---

The Next Dead Wife

by Jeanna Mason Stay

 

Every time a new wife crosses my husband’s threshold, I tell myself this time will be different. This time I’ll go free.

As her body falls to the floor, I’ll seize my opportunity. As her soul rises from her body, I will snatch what should be mine — no cliched tunnel of light, just a doorway into the afterlife. But it will be my turn this time, my door. I’ll take it before she can.

Not that I’ve been able to yet. When the moment comes, I am frozen in place. I can only watch as she enters the door and disappears. And I hate her for it.

But my plan is not impossible. It has worked before. It was done to me. I remember staring down at my lifeless body sprawled across the carpet. I remember seeing a door appear. Feeling it beckon to me with a promise of peace. Then before I could respond, a ghostly form — the wife before me, I assume — threw it open. She looked at me a moment, shrugged in half apology, and slipped through the door. Which disappeared after her. Leaving me stuck here.

But not for much longer. When he murders his next wife, I will steal her way out. It’s only fair. That’s what I tell myself, at least. Every time.

I hear him now at the door, the regular kind. He opens it and carries her across the threshold.

“Here we are,” he says, his script old and tired to me but fresh for each new wife. “Your home, Mrs. Blake.”

I notice her elegant dress and her black hair curling around her face, the ring sparkling on her finger — and I freeze. I’m right, this time is different. Because it is my ring, the one he took off my hand before it was even cold.

I imagine how she felt as he slid it onto her finger, like he did with me. She probably smiled as it glittered in candlelight. Neither of us knew what was coming.

Her gaze sweeps the room as I stand there, anger roiling through me. And then, something else is different. Because her eyes suddenly stop, widening almost comically.

She is staring directly at me.

She looks away immediately. She turns back to her new husband, her future murderer, and begs him to show her around the house. She has never been here, no wife ever comes here before the marriage. Maybe if we had, we would have sensed the wrongness of this place. Or maybe not.

---

 

I know she sees me — know it because of how she stutters to a stop when she enters a room I am in. How her eyes flick to me and away again whenever I appear. But she pretends I don’t exist, and I pretend nothing has changed. It doesn’t matter that she sees me, since she’ll be dead before long. And I cannot make friends with someone I mean to betray.

I wonder how I look to her. Does she see the last dress I wore, the way I’d done my hair so carefully? Does she see the wound in my chest? It is unsettling to know she sees me at all.

At least he continues oblivious to my existence. He would otherwise find some way to torment me still.

She settles in, unpacking clothing, tucking her toothbrush in the holder next to his, washing her morning coffee cup. I roam the halls as I always have, bound to this place and this man. I cannot leave, cannot even see beyond the front door. I have tried, but it seems the only exit for me is the type he keeps providing, if only I can find a way to take it.

I wonder why he chose this woman as his wife. It’s a game I play to pass the time, guessing what brought her into his sights. She’s beautiful, like many of the others, like I was too. She has a lilt to her voice and a pleasant laugh. But I think it’s her name that drew him in. Lily. I imagine flowers lying atop a grave.

I feel . . . uneasy. I won’t think of it. Death is her fate now, and nothing will change that.

Her first days here pass the way they always do. She explores, undoubtedly thinking if she sneaks glances into his cupboards and unearths his sock drawer, she will learn all the secrets of him. She is enthralled, making discoveries about her husband and his home and how she will fit into it.

The house changes as time passes. So many things change: the curtains, the furniture, the new inventions — gas lamps, electricity, televisions, cell phones. But one thing will never change: how this place takes you out of time, makes you forget yourself, makes it impossible to even think of opening those curtains to see the outside world.

So she will find nothing that reveals the truth. The spell has already been cast. Her world will shrink until she remembers nothing of her past, cares nothing for her future.

For now, though, she remembers and forgets, remembers and forgets. Her eyes drift to the front door as if she knows she has somewhere else to be. Then they go fuzzy and she turns to another task.

One morning she finds her purse, gathering dust on the floor of the closet next to a row of impractical heels she doesn’t wear anymore. Her eyes brighten. She picks up the purse and rifles through its contents, as if the action will remind her of . . . something important, if she can only think of what.

Among her belongings is a lipstick, a vibrant red. She holds it up to the light, captivated by its hue. She tosses her purse to the side and takes the lipstick to the mirror, applies it slowly, carefully. Her only focus is the streak of color. Her purse tumbles off the bed and falls to the floor, forgotten again.

