Kirsten waited in silence with Maika until Ginny came back into the room, drawn by her text message.

"Thank you," Kirsten said, her voice quiet, careful. She stood, and opened her arms. "Would a hug be good right now?"

Ginny nodded, and walked with head down into Kirsten's arms.

"Me too," Maika said, and barrelled into them from the side. Rocking slightly with his intrusion, Kirsten laughed lightly, and patted both of them on their backs.

"That was officially horrible, and I'm sorry I invited him."

"It's not like you had a choice," Ginny murmured. She pulled away, chewing her lip, and plopped herself down in an armchair, avoiding everyone's eyes.

"Yeah, he kinda has us by the balls - er, pardon the turn of phrase, ladies." Maika rubbed the back of his neck.

"He does, and he doesn't," Kirsten insisted, taking her seat and speaking with calm authority. She'd had a moment to think and breathe. It was going to be all right. She was going to salvage things. "He acts like he's got us over the barrel, but he doesn't. He'd be in just as much trouble as us if he told anyone what happened that night. No, when things are calmer in the morning, I'll have a chat to him. I'm sure, once he calms down, he won't want to be stuck here with us, as much as we don't want to be stuck here with him. Now..." She sighed, closed her eyes, and opened them with a smile. "Before we move on from this topic to our next, I suggest we all have a turn ranting about him."

Before Kirsten could continue, Ginny burst. "I hate that spiky-haired incel fuckboy," she seethed, bunching her fists before her, then hiding her eyes against them.

"Guy's a douche nozzle!" Maika stage-whispered.

"He can go suck a pus-filled ingrown toe," Kirsten muttered, then made herself gag at the thought.

"No more," Ginny waved her hands, eyes squeezed shut. "I hate speaking ill of those less fortunate than me."

"Yeah," said Maika. "Besides, we have more important things to talk about."

But instead of talking about them, he sat there, and so did Ginny, both of them staring in the vague direction of Kirsten's knees.

Of course she would have to take the lead.

"So. How the hell is this whole... all of us writing about Emilie thing happening?"

The other two looked at her, then each other, then back to her. Maika shrugged in his usual pantomime style of over-exaggerated gestures. Ginny simply pouted.

Kirsten filled the silence again. "I haven't been copying anyone."

"Nor have I," Maika said, a hint of defensiveness in his tone, his hand limply brought up to his chest.

"Nor I," Ginny contributed, "and I believe both of you, of course. I wonder if... if there was a woman called Emilie who lived here once."

"Fuck," Maika whispered, and got his phone out.

Kirsten ignored his outburst. "You don't believe in ghosts, surely, Ginny?"

"Don't you?" Ginny countered, looking directly at Kirsten for once, her eyebrow quirked. "You practice transcendental meditation and things like that, don't you? Are you really so sure that other dimensions don't coincide with ours, that we might in certain places and times be capable of a kind of..." She rolled her hands, looking for the word, "cross-pollination with those who have passed?"

Kirsten pursed her lips. Suppose she did. She was split right down the middle. One part of her wanted to say of course ghosts weren't real. The other wanted it to be true, desperately. What a wonderful, unique honour, to be channeling the experience of a spirit in some fashion!

If that was indeed what was happening.

"You're not like... pumping some kind of illusory drug gas through the house, are you, Maika?"

Maika screwed his nose up, looking up from his phone. "Bro. One, I don't have some magic hallucination gas. Two, I wouldn't subject you to it without your consent."

"Of course." And of course, there was the other reason she felt funny about the whole situation. Ghost-channelling or not, she was disappointed. She'd been so excited by the story she'd started writing thirty-six hours ago. Sure, a ghost story was well out of her wheelhouse, as a historical literary writer. But she looked up to fellow kiwi writer Eleanor Catton, who'd done something similarly sidestepping, going from award-winning literary fiction to a pacey eco-thriller. Kirsten had been excited about the prospect of surprising, challenging and maybe even delighting her reading public with something a little unexpected.

