.

Cheered by this Marianne looked at what had been painted. "Even the body is wrong. The arms. The hands. You would never do that."

That made Héloïse smile. "It was a rare victory in my life. I must cherish it. Still, I have a request."

"Yes," Marianne answered. It was an agreement, already, to anything Héloïse asked.

"I want you to take it outside and burn it."

Marianne thought she understood.

"Only one person has seen it, since it was stored here. Looking for valuable artwork. I am surprised he did not destroy it. Though I did not give him much of an opportunity. And I wanted you to see it. But no one else."

"Of course," Marianne murmured, still a little entranced by it. She replaced the lid gently and carried it carefully though it was on its way to be burnt anyway. It was still, in some sense, Héloïse.

The most easily accessible part of the beach was the venue for their bonfire on account of Marianne hauling a canvas half her size along with her. Héloïse claimed she could not handle such a large object so far from the house. Marianne suspected an aristocratic dislike for manual labour.

A funeral pyre stood ready for Héloïse's non-portrait. Marianne manhandled it on top, perching akimbo. She looked over at Héloïse, who regarded the bonfire with her flinty gaze. Until she looked at Marianne and nodded. Stepping forward, Marianne lit the fire, confident that the earlier and secret liberal dousing with butane meant that Héloïse would not realise Marianne lacked the very fundamental skill of persuading humanity's oldest friend. It did the trick. The flames grew bolder and began to lick at the canvas.

Marianne lounged on the blanket, free of eighteenth-century strictures. Héloïse knelt primly.

Héloïse knew the names of the constellations, which Marianne did not. Héloïse laughed and while it was wonderful it was also discomfiting as Marianne suspected it was at her expense. "How funny," Héloïse offered without prompting. "All these things you know about the world, yet you cannot name the plants under your feet or the stars above you."

"So teach me." Thus, Marianne instigated her favourite romantic scene with the unwitting Héloïse.

Later, "I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. Most kids do I guess."

Héloïse raised an eyebrow. "I wanted to be a nun."

"Pretty sure no 1990s kids grew up wanting to be a nun."

"Yes, well, for '1740s kids' -" Héloïse mocked Marianne's modern accent - "being a nun was a very good idea. Peace. Quiet. No men. But there was no choice, not really, when you are the only child and a daughter who can be married off to money." Héloïse clearly wanted to say no more about it though Marianne burned for the details. "Why did you not become an astronaut?"

"No one actually becomes an astronaut. I mean, some do, obviously, but a few dozen maybe. I'm not smart enough or fit enough or any-number-of-things enough."

Marianne was trying to get as close as she could in order to maintain the illusion that she could touch Héloïse had she only wanted to. Close enough to think maybe she were, but without entering Héloïse's visage and shattering the illusion.

"Now what do you want to be when you grow up?"

The question made Marianne laugh. "I don't know." But she did. "Happy."

Héloïse repeated the word in a whisper then tipped her head and looked down at Marianne. "I am glad you are here, not in space," she said.

"I'm glad I'm here too." Marianne imagined she could feel a warm spot on her arm, as though Héloïse were resting a hand there. She didn't look. Left herself with the possibility it could be true.

Gazing into the fire for the longest time Marianne began to feel mesmerised. The portrait was gone now, ashes making their way up into the atmosphere. Free.

Marianne's consciousness started to drift. She shifted in place to get more comfortable and turned her heavy eyes back to the flames.

"I went to a bonfire once," Héloïse said.

"Mm?" Marianne prompted, evidence she was awake and listening.

"With the maid. She was trying to cheer me up. I suppose she felt sorry for me. She was a nice girl but the project was doomed to failure." Héloïse was quiet for a moment and Marianne held her breath. "There was singing. Just local women. It was beautiful. It was alive. I was so entranced and stood so close to the fire that my dress caught aflame."

"Is that how you -" The sentence was half-finished but its meaning was laid bare and Marianne put her hand to her mouth. She rolled to look up at Héloïse, who returned the look with unbridled rage.

"I'm sorry. Héloïse, I'm sorry."

Héloïse looked wildly around her and then pulled back, standing up.

Marianne's shoulder hit the floor with a bump, and she scrambled to her feet.

Héloïse had turned and was looking at her outstretched hands, muttering something.

Marianne put a hand out to her.

"Do not touch me," Héloïse hissed. She shook her hands then turned to Marianne. "Is that what you have always had in the back of your mind, this whole time?"

"No."

"I don't believe you," Héloïse said, correctly. "Digging through other people's belongings. Questions about ghosts. All you want is the sordid details."

"Fine. I do - I do want to know. You know everything about me. And I know nothing about you."

Héloïse recoiled. "You know me better than anyone ever has. I thought you - I thought we -" But she stopped herself, turning away from Marianne.

"What?" Marianne wanted to hear Héloïse say it, acknowledge it - acknowledge something. "You thought what?"

"But all this time you were just a - a - a voyeur."

"Me?" Marianne was indignant. "Am I the one sneaking around the place invisible?"

"You need not worry about that." Héloïse stalked off into the darkness.

Marianne scuffed up a great spray of sand in frustration and let her go.

It wasn't until she had doused the fire and was trudging back to the house that she recalled the way her body had slipped when Héloïse moved: that she had been lying not on the floor, but in Héloïse's lap. That Héloïse had walked away and not simply vanished.

Chapter Text

The next morning Marianne prepared herself for her reckoning though it took her until gone lunch to work up the courage.

It didn't feel as though Héloïse was nearby, so she went to the main staircase and called up. "Héloïse? Héloïse! We have to talk."

The scrape of a chair and footsteps. Marianne went back to her room. Sat on her bed. Stood. Paced. The door opened and a haughty vision of Héloïse marched in, unblinking. "Yes?"

Despite the situation, Marianne was desperately pleased to see her. That she had deigned to hear Marianne out. "I am sorry. I shouldn't have pried."

Héloïse's jaw was set.

"You asked me if I wanted to know. I don't." It made Héloïse falter. "Not like this." Marianne only realised the truth in the words as she said them. "Only if you trust me."

"If you want to know so badly..."

She was being baited, tested. She didn't blame Héloïse for it at all.

Time to lay everything on the line. "There's only one thing I want. And I'm losing you." Now, after.

Héloïse turned her head away as though debating something. When she looked back at Marianne her eyes were unsettlingly clear.

Then Héloïse took a step forward, so she was immediately in front of Marianne. Then another. Marianne stumbled just on the instinct of someone barging directly into her but there was no physical blow. She was faintly aware of Héloïse around her edges, the overlap. Then an intensity in her mind and she gasped for breath.

The room melted and reassembled around her. Instead, she was in one of the larger rooms on the other side of the house. It was different. Then, without moving, her gaze shifted to a mirror and she saw, instead of her own reflection, Héloïse's staring back at her.

