13 December
There’s something unmoored at Danvers Manor.
Mother would scoff at such melodrama—at the very idea of me keeping this electro-journal. A schoolboy scribbling away about blushes and crushes! But men have weak minds, and there’s nary a soul in this dusty house to burden with my confidence.
Of course, I’d rather write an electro-gram to Wendaline—my stalwart, my beloved!—but she’d never answer. Not after our quarrel following my graduation party. Oh, Wendaline! I long to undo that wrong! Curse my brittle male gender and our nonsensical emotional outbursts!
So much has changed since that manic night. Now, here I am—employed as a nurse on some nameless moon, halfway across the matriverse. How must I have looked to the Danvers family upon arrival, a mouse of a man in torn clothes, hair askew from his first interstellar journey? Flustered, I introduced myself as Pureson Cloveheart and proffered my flood of shambled employment papers. With a well-deserved shove, the matriarch admitted me into Danvers Manor.
Grittine Danvers—Mrs. Danvers, as I’m to address her—is a commanding woman, double my size and bristling with authority. She owns this moon’s coal-mining operations and spends days ensconced in musty ledgers.
Her husband, Feeblestein Danvers—that is, Mr. Danvers—is a wisp of a man, drenched in hysterics, eternally despairing over the moon-village’s “civilization anathema.” Thrice in my week here, he’s threatened to fling himself into the cellar’s coal-furnace! Local gossip claims he was once the Galactic Opera House’s star tenor before an emotional outburst thrust him into protective wedlock. I relate to Mr. Danvers. Though I’m far from stage-worthy (my cultural pursuits start and end at my matchstick collection), I certainly understand emotional outbursts!
Their daughter, my charge, is the one bright blaze warming this damp household. Paralyzed and mute since a glide-buggy accident, Larsa Danvers lives out her bedridden fate, staring, drooling, and (hopefully) dreaming.
Oh, Larsa! How handsome you are, even in your infirmity. When the moon strikes your sculpted face, I imagine Wendaline in your place, her resolute voice booming, “My purest Purey…”
(Resist such randy thoughts, Pureson! Shall you be forced to yet again douse the fires of your man-shame with cool milk?)
Besides me, the Danvers employ but one servant: Tacit. Tacit is a robutler, a whirligig machine that walks upright like a woman and tends house like a man. Its face is a series of complex wired sprockets ending in a spout that tick-tick-whirs out yellowy bits of tickertape. One of us—usually me—must rip away these strips so we can read Tacit’s words.
Tick-tick-whir. Rip. ///YES, MRS. DANVERS.///
Tick-tick-whir. Rip. ///CERTAINLY, MRS. DANVERS.///
Tick-tick-whir. Rip. ///SHALL I FETCH MR. DANVERS’ NERVE-TABLETS, MRS. DANVERS?///
Tacit is… efficient. Dinners are served. Shelves dusted. Electro-grams delivered.
But there’s more to a home than surface chores, and a machine could never understand what perplexes me. I reiterate my thesis: There’s something unmoored at Danvers Manor. At night, I hear noises. Creaking floorboards. Gusts battering my shutters. Scalewolves howling on distant hills. I lie in bed, sweat-drenched, remembering Papá’s ghost stories. Ethereal entities swirling above the prone bodies of virginal gentlemen… growing closer… and closer…
Oh! Oh! I must cease writing, lest I soil myself in terror!
14 December
I laugh at last night’s electro-journal entry.
Ghosts? My feckless fantasies!
Why, I’ve more to fear from a simple stroll to the village grocer’s—especially with Gabble, Curdle, and Muk, the local randywomen, regularly ripping open their suitcoats to expose their muscled bosoms for my ridiculed embarrassment!
I shall cease all thoughts of hauntings, before Tacit tick-tick-whirs a tickertape about fetching nerve-tablets for me!
15 December
I woke this morning to a delightful surprise. A festively wrapped gift box sat on my desk. Naturally, I leapt up and vigorously shook the box. (To quote Wendaline: “A man’s curiosity is nothing if not predictable!”) I gasped, immediately recognizing a distinctive rattling. I shredded at the paper and at the box within.
Revealed before me was the most beautiful matchstick I have ever seen. Crisp and long, its stem an oaky majesty, its head a dollop of playful red. A slim and pure vestige of innocence, ready to strike into fire at any moment. Awed by its beauty, my tender legs crumpled beneath me. (Proximity to my plush bed saved me from a very sore b-ttom!)
I marveled at my gift for an embarrassingly long while before finally, ever-so-carefully, adding it to the case with the rest of my collection.
The Danvers are the kindest family in the matriverse!