But if the other three had been writing the same thing, there was no way she could safely release this. Not without risking accusations of plagiarism.

Could they do something collaborative?

But then they'd have to include Chad, wouldn't they?

Was it possible the other three were all stealing from her, and Chad's outburst had been choreographed to convince her of what was happening? Imagine that. The other three of them, catching onto her coattails and being propelled into success. It wasn't the most out-of-this-world theory, was it?

No, that was so uncharitable. Neither Maika nor Ginny had ever given her a reason to suspect them like that. And Chad... well, Chad had his ghost writers, didn't he? He didn't need to copy her work.

Damn it. The whole situation was a let down.

But then, ghosts. Could they really be real? She tried to remember what her grandmother had told her, folk stories handed down from her gold-mining and fruit farming ancestors - but even if she could remember them, did Chinese ghost stories have relevance in Switzerland, when this was some Swiss lady's ghost most likely?

"Fuck," Maika murmured again. He sat back against his chair, dragging his hand over his mouth and jaw.

"What?" she demanded.

"I got a hit. Emilie, and the name of the nearby village which I still can't pronounce - it brings up a murder-suicide from the turn of the century. Husband killed the wife then killed himself. Her name was Emilie. It doesn't mention the Villa Delacroix at all, but... that's gotta be it, right?"

They all looked at each other. Kirsten sunk into her chair, swallowing the nerves back. It had to be.

"Do you want to know more?" Maika offered, breaking the silence after what felt like minutes.

"No," Ginny practically yelled, though by anyone else's standards, she was still quiet. "No, I don't want to know. I want to maintain the purity of what she is trying to tell me. I think I'd guessed what had happened to her already anyway. But anything else might taint this... whatever it is that is going on."

"I agree," Kirsten said. "I don't care if you read it, Maika, but I don't want to know either. Not yet. Maybe when the story's told, I'll compare it. But not right now. Not during the first draft." She sighed, and ran her hands over her eyes. "Maybe let's just... check in with each other every now and again, yeah? Make sure this whole... whatever this is... is... like... safe, I guess?"

"I think my ancestors were trying to warn me about her," Maika said, touching his pounamu.

"Do you think they want you to leave?" Kirsten sat up taller. Perhaps if Maika said yes, she might think about leaving too.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Pfft. Nah. I wanna know more about this Emilie lady, eh? She's reaching out for a reason."

"My thoughts too," Ginny murmured.

"Then it's a deal. We look out for each other."

"Deal."

"Deal."

Kirsten sighed. "I'm really tired, but there was just one more thing I wanted to talk about. I know it's maybe a little taboo, but I also don't want either of you panicking about money and things while we're trapped here, so, I wanted to say; if you're worried at all about money, paying for anything you've left on hold back at home, or about a hole in your CV or anything like that, just let me know, all right? If you need, I can say you've been working for me, for however many months you've been here. I can cover rent for your places back in New Zealand if you need. Just let me know, and I've got it all sorted."

Maika fell back against his chair back again. "Geez, Kirst. What did we do to deserve you as a friend?"

"After all the critique and reading you've done for me for free over the years, it's about time you got some kickbacks."

"Thanks, e hoa. I was between jobs when you organised this, so yeah... all I had to look forward to was a big old nothing in my resume. I'd really appreciate it if you said I was doing something for you."

"Not a problem, Maika. Ginny?" Kirsten turned to Ginny, to find a small smile on her face. For a second, irritation tickled her, but the sensation faded as Ginny spoke.

"I still have people contacting me for freelance design jobs," Ginny answered. "I should be all right to cover my share of rent back home. But thanks."

"Just let me know if that changes," Kirsten offered. "It's okay. I've got you."

"Thanks," Ginny said, her smile a mirrored shield.

Kirsten stood. "And Chad, of course, can go fuck himself." She waited for their chuckles to die away before she said, "Good night to you both."

