“The Penthouse? Are you sure?” Nick asked, staring up at the art deco skyscraper. He was no expert, but from the foot of its grand granite facade it looked like the alternate reality twin to the Empire State Building, if a little run down.

The portly realtor had been nothing but kind up to this point, so it was difficult for Nick to believe that this was some practical joke. Donald Moore was a kindly faced gent whose face could be seen on little billboards at bus stations all over town. In his sixties now, he was a bit of an institution in Toronto. His voice sounded just like the commercials you could see on at 2 AM on the local TV stations.

Donald chuckled. “I suppose it is the penthouse. The top floor is reserved for some kind of zeppelin mooring tower in the 1920s. Morris Farthingdale was a bit of a futurist, you see.”

Nick made an incredulous face, but received no hint that this was another part of the prank. The Farthingdale Building was the home of many legends in the city. Ever since Farthingdale Consumer Electronics dissolved in the 1970s and the holding company that had bought its assets turned out to be a front for a Triad, the building had sat abandoned with its rights placed in legal limbo.

They entered the lobby through a creaking revolving door. Nick could help but stare at the dated architecture that didn’t look like it had seen 40 years of decay. Huge, vaulting ceiling made each footstep on the faux marble floors echo. Sculpted bas-reliefs of great feats of technological progress lined the walls, with the participants depicted as Greek Gods: trains, the discovery of electricity, the telegraph, all done in Hellenistic glory. Light sconces bathed the room in dim, yellow light like only incandescent bulbs could. It felt like entering a painting from just before the Great Depression.

As they walked, Donald continued his explanation. “As I was explaining on the phone, the apartment was separate from the rest of the assets of the corporation as it was the personal property of Morris Farthingdale and thus not clustered in with the assets of the rest of the corporation upon the…dubiously legal sale. Once the rights reverted back to the Farthingdale family, we looked for the closest descendant. Morris died without children, placing all his assets in a trust to go to the estate of his best friend. That friend, Michael Van Allen, is your Great Grand Uncle.”

“Why would he leave his assets to his friend instead of his family?”

Donald stared at him. “He died in the 1940s. They were Very Good Friends.”

“Oh,” Nick said, catching the drift. “But I have plenty of living family on that side…I think. How come they didn’t get it first?”

“That’s something we can discuss after I show you the property. This is all laid out in the Will, you see. Very specific. Ah, they fixed it! I’d rather not take the stairs again.”

The elevator at the end of the hall opened as soon as the realtor pressed the Up button. To Nick’s amusement, it was actually operated by one of those old timey levers. The grin turned to a frown when he realised this was an ancient elevator, and he would have to go up eighteen floors.

“This is safe, right?” he asked.

Donald patted him on the shoulder. “Of course, son. The insurance people have been all over the building. If there would have been a fault, they would have found it.”

Son. The word made Nick twitch. Maybe his age? He was halfway through his twenties, but considering he was half the age of the other man, that wasn’t too out of line. The unusual familiarity? Perhaps. But there was something about how it was said that evoked a slight tightening of Nick’s chest.

Donald pushed in a brass key into a slot on the elevator’s control panel and pulled the lever. The doors slid shut, only for the car to shudder into motion. Nick braced himself for the ride. The knowledge that some city schlub had given the place a once-over did not make the rickety, bumpy ride up all eighteen floors to the penthouse any more pleasant. Nick clung to the brass metal handle along the wall of the elevator car on more than one occasion. Why was he doing this, he wondered to himself? Why didn’t he just sell off the damn apartment and move in somewhere sane?

For one, he was curious. It wasn’t every day that you inherit a part of a city landmark. In middle school his bus route took him down Front Street West and past the imposing, haunting edifice of a long-gone era. Ever since he had been a kid, he’d heard the stories. Some said it was cursed, others said it had been the site of a murder. One of the less coherent tales was that it was the secret lair of the infamous Cabbagetown Monster, though Nick had always assumed that was just a story told to cover up for urban Bigfoot sightings.

The door opened onto a movie set from some cautionary tale of avarice run amok. A miniature mirror of the lobby at the bottom of the tower greeted them. Black marble walls and gold-painted door frames led into expansive living rooms, lavish bedrooms, a kitchen that looked like it needed regular staff, a library fit for a kleptomaniacal professor, and a closet bigger than Nick’s entire apartment. He said nothing while Donald led him through room after room, wordlessly gawking at the extravagance around him. Above it all on the far wall sat the portrait of Morris Farthingdale, Captain of Industry. His mustachioed face and gaze set off into some distant point in the sky gave him that misunderstood genius look that he must have paid extra for the portrait artist to capture.

Not only was it beyond Nick’s feeble imagination, but there had been no perceivable decay here either. No water damage, no vandalism. Only a thin layer of dust indicated that it had not been regularly occupied. The only other unusual aspect was the lack of any windows in the entire lavish residence. With what would have been undoubtedly a fantastic view, Nick couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. But that twinge was vastly outweighed by the opulence of the rest of the penthouse.

“How do you like it?” Donald asked. It took half a minute to conjure the words to respond.

“Unreal.”

