D6// Florence Hartmyre

i can't drink this coffee till i put you in my closet let him shoot me down and let him call me off

take it from his whisper you're not that tough it's the blaze across your nightgown

The whispering of long lost voices sweep the damp hallways of the church as she strides along it. The wind's cackling warnings of days to come and days spent, the dead singing sweetly their morbid tales of life's cruel ending. She listens intently to the walls and their secrets, their tidings and the old gods beaming voices still trying to twist their ways back into the long broken down building. A girl with pink slippers on her feet, fuzzy and comfy, listens to the dead, to the voices of those who wish to tell their stories as she lights a first candle, burning the tips of her calloused fingers after letting the flame swim down the matchstick and kiss her fingertips. Throwing it away in a fit of small anger after making sure the fire was eliminated, black and beaten, rotted, just another thing rotting in this place called home. The heat swallowed her whole, the light burning sensation trickling from her experienced hands and stretching through every inch of her small body, surrendering herself to the flame, the sensation of a burn - not yet, young girl, not yet - there was still more time to feel. With the wick alight, she brings the thick wax candle to her face, so close she can see the multiple colours dance before her irises making poetry with each subtle movement. Bringing it closer and closer to her hazed cerulean eyes, so close - it's enough to lead the way through the darkened passageways of the home.

The word still tastes bitter, home. This was no home to the girl who clutched at a candle hoping it would ward away any demons trying to possess her heart and eat her soul, this was no home to anyone but gods of old, and ghosts with stories that needed telling. Not a young girl whose innocent eyes had seen more death than any child needed, perhaps that was why they say she looked so lost, like a girl tiptoeing in the clouds - she had seen too much in such a short time and now was blinded through the mist. The overbearing darkness seems to wash away in the small wave of light that emerges from the candle, so little light but enough, enough to see the sullen room before her. Shadows of overworked tables, with jagged wood edges sticking out from the ends, small flashes of light from surgery knives as the candle's wave hits it; step by step, her small feet tread lightly through the workshop, past bottles of embalming fluid, and the distinct smell of rot making her thick lips gag slightly at the aroma. There were some things the girl would never get used to and that was one of them.

Arriving at the last workstation, Florence begins lighting the rest of the candles surrounding the sewing machine casting eerie shadows against the walls. Shadows didn't bug her anymore - she was used to the natural mirrors. Mirrors that stretched so beautifully across the landscape, oh to be so tall and thin, I wish mirrors would show what you actually look like. A sigh escapes. Lighting a final candle, she places it along the dirt-covered table beside her, brushing up a small cloud of dust with the dull thud of the placement. The gentle fizzling of numerous candlewicks fill her ears, slowly drowning out the silent whispers of ghosts - but not completely, they were always whispering anyways. Just listen to them. A voice in her would tell her - but just the thought would send small sets of shivers up her spine. The flames dance, and she watches the several fires flickering before her, silently moving about their nimble wicks, it would be only a matter of time until the sweet smell of burning would fill the room, sweeping over the stench of death and filth and seeping into every nook and cranny of the room, seeping into her pores, into her clothing, and eventually into the small cracks of the ancient concrete walls in the mortuary, eventually escaping out into the churchyard where it would finally disperse from the evening winds.

Screeching momentarily stops the candles song as the small girl pulls out a tiny pink dress made of the finest cloth she could find around the house, too large for a doll, but too small for a grown girl - but that didn't stop her. Shadows projected her silent show as she strips clean of her evening clothes, her bones protruding along the wall - she was thin, too thin though no one cared to notice. Her ribs were plain to see, the light did not lie, neither did the dark, and along the ominous wall in her home the truth shone. Light painting pictures of her frail bones against the wall, arms thinner than toothpicks and legs down to the bone - she was a skeleton walking and maybe that was why the dead spoke to her every evening when she came down to work. She was a skeleton walking alone in a house of the dead, but her fragile limbs kept moving. The dress slipped silently up her body, caressing her sweet hairless legs, and hugging d her non-existent waist, she smiled as it slipped across her chest with no issue whatsoever and slid the two straps across her shoulders.

In truth, it was a dress for a ten-year old, but she wanted to be small, perfect, tiny. I want to be beautiful.

The dress was perfect for her, in her opinion. It showed off her perfectly hollow collarbones, it shopped the uppermost part of her thighs that no longer had a inch of fat on them - she'd made sure of that. But was just low enough to cover the scars that gently line her inner thighs from the early days of moving in to the church. Florence hated the move more than anybody else, she didn't like the haunted whispers, she didn't like the eerily quiet hallways, and most of all she didn't like living in a home without her mother. If there was going to be ghosts whispering in her ears, Florence would rather it be the gentle whisper of her mother telling her how beautiful she was. Florence would kill to have her mother run her gentle fingers through her thin blond hair, and braid it in a fishtail, as she used too. The only braid that she would allow her hair to be tangled into - not that her nimble fingers could do it, they could sew together as many dresses and suits as wanted. But never could do a braid.

Mother knew how to do them best. Florence hated the mortuary most of all, all the bodies surrounding her work, but it was when she put on her dress, looking like a skeleton and picked up a needle that she felt most alive in her house of death. Sewing costumes on to the bodies of the dead, knowing that they would appreciate her artwork, sometimes trying them on themselves - rotted bodies seemed to have the most beautiful figures, she found at least. It made the silent church almost bearable, doing something that she loved, along with her siblings. Though she still cursed the place day and day out.

It wasn't for her, this whole business of the dead. Florence wasn't particularly focused on what happened in the afterlife, though she spent more than a few days praying across the old altar of the church - there was something about the residency that drew her to the perhaps false, but somewhat encompassing light of a God of old. Of very old, as the altar table squeaked and screamed with the slightest of nudge against it's corner. There was nothing more that bugged her gentle ears, but the harsh unnecessary screams that pierce through silence. Silence was typically a friend, a gentle loved that kissed her smooth skin - she embraced it. It was in the gentle hush of midnight air that she took up her needle and felt free, and fine and wonderful.

Midnight was a time for muse, a time for inspiration to peer through the cracks of the walls and shine down upon her slim figure. Oh moon, shine down your light and let me see, see what there was to create, see what there was to sew together for the restless bodies. A cross stitch, a hem line, pleated pants, and a bowtie? Each and every accessory and colour was a poem meant to be scrawled across the bodies - this is my art, Teddy has his coffins and I have my clothes. Midnight leaves quickly, and as morning dew drops threaten to give the girl pneumonia, she flees from work, letting the inspiration leave her pores, and quickly hides the dress from the morning light - the moon could keep a secret, but the sun, she wasn't so sure.

It was the early morning that she found the best time to sleep, away from the potential of danger from the night. It was the unpredictable nature of darkness that kept her on her toes, candles close at hand, but with the smooth whistle of her lips, night comes to a close as the candle flames do, with a quick blow, and night finishes. She was scared of the night - no matter how much it inspired her, no matter how much the shadows across the walls found her slimming and beautiful - she was scared of the night and the harms it brought her and her family.

But no - the flames that burned down the previous residence, that tore the wooden household down bit by bit, would not reach her or them here. This was a funeral home, not a funeral pyre as her old house would been, in the flames of the night her mother died. That was the first of many funerals - the biggest and greatest, and the last one before she went insane. Sunk into the stone walls, and hiding from the flames. Her mother was dead, her home was dead, and everything around her was dead.