At her shoulder a shorter woman who she instantly recognised as Héloïse's mother both from the resemblance and the extra layer of consciousness that reminded her so. Her reflection had swollen red eyes and she ached from clenching her jaw. Above all though a surge of anger, not outward, but inward. Héloïse directing it at her own self.

"Héloïse," Marianne said but the mirror image did not show it. Instead, Héloïse turned, Marianne's mind going with her.

With the horror burning through her she was running through the corridors of the house and throwing open the front door. Holding up the white dress and fighting its weight as she ran toward the coast. Struggling for breath and approaching the spot Marianne had stood with Héloïse all those times.

Toward, toward - Marianne felt her own body put out her hands but did not see them. Only the salt water on her face as she came over the cliff. The storming water closer in an instant. The freezing shock of cold. The gaping emptiness.

Héloïse - the presence of Héloïse - left her. Marianne doubled over, heaving for breath, feeling the ice in her blood. Héloïse was stood in front of her once more, hands clasped neatly. They were still in the bedroom.

"Héloïse!" Marianne choked out. The pain she had felt echoed through her still. The salt on her face became tears now.

She reached - and she found. She clutched at Héloïse's waist and felt hands placed on her grasping arms. No longer impervious, Héloïse cracked too and sank to her knees. They clung to one another, weeping. Marianne grasped the fabric of Héloïse's dress, pulled her close, felt the weight of Héloïse in her arms. Felt the skin of Héloïse's cheek against her own.

At her neck Héloïse's lips were moving, muttering something. Over and over. "Forgive me," Marianne finally heard. "Forgive me." Marianne held her tighter.

After a time, their tears ebbed. Resting their foreheads together Marianne smoothed the hair from Héloïse's face. Héloïse ran her thumbs over Marianne's cheeks to wipe away her tears. They swayed a little, giddy, and laughed, then fell silent. For the longest time they looked at one another. Not just looked. Could finally hold one another.

"Come on," Marianne finally said, nudging at Héloïse and getting stiffly to her feet. She helped Héloïse up and led her gently to the bed, arms around her - a gesture probably unneeded by Héloïse but desperately necessary to Marianne.

They lay on the bed facing one another.

"Are you all right?" Marianne asked softly.

Héloïse nodded. "I was afraid for you to know. What you would think of me."

"I understand. I understand it all."

"I know," Héloïse said, with something like wonderment.

"What happened after?"

Héloïse picked up the story. "There was nothing, for a while. Time moving strangely. When I reappeared here my mother had gone. The house was packed up. I was trapped. Until you."

"You only needed someone to see you."

"It was so much more than that. You have given me so much more than that. Also, I needed to swim in the sea," Héloïse added, smiling.

"Open threads," Marianne whispered as Héloïse nodded and reached across to toy with Marianne's hair. She couldn't hide the shaky exhale. She recognised the impulse.

Then she asked what she wanted to know: "Does it work the other way, with the memories?"

"I don't know."

"We can try. You can see all of me," Marianne offered. She would give up every embarrassment, every anxiety, every shame, every dark moment, to Héloïse's eyes.

"I see everything I need. Here. Now." Héloïse's eyes flicked across Marianne's face.

Héloïse had fallen asleep. The wonders were never ceasing.

Propped up on one elbow, Marianne looked down at her, lying on her side and curled into Marianne's chest. She wanted to touch her again. She wanted never to stop touching Héloïse. But the vision was so perfect she couldn't bear to disturb it. Instead, she revelled in it. Taking her time studying Héloïse's eyelashes, the darkness of her eyelids, her lips - god, her lips - her hair.

With a wrinkle of her nose, Héloïse's eyes opened. Immediately their gaze met.

Marianne should have been mortified and pretended she wasn't watching, looked away. She didn't.

"Hello," she said, her throat burning with an impossible tenderness. "You were sleeping."

"And what were you doing?" Héloïse smiled. She rolled onto her back with an easy confidence that put Marianne on the very edge of combustion.

The possibility of leaning down and kissing Héloïse - and Héloïse actually being there to kiss - was screaming around Marianne's brain and running all through her body. And Héloïse was right there - so very, brazenly, flagrantly, right there.

There was the lightest touch on Marianne's hand. Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment in anticipation, in joy.

Héloïse's hand lingered before moving up Marianne's arm. Marianne melted and tensed at the same time. Her chest heaved and she cursed her tell-tale corporeal form. Héloïse blazed a trail with her fingertips up Marianne's arm, over her shoulder, scraping though Marianne's shirt, to her neck. Héloïse's other hand was buried in Marianne's hair.

Marianne felt the shiver run across her skin - miles and miles of skin on fire at Héloïse's touch. Héloïse was impossibly close now and drifting closer, her lips almost at Marianne's own.

"Is this how it feels to be alive?" Héloïse whispered.

"You were alive," Marianne muttered insensibly, completely overwhelmed.

"Not like this. Never like this."

Héloïse's hand moved along Marianne's throat, passing up to her jaw, to her lips. Guided together on a route Marianne had travelled many times but only in her dreams. Héloïse held firmly to the back of Marianne's neck, a strength she was not surprised by. The tingling under Héloïse's palm cupping her face, then the soft pressure of Héloïse's lips, tasting of the wind and the sea. Of the stars.

Marianne was pulled closer and closer, sank deeper and deeper into Héloïse. As though even now they could press themselves together and become one. Share a heartbeat, share breath. But Héloïse remained wonderfully solid.

When Marianne's kisses became interspersed with desperate whimpers she tried to draw away, to regain some semblance of control. Héloïse, sensing this change, slid her hands up under Marianne's t-shirt and fixed her with a very deliberate look.

"We don't have to," Marianne managed to say despite Héloïse stealing the breath from her lungs.

But Héloïse's eyes burned black like nothing Marianne had ever seen before and she propelled herself upward to kiss Marianne again. Héloïse's urgency and desire was as bewildering as it was breathtaking to Marianne, who found her t-shirt being whipped over her head and her jeans being fumbled at. Héloïse swore heartily as she struggled with the zip but was soon jubilant in her triumph and Marianne was overwhelmed with adoration. She sat back and removed her own bra, to be helpful, and Héloïse crashed into her like a wave.

"Wait," Marianne managed to say, the huskiness of her voice surprising even herself. She ran her hands along Héloïse's neckline. The prospect of the dress was daunting. She found the buttons at the front.

"I am not sure if -" Héloïse began to say.

But it did. The buttons slid away and Marianne felt godly in her power.

Héloïse put her hands over Marianne's to halt her.

Marianne instantly withdrew. "I'm sorry."

"Let me," Héloïse said and Marianne understood.