Donald laughed again, then tossed the heavy brass key over to Nick. “Is that real enough for you?”

Nick stared at the heavy hunk of metal in his hand. “This is really happening. I can’t…so it’s mine now?”

“Well, not quite,” the realtor fished around his pockets until he found a folded up scrap of yellow paper. “We still have a metric ton of paperwork for you to sign, several waivers, and some other odds and ends to clear up. But…there was an addendum to the will. You are the inheritor, but you may only keep the inheritance if you stay for one week entirely within the apartment.”

“Oh. Well, alright, I can probably swing that.” Nick was between jobs and not having particular success fixing that. Not something he was willing to publicly admit to someone who held the potential for financial restitution in his hands. “When’s good for you?”

Donald shook his head. “The Will is quite clear, I’m afraid, that you are to begin this week-long period immediately. And that you be only person allowed for the duration.”

“Wait, what? I need food to live, man.”

“The pantry is fully stocked, the water and power works, and you should have everything you might need in terms of comforts. Unfortunately, the penthouse is something called a…Friday Cage? Telecommunications are strictly impossible.”

“Faraday,” Nick corrected before pulling out his phone. Sure enough, zero bars. The complete absence of windows made sense. “The hell am I going to do for a week?”

“That is, I’m afraid, your problem. You can leave at any time, of course, but the alarms on the elevator and the staircase door will tell me if you break the terms of the contract. Breaking the contract will forfeit your inheritance. That is why I have come for you, in fact. All the others on the list before you have not been able to last the week.”

Nick looked around at the extravagant appointment around him. “How is that possible? They gave up on a place worth millions because they couldn’t go a week without Netflix?”

The realtor cleared his throat, parsing his next words carefully. “There have been … rumors that this apartment is haunted.”

“Really,” Nick deadpanned, waiting for the punchline. When none arrived, he repeated. “Really?”

Donald shrugged. “I’ve no idea if it’s true, but seven of your distant relations have all tried to stay the week. One lasted four days before barging out of the building. Could have sworn his hair wasn’t white before he went in…”

Nick had never believed in ghosts. But that information certainly didn’t help. “And I can leave at any time?”

“Of course. Like I said, you aren’t locked in. All you need to do is stay in the apartment for 168 hours, starting from the moment I leave. So…what do you say?”

DAY ONE

Nick spent most of the afternoon in his new digs going over just what he had access to. There had to have been a dozen more rooms than the tour Donald had given him had revealed. A nook with an easel and art supplies, a second living room with a piano, even a small theater with a film projector! Unfortunately, he had neither the experience using film or the desire to see the apartment’s collection of newsreels. He’d have to find out how the Spanish Civil War ended some other time.

The pantry was indeed filled to the ceiling with ingredients. As was the small walk-in freezer and the three (3!) refrigerators. He almost called them ice boxes they were so old, but they worked. So long as nobody cracked them open and spilled out all the freon.

Thankfully, the ingredients were not from the 1920s. Donald or someone assigned to the estate must have stocked them up.

Cooking was something Nick had learned from his mother, much to his father’s chagrin. His dad had been of the ancient school that somehow the capacity to feed yourself without help was unmanly. That was but one of the many, Many reasons why he hadn’t talked to him in years. Even still, twinges of getting ridiculed while standing at the stove came back in flashes that made him wince.

“Be a man,” his father had said. What the hell did that mean? What was being a man about? Being aggressive? Hate-filled? Bitterly resentful at being blocked from certain feelings and desires? He hadn’t thought about his terrible relationship with his dad for a while…and hoped it would be another while before it would rear its ugly head again.

The lunch completed (and consumed), Nick went looking for some pastime. If he was trapped in the apartment for a whole week, he couldn’t very well just wander around the halls. The library he’d seen on the tour had caught his eye, so he made his way back there, hopeful that there might be a book worth reading.

The room was well lit, with a number of sconces and fringed table lamps with pull strings in strategic locations to leave nothing in shadow. Dozens of bookshelves filled from floor to ceiling with bound books of all description. A fiction section containing many pristine pieces of the Western canon was sandwiched between a large selection of technical publications and a vast array of historical non-fiction. It was all pretty dry, but Nick supposed he could try to get cultured…for a while at least.

Along with a large wooden table with a typewriter, the room features a pair of comfortably cushioned reading chairs. Nick sat down with a book on the Black Death and settled in for some cheery afternoon reading.

A thumping noise jolted him out of 13th Century Italy. Not a strange to living in old buildings, he’d chalked it up to central heating or some such. But the second thud made it hard to ignore. He bookmarked his book with a fancy looking pen on the desk and went searching for the source of the noise.

Stalking around the apartment like an indecisive burglar, he couldn’t locate the sound. Even when it reoccurred, it happened in the opposite direction of the original two noises.

Was someone fucking with him?

The rest of the day passed slowly as he tried to focus on other things but could shake the feeling that he wasn’t alone in the apartment. Maybe that’s why his relatives had not lasted the night. Surely couldn’t be an actual ghost. Likely some kind of psychological test derived by a maniac to see if he was worthy of the inheritance or some shit.