15 December (later)
The Danvers are the strangest family in the matriverse.
At breakfast, shortly after Tacit poured our morning milk, I thanked Mrs. and Mr. Danvers for their thoughtful gift.
“Matchstick?” Mrs. Danvers asked, her voice a film of morning husk. “Did you give Pureson such a thing, Feeblestein?”
“Not I,” her husband said. “Least, I’ve no recollection, and one would think I’d recall doing such an act. Or else I’m going mad for real this time and should finally fling myself into the coal-furnace.”
“But it was on my desk—” I started.
“Pureson,” Mrs. Danvers interrupted, unarguably cross now, “no one in this family would give such a nonsensical gift. Cease your foolish prattle, lest you sully Larsa’s already-tainted mind.”
Larsa moaned from her glide-chair, mouth drooping. I fed her a spoonful of milky porridge and spoke no more of my mysterious gift.
17 December
Mr. Danvers’ nerves acted up today, so I agreed to stroll to the village for his shopping while he stayed home with Larsa.
I had just left the grocer’s when I heard a raspy taunt. “That one lives in the spooky house!”
Gabble, Curdle, and Muk stepped before me, blocking my path, tongues licking their rough lips. I had no idea which of the three randywomen had just spoken, nor does it matter; the scandalous creatures think as one.
“’E lives with Ghostie-Sue!” croaked Gabble. “’Er what haunts the Danvers place!”
Ghostie-Sue? Surely, this was just randywoman foolery.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said with improvised bravery. “Ghosts aren’t real.”
“Ghostie-Sue’s huntin’ for virgins,” cackled Curdle. “And she found ’er a good one!”
I considered my own tender innocence. Had my untouched man-shame somehow attracted this Ghostie-Sue creature?
My bravado cracked, and with it, my voice. “I have no idea what you’re… what you’re talking about.”
“Ghostie-Sue’s gonna sneak in ’is room and grab ’is tight l’il b-ttom!” screeched Muk.
“She’ll do no such thing. Shame on you, you… you vile randywomen!”
My fluster was their cue to link arms and recite the most repugnant chant I’ve ever heard:
Ghostie-Sue, Ghostie-Sue,
She’s gonna set her sights on you!
Ghostie-Sue, Ghostie-Sue,
She’s gonna watch you in the loo!
Ghostie-Sue, Ghostie-Sue,
She’s gonna jump out and say, “Boo!”
Ghostie-Sue, Ghostie-Sue,
She’s gonna boil you in her stew!
Ghostie-Sue, Ghostie-Sue,
She’s gonna get you, and we are, as well!
They completed their diabolical ditty with an unsatisfyingly unrhyming crescendo. Then, they reached down, hoisted their skirts and petticoats, and revealed three womanly caverns, vast and mysterious.
My agape mouth formed a cavern of its own.
So overwhelmed was I by their assault on my fears and inhibitions that I let out a squeak of a whimper and dropped my groceries. A sausage lay limply at my feet. The randywomen laughed gruffly and kicked each other’s shins from pure delight.
I looked beyond the randywomen at the rocky path to Danvers Manor. My escape from this madness. I darted around the treacherous trio and ran as swiftly as my measly legs allowed.
My tormentors cawed after me in triumph.
When I returned home—trousers torn, breath wobbly—Mrs. Danvers struck me only once for leaving the groceries behind.
18 December
Yesterday’s encounter with Gabble, Curdle, and Muk still shadows my thoughts. Not simply their taunting—men of the matriverse are used to randywomen’s boorishness—but what they’d said. About that ghost… I cannot stop thinking about it. About her.
Even hobbies I once enjoyed add to my fright. As I write this, I look down at my matchsticks. More accurately: at a matchstick.
Ghostie-Sue, Ghostie-Sue,
Could this be a gift from you?
19 December
Last night, my slumber was assaulted by harsh knocking. I hazily opened my eyes. The sound was not coming from my door. It was coming from my wall. Inside my wall.
I slowly sat up and waited nearly a full minute.
The knocking continued.
Rhythmic. Then uneven.
Soft. Then loud.
Knock. Knock. Knock-KNOCK-knock. Knock-Knock. Knock.
“Huh-huh-hello,” I finally whispered, though perhaps I had more “huh”s than I now care to admit.
A pause. Then, one powerful knock.
KNOCK.
I swallowed hard. “Ghostie-Sue?”
I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I never did fall back asleep.
Today will be frantic. Tacit is powering down and plugging into the wall for its weekly electro-charge—a mechanical version of the “sound sleep” I so desperately need after last night. Despite my exhaustion, I volunteered to assume Tacit’s afternoon chores. I pray staying busy eases my mind.