Héloïse wrapped Marianne in her arms and kissed her breathless again, before laying her back onto the bed. From this vantage point Marianne leaned up, watching.

Watching Héloïse finally in full possession of herself. All her power intact. Slowly, slowly, shedding layer after layer, stripping herself bare. Vulnerable but utterly in command of herself. She reached to her hair, letting it down, running her hands through it.

Héloïse crept back to the stunned Marianne and did the same to her - stripping her down to the barest emotions kiss by kiss, touch by touch.

As wonderful as the night before had been it was possible that getting to wake up next to Héloïse was even more so. Marianne had only a moment to bask in these glories before Héloïse opened her eyes as well. They smiled at each other almost shyly but still the sheer novelty of physical contact broke through any trepidation. Marianne shifted herself closer, up against Héloïse's cool body.

"You have work to do."

Marianne shook her head disbelievingly. "There's no way I'm going to do any work today." She leant over Héloïse, kissed her, tried not to kiss her again, failed, and finally tore herself away. "Don't disappear on me," she warned. "I'm going to get breakfast."

Héloïse surprised her with: "I haven't disappeared for days."

Marianne thought back - she was equally used to Héloïse's constant presence as her coming and going. "Can you now?"

"No," Héloïse said, without any hint as to how she felt about it. Then, to change the subject, "I had a dream. It has been nearly 250 years since I dreamed."

It melted Marianne's heart. "What about?" she whispered.

"You know what about," Héloïse replied, her eyes on fire again, greatly delaying Marianne's breakfast.

They walked on the beach for hours. Holding hands, talking, kissing - a lot of kissing. Not just that to kiss Héloïse was perfect, but what it meant. That they could kiss. The spray on Marianne's face, the wind in her hair, Héloïse's hand in her own, the surge of devotion whenever Héloïse glanced at her - this was how it felt to be alive.

Back at the house Héloïse resumed her cooking lessons and Marianne let her, nuzzling into Héloïse's shoulder. They kissed all the way back to the bedroom, stumbling onto the bed.

Afterwards they talked, growing sleepy.

Héloïse stroked Marianne's hair. She had been trying to say something for a while. Lips forming the first sound but then faltering. Marianne just waited.

"I don't want to go. All this time, now I only want to stay."

"There's nothing we can do?"

There was resignation as Héloïse shook her head. "It's right, that it should happen."

"You know I don't want you to go. But I want you to be at peace. When you said you wanted me to stay, I knew I loved you and I knew I would do whatever it took to set you free. No matter how it destroyed me."

Héloïse ran the back of her fingers over Marianne's cheek. Her touch still felt like a miracle. "I don't want to destroy you."

"Every moment has been worth it. I have no regrets."

"Then you are a stronger person than I."

"No," Marianne breathed.

Tears slid from Héloïse's eyes, across her nose.

"Don't be sad," Marianne leaned in to kiss them away. "Don't be sad. This should have been impossible. We should have been impossible. And yet here we are." The adoration in Marianne was too large to form into words. "You are a force of nature. You made the impossible real."

"No," Héloïse said quietly, "that was all you." She took Marianne into her arms. "It was all you."

Even before Marianne's eyes opened, she knew. Héloïse was not lying next to her. Héloïse was not anywhere. There was nothing. No life. No presence.

Marianne grasped at the creases in the sheets next to her. She rolled face down into her pillow and roared in agony. Her heart breaking open and the noise of it bleeding out through the house. There was no one to hear.

Marianne couldn't concentrate. Her gaze wandered. She got lost in her thoughts for hours at a time. She got in the shower but forgot to wash her hair. She burned her food whenever she remembered to eat. She lay awake all night listening to the innocent, natural, creaks and whispers of an old, empty house.

She tried to hold onto the love. To remember fondly. The pain of the loss threatened to suffocate her.

There was the option of calling Sophie back early. Explaining to her employers that the isolation had become too much, that she just needed to leave. She didn't. She wasn't ready yet.

The house threatened to consume her. She considered letting it. One long night Marianne became so determined to leave she could have just waded over the sea. But who would remember Héloïse then? And if she became trapped here there would be no salvation, she knew that.

Finally, the work was finished. Marianne was due to leave tomorrow. She told herself she ought to go outside: she hadn't left the house in a week, much as its emptiness tormented her.

Once on the beach she told herself that she ought to swim in the sea, as Héloïse had always wanted to. It was not a regret Marianne wanted to discover she was carrying once it was too late. And there was a speck of comfort to be found in the connection.

In a rare moment of decisiveness, she stripped off her clothes and plunged forth.

It was cold. Breathtakingly so for the first moments but Marianne held grimly on as the shock subsided.

She had convinced herself to stay in the house and finish as some sort of favour to Héloïse. Now she was skinny dipping in the grey Atlantic as some sort of favour to Héloïse. She could almost laugh. So she did.

Floating along, Marianne decided that when she got back to civilisation she would get a book on botany. Maybe go on a foraging course. Redeem herself from Héloïse's scorn.

Keep up her chess game, obviously. She should buy a telescope and learn the stars. Go to the orchestra too. Hell, maybe she should take up an instrument.

From there the resolutions formed rapidly, crystalline: Learn about geometry, astrophysics, history, architecture, mythology, paleontology. Read novels, read poetry. Look at art. Meet people. See the world. Experience everything Héloïse didn't have the opportunity to do. For Héloïse. On her behalf. And, in some sense, with.

Before Marianne turned to the shore she ducked her head under the water. A cleansing. A promise. As she emerged from the sea, frozen to her bones, there was something new in the pain.

When Sophie did finally arrive the shock on her face was palpable. Her eyes went all over Marianne looking for some injury, some ailment to explain this change. But the pain couldn't be seen.

"I'm ready," Marianne said simply, bags already packed.

"What happened?"

Everything.

Marianne shook her head. "Nothing. I'm just not as strong as I thought I was."

She swung her bag over her shoulder and headed to the hall. Trying not to look, trying not to remember. Just for long enough so that she could leave. Everywhere there were ghosts of Héloïse. None of them real. Not this time.

Marianne opened the front door. And stepped through.

Fittingly, as Sophie and Marianne had been some of the first people to arrive at the house in preparation for its new incarnation, they were among the first people to arrive for the grand opening. The shuttle had a few others on it, who passed through the hall quickly, while Sophie and Marianne lingered.

"I can't believe I agreed to come back here," Marianne muttered.

"Nor can I. I still remember the fright you gave me when I came to pick you up. You were a wreck."

"Wow, thanks."

"Doesn't it look different!" Sophie looked around in awe.

The house was almost unrecognisable. Except that Marianne had spent every night for the past three years dreaming of it.