That night, in the apartment’s master bedroom, he placed a heavy wooden chair underneath the door handle to keep it from being opened, and took a fire poker from the hearth in the largest living room and kept it next to his bed. Even still, Nick didn’t sleep well.

DAY TWO

Waking up groggy, Nick batted at the fragments of dreams that slipped from his memory by the time he was out of bed. If there really was some lunatic in the apartment with him to freak him out of his inheritance, they were doing a good job.

The bedroom had four doors leading off into different rooms, with the only exit being the main door he’d barricaded for the night. There was the master bathroom, which had a shower that Nick would definitely need. There was the cavernous closet, vacant save for a few coat hangers. And then there was a small study, with just enough room for a desk, a small shelf full of leather-bound books, an actual candelabra, and sheaves of paper. Why someone needed a separate study when they already had a giant library was beyond Nick, but he hadn’t been a fabulously wealthy 1920s robber-baron either.

Unwilling, at least for the moment, to go back into the main part of the residence, Nick nosed around the study nook. The books turned out to be volumes of Morris Farthingdale’s journals. A part of him was reluctant to leaf around the life of another person, but with nothing better to do and considering he’d died decades before Nick had even been born, he thought it was worth the invasion of privacy. After all, it was this dude’s twisted Will that had him stuck in this apartment for a week.

Though the penmanship was impeccable, the first journals offered little in the way of explanation. They seemed to be the recollections of a young man on the cusp of some great endeavor, nervous but anticipating the future. Not something Nick could relate to particularly. His life had been windblown and directionless after college. With a useless degree and no real job prospects, he thought about what it would be like to be in a position where your whole life was actually ahead of you, rather than behind.

The journal occasionally brushes onto something that Morris refers to as “my other self”. That caught Nick’s eye more than anything, but there’s no further exploration of the idea. Skimming the journals forward in time into the 20th century offers no clarity, though the tone becomes more melancholy

Just as he put down the final journal, he caught movement in the corner of his eye. Nick turned his head just in time to see the end of a long, flowing skirt fly past.

Nick’s heart hammered in his chest. He stumbled out of the chair and rushed back into the bedroom. Nothing. The door was still barred, there was no hint of another human being in the room or the adjoining rooms.

DAY THREE

There was someone else in the apartment with him.

The morning of the third day was spent roaming up and down the hall, looking in each corner, each crevice, each tiny part of the residence. He found nothing. His fear compounded his frustration, and slowly the words of warning from Donald the realtor wormed their way back to his mind.

A haunting.

That was impossible, of course! There was no such thing as ghosts. Whatever this was, it couldn’t be the supernatural. It had to be either a trick, or the isolation getting to him. He went looking for some alcohol to chill his nerves, but while he might be harangued by a phantom, there were no spirits to help. Morris must have been teetotal. Or the realtor made off with the good stuff.

During his search, he returned to the library. Only something was different. His book on the Black Death had been placed back into its place on the shelf. In its stead waited another book…one he hadn’t seen before.

Its cover was bible black, unlike most of the volumes in the library. On its front the words “Spiritualism: A Practical Approach” in white typeface. Nick looked around for where the book could have fallen onto the table but, as he suspected, there was no chance that could have happened. He was dealing with something, person or not, and it seemed to be trying to communicate.

The book was a manual from the late 19th century Spiritualism boom, purporting to discuss the various ways one may interact with the spirit world and those that dwell within. It was fascinating if a little unbelievable.

A single dog-eared page near the end was for a ritual, if that was the right word, to bring an ethereal entity into corporeal form. The reagents for such a spell were all fairly common: salt, charcoal for drawing sigils, five candles to place on the corners of a pentagram. Attention was to be paid, the book continued, to the design of the sigils. And the ritual could only work to bring through spirits that wanted to manifest. He couldn’t drag someone unwillingly into the material world.

Nick set down the book and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Was this something he was really contemplating? For the first time, he thought about walking out. He’d lose his chance to inherit this beautiful place (and the price it would fetch) but…he shook off his doubts. He didn’t need to believe that this magic stuff was real. Whatever had placed the book here obviously wanted him to do something with it, probably this silly ritual. If there was some goofball harassing him, then this may be the next step into coaxing him out of hiding.

If not …

If there really was a ghost …

The largest room without carpet was the bedroom closet. There, he went about setting up the ritual, feeling like a fool the entire time. If he was going to be an idiot, however, he was going to do it right. He poured the circle of salt, drew the pentagram with charcoal from the fireplace, and set up the candles from the study’s candelabra. Nick hoped he wouldn’t have to explain the ancient symbols written into the antique hardwood flooring. If anything compelled him to stay, it was the urge to avoid that awkward conversation.

The ritual called for the Witching Hour to start the summoning process. So Nick waited.

DAY FOUR

“Are you awake?”

Nick blinked the sleep out of his eyes. He checked his phone for the time, but it must have died at some point. Only when placing it back into his side pocket did he realize that the voice that had woken him hadn’t been a part of his dream. His blurry vision focused on the ethereal shape in front of him.