We have all done the same. Next she might make notes, reminders of appointments she meant to make, places she meant to be. They will be gone by the next morning, leaving only scraps of thought, subtle sensations that something is missing. Or she might ask him to remind her of the things she keeps forgetting. He will smile and make promises, and she will not see the predatory gleam in his eye.

She is a bird caught in a cage. She will flutter, beating against the walls of the cage, desperate to get out. For brief, frantic moments she will remember there is life outside this house. She will know exactly who she is and what she wants. But the next moment all her clarity will fade away. She will weaken. Her eyes will become permanently vacant. She will be a shell, unaware there was ever anything outside of this cage. Once he is bored with her, once he’s wrung every last ounce of fear or memory or willpower out of her, he will end it. As he has every time.

We are all birds.

And he is the cat.

---

She sits with him at breakfast, pouring herself a coffee. She has glanced my direction several times this morning. More and more lately her gaze lingers on me and a crease forms between her eyebrows.

I back into the shadows.

She turns to him. “Do you know where my phone is? I think I misplaced it. I want to call some friends and go out tonight,” she says. “It’s been . . .” she frowns in concentration “. . .a while.”

He butters his toast. “Excellent plan,” he says, “but how about tomorrow night?” He leans toward her and runs his fingers down her neck. “I have something else in mind for tonight.”

She shivers in pleasure but presses her point. “Time for both, I think.”

He frowns but quickly shifts back to a suggestive grin. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

As his lips find hers, I think he has won his point.

Except she pulls back. “In my drawer! That’s where I put it.” She runs from the room. She will come back soon, having forgotten.

But she doesn’t forget. She returns with her phone in hand.

He flinches with a jolt of surprise. It is short-lived, however. He still has the upper hand, phone or not.

Because she makes a call. And she doesn’t recognize the voice that answers.

“Must have changed their number and forgotten to tell you,” he says, stroking her hair. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

She makes another call. Another wrong number. Another. She scowls more with each call. She doesn’t know that time flows differently here. The world has already passed her by.

Finally he reaches to take the phone, closing his hand around hers and pulling her close. “We’ll settle it tomorrow,” he murmurs against her ear.

She loosens her hold on the phone, and he gently tugs it away.

---

She’s forgotten by the next day, of course she has, but the need to talk seems to linger. She no longer looks away from me at all. Instead, she stares, she speaks, pretending she’s thinking out loud — but she pauses too, waiting for my response.

She speaks of her life before she met him. She speaks of her friends and family — or at least she tries to. She speaks as if it will help her somehow keep her grasp on realities that continue to slip away. But her willpower is no match for this place.

And I? I listen, rapt. All these years I have been invisible, unknown, and suddenly I am seen. It is intoxicating, mesmerizing. I can’t look away, even if I want to. Which I do. Because I cannot forget — will not forget — that I mean to steal her escape.

But the longer I listen, the harder it is to stay silent. I want to tell her what little I remember of my own life and the stories of those who came before her.

But I don’t.

“I think I was an accountant,” she says.

“I think I loved expensive chocolates and ridiculous hats and snow,” she says.

“I think I really loved to talk. I think talking to . . .”she looks my way “. . . someone  . . . I think it’s the only thing keeping me sane.” She gives a short, sharp laugh. “Well, maybe this isn’t exactly sane.” She shrugs, pretending nonchalance. “But at least I don’t feel so alone.”

I open my mouth, close it again. What can I say?

“I think I miss the outside,” she says one day as she sits at her table, painting. She has taken up watercolor. He likes to find new hobbies for his wives while he is away on business, always “on business.” I think he likes to mold them into new shapes.

She makes an earnest attempt at a meadow landscape. I think the yellow blob is a sun.

“I want to go outside. I think I would like it there,” she says, adding a streak of green. She shudders then, with a sorrow and fear that tug at my soul. “But I think . . . I’m scared . . . I’m never leaving this place again, am I.”

She doesn’t say it like a question, but some part of me cannot let the statement lie unheeded.

“No,” I whisper.

She sucks in her breath and looks at me, her eyes clearer than they have been in weeks. “No?” she asks. It is a question this time, almost a plea.

I shake my head. “No.” I pause. “I’m sorry.”

She continues to gaze at me for another minute before she goes back to her painting. “No,” she mutters, shaking her head slowly. She is going vague. “No. No . . . no.”