More people arrived through the afternoon. Colleagues from the developers, all the events interns. The senior figures and investors would arrive tomorrow. The helipad was crying out for them. For now though the events organisers made their finishing touches, the wait staff practiced their service and everyone else tried out the gym and spa.

Marianne wandered. The kitchen was a bar. The ballroom, a restaurant. The new restaurant kitchen, swimming pool and gym were in an extension at the rear. She recognised some of the furniture that had been kept. Some of the pictures that now hung on the walls. It felt like it had come over from a separate reality. Her time here hardly seemed real.

It made her feel nauseous. She finally understood Héloïse's defensiveness coupled with dislike for the place.

She found her way back to the ballroom - the restaurant - as people started to gather for a free dinner.

Marianne joined Sophie and some of their other colleagues.

"You're quiet tonight," a friend from the office noted.

"She's just out of sorts because she's missing chess club," Sophie said.

Marianne swatted at her.

"No caviar!" Sophie was warning them. They did not warrant caviar, apparently.

The atmosphere was convivial. Dessert was relaxed, wine bottles and cheese appeared. It was turning into a proper party.

As night fell, she stood out on the decking and recited the stars.

Thus braced Marianne went back to mingle. She chatted with people she had never met before. She introduced herself. It was hard - it was so hard. But she did. She had conversations about viticulture, about ammonite fossils in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, about the latest art exhibitions in Paris, about visiting Berlin and Rome. She enthusiastically listened to someone talk about the structure and governing documents of the United Nations. Was given a thorough introduction to Polish dialects. Made a note of recommendations for Malayalam cinema and Mexican fiction.

Someone had started up on the piano and couples started to drift into each other’s arms. A cork popped somewhere in the room to a small round of cheers. The merriment was kicking up a gear.

Marianne moved around the room before she found Sophie, intending to make her excuses. She was exhausted. There was a smattering of applause as the piece finished.

"Marianne, play something!" Sophie exclaimed as the piano stool was vacated.

"No, no, no," she protested.

"Go on, you're so good!" Sophie turned to the guy she was chatting to. "She's my flatmate, honestly, she's so good, she practices every day."

Sophie, Marianne determined, was at least a little bit drunk. And possibly at least a little bit fed up of Marianne's practicing.

The challenge hung in the air and Marianne had no option - she gave herself no option. That was the promise she had made.

She closed her eyes for a moment as she sat down at the piano. This is for us, she told herself, told that part of her heart where she held Héloïse. She spread her hands gently on the keys. And she played.

As she finished there were whoops and encores from people other than Sophie but she made way for the next. She had her limits.

Marianne caught Sophie's eye. She made her sign: two fingers walking off. Sophie nodded in acknowledgement having long ago learned not to waste breath talking Marianne out of it.

So Marianne slipped from the revelry. Slowly she climbed the stairs, trailing her hand along the bannister. At the top she took a wrong turn for the accommodation and headed along a path she knew well.

She hadn't been able to avoid updates on the progress on the house though she had asked not to be working directly on the project. To the dismay of her superiors who actually - and it still surprised her now - seemed to like her.

So she knew what to expect as she gently opened the door. Dark bookshelves lined the walls and she found a lamp to switch on. It illuminated a cosy den. A reading room with tables and luxurious armchairs and creaking leather sofas.

She sat at a table near the fireplace - approximating as best as possible the site of her bed. A lifetime ago. And yet just a few short years.

Ripples of laughter and melodies drifted up from below. Music in the house. Life.

Marianne lay back on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling. It bore little resemblance to the one she had spent so many nights staring at. Even the light coming in through the window was wrong with so much artificial light from outside now.

A darker feeling passed across her. But there was something she needed to do.

She put her hand to her chest, over her heart. "I love you," she spoke out loud, in this room, as she never properly had done. It was barely a whisper but still too loud like it might attract the attention of the raucous crowd downstairs. She moistened her lips, closed her eyes. She tried again. "I love you. Thank you."

Too little, too late, but it was all she could do.

Disoriented, the next morning the only thing anchoring Marianne to her location was Sophie's muffled snoring from the bed on the other side of the room.

She had been dreaming of Héloïse. She always dreamt of Héloïse. The comfort to torment ratio of this had drifted towards comfort over time. It could depend. Every so often there were still daggers.

That night they had been walking on the cliffs. Héloïse looking back over her shoulder, smiling that small, mysterious smile. Marianne putting out her hand to smooth down Héloïse's windswept hair.

The grey light of early morning summoned Marianne outside. There was still a bit of landscaping to be finished as she followed the new road down to the shore where the clifftop restaurant and watersports centre sat.

Marianne turned and walked along the cliffs. Facing in this direction everything looked much as it had 250 years ago. As she walked she named the flowers and the birds and the cloud formations for good measure.

She went down to the beach. She stripped down to her swimming costume and waded in. The cold was still there but she was accustomed now. All the early morning outdoor Lido swims had broken her in. Before turning back to shore she ducked her head under the water.

Back in her room Sophie was gone and Marianne packed in peace. She didn't take a shower. She'd made up her mind and she wanted to take this taste of the sea with her a little further, hold it a little longer.

She found Sophie in the dining room just starting lunch and nodded her head toward the door. Sophie got up and followed her into the hall. "Where have you been all morning?"

"Walking."

Sophie's eyes took in Marianne's bag.

"Look, I'm just going to go," Marianne said. "I'm glad I came," to assuage Sophie's wild and suspicious imagination. "But I don't really want to do the big formal party and all that."

Sophie knew better than to argue. "You're sure you aren't being weird? And do you want me to come with you, really?"

"I'm fine. Thank you. Have fun. You deserve it." She came over with an impulse to tell Sophie what a good friend she'd been and how she appreciated her. While she generally tried to follow through with such things it might sound alarming in this moment. She would save it for later.

She was right to leave. This wasn't running away. She'd done everything she came here to do. Open threads.

"See you soon," she told Sophie with a little wave as she turned for the door.

"Marianne!"

Marianne stumbled at the threshold. That was a bad one. She hadn't had such a visceral flashback in a long time. She was definitely right to leave.

Behind her, Sophie's voice. "Um, who are you? How did you get here?"

Marianne shook. Clutching at the door frame she turned around.

Stood in the hall, looking up the stairs: a confused Sophie.

Descending the stairs, dressed in white: Héloïse.

"Héloïse," she breathed.

"What's going on?" Sophie demanded, and was ignored.

Héloïse, beaming, finished the stairs. It was only a few steps but Marianne ran all the same, colliding into Héloïse's arms. Her weight, her warmth.

Torn between wanting to hold Héloïse - desperately pinning her down to reality - and yet also looking at her. She was laughing, or crying, she couldn't tell which. Both.

It was Héloïse who put her back, looked her over and glanced around a little. "What has happened?" Héloïse was concerned, confused.