Before him stood a woman, maybe 5’6 tall in her pair of ivory heel. Her translucent, phantasmal features were slight, like a stiff breeze could blow her away. She wore a white dress with a beaded skirt that looked like it was from a Silent Film he’d once seen. A band of white lace held in place gorgeous brunette hair.

“Holy Fuck balls,” he said. “Are you a ghost?”

“Is that any way to speak in front of a lady?” she asked. There was a slight hollowness to her voice, but it was high and sugary sweet. She placed her hands on her hips, waiting for her answer. When none came, she laughed. “I’m kidding, of course. If I saw someone brought back from the veil, I’d likely react in a similar fashion. Though, perhaps, not so colorfully.” She mouthed the word ‘fuck balls’ as if feeling it out.

“Sorry, I’m just … I didn’t expect this to work. I don’t, or I didn’t, believe that ghosts were real.”

She spun, graceful even in heels. Her skirt spun around her body, revealing the tops of her stockings. “I’m very much real, though I suppose that’s only a temporary state of matters. These rituals are fickle things. I’m Clara. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Nick. Did you … know Morris?”

She nodded, a slight curl of a smile on her lips. “I knew him, in a way. And his partner Michael. But what of you? Why are you here?”

“I’m related to Michael, vaguely.”

“Ah…the Will. What year is it now?” Nick told her. Clara gasped, her hand cupping her mouth. “That long? I didn’t know…time passes differently, you see. You fade in and out. Years pass between moments.” She looked off to the side, her lip quivering.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” he asked. Maybe he could take her mind off the whole death thing.

She nodded. There’s a fetter … an object of great importance to me in life. While it exists, I cannot pass into the next. Might you find it for me?”

“Of course,” he replied instantly. His heart ached when he realized his words had hurt her. Perhaps ignorance was bliss. “Just tell me where to go.”

xxxxx

Nick entered the library once more. His hand held one of the candles from the ritual in the candelabra from Morris’ study. Floating nearby was Clara, temporarily channeled through the candle’s flame. Her feet didn’t quite touch the floor; her movements were that of someone unbound by gravity. Still, she kept pace with him. Perhaps it would have been considered rude to just fly forward through the walls.

“It’s in here,” she confirmed, and pointed over to the middlemost shelf of books, in the Fiction section. Nick approached hesitantly.

“One of the books?” he asked, looking for an obvious candidate.

“Not quite. Remove the Woolf for me, would you?” she asked. Nick skimmed the titles on the spines and found ‘Orlando: A Biography’ out of alphabetical order near the middle of the shelf. He pulled out the cover, but the front of it was caught on some kind of cord. The grinding of metal on metal made him step back. The book sank into its alcove.

“Michael made it for me. He had a penchant for the dramatics of the moving picture,” she said, then held out her hand to usher him forward.

He stepped back as the bookcase spun into the wall. It opened up a passage to a new room. There were no lights within. Stale air replaced the smell of old tomes, making him wrinkle his nose. Nick held the candelabra in front of him and headed inside.

The sight of another candlelight made him step back in sudden apprehension. He calmed when the candle moved in tandem with his own. It was a mirror! A very long mirror, running the length of the room from his waist height to just above his head. A seat like one might find in a barbershop waited in the middle of the room. Dressers and drawers stacked below and to the sides of the mirror hinted at the room’s purpose. On top of these, mannequin heads held wigs and hair accouterments while others held jewellery. Gaudy baubles of gold and silver with all manner of precious gems socketed inside. Nick couldn’t have guessed the worth of the objects in this room alone, but it was likely more money than he would have ever made in his lifetime.

“Whose are these?” he asked. The ghost was silent, merely allowing Nick to explore the room at his own pace. He opened one of the large oaken wardrobes. A rack of beautiful dresses in differing styles and colours greeted him. Caught by their beauty, he found himself sliding his fingers through the fabric while examining each. They were sure to be worth something, he reasoned. That’s why he was so interested.

The last dress on the rack was a familiar outfit. Nick parted the dresses to the side to get a better look.

It was Clara’s white dress.

“I don’t understand,” he asked. “Why did Morris have a secret room for you, Clara?”

Her smile was sad now, weary. “Oh honey. Morris and I were the same person.”

It all made sense. The ‘other self’ in those journals! Nick slapped his head for not realizing the obvious answer sooner, followed by another terrible truth. “Fuck. I had no idea. I’ve been calling you…shit, sorry. You don’t look at all like his picture.””

She waved him off. “I appreciate your apology, but it isn’t necessary. When your soul leaves the body, the mortal coil holds no sway on your true form. This is who we really are. Morris was just…my cocoon.”

Nick nodded, though he still regretted his lack of foresight. “So…which one of these is your fetter? What is keeping you here?” Nick asked.

She floated over to the cabinet underneath the mirror. Her translucent hand pointed to the silver pendant on a chain around one of the mannequin heads. Nick picked it up by its beaded chain. The pendant itself was in the shape of a heart, with similar sigils to the ones he’d used to begin the ritual carved into it at odd angles, some overlapping. Close to the candelabra’s light, he could swear the symbols were glowing.

