Outside the door, Ashley paused with her hand on the cold steel of the knob. She knew the lonely, dark silence that waited for her inside the house. The modest looking brick two story was once a home, but now it was just an empty space. It was going to swallow her whole.<\/p>\n
The city of Chicago was covered in a frosty November drizzle that had soaked her during the long walk form the cemetery. Ashley regretted not starting a fire before she left and would now have to wait for the house to warm up. At least she had enough money for the coal today.<\/p>\n
A sound from the kitchen caught her attention. Someone was in there, but she should have been alone. With her heart beating wildly, Ashley crept into the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. A woman she never met sat at the small kitchen table in the corner but a woman she knew well was at the sink washing dishes. Her sister, Miranda was wearing the same dress she wore when Ashley buried her a few hours earlier, but had the sleeves rolled up past her elbows.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome, warm yourself.\u201d Said the woman at the table. \u201cThe fire from the stove feels so much better from here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman extended her arm in the direction of the other chair. The two girls had only needed two seats for their meals. They never had any company and preferred it that way. Still rattled by the shock, Ashley took a seat in the chair.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou took longer to get home than I anticipated.\u201d Said the woman.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to say good-bye.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow don\u2019t you feel foolish?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashley was feeling a lot of emotions at the moment. She had to drag her eyes away from her sister, but she needed to get a closer look at the woman. Dark auburn hair was wound up under a dainty hat with roses dripping from it. Everything she wore was red, from the expensive walking dress to the long lace gloves on her hands. Years of working as a seamstress meant Ashley could spot high end fabrics and knew the clothes she saw cost more than she made in months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are you?\u201d Ashley asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can call me Madame.\u201d<\/p>\n
No last name, just that one word and the sound of it made Ashley\u2019s skin tingle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m dreaming. I must be dreaming.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you be so cold and trembling if it was a dream?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I\u2019m going mad, just like the rest of my family.\u201d That had always been her biggest fear.<\/p>\n
When they were young, Miranda and Ashley had watched their mother spiral into madness. It drove their father away and almost put them in the streets more than once. Only the hard work of her sister and patience kept the family together for as long as it did before their mother took her own life. Then the two of them had continued on.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are perfectly sane and this isn\u2019t a hallucination.\u201d Said Madame.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashley went back to watching her sister again. The glow of the gas lamps gave her an ethereal appearance. Miranda looked like she did years ago, when the two of them were happy in this house. That was before the nightmares began and she became miserable. Watching her sister go down the same road as their mother had been agony. As hard as she tried, Ashley wasn\u2019t able to bring joy back to Miranda.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an offer.\u201d Said Madame, her voice was a low whisper.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou bring my sister back from the dead. That is going to end badly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashley was now thinking about the last few months at the house. Miranda had stopped speaking and refused to get out of bed. Ashley had gone to the market to get something for dinner, hoping a delicious meal might coax her sister out of the room. The dinner plate had made a mess when it slid across the bedroom floor as she discovered her sister\u2019s dead body. Miranda had used the same poison as their mother to leave the world and it was only painful for those left behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not just going to bring her back. \u00a0I can make her happy, make sure she never wants to leave again.\u201d Madame whispered in her ear.<\/p>\n
At the sink Miranda began to sing the song she used to put Ashley to sleep with. It hadn\u2019t been heard in this place for years. The happy melody reminded Ashley of how much her sister loved her once, before the madness. Having that sister back would be worth almost anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you want from me?\u201d Ashley asked, already she knew she would agree to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn exchange for this gift, you will owe me three favors to be named in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA favor implies I have a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do have a choice. You can choose to say no at any moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens to her is I say no?\u201d<\/p>\n