"It's been - god - it's been years. No, don't worry. You're here. That's all that matters. Are you here?"

"Oh no way," Sophie was saying.

"Are you all right?" Héloïse asked urgently, holding Marianne's face in her hands.

Marianne nodded, swallowing back all the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. "Is this real?"

Héloïse's hand was on the back of Marianne's neck, so that Marianne closed her eyes. One of Marianne's hands was guided across the wedding dress, across Héloïse's chest, to rest over her beating heart. Marianne could feel Héloïse's ragged breath against her own lips.

"I'm alive," Héloïse laughed. "I've never been more alive."

Chapter Text

Marianne could carpe diem all she liked but Héloïse was not a morning person.

"Héloïse!" Marianne exclaimed on returning to the apartment and finding her still in bed. "I've already been for a haircut and to the bakery."

Héloïse’s tousled head popped up from her nest of blankets. "What did you get from the bakery?"

Marianne laughed. "Oh so that got your attention. I fetched you croissants for breakfast."

"You knew I would still be in bed."

"Of course I knew." Marianne leant down to kiss her.

Héloïse tugged at her.

"We've not got time," Marianne mumbled against her.

"I think we should find the time," Héloïse mumbled back.

Héloïse won the debate. Héloïse had spent most of the past three years winning the debate. She left a thoroughly dishevelled Marianne in bed and ate her croissants.

Marianne exited, naked, and inspected her hair. "I was almost ready."

Héloïse arched an eyebrow. "Are you complaining?"

"No. But I was almost ready."

"We've got hours still." Héloïse paused and Marianne knew no good could come of this. "You're nervous."

Disarmed in the face of Héloïse, Marianne could only smile and admit it. "I'm terrified."

Three years ago Sophie had been the one to break up the kissing, laughing, crying frenzy in the hallway and usher an overwhelmed Marianne and Héloïse back to their room. Marianne, afraid to take her hands off Héloïse, didn't.

"Sophie -"

"You know my name. Of course you know my name. This is insane."

"Might we have a glass of water for Marianne, please." Héloïse manoeuvred them onto a bed.

Marianne couldn't help but notice Sophie's immediate obedience. She obeyed too and drank the whole thing in one go.

"I think I'm wanting something stiffer," Sophie observed.

The drinking had at least brought Marianne's breathing under control. "I thought I would never see you again."

"It's all right. I am here."

Héloïse's confidence was encouraging and consoled Marianne so that the urgency of the situation started to fade.

"You are, you're here... Shit, Sophie!" She turned wildly to Sophie who lingered by the door. "Are you okay?"

"Sure, this is fine. Ghosts are real and one just came back from the dead. I'm fine with this. Doesn't fuck up my world view at all. Except my best friend fell in love with one and never told me. I knew something had happened." Sophie was also doing a great job of bringing Marianne back down to earth.

"And if I told you I'd fallen in love with a ghost you would have thought that 'something' was a nervous breakdown." She held out her hand and beckoned Sophie closer.

"I mean, I definitely would," Sophie conceded amicably.

"This is Héloïse."

"Hi." Sophie smiled.

"It is nice to meet you," Héloïse said. "In actual person."

"I, like, walked through you one time didn't I?"

"That was my fault. I apologise."

"It's fine. Turns out I owe you several debts of gratitude. Starting with a best friend here."

Marianne was starting to get teary-eyed again. "Stop, honestly, I can't." She fanned at her face and breathed deep. Her mind was racing.

Evidently Sophie was beginning to have the same thoughts. "Shit, M, what are we going to do?"

Marianne hugged her. Her acceptance and willingness to get stuck-in were very much appreciated.

"What is it?"

Thus began the process of not only figuring out how they were going to handle Héloïse's reappearance but explaining to a peeved Héloïse why they could not simply say she was from out of town and leave it at that.

"Give me the Wikipedia," she demanded and Sophie handed over her phone so Héloïse could read about passports and national identity cards and the weight of bureaucracy in a free society.

Marianne did not have the disposition for identity fraud and the only other option they could come up with was an amnesiac missing person. A role Héloïse could pull off with aplomb given her genuine innocence as to so many things combined with occasional murderous glares.

Then there was the issue of how to present Héloïse. The wedding dress was a bit much and would raise questions. It gave a motive to her running away. Naked raised questions too, more sinister ones. The choice fell to the most nondescript clothing they could lay their hands on.

Luckily Marianne had a bag of the stuff.

"How do I look?" Héloïse asked as she came out the bathroom wearing a white t-shirt and jeans.

"Generic," said Sophie.

"Breathtaking," said Marianne.

Héloïse hesitated. "This is the modern style?"

"No, definitely not," Sophie put in as Marianne nodded.

Marianne realised she was going to have two critics ganging up on her now. Her heart sang.

"I'm going downstairs," Sophie announced. "You two lovebirds have ten minutes then I'm calling the police."

That made it sound bad but by now Marianne didn't have the spare brain capacity for anything other than Héloïse. She looked at her and tears started to well up again.

"I can't believe you are here."

Héloïse pulled her close, rubbing Marianne's back soothingly. "It's been how long?"

"Three years," Marianne hiccupped through the smile and the streaming tears.

"I am so sorry. It feels - it feels like minutes ago I fell asleep with you in my arms."

"And then?"

"I was in your room. Everything was different."

Marianne nodded. "I missed you like you wouldn't believe."

Héloïse didn't seem able to say anything, only wiping at Marianne's tears and stroking her hair. Eventually, "And what of your life?"

"I've been doing my best. Doing as I was told."

"Good girl," Héloïse murmured.

"I play the piano now. Not well, but I do. I play chess every week. With real live people. I have friends and I read books and I visit museums and go to the orchestra and it's all because of you." It all came tumbling out and Héloïse looked appropriately confused. "You changed me."

"You changed me," Héloïse replied.

When the knock came at the door and Sophie called to them, Marianne kissed Héloïse quickly, afraid all of a sudden. "I don't want to let you go."

"I'm not going anywhere," Héloïse said and Marianne believed her, believed that Héloïse could stay here now by sheer force of will. She had felt that heart beating and it was strong.

The police officers were gentle and bemused as they took them to the local station which was barely the size of the room they had just been in. Héloïse was interviewed, they were transferred to the mainland to hospital where Héloïse was examined and interviewed some more. Marianne stayed as close as she could. She held Héloïse's hand whenever she could. Héloïse who was showing a great deal of forbearance about the whole procedure. Several times Marianne looked on the verge of tears.

If anyone thought this instant attachment was odd they didn't say so.

Héloïse relayed to Marianne, "I told them you were the first person who saw me. Which is true."

Sophie turned up not much later and reported that the party had been buzzing with news of the mysterious missing woman reappeared on their doorstep.