“This is…this was very important to me. It took a good deal of my fortune and several years to understand the mysteries of sigil crafting, but the results were undeniable. Try it on.”

“It’s magic?” Nick asked. Though he wasn’t some credulous buffoon, he would have to take the ghost of the trans girl currently talking to him about enchanted objects. “Is it dangerous?”

“Not at all. It projects the soul’s inner self outward overlapping on top of the physical body. You become who you see yourself as inside.”

He looked over at the ghost woman. “So…this necklace let you look like you do now?”

“Yes. Of course, there’s no reason I couldn’t dress up a bit. But I had the body I’d always wanted, so long as I wore that pendant. Oh. Oh my.” Clara’s gaze fell on the mirror. “I didn’t realize…”

“What do you mean?” he asked. When he turned to the mirror once more, he screamed.

There was someone else in his stead.

Her auburn ponytail looked like his mother’s had when she was young. Eyes the same color as his stared out of dark, sunken sockets, like she hadn’t slept in days. She was several inches shorter and had smaller shoulders, but the stranger had his cute nose. She wore a leather jacket straight out of some retrowave album cover, a black shirt with a broken heart logo, and black slacks with holes torn in the knees. When Nick moved, she mimicked his movements. And when he spoke, she copied his words perfectly.

“What the fuck is this?!” he asked. His voice came out high pitched and melodic. A singer’s voice.

Nick watched in the mirror as the ghostly form slid up behind her, putting ethereal hands onto the auburn woman’s shoulders. “I see now! This is why I was able to communicate with you, unlike the others. You’re just like me!”

Nick let the pendant fall from his hands. The effect evaporated around him, and the person in the mirror was Nick again. “I thought you said the pendant reveals your true self!” he shouted, his outraged voice back to its normal register.

“It does! I … did you know?”

His face was beet red when he turned from the mirror. “Absolutely not. This is some kind of ghost trick! Or the pendant is a cloaking device that makes you look hot. I’m not a girl!”

Clara nodded to the mirror. “You could have fooled me.”

He fled.

DAY FIVE

Nick ran out of the kitchen’s supply of salt, but a line surrounding the bedroom from the rest of the apartment. Nothing paranormal could cross lines of salt. One of the first lessons of spiritualism.

He heard the knocking again. Nick ignored it, collapsing onto the bed. It wasn’t true. It could be true. If he was trans, he would have known. There were no signs. Flickers of memory passed by like glimpses of a station from a subway window. His mother’s dresser. His sister’s ‘makeup practice’ game. The voice of his best friend in the whole world, Mia, telling him he was just like one of the girls.

Except for the signs, there were no signs.

“Nick. Can we talk?” Clara asked from behind the door. Nick clutched himself.

“Go away, Clara. I can’t deal with you right now.”

A long pause. He wanted her to go away, but he was also worrying she might take it personally. His desire to protect her warred with the tripwire self-defense system that had him in a mental lock down. Could she be both victim and perpetrator?

“Very well. I will wait out here. But, please, the candle is almost melted. The ritual will lose its power and …” Her voice trailed off.

Nick tried to speak up, but the knot in his throat refused to untie itself. Over the next 24 hour people he did a lot of things: cry, scream, stare blankly at the wall as a maelstrom of dysphoria unleashed itself, finally set free by a collapse of denial.

He didn’t hear Clara again.

DAY SIX

Forty-eight hours, he thought to himself. Without sunlight, the clock on the wall in his bedroom was the only way to tell that it was morning. He spent yesterday careening wildly between emotions. Now, he simply didn’t have the strength to continue to feel so torn up inside. He still felt a dull ache, but his other needs were overcoming his anxieties. For one, he was starving.

He broke the line of salt and left to make a meal of…something. Anything really. There were ingredients enough to make a soup, so he set about doing that. Cooking some leftover chicken in a pot of broth and rotini, he was well on his way to a bangin’ chicken noodle soup. He did, however, retrieve some salt from his impromptu line of defense against the supernatural for seasoning.

While he cooked, he stewed over the encounter he had with Clara. What had that been? Had she tried to mislead him? What reason would she have to lie? None of it made sense.

This was something he’d have to find an answer to. He set the burner to low and went back to the closet. The candles had burned out, with wax in little pools around the five points of the pentagram. It took a while to clean those up. Finding new ones wasn’t hard, as Clara had apparently had a cabinet full of them in her study. How much time did she spend on this spiritualism stuff, he wondered? Is that how she knew she could communicate after she passed?

This time, she appeared almost immediately after he lit the final candle.

“Nick! Oh thank goodness,” she said, holding a hand to her chest. “I was worried I scared you off.”

He parsed his next words silently, pacing back and forth while he got his thought sorted.

“I’ve been trying to deal with what I saw in the mirror. That…person…I don’t recognize them. But I don’t know if I recognize the other one either. The guy, I mean. The way I look now. Does that make any sense?”

She nodded, but motioned for him to continue. “Please.”

He continued to pace, but kept talking. “I’ve dealt with certain feelings my whole life. Nothing quite so overt, but I’ve never liked the way my face looked, or the way my voice sounded. I always thought that was just self-loathing. But…when I saw her in the mirror…”

“You felt indescribable relief?” she proposed.