I fear it will not.
22 December
My dear charge, Larsa, improves daily. Though still unable to move or talk, she sits upright in her glide-chair as I navigate it throughout Danvers Manor. She even responds to my voice with sturdy blinks.
Larsa’s chiseled frame so reminds me of my cherished Wendaline. With the winter holidays approaching, I often think of my beloved. Marymas was a happy time for us. She would decorate her cottage and steal pecks from me under the mistletoe. I dare say she spoiled her purest Purey. (And I daresay her purest Purey enjoyed it.)
It will be difficult, this first Marymas without her.
And yet…
I’ve resolved to put the troubles of the past and the ridiculous, ghostly fantasies of the present behind me.
There is much good in my life. I wish to acknowledge it. To bask in it.
I am here, on a new world, with a new life.
Larsa grows ever stronger under my care. And her family? Even they move toward a semblance of normalcy. Mr. Danvers—dear Mr. Danvers—announced last night he was holding the moon-village’s annual Marymas Eve Ball. It will be the first social event at Danvers Manor since Larsa’s glide-buggy accident.
His announcement brings me more delight than he will ever know. A Marymas Eve Ball. Just like Wendaline used to throw. I squeal in anticipation!
Despite missing the love of my life… despite Mrs. Danvers’ ill temper… despite this Ghostie-Sue nonsense… I will allow myself a merry Marymas at Danvers Manor. I’ve traveled through the darkest of stars, toward the brightest of futures!
24 December
This eve, the dark manse came alive in sparkles and garlands and festive tidings.
I served at Tacit’s side, delivering the robot’s seasonal tickertapes to merry partygoers.
Tick-tick-whir. Rip. ///MAY I TAKE YOUR LOVELY SCALEWOLF COAT, MR. FIDDLESPOON?///
Tick-tick-whir. Rip. ///WOULD YOU LIKE MORE EGGNOG, CONSTABLE FIDDLESPOON?///
Tick-tick-whir. Rip. ///“…GOD BLESS US, EVERY ONE.”///
Those randywomen, Gabble, Curdle, and Muk, were relatively well-behaved. Gabble did not over-imbibe, and Muk flashed but one nipple. (Though I suspect it was Curdle who slipped that sprig of mistletoe into my underlace while I turned away.)
The Danvers family, too, displayed unusual grace. Larsa sat patiently in her glide-chair, neither drooling nor belching. Mr. Danvers’ attempts to fling himself into the coal-furnace were more in jest than actual threat. And Mrs. Danvers never once shook me, nor even raised her voice. At night’s end, she actually offered me a sip of alcohol! Common sense forbade me from accepting, of course, but I did splash a thimble of salted celery water into my bedtime milk. (Though even that taxed my paltry constitution.)
The cheerful event reminded me of my graduation party. Mine was certainly nothing as lavish as the Danvers’ soirée, but it started with such joy…
Joy I shattered during that secluded lakeside stroll with Wendaline.
I remember her there, bent on one knee, one hand folding over mine, the other reaching into her pocket. “My purest Purey,” she’d said… and asked the question I’d dreamt of since boyhood.
Why, oh, why hadn’t I immediately squealed an exuberant “yes”? Why had I stuttered, fumbled? Why had my indecisive, manly ways begat her righteous, womanly anger? Why had I succumbed to that emotional outburst, destroying both our lives?
Oh, Wendaline! What I wouldn’t give to hear you say “My purest Purey” again! “My purest Purey!” “My purest Purey!” And my dearest Wendaline! How did I delude myself into thinking I could enjoy Marymas without you?
24 December (later)
Though I still sob for Wendaline, my reawakened despair grants me one boon: it distracts me from the scraping noises now emerging from within my walls.
31 December
Larsa Danvers is very dear to me—my single solace in this cold home. Tonight, I prove that. In celebration of the new year, I’m showing her my matchstick collection. She will be the first person with whom I’ve engaged in this intimate act since Wendaline.
I hope my matchsticks please her.
And I hope that horrid Ghostie-Sue stays away! (I jest, of course.)
1 January
The grandmother clock in the foyer just struck midnight.
It is a new year.
Larsa Danvers is dead.
My heart cannot write more.
8 January
It has been a week since Larsa died. Her funeral is tomorrow. I will go, though I very much do not want to.
Without Larsa, Danvers Manor is no longer the home it was. I fear it is no longer the home for me.
Mrs. Danvers grows more distant than ever. Her grunts are quieter. Her glares are half-hearted. Even the blows of her fists lack their previous vigor.