And, after, if anyone thought it was odd that said mysterious missing woman moved into Sophie and Marianne's flat straight away, they didn't say so. And if, after a few months lying low, Héloïse's appearance at social functions as Marianne's girlfriend seemed odd to anyone, they didn't say so.

Every so often seeing Héloïse sitting at the kitchen table in their apartment knocked the breath out of Marianne. Watering the plants, padding from the bathroom wrapped in towels, doing the dishes... in fact Marianne was prone to being bowled over by any random moment.

As she was now. With Héloïse sitting at the kitchen table biting her lip, scribbling away on a piece of paper. Marianne attempted to sidle up.

"What are you doing?"

"Never you mind." Héloïse pocketed her note. She pulled Marianne closer and kissed her. "I'm getting in the shower."

To interrupt Marianne's staring after her a message arrived from Sophie. "How is it going over there?"

"Fine. We're almost on schedule. Sort of. It will be fine."

In reply came a string of enraged emojis.

Those first few months had been a whirlwind.

When Marianne had returned from the house the first time it felt like she had been gone years. Civilisation seemed new to her. Mysterious and not entirely pleasant. So she remembered a fraction of the disorientation and how, through Héloïse's love, she began to fall in love with the world again. Now, through Héloïse's delight, she was delighted again. The smallest of things felt miraculous, revelatory.

Marianne took the first few weeks off work as holiday to help acclimatise Héloïse. Went with her to the shops and held her hand while she wandered through supermarket aisles an unimaginable cornucopia of riches.

Héloïse's appetite was insatiable. She wanted to try every fruit and vegetable, every food, every cuisine. And not just food. As Sophie had discovered more than once until she quickly developed the habit of very loudly announcing her return as she stepped through the door.

Héloïse established an immediate habit of lazy mornings sleeping in or reading in bed. Then she would go to the library, to read or to study. After work she would meet Marianne and they would go to a museum, a gallery, a lecture, a restaurant. At the weekend they caught the train out of the city, went to parks, markets, book shops, more book shops, swimming, chess club, various societies, parties.

Sophie declared them exhausting but often came too, getting caught up in their enthusiasms.

When there was month at the end of the money - which there very often was - the entertainment and education had to be free, or they would watch documentaries and take tours of galleries and museums across the world on YouTube.

They watched very little television. And never went to the cinema. Not after the first time. To Héloïse all films were horror films. She sat rigid in suspense the whole way through, flinching at stunts, violence, special effects. Even the mildest dramas bewildered her. Marianne held her twitching hand.

Héloïse would cook something magnificent out of the barrenness of the fridge. There was always cheap wine to be had and the company in the apartment was good. Although, Héloïse had the tolerance for alcohol of someone raised when drinking water in most places was to take your life into your hands. Which meant either she consumed a lot of the stuff or didn't bother at all.

Héloïse taught Marianne Italian while they did the washing up. She taught Sophie how to sew and they started making their own clothes. She read to them some evenings and expected similar entertainment to be provided in return. Marianne played piano. Sophie claimed to be without talent but the next time she went to visit her parents her old violin had returned with her.

There were still occasional visits to and from the police regarding Héloïse's missing persons status and the hospital regarding her amnesia. This was the price to pay for Héloïse's eventual officialdom. A birth certificate. An ID card. A passport.

"How old do you want to be?" Sophie mused, looking at the paperwork over Héloïse's shoulder.

Héloïse considered this. "I have always considered myself to be 25."

"25 is an excellent age," concurred the 25-year-old Sophie.

"That's not fair," Marianne protested. "We were the same age when we met. Now I'm three years older."

"Almost thirty," Sophie pointed out helpfully.

"28 is not 'almost thirty'," Marianne bristled.

Sophie and Héloïse shared a look.

"It's not!"

Sophie started laughing behind her hand.

"I'll be 26," Héloïse offered as a compromise. Marianne did not feel this was much of a compromise at all.

Héloïse got to experience all the wonders of modern medicine as Marianne became all too aware that like some indigenous community Héloïse's immune system might be overrun by any common ailment. On the contrary she seemed to enjoy excellent health even as Sophie and Marianne were miserable with colds.

Possibly, Sophie conjectured, being dead for 240 odd years did wonders for one's constitution. Héloïse's theory was that having been rejected by the Underworld twice already it was in no hurry to have her back. Marianne preferred not to think about it.

Modern dental hygiene was also wondrous and though Héloïse's first visit to the dentist was something of an ordeal she did assent to return regularly and not just head to a barber to have the whole lot removed, not least because barbers did no such thing anymore.

There was an adjustment for Marianne too. The first night they had come home together Marianne had been unable to sleep and clung to Héloïse all night. When Héloïse was not where Marianne expected her to be - had slipped off to the toilet, disappeared into the kitchen to get a drink, been a few minutes late to meet her - Marianne's heart would lurch and she felt sick until Héloïse was discovered and hugged tightly. In time this eased - helped by Héloïse realising what was going on and being exceptionally communicative about such matters, including leaving heart-melting notes.

In Marianne's three years alone she had often played a sort of game where she imagined Héloïse's opinion on various things. Now she got to compare her suppositions to reality.

Things Héloïse had not missed about having a corporeal body: menstruation; perspiration; the previous especially when leading to body odour; the needing of the toilet but only at inconvenient times, other times it could be quite relaxing; bad smells; getting shat on by pigeons. Héloïse was not scared of pigeons - she was infuriated by them and being angry with pigeons was a time-consuming hobby in central Paris.

When asked what things Héloïse liked about having a corporeal body she smirked and took Marianne to bed. Once concluded, as Marianne lay breathless and still trembling, Héloïse very calmly said, "Oh, and food."

Things Héloïse did not approve of in regards to the 21st century: electric toothbrushes; duvets; showers, Héloïse saw them as too much like hard work and preferred a long bath; immigration control and nationality as a legal status in general; the police, Marianne was well aware she had a budding anarchist on her hands; antivaxxers; still-rampant discrimination of all kinds.

The things Héloïse very much approved of were wide-ranging and included, but were not limited to: female emancipation; central heating and indoor plumbing; underwired bras; sanitary towels and tampons; trousers for all; Indian street food, specifically samosa chaats; skydiving.

Everything that, alone on the island, had just seemed quintessentially Héloïse was thrown into sharp relief by 21st-century life. Héloïse was excessively polite and formal. Not only her language but her accent and her diction. Her comportment both in her poise and impeccable posture as well as her detached and judgemental eye.

Marianne had become so used to this and found it so charming that she failed to notice how conspicuous it really was.

"It's weird," Sophie argued.

"It's eccentric," Marianne countered, believing this to be a good thing.