She returns to where I found her.\u201d Madame pulled a mirror from her drawstring purse and checked her reflection. \u201cThere is a special place in the afterlife for suicides. It\u2019s not very pleasant and I doubt she would want to go back, but it is still always your choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I do what you ask, how long do we have?\u201d Ashley was trying to work out all the angles, knowing that evil liked to have a hidden agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can guarantee she lives until you at least finish all three favors. After that, it\u2019s up to fate.\u201d The mirror closed with a snap. \u201cBut this time when she goes it won\u2019t be with the burden of a mortal sin on her soul. She won\u2019t have the same stigma as your mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their mother was buried in an unmarked grace at the edge of the cemetery because she had committed an unforgivable act. Ashley lied through her teeth to the officials about her sister being sick with a fever to avoid her from ending up in the same place. Ashley couldn\u2019t help what happened to her soul and that was what kept her up at night. Knowing her sister was going to be tortured for all eternity was too much to bare.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both know I will say yes. I will do anything you ask for my sister.\u201d Said Ashley, feeling the weight of the bargain settling in her chest and making it hard to breathe.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood, then wear this.\u201d Madame removed a black pearl pendant from around her neck and handed it to Ashley. She noticed Madame had a bracelet of them wrapped around her wrist and wondered if they all belonged to people who had made a bargain with her. A collection of live bought.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this to keep control of me? Ashley asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s to let you know when I need a favor. \u201c<\/p>\n
Ashley let the necklace fall around her neck and felt like she was now chained. It was too late to say no, the offer was accepted. Madame stood and out o habit Ashley stood too. The evil woman pulled her in close enough to see her own reflection in those black eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t worry about the future, but enjoy what you have now.\u201d Madame slipped something into her hand and when Ashley looked, she found it was a banknote with a rather large sum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s this? Another offer?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it\u2019s to help you leave the city and start another life. People here might get suspicious if she is seen out walking around. \u201c<\/p>\n
Chicago was their home their whole lives. It was the only home they knew.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey would be frightened of her and frightened people can get violent.\u201d Said Madame. \u201cBesides, it\u2019s better if she doesn\u2019t know what happened. It might dampen her new found joy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe doesn\u2019t remember?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it best to remove those memories and give her a fresh start.\u201d<\/p>\n
So many times Ashley had prayed for God to take her memories away, but he hadn\u2019t, Now she had this less than divine intervention. Perhaps it was best if they both got a clean start from this.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes this mean you own my soul?\u201d Ashley asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not. I just might need a little help one day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madame pulled Ashley into an embrace. It was a brief, fleeting moment but Ashley could feel all the pain and despair inside the demon. She could see it for the miserable creature it was and realized how deep this bargain would go. When the time came for the demon to collect it would not be for something that had little effect on the world. Knowing it would be her choice only made it worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas that your friend?\u201d It was the first time Miranda spoke and it followed the demon\u2019s departure from the house.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not a friend.\u201d Said Ashley.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe made me uncomfortable. I\u2019m glad she didn\u2019t stay for dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashley always loved Miranda\u2019s cooking and knew it was roasted hen from the delicious smell in the kitchen. Her appetite was gone the last few days, but now returned fully.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could have told her to leave.\u201d Ashley was drifting closer to where her sister stood.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would have been rude.\u201d Miranda had never been rude to anyone in her lifetime, not matter how badly they deserved it. That made people think Ashley was the ill-mannered one. It didn\u2019t bother her one bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry you were left alone with her.\u201d Ashley was now close enough to smell the scent of soap her sister always had and lean her head on a shoulder. \u201cI should have hurried home. I won\u2019t do that again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miranda turned and Ashley saw the joyful expression she had missed so much. \u201cI know you did your best and I\u2019m happy you\u2019re home now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before she became a weeping mess, Ashley hugged her sister fiercely. The pendant she had been given was pressed between them, reminding her that this was not for free. It didn\u2019t matter, because her sister was her again and no longer belonged to the madness.<\/p>\n
Amanda is a KU graduate who got a BA in English lit and then went to Emporia for her\u00a0MLS. She reads and writes primarily historical romance novels. She has a dog that could fit in a lunch box and looks like an alien. Aside from books, her\u00a0favorite thing in the world is food, especially Chinese.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Outside the door, Ashley paused with her hand on the cold steel of the knob. She knew the lonely, dark silence that waited for her inside the house. The modest looking brick two story was once a home, but now it was just an empty space. It was going to swallow her whole. The city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[176],"class_list":["post-10083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-charm-bracelet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}