She took to the stairs, her smile unshakeable. Who could fault her for her kindness? She might be a gnarled and bitter root inside sometimes, but her actions were what mattered, and those were kind. Taking her less fortunate friends under her wing was simply her duty as a more superior being.

With a sigh, she rolled her eyes, and shook her hands as if to dispel the thoughts. God forbid anyone ever heard what was said in her head.

She got ready for bed and laid down under the sheets, with the duvet pulled all the way back. This was nothing like an Auckland summer, when a sheet was too much but no sheet was not enough. The bed was perfectly comfortable, the sheets crisp and cool.

And yet sleep eluded her.

It was the strangest thing; despite the similarity between the hush of the lake and a white noise machine, made to help one sleep, the sound of the waves lapping at the pebbly shore was driving Kirsten to distraction. She tossed and turned, threw the pillow over her head, tried putting an arm over her ear, but to no avail. The constant shushing of the lake suffused its way into her bones, like it would erode her teeth which were sore with how she clamped her jaw, like it would melt her bones which ached with how tired she was.

She needed to get out.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she could leave the house for another shopping trip. She'd not gotten everything they needed. Her fault, for not taking a better stocktake of their needs before leaving this morning. But it was fine. She wanted the excuse to leave anyway.

Maybe if there was clarity to be found out in the wider world, the fug in her head might lift, and she might be able to see what was happening clearer.

Because part of her, the know-it-all seven-year-old she used to be, was trying to shake her from within. What are you doing? Staying in a haunted house? Are you insane? We need to leave.

But Kirsten with thirty years on her ignored the child. A ghost was a chance not to be discarded. A chance to transcend the flesh. To understand what lay beyond the veil. She would be a fool to run from this, no matter the fear.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep, with the lake's voice modulating to a chorus of night-singing insects, and before that, to a soft song sung by a woman; a lullaby.

----------------------------------------

Driving away from the villa, the fog lifted almost immediately as the road climbed out of the valley. Kirsten felt her mood rise, and a haze over her head, like the feeling before a headache, peeled away too.

That was it. The house was bad. This was all the confirmation she needed. When she got back, she would start the proceedings. Get them all out of there. Not just Chad.

She pulled the rental car to a stop in the town's supermarket carpark. The familiar sight of queues of masked people waiting outside met her, dragged her back for a moment into the recesses of recent years. Kirsten shuddered. She took her time getting ready: reusable bags all packed into one, ready to unpack at need; shopping list in hand; reading material on her phone to keep her from impatience; and of course, the quintessential face mask. Between the oversized sunglasses and the nose-and-mouth covering, she felt shielded against the perception of the outside world. Not that people would necessarily recognise her here. Most people in the Anglosphere had no idea who she was, let alone the people in this mountainous little village.

Yet when she lined up, the eyes of the others in the queue turned to her regardless. Odd. She buried her head in her phone and forgot about them, losing herself for the moment in the latest online release of a New Zealand literary journal. As she scanned the website to figure out which short story she was up to (failing to recall from the memory hole that was airport transit), her feelings of sensibility - that of course they needed to leave the house - transmuted further into a touch of resentment.

Was it possible, if they had all been a little more chill, that the holiday could have been nice, and maybe they wouldn't have attracted the attentions of a ghost? After all, there were plenty of good reviews for this place by honeymooners and family groups.

Then again, none of those holiday-makers had their secret in common -

No. That was a forbidden topic to think about.

But seriously. She had just wanted a nice holiday. Now they had Chad freaking the fuck out, lashing out at them and getting cagey about something; Maika with his secret drug stash upstairs; Ginny withdrawing into herself as usual - though Chad was mostly to blame for that. Things used to be better when Tess was here to balance them all out...

Again. Not allowed. Kirsten jabbed the link to a story she was sure she hadn't read, and started reading, gritting her teeth as if that would help her focus on the words on her screen.