Suddenly the thought of watching her forget herself yet again is unbearable. I have to stop it. “Lily,” I whisper.

She startles, and her eyes widen as she looks back at me.

“Lily,” I repeat. I don’t know what more to say.

She blinks and nods in agreement. “Lily,” she says.

“Lily.”

She gives a tiny smile, and the relief that spreads across her face almost makes me flee. Who am I to bring this woman relief? What is the point of prolonging the inevitable?

But I have to. Because she sees me, and she hears me, and I cannot stop my words.

I tell her all the things I’d wished to say before, all the things I’ve kept inside. Eventually I tell her about how it all ends. I see the horror fill her as she learns what is in store.

I wish I could soften the blow, but there is no way to soften death.

The more I talk, the more she sees me. She stops me one day, midsentence, and leans forward, scrunching her face. “Is your dress . . . green?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say. It was a gorgeous gown — ribbons, lace, ten times finer than anything I’d ever owned.

It was the dress he killed me in.

“And . . .” she squints harder “. . . that ring.” She looks at her own hand and grimaces. “Your ring.”

I nod. I wonder if it was that connection between us that first made me visible to her.

“You’re more in focus now,” she says. “You used to just be a shadow.”

I wonder if the others could have seen me, eventually, if I had only talked to them. I cannot bear to think of what might have been.

Lily is sometimes aware of herself and all she is missing, sometimes not. In her lucid moments, she begs for help. She wants to come out of this alive. I have never considered that a possibility. No wife leaves this place.

But . . . I wish she could. I wish it so much that I start to wonder. And once I start, I cannot ignore the thrill of excitement and fear that runs through me. Could she escape? Could I help her? It would mean waiting longer for a door. But I have waited so long, what is another year or even another decade?

Ideas form in my mind. Possibilities. I’m scared to voice them, scared that only death will break her free. But the truth is, Lily has become my friend. My only friend.

And I cannot let her die here, not if I can save her.

---

She paints endlessly — mediocre attempts to capture memories. I hover near her and watch as she spreads watercolor across a page. It’s yet another field of wildflowers in the bright sun.

None of the blobs of color look like flowers to me. That’s just as well. She hangs them all over the house, and he would be suspicious if he knew how often she still thinks of the outside world. She tells him only that she likes the pretty colors. It satisfies him.

As she paints, we plan, we scheme. Excitement is stronger than fear. She could live. It is almost too much to hope for.

“Why are you still here?” she asks me suddenly.

“Shall I leave the room?” I ask. I know that’s not what she means, but I don’t want to answer the real question.

She shakes her head and taps her fingers arrhythmically against the table. We have found so many little ways to keep her focused, keep her mind present in her body. The tapping is one of them. “Of course not. I mean why are you still here here, in this house . . . with him?”

I hesitate. I’ve skirted this topic. I’ve told her there were others before me and twenty-three after. But I never tell her why I remain. I don’t even know why. Why is our chain of dead wives one door short?

She asks again. Her finger tapping is jerkier, like it’s getting harder to think.

And because I want her to stay herself, and because I have already given in on every other count, I tell her.

“There is a door,” I say. “When you die. My door closed before I could go through it.”

“How?” she asks.

I look away. “It just did.”

“So you’ve been here ever since, watching him murder again and again?” Horror fills her voice.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“And you’ve never found another door?” she asks softly.

I hesitate too long before I shake my head. “No.”

She stops tapping. “You’re lying.”

“Yes,” I admit.

She only looks at me, questioning.

Will I truly tell her? Even as I wonder, I know I will. I will give her my very last secret. I wince. “I meant to betray you, as I was betrayed.” And I explain about my door and how it was stolen from me and how I have never found the peace I know lies beyond.

When I finish my tale, she sits in silence. I wonder if she’s faded again.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says.

It is such an inadequate thing to say, and we both know it. “I am too.”

After another long pause, she adds, “If our plan doesn’t work, I want you to take my door.”

---

Lily stands in the living room, a mere ten feet from the exit, tapping her fingers. Maybe this time it will work.

I hover beside her, encouraging her. “Your name is Lily,” I say. “You are trapped. If you don’t leave here, your husband will kill you. You have to leave. You will open the door and leave.”

She sucks in a deep breath. “My name is Lily. I will open the door and leave.”

I move forward a few inches, hoping she’ll follow. “Go. You’re in danger.”

She inches forward too. Her muscles strain. Her fingers tap harder, faster.