Héloïse sat on the settee between them apparently only amused by the conversation.

"She sounds like a fairytale princess."

Marianne failed to see the problem with this. "No one is going to draw the conclusion that's because she's 273 years old."

"Even then I was seen as aloof," Héloïse contributed finally. "Some things are just character."

"You are not aloof!" cried Marianne, ready to fight.

"Who said this?" demanded Sophie, ready to join her.

"It was a long time ago." Héloïse laughed at them. "A world away."

The past truly was another country to Héloïse. "Where do you feel most at home?"

Héloïse pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Modernity is baffling, it is true. I may not be very good at it yet. But this is my home." She looked at Marianne. "You are my home."

Sophie made vomiting noises. Marianne just smiled gently and reached for Héloïse.

There had been wobbles, inevitably. A memorable night Marianne spent trying to convince a bewildered Héloïse to leave her.

"You don't have to stay with me. You're not beholden to me."

"I know," said Héloïse steadily.

"I would help you. We could get you your own apartment."

"I don't want my own apartment."

"You could see other people."

"I do see other people."

"No, I mean, date other people."

Héloïse was nonplussed.

"Kiss other people. Be in a relationship."

"Why?"

"Just because it was me that showed up at the house, just because it was me that was there with you... you're not obligated to me."

"It wasn't 'just' you. There were hundreds of other people. For 240 years a veritable procession. Even Sophie! None of them saw me. I didn't want any of them to see me. I found my peace with you."

"That doesn't mean you have to stay with me."

"It means I want to stay with you." Héloïse took Marianne into her arms. "You think you are holding me back from life, from experiences. And it's true - I want so many things. But I want them with you." She held fast to Marianne and anchored her anxieties with a litany of I love you's.

Héloïse herself would get exhausted from the anger of the 21st century not actually being all that different from the 18th. From the anger of how much better it ought to be.

"So this is the great age of equality," Héloïse muttered with hard eyes, reading the newspaper, crouching on the street to talk to men covered in blankets outside shops, or ladling soup on cold evenings. Marianne knew full well that though Héloïse always looked to the stars her heart could never leave the earth and that this was where she would settle.

Héloïse also carried a seemingly endless reserve of guilt over the three years Marianne had spent alone and grieving.

Marianne was circumspect. "In hindsight I've come to see them as some sort of essential preparation. To find my own peace, in a way. At least it was three years, not 240." She tried to smile, to bring Héloïse with her. "Without them I don't know if you would have come back. It can't have been a coincidence," she urged. "I came back to the house for closure. To prove myself to you."

Héloïse paced in the living room. "And if I hadn't come back you would have had your closure and moved on and had a normal life with someone who didn't have to pretend she was an - an - an -"

"Amnesiac," Marianne provided.

"Missing person and all these 'paperworks' and nonsense and someone who could get a job and look after you and could do mathematics..."

All Héloïse's frustrations boiled over. All Marianne could do was soothe them away. "You are getting so good at maths. I could never have forgotten you. I would have loved you forever."

That didn't actually help. "Ruined your life forever," Héloïse could now mutter.

"I will love you forever. It doesn't matter, Héloïse, my heart. We are here, together, now." She caught wildly gesticulating hands. "Listen, do you remember? We should have been impossible. Yet here we are."

"Are you ready?" Marianne called from the bathroom.

"Are you?"

"On the count of three... One, two, three..." Marianne opened the door but Héloïse was already standing in front of it.

"I couldn't wait," Héloïse shrugged. "You look beautiful."

"So do you." Marianne smiled. "That colour... it's the walls of my bedroom?"

"And yours is the colour of my dress."

They had agreed on matching white shirts but the trousers and jackets were individually alighted on. Marianne's darker, deep, embroidered blue. She remembered the first time she had seen Héloïse wearing that dress. She remembered the first time she had seen Héloïse removing that dress. Héloïse's outfit the lighter blue of the wood-panelled walls of the room they had spent so much time in. The blue of the ocean at its most optimistic.

Their phones buzzed in unison: Sophie on their group chat imploring them to get out the door.

Well over two years after Héloïse's return, Marianne, who by this point knew a little bit about rather a lot of things, had an instinct to draw this all together and go deep. Architecture, informed by her interests in art and the natural world and the pragmatic fact that work would sponsor her training. Héloïse thought it was a perfect choice. Sophie had smiled broadly and pulled from her bag her own paperwork to enter the training programme.

Héloïse was still a renaissance woman consuming information of any and every variety. A one-woman encyclopedia taking all sorts of classes until she felt at university standard - and could decide what to commit to studying.

"I cannot do any science until my mathematics improves."

"It will. It will," Marianne reassured off Héloïse’s doubting look.

"You're so much better than me," Sophie provided helpfully. "And I was at school for..." She started counting on her fingers. "See! Except I suppose I don't want to be a scientist."

"It's been two and a half years." Marianne could have provided the passing of time down to the exact day but an approximation seemed much less intense. Almost as though she didn't think about it every day, thank her lucky stars every day.

"I do not yet know if I do want to be a scientist. It would be nice to have the choice."

"Do you want to study, you know, ghosts?" Sophie asked. 

"Try to find out why I came back?" Héloïse cut to the chase. "I am not sure I want to know."

"What if there are others?"

"Then I am not sure they would want me to know either."

Sophie nodded an understanding and Héloïse sighed, growing frustrated. Marianne's hand crept across to her. "It's okay," she murmured. "You will work it out. There's no rush."

"You just don't want me to fall back on my original career aspirations and take holy orders."

Well, yes, Marianne was really quite keen that Héloïse not become a nun.

"I hope you don't mind my pointing out but you are remarkably irreligious for someone who wanted to be a nun," Sophie pointed out anyway.

"A belief in God was just assumed, in those days. The lifestyle had its perks. Opportunities were limited for anyone who was not a rich white man. Oh!" she said as if something had just occurred to her, but Marianne knew this routine.

That summer they finally made it to Pride. Héloïse and Sophie were very into it. Marianne was always happy to be carried along by their enthusiasms. She was feeling very in love with the world. On the Metro people actually seemed friendly, especially those obviously heading in the same direction as them.

As she walked along the river with Héloïse and Sophie bickering next to her Marianne closed her eyes and soaked it all in. It was only a few months until Héloïse had been back for three years. Soon their time together would eclipse those years Marianne had spent alone. Life was good. Life was more than good.

The crowds grew thicker and the atmosphere grew more excited. As they tried to find a good vantage point for the parade they signed petitions, gave donations, accepted leaflets.

A ripple of excitement ran up the street. First they could see the reaction of the crowd further away. Then the music. Then the parade itself.

Marianne just watched Héloïse, who hadn't stopped gazing around her the whole time. The look of wonder on her face. How every so often she shook her head. And remembered to close her gaping mouth.

