First posted December 2023.

Author's Note

I set this month’s Author Avengers prompt! In the spirit of seasonal ghost stories, this is the prompt I set:

In the dark of night, you hear a voice: the voice you most want to hear in the world, and the one you know is impossible to be hearing again.

I’m gearing up for the release of my gothic Eros and Psyche retelling, The Sharpest Thorn, early next year, and since I’m firmly situated in that headspace, what I have for you this month is a scene that belongs in that story. The novel owes much to the 1946 Jean Cocteau film, La Belle et la Bête, and the fairytale Beauty and the Beast itself owes much to the myth of Eros and Psyche, so it’s the perfect outlet for bringing my love of gothic, fairytales, and mythology together. If you enjoy this scene, stay tuned for book news next year! (Additional note: obviously this book has since been released, and you can find it in my Ko-fi shop.)

The nights are silent, now that he’s gone. Psyche lies in bed, the bone-cold sheets stubbornly refusing to absorb her body heat, and listens for the absent chorus. Of course, the rustling of fabric as he draws aside the bed curtains never comes, and of course, the warm rhythm of his breathing no longer wraps itself around her like a blanket. But with him, all the life of the castle and its surroundings went, too. No chirping insects hidden in the gardens sing soprano over the low hooting of owls in the forest beyond. No wind rattles the windows, no waves crash on distant, unseen shores, no pine needles whisper wordless in the gentle breeze.

She cannot bring herself to light a candle. Darkness had been theirs —could still have been theirs, had she only trusted him. Without the traitor firelight, she can almost make herself believe that any moment she’ll hear the stairs creak beneath his footstep, any moment she’ll smell the cloud and copper scent of him, any moment she’ll feel his warm fingers trace the lines of her until she shivers.

“Psyche?”

She bolts up in bed, a hopeful breath choked in her throat. She listens for the echo, straining against the silence for proof that someone who loves her spoke. But the only ringing is in her head, and the ghost of Eros retreats into the corners of her memory.