This is not our first try. We’ve been here over and over as Lily attempts to force her mind into obedience. But every time, I tell myself it will work. I have to believe this time will work.

We don’t know what to expect if she manages to escape. She must get help. She must find someone, anyone, tell them she’s lost, been in an accident, can’t remember. It is madness to tell stories of a serial murderer in a haunted, magical house.

From there . . . we don’t know. So much relies on hope and luck and desperation.

“Go to the door. Open it. Go outside,” I demand, frustration causing my voice to rise. She has slowed her tapping. Her eyes are drifting.

“Go,” she mumbles, but there is no conviction in the word.

“Lily!” I yell. I wish I could slap or pinch her, anything to call her mind back to her body.

She barely responds. She looks toward the dining room. “A snack,” she says dreamily. “A snack, and then . . . ” She doesn’t finish the sentence, and I close my eyes in defeat.

She got a foot closer this time.

---

“I have a surprise for you,” he tells her one morning, just before he leaves the house. The words ring warning bells.

“Oh?” she asks.

“Yes.” He brings a bag from behind his back and unfurls it with a flourish. A dress bag.

The space in my chest that should hold a heart squeezes. A dress bag.

I look down at the soft folds of the gown I wear. I remember it was a gift. But I don’t have to remember that to remember this moment.

I remember Grace, with the cream-colored gown and high waist.

Charlotte and her flounced silk with rosebud embroidery.

Evelyn, dropped waist, fringe, beads.

Sophia, black sheath.

Layla.

Abigail.

Olivia.

“I have a surprise,” he’d told them all, and then he’d produced the most beautiful dress any of them had seen. “I feel like dancing,” he’d told them. “Tonight.”

And all that day, they looked at the dress, running their fingers along the fabric, thinking of the romantic evening ahead. Perhaps, like me, they briefly remembered a world outside — a world where they could be admired for just one night, gorgeous and on the arm of a perfect prince.

But they never left the house. He came home and they danced, there on the living room floor, to music he hummed in a whispery, melodic voice.

And then, as the night grew later and the dance grew slower, he pulled each one of them — us — closer for one last kiss.

Before he thrust the knife in.

Lily unzips the dress bag, revealing swaths of shimmering maroon. She gasps. “It’s gorgeous.”

Every attempt to free her has ended in failure. She comes closer and closer to that front door every time, but now we have only one last chance.

She smiles at him, practically glowing. “Thank you.” She puts her arms around his neck for a lingering kiss.

I back away in horror. I hope she is just acting, but her eyes seem vacant. It is one of her vague mornings.

She doesn’t have time for vagueness today. She doesn’t have time for anything.

He kisses her back, and as the kiss lengthens, I fear he will not leave at all. He has to leave.

But what can I do? I stay silent. Sometimes on vague days she is frightened when she notices me. I don’t want to startle her and draw his attention or suspicion. So I wait, wringing my hands, silently pleading for him to go.

He finally pulls back. “I’ll see you tonight,” he says, his voice low. When he lingers for a few more minutes, I can feel the time ticking away. So few hours and minutes before the end.

Finally he leaves.

I come to her. “Lily,” I say, my voice intense, “Lily, remember? This is it. You must leave.”

She blinks and shakes her head, loosening cobwebs. “What?”

I tell her again. I point to the picture hanging on the wall. “Remember? The outside. Please, you must remember,” I beg. “He’s going to kill you if you don’t.”

She looks at me again, squinting to focus. Some of her vacancy dissipates. “Yes.” She blinks again. “Yes, I remember.” And then she snaps, and all her clarity is back in place.

I sigh with relief. We can do this.

In the end, there is little to do. She has nothing to pack, nothing to keep from this life save two of her favorite watercolors, folded up and tucked in a pocket. The only thing that matters is to get her through the door.

She looks at me. “Thank you,” she whispers, and she reaches out to touch my hand. I draw back; I won’t feel the touch, and I cannot bear it if we fail once more. “No matter what happens, thank you.”

I only nod.

She is in the front room now, mere feet from the door. Her footsteps are slower. “Your name is Lily,” I remind her. “You are here against your will. You will open the door and leave.”

She nods, her face screwed up in concentration, but she doesn’t step forward.

“If you stay here, you will die,” I plead. “You must go, now.” It is taking too long, and though he should not come back for hours, I imagine I can feel him returning. She must be far away before then.

She shivers but does not move. Her finger tapping is slowing.