Quickly the competing music turned into a cacophony as the floats passed by. Marianne collected more and more leaflets. The street was carpeted with confetti and streamers. Héloïse was accruing a wealth of souvenirs - whistles, plastic necklaces, flags - that she passed back to Marianne from the front lines where she had gravitated.

The noise and the crowds were not Marianne's cup of tea but she was enjoying herself immensely, buoyed along by everyone's enthusiasm. Not least Sophie and Héloïse’s, who were currently dancing with men in chaps distinctly lacking in the rear. Marianne applauded and even managed the occasional cheer. She bobbed along to the music. The 80s classics, the steel drum band, the club techno, that rode by in turn.

Héloïse whooped and jumped up and down. Someone shot a glitter gun all over her and she was ecstatic. Even though that was going to be a matter for the shower once they got home.

Sophie danced, switching flawlessly from one genre of music to another. It was hot and she chugged the water Marianne gave her.

Héloïse turned round to Marianne, beaming, her eyes shining. "Never in a thousand years!" she shouted over the music.

It made Marianne smile with such incredible fondness. But then Héloïse looked stricken - went so still and so serious Marianne reached out to her in concern. Héloïse took hold of Marianne's hands. And got down on one knee.

Sophie screamed.

Marianne was pretty sure she wasn't breathing.

"Will you marry me?" Héloïse, covered in rainbow paint and glitter, bellowed.

Holding hands once more they stood outside City Hall.

"So," Héloïse looked at her. "Will you marry me?" Confirmations had been a fairly regular necessity.

"I mean, we are all dressed up."

"Yes."

"And all our friends and family are in there waiting for us."

"Yes."

"Yes. Yes, I will marry you."

Héloïse looked about them, taking it all in, and Marianne wrapped her arms around Héloïse tight enough that she could feel the shaking breath. "Let's go in," she whispered.

Sophie was stood fidgeting in the corridor. "Oh my god," she said as they approached and started fanning herself with the envelope she clutched.

Héloïse retrieved the envelope and Marianne hugged Sophie. "Is everyone here?"

"Yeah, I think so. We were all early. I went to the restaurant just now and you guys are going to lose it: it looks so good."

"Is that where all our photos have gone?" Héloïse asked, flicking through the contents of the envelope.

"She's nervous," Marianne said.

"As she should be," Sophie responded and received a withering look.

"But you didn't take the skydiving one? I look awful."

"Yeah but Héloïse looks great in it."

"That's true," Héloïse confirmed absentmindedly.

In fairness Marianne could only agree. In it Héloïse was triumphantly windswept, whereas Marianne looked a little green. Her first and last skydive, thank you very much.

Sophie was impatient though. "Go quick and do your admin thing. Everyone is ready to spontaneously combust in there."

So they found the registrar and went through their documents one more time. Héloïse brandishing the markers of her existence she'd suffered medical exams and police interviews for. Marianne's simply by virtue of having been born in the right place at the right time.

Then, all of a sudden, the registrar was holding open a door for them. Marianne took Héloïse's hand for a quick squeeze and they stepped through.

They were in front of all these people who loved them and cared about them. This had posed a problem they had discussed at length. Namely that as far as anyone other than Sophie knew, Marianne's life had begun to change dramatically a full three years before Héloïse arrived. They decided that, barring any explicit references to the supernatural, this was their moment and they ought just say what needed to be said.

Sophie was in floods of tears already. Marianne blew her a kiss and tried not to start crying herself. She waved to her father and his wife, her mother and her husband, sat side by side thanks to the thaw in their relationship over the last six years. Elsewhere Héloïse's friends from school were sprinkled among Marianne's friends from work and their friends from... well, from all sorts of places.

Marianne tried to concentrate on what the registrar was saying but she was crumbling under the gaze of all these people and looking at Héloïse didn't help because every time she looked at Héloïse she was so beautiful and so there that Marianne felt like she was entirely losing her mind.

At least Héloïse seemed to be suffering similarly. She missed her cue: "What? Oh, yes, I will," which made Marianne feel better because what did it matter how they got there? As long as they did. Marianne was vaguely aware that she said things too but really all she was aware of were Héloïse's eyes. How she looked at them and the intensity with which they looked back at her.

There were rings that Sophie was crying so much she forgot to bring up to the front in time and two pairs of hands shaking so badly that it seemed a cruel thing to ask a person to do with everyone watching. They laughed their way through it.

Then the registrar faded away and everything was Héloïse.

Héloïse's voice was thick and Marianne could see her swallowing down the emotion. "You were the first person to see me. That I wanted to show myself to. I waited for so long. And then, there you were. Nothing I thought I wanted. Everything I needed."

Héloïse was frowning and Marianne couldn't help raising a hand to cup her face. Even the murmur that ran through the room couldn't break the spell.

"When we first met, I had no idea this was possible. That it would be possible for us to be here, now. That it was possible to love you this much. You made it possible. You made me possible. You make possibility out of life every day. And I want to do that with you, to make things possible, together."

"Together," Marianne whispered with her. She shook her head with absolute adoration and a deep sense of, "How am I supposed to follow that?"

Héloïse wiped at her face. "It wasn't as good as you deserve."

"Hush, you." Now Marianne spoke up. "Héloïse, my heart. You talk about possibility but it was you that showed me everything the world could be. You made the world an exciting place for me. You helped me see. You challenged me to look. To know the stars above me and the plants under my feet."

She laughed a little. "When we first met - no, honestly, I was already going to say this -" she protested to the room - "Obviously I had no idea what would happen. I wouldn't have believed it. But some part of me already knew. That you were going to change my life. And that - no matter what - I would love you forever. And I will."

Héloïse, needing no prompting or instruction from the registrar this time, kissed her. "Sorry, were you finished?"

Marianne could only nod, and kiss her again. Héloïse's hand was strong on the back of her neck, holding her close as they pulled apart and turned to the eruption of clapping and cheers all around them.

They went on to the restaurant, decorated as a Museum of Marianne and Héloïse by Sophie. Who gave a speech so shockingly funny that at one point Héloïse put her face down on the table and wept with laughter, Marianne leaning on top of her doubly amused by the speech and the reaction. They took a walk around their museum, chatted with guests and not even that late in the evening they slipped Sophie the key to the honeymoon suite they had booked and went home to the apartment.

It was quiet and dark and Héloïse walked across the living room tossing her jacket onto the sofa.

"Turn around," Marianne said quietly.

Héloïse stopped and slowly moved her head around, then her body. Just as Marianne had done, six years ago to the day. Her white shirt glowed in the grey-blue light from outside. They looked at each other and six years passed between them in heartbeats with the promise of all the years of their future burning in their eyes.