“Yes! I … wait, how do you … oh, right. Shit.”

Clara tried to leave the circle but got stopped by the wall of salt. After an apology, Nick broke the seal and let her float out. “You may have surmised that I would have encountered prejudice had I been myself. The pendant had been my idea. To cast aside the mortal coil and assume the shape of my true self? It was too good to be true.” She sighed.

“I’m guessing it was? Too good to be true, I mean.”

“The constant switching…each time I switched back to being ‘Morris’ I felt a little part of me die. It wasn’t me, and I never wanted to be me. But I couldn’t very well be the manager of a major electronics concern as myself. From what I’ve gathered from our conversations, the world is different. I wish I was born a few decades later.”

Nick laughed bitterly. “Not too different. But yeah, things are better. I do wish I could be myself too but, y’know how it is. Family, friends…it’s way too much.”

“But it is possible, right?” she asked, hope in her voice. Nick was reluctant to acknowledge that. It meant that he’d have to, maybe, one day, in the future consider the chance of maybe being closer to how he felt inside. “Because the pendant can help.”

“I’ll admit, the idea of an instant girl piece of jewellery has its appeal. My browser history would attest to that,” he waited a beat before remembering that, when Clara died, television was barely a thing, “Right, sorry. But wouldn’t that just be another form of masquerade?”

She shook her head. “If the pendant just hid your physical form, it wouldn’t be particularly difficult to craft. In my time, such charms were commonplace among the wealthy elite. No, the true magic is in the sigil work. The pendant slowly but most assuredly works to transform yourself into that self-image.”

Nick’s jaw dropped. “So the pendant does more than just throw up illusions?”

“It can. But only if you wear it continuously. The powers within it need time to manifest. I could never be my true self for long enough for the transformation to take hold, for it to transform me into the person I was inside. With the business, with Michael, there just wasn’t enough time. And then, of course, I ran out of time,” she held her hands out as if to indicate her current state.

He wanted to reach out and hug her but knew his hands would pass right through. “I’m sorry. The world can really suck for people like us, huh?”

“Suck? Ah, yes, I guess so. Michael was a dear. He was so supportive, but he was also very protective of me. I could tell that my situation was hurting him as much as it did me but…When I died, he took it hard. I tried to tell him, tried to warn him about the pendant and how it was what was keeping me stuck to this world but I couldn’t get through.”

“Do you know why he drafted the Will in the way that he did?” Nick asked.

“I wish I did. A week in a haunted apartment? Sounds like something out of one of his serials! Maybe he wanted someone I would approve of, or could at least communicate with. Every time someone entered, I tried to talk to them. But when you’re past the veil, interacting with the world becomes much harder. And my efforts may have done more harm than good.”

“The realtor did say you caused some of my family to flee.”

Clara laughed. “Oh dear. I hope it wasn’t too much of a fright!”

“Hey, if you hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have met you!” Nick said with a grin. Clara returned the expression, which made him feel even better. The despair of the previous day felt like a distant memory now. “So… what now? Where do I go from here?”

“That depends. Do you want to move forward?” she asked. “I don’t want to rush you or force you into anything you don’t really feel. The pendant can’t make you do anything you don’t want. And our selves change all the time depending on our relationships, our experiences…it’s just our bodies that stay inflexible. The pendant’s power makes your form more malleable than most, but it can’t give you one you don’t already feel deep inside.”

Nick took a candle and went back to the secret changing room. The pendant was on the floor where he’d dropped it. From where he stood, it looked like it weighed a ton.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he said in a weak voice.

“You can. You’re strong. I believe in you,” Clara said.

He closed his eyes. After a final exhale, he bent down and picked up the jewellery. His form in the mirror instantly changed back to the red-haired woman. This time there was no surprise, no fear. He slipped the chain around his neck, fastening the clasp. A wave of tingling static washed over Nick, and suddenly…

“I’m…pretty?” Nick asked, examining her new body. She was still in her old clothes, but they hung loosely on her new body. Her breasts, perky handfuls, poked out of her shirt while her pants bowed out and looked ready to pop a seam.

Clara hugged herself, sniffling a little. “Oh my goodness, you are pretty. You’re gorgeous. I’m just…so happy you can find yourself. Do you want a new name?”

“I…I don’t have one picked out yet. Why not Nichole, at least for now?” Nichole asked, turning to Clara.

“Nichole is just fine. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Nichole!”

They talked long into the night about what this new stage in Nichole’s life might entail over delicious chicken noodle soup, both of them unable to suppress their glee.

DAY SEVEN

In Nichole’s dream, she was standing in a grassy field. Green grass swayed in a breeze over the gentle sloping hills. In the distance, amber waves of a farmer’s field called to her to walk through, hands trailing behind her in Elysian splendor.

“I have to go now.”

Nicole spun around. Clara was there in a beautiful sundress. She was no longer transparent, and her naked feet rested on the ground. Her voice sounded cheerful, almost anticipatory.

“Are you…moving on?” Nicole asked. After all she’d seen, it was still hard for her to accept the realities of an afterlife.