I look around the room in desperation. How can I convince her? My eyes fall on a painting. She said it was a beach somewhere, a vacation with a friend. She couldn’t remember which beach, or which friend, but she said it felt like light and freedom.

“You’re going back to the real world,” I tell her, “where you will feel the sun on your cheeks and the sand between your toes and a salt breeze against your skin.” I can almost imagine it myself.

She blinks.

I look at the bright yellow splotchy painting. “You will smell the wildflowers and watch the bumblebees and brush your fingers through the grass.”

She nods and takes another step. “Snow,” she says. “And calling a friend to go out for a drink. Last-minute shopping trips to . . . ” She loses her thought, and her eyes begin to glaze.

I think of the heels in her closet. “To buy impractical shoes,” I add quickly. “And a hat you don’t need. And chocolate.”

She takes another step. Another. Her hand is on the doorknob. “And I will . . . ” She trails off.

“Be free,” I finish, and if I could I would shove her through the door.

“Be free,” she agrees, and her words are sharp. She yanks the door open and stands in the bright sunshine pouring in. Sunlight! We have not seen it in so, so long. Her every muscle strains against the power that has held her captive.

“You’re almost there,” I tell her. “Go. Sunshine. Wildflowers. Chocolate. Shoes. Snow.” I tell her all the things I can remember that make Lily herself.

With her eyes closed, her body straining, she takes another step.

---

Hours have passed. I cannot stay still. I have never felt so alive, perhaps not even when I was alive. She is free. It does not matter that I remain trapped. Lily is free.

There is euphoria, and yes, there is peace. No door to the afterlife, but still peace. I smile and spin and laugh and —

The front door slams open. I turn to look.

He stands there, rage painted across his face, with a squirming, fighting bundle in his arms. I recognize her even before I see her face.

No.

He steps across the threshold and dumps her to the floor. “You thought you could leave?” he shouts. “You thought I wouldn’t find you?”

She scrambles to her feet. Her hair is wild and tangled. Blood trickles from a cut on her cheek. “Yes,” she whispers, defiant still.

His eyes flame, and in one quick movement he grabs her by the throat and pushes her against the wall.

I scream.

She looks at me. He turns. “What are you looking at?” he roars.

“Nothing,” she says, but she smiles in a secretive way that angers him even more, and he tightens his grip.

She struggles, pulling at his arms, but her strength is nothing to his. I try to beat at him, anything to stop him — but of course he feels nothing.

A vicious smirk spreads across his face, and a knife appears in his hand. “It doesn’t matter. You won’t be looking at anything soon.”

“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I tried.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she whispers, her voice hoarse with what little air he still allows her. “Thank you.”

He seems shaken by her serenity, but he forces contempt into his voice. “Oh, I’m not sorry,” he says, “and no need to thank me.”

He thrusts in the knife.

I stand frozen, holding her gaze as her blood spills out. He turns again, his eyes raking the air where I stand, desperate to see what she sees.

There is a certain sort of triumph in knowing that he cannot have me that way.

A few more moments, and her eyes slowly close. He releases his hold on her, and her body thuds to the ground.

I wish I had tears to fill my eyes, spill down my cheeks. Anything to take away this pain. I stand, frozen, unable to face what is left of her.

So close. We’d been so close.

Then, something in the air changes. I look to the floor, where I know what I will see. Her body is there, yes, but that is not the change.

Her spirit stands beside me.

And a doorway appears.

We both stare at the open door, the single door. She smiles at me, sadly, and gestures toward the door.

I shake my head. How can I leave her here, to watch and watch eternally, like I did?

“It’s okay,” she says. “Take it.”

My mind reels, searching for another way. The doorway stands before us, taunting us.

And then I have it.

I reach toward her. “Together,” I say. One word, so much possibility.

Her eyes go wide. Why can we not share a door? What rule says we cannot leave together?

She takes my hand, and I feel it, cool in mine, and I draw strength from the only thing I have felt in so many ages.

We walk forward.

But then . . . I look back, one last time.

He sits on his chaise, stretched out and relaxed, scrolling on his phone. He has already wrenched the ring — our ring — from her body, and it sits beside him on a table. Mere minutes have passed, but already he’s moved on, shrinking her whole existence down to a single item of jewelry.

Tiny profiles of women pop up on his screen. He smiles at one and swipes right.

He is hunting for his next dead wife.