Mr. Danvers weeps constantly, crying over “that horrid sleep-seizure that stole away our wretched and beloved Larsa.” I regularly find him in Larsa’s room, cursing the wooden headboard he blames for cracking his daughter’s neck.
Even Tacit has changed, though not with grief. I suspect the robutler is infected with some electro-malady. Yesterday, it plugged in for one of its weekly electro-charges. During its slumber, violent storms besieged Danvers Manor, eclipsing our power supply. Though the power eventually returned, the Tacit I knew did not. In its place is a metal scoundrel with a randywoman’s vocabulary. Propriety forbids me from repeating the words “Tacit” has tick-tick-whir-ed at me in the last day. (Save to say that I shall do no such things with my b-ttom.)
Yesterday’s storms have subsided, but the sky remains gloomy over Danvers Manor.
9 January
Larsa’s funeral was today. All the villagers turned out. Even Gabble, Curdle, and Muk offered sincere, chest-covered condolences.
During the procession, my sorrow flung me onto her casket, which I clumsily overturned. This enraged Mrs. Danvers, who struck my cheek. Tacit, too, reprimanded my funereal stumble, tick-tick-whir-ing vulgarities I’ve not been victim to since my quarrel with Wendaline!
Though swelling now mars my delicate jawline, I begrudge neither matriarch nor robot; it was a difficult day for all.
10 January
My position at Danvers Manor evolves. Following Larsa’s passing, the family kindly allowed me to stay on as Mr. Danvers’ companion. Daily, I ponder returning to Earth. Yet, I remain. Indecisive, as ever.
I now hear nightly moaning within my walls. When I brave calling out at it, I’m met with harsh silence. My sleep is restless, my waking hours reckless. Mr. Danvers chides that he is more a companion to me than I am to him. Perhaps he is.
I like Mr. Danvers. I hope he never flings himself into the coal-furnace.
12 January
A confession: last night, I stumbled to the village milkery. I ordered several tumblers of salted celery water, relishing each one. Soon after, I entrusted my trembling man-shame to Curdle’s womanly cavern.
Since then, I’ve thrice taken pleasure in remembrance.
I feel no shame.
12 January (later)
Shame! Shame! Such shame I feel!
8 February
I’ve resisted writing for several weeks, fearful of re-reading my last salacious entries. But like some flailing boy ingénue in a Henrietta James novel, my latest terror compels my latest entry.
Last night, Tacit again berated me, a tickertape mockery that reduced me to tears. This, in and of itself, is perhaps no longer unusual and certainly not unexpected. But what happened next sends chills from my spine to the very core of this menacing moon.
After crying myself to sleep, I dreamt of Larsa. Not the Larsa I knew—that flatulent heap of catatonic pity. I dreamt of the real Larsa—dashing and gregarious, debonair and athletic. Her countenance was so sturdy, I almost thought her Wendaline at first.
I woke in unexpected—though not unknown—surroundings. I was in Larsa’s room. In Larsa’s bed.
I tried to rise but was unable. A powerful force pinned down my arms, my legs, my fragile, heaving chest. I tried to call out, to shriek for help, but my voice absconded.
I lay there, paralyzed and mute, with naught but memories of Wendaline, Larsa, and even Curdle for solace. I believe I dozed again.
I woke in my own bed. In my hand, I stroked a matchstick against my headboard. As my eyes opened, the matchstick struck into hot, orange flame. I gasped and quickly shook my hand, extinguishing the burgeoning fire before it engulfed this entire miserable house. I threw the impotent matchstick across the room, jumped from bed, and stomped on it several times. It was only then I realized it was the very matchstick I’d received as a secret gift all those weeks ago.
Strange dreams. Waking paralysis. Moaning noises. Who is this Ghostie-Sue, and why does her evil plague Danvers Manor? Why does her evil plague me? Wendaline, is this the matriverse’s punishment for my hurting you? I beg you—forgive your purest Purey!
10 February
Between Mrs. Danvers’ savagery, Mr. Danvers’ sobbing, and Tacit’s mockery, my sordid sojourns to the village grow frequent. Today, I again visited the crawlspace Curdle rents beneath the milkery. Of course, we shared fiery intimacy. After, as we lay on her coal-streaked mattress, legs entwined, I shared a quieter intimacy.
“Curdle?” I teased her hair the way I used to tease Wendaline’s. “Do you think she’s real?”
“Who?” Curdle smoked a celery-skinned cigarette.
“Ghostie-Sue.”
“Ghostie-who?”
“Ghostie-Sue. That spirit you and Gabble and Muk told me about. Ghostie-Sue, Ghostie-Sue, she’s gonna set her sights on you.” I blushed remembering that mortifying afternoon.