“Something like that. You’ll find out when you make this journey yourself.”

Nicole felt for the chain around her neck. “But the pendant. Your fetter…I haven’t destroyed it yet!”

Clara chuckled lightly, waving off the information. “It’s no longer mine. I’ve given it to a good home, and now it has no hold over me. You set me free, Nicole. For that I thank you, truly.”

She couldn’t stand still while the ghost passed on. Nicole stepped over to clutch the deceased woman’s hands. Rather than pass right through, she felt them. Clara was as warm bodied as she was.

“What?”

“Consider this a Going-Away Present. Had to wrangle special dispensation for this. But I got it, so long as this happened in the confines of a dream.”

“A dream?” Nicole asked. She hadn’t realized it, but she reached out with her mind and tested the walls of reality by trying to wake up. Sure enough, the dream lost cohesion. She stopped just in time, convinced. “Sorry. Force of habit. I get a lot of nightmares.”

“Not anymore,” Clara said, then leaned in to kiss Nicole. She only touched her lips at first, but Nicole was surprised by how real it felt in the confines of the dream. Embracing this new reality, she wrapped her arms around the other woman and they shared a deep, long lasting second kiss. Their mouths opened in tandem and their tongues came out to play. Despite being almost a century out of date, Clara was no prude.

Time stood still during the kiss. It only resumed when Nicole felt a gentle push backward. She accepted the motion and found a comfortable bed meet her as she fell back. Clara crawled on top of her, the ghost’s smaller body still able to keep Nicole pinned beneath her straddling form.

“Now I want to show you how sex would work, as a woman. The pendant will take a while to make all the changes, but let’s skip to the fun part, shall we?~” She pulled down Nichole’s pants to reveal a complete lack of dick. In fact, the only thing between her legs was a pretty pink pussy. She gasped, feeling a swelling of competing emotions. The surprise fought with the joy of knowing that her body felt more like hers and less like she was renting someone else’s. The simple change of sex made her happy…and horny.

From underneath Clara’s white dress, she pulled out her own equipment. The familiar organ couldn’t have been anything but Nichole’s old dick. The one her waking body had, at least for the near future. To be on the other end of a dick was something she’d wondered about in the abstract, but not quite so literally!

“Like what you see?” Clara asked, pumping herself to rigidity. Nichole’s nod was jerky, her breath catching on her words.

“I like the way you wear it,” she said. Clara laughed. The kiss resumed, but this time with the ghost woman taking more control than before. She pressed Nichole into the mattress with a consistent but gentle force that let her know who was in charge. That was more than fine for Nichole. Years of trying to be the assertive, aggressive man had been nothing but hollow performance art. Here, underneath someone she loved, was where she belonged.

“Let me get out of my clothes,” Nichole worked to pull off her shirt, but found that there was nothing there.

“It’s a dream, silly,” Clara said, and looked down. Nichole’s clothes had disappeared, leaving her exposed. Her new body almost made her want to cry again. It was perfect. Clara didn’t remove her clothes, however. The presence of her gorgeous dress while her cock poked out from the hem gave her another hint of her authority. Nicole was the vulnerable one.

Tenderly, Clara pulled her naked legs apart and slid in between them. She pressed her hardened cock against Nichole’s new lips and elicited a harsh gasp from the girl. A wave of unfamiliar sensation buffeted her body. Pleasures she’d never experienced before, and only from a single application of pressure against her!

“P-please go slow,” Nichole pleaded. Clara gave her a reassuring nod and returned to kissing. This way, pressed against the bed and totally at the dominant woman’s mercy, Nichole felt her new genitals dew. The situation was made even worse when Clara interlocked their fingers together on both hands. The gesture was at once intimate and controlling, and soon Nichole felt herself pressed into the bed.

“Are you ready?” Clara asked.

Her partner nodded, though not even she knew the real answer. How does one prepare for their first sexual experience in the body they’ve always wanted?

She applied her dick to Nichole’s lower lips once more. Only leaving it there for a few seconds at a time, it nevertheless worked her into a feverish delirium of pleasure. Even the slightest brush against her clit sent powerful sensations like bolts of lightning up her spine. While Clara ground herself into her partner, she also let her lips slip around Nichole’s breasts. Those were newly sensitive too, and it wasn’t long before her already stiffening nipples were little hard little erasers. Clara bounced between them, sucking or lightly nipping at the nubs while she worked her girldick back and forth.

“Aaaah!” Nichole writhed, her body unable to escape but unwilling to make any real effort to make the sensations stop. She clenched her hands around Clara’s in tandem with the moans that poured from her lips. The cock in question was soon coated in her arousal.

Clara was careful. Her head pushed passed Nichole’s labia and waited for the quivering to stop. Having so much control over someone’s pleasure was intoxicating. A last gasp of the fruits of mortality, perhaps. She eased the rest of her shaft forward and had almost bottomed out when Nichole’s first climax hit.

She squealed and clenched around the intrusion, squeezing the dick as if milking it when it hadn’t even entered a rhythm yet.

“My goodness,” Clara exclaimed with theatrical flair, “You are a needy girl aren’t you?”