I look toward the door. I could go through it. We could go through it. I don’t know what lies beyond, but I know there’s peace. We could be done with him. We could be done with everything.

I look back at Lily, and understanding passes between us.

There will be another wife. And another. And another. We couldn’t save Lily, but maybe, together, we can save them.

We step back, and she closes the door.

He looks up, startled. His eyes dart around the room, landing on nothing, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. And yet, when he looks down at his phone again, he rubs at the back of his neck. He keeps glancing up, unsettled, like he knows he’s not alone. Like he can feel our eyes boring into him, watching his every move.

I smile to myself. It’s not the peace I was looking for, but I’ll take it all the same.

I don’t have to convince myself anymore. I know it: next time will be very different.

---

Host Commentary

…aaaaand welcome back. That was “The Next Dead Wife” by Jeanna Mason Stay, and if you enjoyed that then check out the front page of her website, jeannamasonstay.com, has links to her novels, romcom short stories, fantasy shorts and more ghostly tales, without needing even a single click more from you. It couldn’t be easier!

Jeanna sent us these notes on her story today: When I wrote my first draft of “The Next Dead Wife,” I’d recently been re-reading various fairy tales and writing a lot of ghost stories from the point of view of the ghost. I found myself wondering what one of Bluebeard’s wives would have to say, and the story developed from there.

In that first draft, Lily was a teenager, and the next Mrs. Blake was her mother (who, for reasons incomprehensible, I had named Persephone). Lily and the ghost became friends and developed an elaborate plan involving sleeping pills, dragging the unconscious mother out the door in a sleeping bag, and internet research. My only excuse is that this draft was a product of a 48-hour writing challenge to write a ghost story featuring a stepdaughter and a game of pretend. (I did not win the challenge.)

For the second draft, I cut out the daughter, happily renamed Persephone to Lily, and tried desperately to save her from dying. I am a person who likes happy endings, and I was determined that Lily would make it out of the house alive and go back into the world and probably sing and dance and pick daisies and live happily ever after. The second draft fell flat.

I won’t make you suffer through all the other iterations of the story like my poor critique group had to, but eventually I realized my intended happy ending was too easy. It never felt satisfying. It never felt complete. So I let Lily die and found the happy(ish) ending I was looking for in the way Lily and the ghost take up what little power they can. Watching them shut that door and turn their attention on their murdering husband finally felt right. Lily was dead, but it wasn’t the end. I think there’s a grim sort of satisfaction in seeing Mr. Blake shift in his chair, knowing he will never be comfortable again. I think it won’t be long before they find a way to defeat him for good, save all of his future victims, and find true peace. And that is a happy ending.

Thank you, Jeanna, for the story and that background. We are not meant to be a horror podcast—that swampy territory is reserved for PseudoPod, our tentacular sister show—but I’m about to read out some statistics that are undoubtedly horror. These are all taken from Refuge, the primary UK charity supporting victims of domestic abuse. Did you know:

·        That less than 1 in 4 incidents of domestic abuse are reported to the police, yet they still receive a call about it every 30 seconds?

·        That 1 in 4 women will, in their lifetime, be the victim of domestic abuse; and that in domestic abuse cases, 84% of the victims are women, while 93% of the defendants are men?

·        And that an estimated three women take their own lives each week as a result of domestic abuse; and that on average, a woman is killed by her partner or ex every five days?

And abuse, as I hope you know, is far more than just physical or sexual abuse: it is the emotional abuse, the coercion and control, the isolation and separation of the victim from their friends and family. The idea in this story that Mr. Blake’s house is somehow apart from time interests me, because on a writing craft level I suspect it was simply a solution to justify how there had been so many dead wives, and how he’d gotten away with it so long, just a way of closing of a logical plot hole with a handwave so we can get on with telling the actual story that wants to be told.

But there’s so much truth to it, too, because domestic abuse is so often about that isolation, about not only shutting someone away from the world but convincing them to shut themselves away, until the world passes them by, friends move on and opportunities close and the ripples that person made in the world slowly shrink and fade and get lost in the noise, and no-one remembers who they were, and they no longer remember themselves; all they know now is how to shape themselves to try and appease the monster they live with, a list of superstitions and rituals to try and control that which controls them, to appease the rage and somehow, somehow, bring back the charming, loving person they first met. But that person was no more real then, than the facsimile of a human that the victim has become now, shorn of independence and desires.

In the end, the only part of this story that truly feels like fantasy is that anyone might be around to witness it, and intervene.