A flash of a smirk shadowed Curdle’s face before it was replaced with a more serious countenance. “Right.” She sighed. “No. Sorry. Ghostie-Sue ain’t real. She’s just a story me an’ me randies made up to get in yer knickers.” She clucked her tongue and amended to a more chivalrous term. “Sorry, yer underlace.” She grinned wickedly. “Speaking of…”
She plopped the cigarette between my lips, rolled back on top of me, and we again shared that more fiery form of intimacy. But my mind no longer focused on the mysteries between Curdle’s legs.
Ghostie-Sue—a fiction? A game? Had the randywomen’s fib spurred my imagination to concoct my “hauntings”—the knocking, the scraping, even the moaning?
And if so, could my imagination finally allow this nightmare to end?
14 February
The nightmare continues.
Curdle is dead. She was found near the Danvers Manor grounds. (A Valentine’s visit to me?) Savagely attacked, her prized breasts—as precious to her as my matchsticks are to me—were ripped to shreds. Constable Fiddlespoon suspects rabid scalewolves.
My suspicions lie elsewhere.
For later, as Mrs. Danvers attempted to pry Mr. Danvers from the maw of the coal-furnace, Tacit confronted me in the foyer.
Tick-tick-whir. Rip. ///WHOM SHALL YOU NURSE WITH YOUR MAN-SHAME NOW?///
“Tacit!” I cried. “Those electro-surges have devolved your disposition to that of a randywoman’s!”
A pause. Then: Tick-tick-whir. Rip. ///I’M NOT TACIT.///
“Who… who are you?”
Tick-tick-whir. Rip. ///THE WOMAN YOU MURDERED.///
As this thing that wore Tacit’s parts whir-whir-clank-ed away, I glimpsed a cherry-red splash rusting its sharpest gear.
15 February
It was New Year’s Eve when I killed Larsa Danvers.
We were huddled in my quarters, she in her glide-chair, me flaunting my matchstick collection. Her condition had so improved under my care, it should have been no surprise when her muscle twitched.
But a surprise it was.
Upon accepting my role at Danvers Manor, I foolishly presumed such esteemed employment would vanquish my emotional outbursts.
Sadly, they persist, unvanquished.
Poor Larsa! If only her involuntary hand spasm hadn’t toppled my matchstick case, scattering my only prizes to the floor in a chaotic heap! Upon seeing this calamity, hormonal hysterics overwhelmed my meager body, forcing my own hand to strike her, as her mother so often strikes me.
Thrice.
Snap.
Larsa’s head sloped to a peculiar angle.
I’d forgotten these flailing hands capable of such force.
Just before midnight, I dragged her to her room, laid her gently in bed… and shrieked. Her parents rushed in. I sobbed, telling them that I’d “found her like that,” that an ill-timed sleep-seizure cracked her neck against the headboard.
They believe this lie. At least… they want to believe it.
I suppose everyone in the matriverse is like that: wanting to believe things that can’t be true. Ghostie-Sue. A new life. A bright future.
What I want to believe is that Larsa’s spirit remains at Danvers Manor. That Larsa’s spirit scratches and moans within my walls at night. That Larsa’s spirit invades my dreams. That Larsa’s spirit provoked those electro-surges and now inhabits dutiful Tacit’s frame—a metallic tool of malice to torment me and butcher poor Curdle.
I want to believe these atrocities are the actions of Larsa’s spirit.
Because I cannot bear the other possibility—the cruel fate that has plagued me since my graduation party.
Images accost my mind.
Wendaline’s proposal.
My indecision.
Our quarrel.
My emotional outburst.
That haunting tickertape: ///THE WOMAN YOU MURDERED.///
I must leave Danvers Manor at once!
Constable’s Report
Date: 16 February
Investigating Officer: Constable Stoutella Fiddlespoon
Location: Danvers Manor
Crime: Possible homicide
Victim:
—Pureson Cloveheart
—Male
—23
—Manor staff
Report:
Body found in servant’s quarters. Numerous lacerations. Markings resemble recent victim, Curdle Lavenza. Lavenza case ruled animal attack. (Reopen?)
Witnesses:
—Mrs. Grittine Danvers: Found victim, identified remains. Previously assaulted victim at daughter’s funeral. Questioned, retaining counsel.
—Mr. Feeblestein Danvers: Not on premises. Deputies sifting coal-furnace ashes.
Crime scene contents:
—Bed
—Armoire, w/clothes
—Suitcase, partially packed
—Desk, w/dozens of broken matchsticks
—Robutler, non-functioning
—Electro-journal, shattered, contents unrecoverable
—Tickertape, ripped, w/words “MY PUREST PUREY”