She didn't raise her head again until she made it into the shop. Then she was too busy picking items and checking them against her shopping list to pay much attention. It wasn't until the checkout that she finally felt again the weight of eyes on her, from all directions.

Patting her hair, looking down at her clothes, she tried to figure out what it was. It took a few minutes, but while the checkout operator was putting her items through, she finally heard the hint of a word: "... Chinoise..."

Oh. Oh, no. For fuck's sake. Kirsten was glad for her glasses and mask. She kept her head forward, paid and got out of the shop as fast as she could, as her mother coming home crying replayed in her head. Her stifled sobs in the bathroom as she washed her face rang in Kirsten's head until she shut the rental car's door, sealing herself off from the world.

Maybe they hadn't been talking about her. Maybe she was imagining things, or misheard. Maybe someone was just innocently commenting on her ethnicity. Or maybe it was exactly what she feared.

If she had hoped cosmopolitan Europe to be a little more tolerant, well... she should have gone somewhere more cosmopolitan, rather than a tiny mountain town. Then again, she'd hardly anticipated there being another lockdown. Nor had she anticipated the possibility of the return of racism against anyone who merely looked Chinese - after all, this bird flu had started in the US, not in China! And yet already in the last two days she'd seen the old hatred stirred up online again. With everything going on in the house, the possibility of a resurgence had only crossed her mind a couple of times.

Perhaps nothing would happen, if she continued to be the one doing the grocery shopping in the future. A repeat of the incident with her mother, when she got spat on by some racist fuckwit while trying to do her shopping in a well-off suburb of Auckland in 2020, might not necessarily occur with Kirsten here in the Swiss Alps.

But why chance it? Why not send someone else next time?

Maika? No, not only would he forget half the shopping probably, but his skin was just dark enough that he could be a victim of racism too.

Ginny? Risky, with her crippling shyness, and not to mention, who knew how rampant transphobia was in this part of the world, with everything going on right now. You couldn't exactly tell by looking at her, but there was no point subjecting the poor girl to the risk.

Chad? Kirsten's eyes rolled back as far as they could. Why did it have to be that bigot who had the absolute freedom to move and be unquestioned? Like hell she was about to rely on him.

No. She was going to get them all out of here anyway. There would be no next shopping trip. Before she started the engine, she fired off a text to the group chat - even Chad.

Dinner meeting. We need to make arrangements to leave. Staying here isn't healthy for any of us.

That being done, she started the engine, and made her way back.

She didn't want to. Every mile the car got closer to the villa, the more reluctant and heavy her heart grew. But that was silly. She had to go back, at the very least to pack her things.

When she got into the kitchen with the bags, no one was there to help her. She huffed back her resentment, restrained herself from shouting out for their attention, and unpacked the bags herself. God only knew where they'd put things if she let any of them unpack. Teabags in the fridge? Biscuits in the dishwasher? No, far better for her to do it.

With it all done, she faced the sink and huffed again. She was giving into negative thoughts once more. So uncharitable. She wanted to write her allotted words for the day, but before that, she ought to meditate, to clear her mind of the cobwebs of irritation.

Of course, as soon as she was up in her room, trying to do so, she found she could not focus. She wanted to be writing instead. But when she put her stylus to her writing tablet, she found herself reluctant there too.

She threw her head back and stared at the ceiling. Little waves of light danced on the white paint. She sought its source: a rare beam of sunlight on the lake, bouncing its way through to her room on the wavering peaks of water.

That lightness, that dancing: why could it not be her now, the pen, the flow, the transcendence of heavy flesh to bodiless words?

Where was her elusive muse now?

"Emilie?" she whispered to the empty room.

Stupid. She looked down at her writing tablet. The screen had gone dark in idleness, and her own face stared back at her, warped slightly by the protective plastic covering. Her heart raced, and she looked again - no. That was silly. It was her face in the greyness, not that of Emilie.

"I am your vessel," she address the screen, flicking it on and poising her pen once more. "Please, use me as you will."

When the words came, there was no stopping them.