Nichole was too busy feeling her mind blow up to respond coherently. But rather than what her old body would have felt when coming down from orgasm, all she wanted was more. This was just the beginning.

Clara pushed forward again. The sensation wasn’t as overwhelming this time, but Nichole still squirmed. It took a pair of hands locking onto her expansive hips to seize her in place and allow for a seesaw motion. Nichole responded by clenching the imaginary bedspread.

“This…oh god, fuck…this feels so much better,” she gasped.

“Better than what, sweetheart?” Clara asked, punctuating the last word with a quick thrust inside.

“Aah! Better than sex as…as a guy. So much grunting, thrusting, I didn’t understand it. But this feels so normal! So freeing! I … ngh~” Her explanation disintegrated into more cute noises as Clara sped up, propelled forward by the copious amount of moisture building up in Nichole’s pussy.

“Good girl. And you’re doing so well!” Clara said as she pounded her partner silly, the gentle compliments contrasting with her determined efforts to make Nichole cum. And by the rapid heartbeat she could feel and the heightened breathing, a second climax wasn’t far off. Waves of pleasure suffused Nichole’s body with every slam home of her old cock. The orgasm was an inevitability that she was unwilling and unable to resist. “There you go. Just let go, sweetie. You’re a girl now and all you need to do is be happy and filled by another~”

If this was happening in reality, the whole neighborhood would have been woken by Nichole’s scream. Her euphoria came unshackled by shame. She was finally free to feel what she wanted, to be who she wanted. Feminine fluids pooled underneath her, soaking the sheets.

“Such a wet girl too. Golly, you’ll be sure to make all the girls happy. Or all the boys?” Clara proposed, completely nonjudgmental.

Nichole nodded. “Both … any … all … I just love dick so much~”

Clara giggled. “Wonderful. That’s good enough for me. So long as you’ll be happy, I’ll be happy too.”

It was the first fuck for both of them for a long time. Whatever stamina Clara had was flagging quick. She rocked herself in steady, needy rhythm.

“Oh goodness…I’m close, dear. May I?” she asked, looking down to their nethers.

“Yes, please, cum inside me all you waaaant!” Nichole cried, clasping her legs around Clara. The other woman was happy to oblige, making it a mere half a minute more before she reached her limit.

“Ah…take it, you hot trollop!” Clara cried and came her brains out.

Ropes of hot seed flowed into Nichole. For the first time in her life she was obeying some ancient, biological urge that she’d never yielded to. Her hips bucked against Clara but the other woman held her tight, insisting that every ounce of her illusory cum pumped deep into Nichole’s body and marked her as the woman she was. Nichole had a third orgasm from the feeling of being inseminated. This one was a sharp peak, her toes curling and her thighs quaking from the knife of ecstasy plunged into her mind. Her inner walls squeezed Clara dry, and for a singular moment, two of them were one live nerve of bliss.

Clara collapsed, her effort spent. The fatigue turned into lazy affection as they returned to kissing while her cock softened. When it had become flaccid, it kept shrinking until there was nothing left of it. Both women rested on the bed, a tangle of limbs and emotions.

In the afterglow, Clara stroked Nichole’s flushed cheek.

“I have to go now. It’s almost morning.”

“Do you have to?” Nichole said out of reflex, then bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been stuck here for a while. I just … I just met you, y’know? I like you. I … maybe more.”

Clara’s smile waned, some familiar sadness creeping into her voice. “I’m sorry too. We’ll see each other again, sometime. You can tell me all about your life.” She clasped the other woman’s hands into hers. “Please, don’t waste this chance. Be yourself. I beg you.”

Tears slid down Nichole’s cheeks. “I won’t. I promise.”

They walked toward the fields of grain in the distance, hand in hand. Every step made Clara’s body fade out slightly.

“What do I do without you?” Nichole asked, her voice breaking.

“Be yourself. Be the kind of person I always wanted to be.”

Nichole’s hand phased through Clara’s. The woman was almost gone.

“What kind is that?”

The last thing to disappear was Clara’s smiling face.

“Free.”

DAY EIGHT

The elevator doors rolled open onto the penthouse apartment. Whistling to himself, Donald stepped out onto the floor and was immediately greeted by a spritely young red haired woman in an anachronistic black dress. She wore beautiful earrings, a set of bracelets, and a beautifully crafted silver pendant. He clapped his heavy hands together at the sight.

“I knew you’d be the one! I just had a feeling about you,” he said, beaming at her. “Do you have a name you’d prefer?”

“Nichole. At least for now. You know it’s me?” she asked, touching the jewellery at the base of her slender neck.

“It’s all in the Will, like I said. I was worried I’d have to show off this damn property forever. Come with me and I’ll buy you lunch. I bet you’re dying to get out of this place for a bit.”

She laughed. “True. It wasn’t all bad though. Still, I believe I’ll be selling it. Donating most of the proceeds and living on some of the rest while I get my life back in order.”

The realtor sputtered. “Are you sure? It’s a one of a kind property.”

The new woman smiled, linking her arm into Donald’s like some belle at a ball. “I’ve already found what I need.”

THE END