A ghost story

….. Time passed again before Wendy opened her eyes in the bedroom of Randal’s house. She was at the end of the bed. Randal and the wife were sleeping. She moved hand over hand until she was above the wife. It was more than a week since she was last there, she sensed, without being able to reason it. The wife was close to ovulating. It was time.

Wendy experienced a rush of excitement at what she was about to do. She held the pillow on either side of the wife’s head and pressed her face close. Her form was touching the bedclothes, but she could pass through the barrier easily. She lowered her face closer, staring at the wife’s closed eyes, the eyelids twitching. A breath was drawn through parted lips.

The wife’s eyes suddenly opened, and she screamed. Her face twisted in terror, and she slithered from the side of the bed and onto the floor. Wendy reached for the sleeve of her nightdress and clung to it. The woman was up, and Wendy covered her back, wrapping her arms around, but the wife shrieked and squirmed violently, thrusting herself forward and running from the room, brushing at her skin.

Randal stirred. Wendy drifted into the curtain, blending within the folds of fabric. The wife had gone into the children’s room and slammed the door. Randal was sitting up, peering around in confusion. He yawned and rubbed at his face.

He was a man now. When Wendy had fallen in love with him he was a boy. His features had sharpened. There were laugh lines where his cheeks used to be too chubby for wrinkles. He kept his hair shorter now. His chest was covered in hair where it used to only be sparse. Wendy remembered the feel of his chest. The memory of the old man from one of her previous lives was fading, but she remembered the serene contentment of love and how she so wanted that with Randal. She had died while fully consumed by the notion, and in death it haunted her.

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