I Said No to His Drink While Four Ghosts Behind My Chair Said Don't...

I was back in the beige armchair before I realized he'd steered me there.

My hand still held the glass. The amber liquid hadn't spilled. It sat level and still, catching the warm ceiling spotlights, and my fingers had gone numb around it from gripping it so long.

The man in black didn't raise his voice. He stood at the right side of the frame where he'd been before, hands relaxed at his sides. He looked at the glass, then at me, with the calm politeness of a host who'd noticed a guest hadn't touched her drink.

"You haven't had a sip," he said. "I poured it for you because the house is warm. It's just to make you comfortable."

His tone was even. He didn't sound angry. That was worse. He sounded understanding, like I was being difficult and he was choosing to be generous about it.

I felt my mouth was dry. My lips stuck a little when I parted them. I hadn't had water since before I sat down, and the light overhead had been on me for what felt like hours. Sweat had dried on my forehead and left my skin tight.

"I don't want to be rude," I said. My voice came out quiet.

"Then don't be," he said, and smiled a little. "It's only a drink. Most people would say thank you."

He said it lightly, but the words landed like a correction. I felt heat rush to my face. I was twenty-nine years old and still my first instinct was to fix it, to be likable, to take what was offered so the moment wouldn't be awkward. My throat worked. I wanted to swallow and there was nothing to swallow with.

Behind the chair, the four women in dirty white dresses hadn't moved. Their pale gray skin looked almost blue under the warm light. Their long straight black hair hung forward. They stared straight ahead, not at me, not at him. The stillness was so complete it made the room feel louder.

"I said I'm not thirsty," I said. It was the same line I'd used before, but now it sounded thin, like an excuse.

The man tilted his head. "You look thirsty," he said. "Your hands are shaking. You're holding that like it might bite you. It's just trust, that's all. You sit in my chair, I offer you something warm. You take it. That's how this works."

He wasn't touching me. He didn't need to. The beige rectangular pillow was pressed against my lower back, the wood paneling behind him was solid, the dark wood door was still closed. Everything in the modern living room was neat and intentional, and I was the one part that didn't fit because I wouldn't do the simple thing.

Doubt slid in fast. What if I was making this into something it wasn't? What if they were just trying to warn me about nothing and I was insulting a man who was only being hospitable? My tongue felt thick. I glanced down at the glass again. The amber caught the light and for a second it looked like tea, like whiskey, like nothing dangerous at all.

One of the ghosts moved.

It wasn't all four. It was the one second from the left. She didn't step forward. She just broke the line enough to reach a hand toward the back of the armchair, then toward me. Her fingers were gray and thin, her dark eye makeup stark against her paleness.

She touched my shoulder.

It wasn't a grab. It was barely a weight, cold through the puffed sleeve of my sage green dress, right on the seam where the fabric buttoned at the front. A brief press of fingertips, there and gone. Not solid the way a living person's hand would be, but enough to feel. Enough to be real.

I sucked in a breath. My eyes watered.

She didn't speak. She didn't need to. That touch pulled me back into my body, into the chair, into the reason I'd held the glass for so long without drinking it. Don't drink anything he gives you. You will be like us.

The man saw my shoulders jerk. "Are you cold?" he asked.

I shook my head. I tightened both hands around the glass tumbler so he wouldn't see them shake anymore.

"No," I said. My voice was steadier this time. "I'm fine."

I didn't lift the glass to my mouth. I held it out a little from my chest, away from me, like something I was deciding not to keep. My throat still ached with thirst, and the politeness still pulled at me to just be agreeable and get it over with, but the cold spot on my shoulder stayed with me.

"I'm not going to drink this," I said. It was quiet, but I didn't add an excuse to it.

The man's calm expression didn't change, but something behind it went still. He looked at the glass, then at the space behind my chair where the four women stood again in their perfect line, staring forward as if they'd never moved at all.