Page 57 of Love At First Fright
In these late nights and early mornings, I find myself coming out to sit in the chapel in the woods. It is easier to think out here, in the green darkness, rather thanmy chambers, where I catch the scent of her perfume on my gowns. I can no longer find peace in prayer; I spend my time wondering. In another time, another world, what would we be to each other?
There were no more entries after that. Reading them left an ache deep in Rosemary’s chest. She understood that feeling, she’d felt it once in her teens, and again in her early twenties: to fall for a woman, when you thought it was unrequited, could break even the most hardened heart.
“You read my diary.” Juliet was standing in shadow, by the altar.
“Jesus Christ!” Rosemary jumped out of her skin.
“Close. This was a chapel to St. Mary Magdalene.” The ghost smirked, but she looked tired, her ironed curls in disarray.
“I shouldn’t have read them, I’m sorry.” Rosemary placed the diaries back.
“No. You shouldn’t. Can’t you just stop meddling, and leave us be?” Juliet sighed, and slumped down on a pew.
“I wish I could, but if I leave you both to fight, who knows what will happen next time? I told you before, Juliet, someone nearly died. Do you really want to have that on your conscience?”
Juliet stilled. “No, of course not.”
“Then let me help.”
“There is nothing for you to do!” She threw up her hands. “You’ve read it, you understand. Those feelings I had, they were abnormal, impure.They’rethe reason I’m still here. They’re what has ruined everything.”
Rosemary’s eyes widened. “You think because you’re attracted to women that you weren’t able to move on?”
Juliet slumped down on a pew and stared up at the empty altar. “Yes,” she whispered.
“No,” Rosemary replied firmly. “That is not why. That has nothing to do with it.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because who you love isn’t wrong, or sacrilegious in the slightest.”
“It is not the same for you as it was for us.”
“It’s a different time, I understand that. But that doesn’t matter now, it’s just the two of you. The reason you’re both here is for each other.”
Juliet looked up at her. “I wish I could believe you. But I know what I was taught on Sundays, and I know that being trapped here, with her but not having her, that’s my penance.”
Juliet fled into the forest, leaving Rosemary alone in the chapel. She wanted to help, but how was she meant to undo years of internalised homophobia and self-hatred in a few days? She couldn’t. Rosemary had never had issues coming out as bi. Some of her oldest home videos showed her dressed up as a princess, telling her mom and dad that she wanted to marry another princess. She’d come out to her parents three days after she watchedThe Mummy—which in hindsight was definitely no coincidence. Her parents had done what all parents should do: they told her they loved her, and then cracked a joke about how they’d known all along. She knew she’d been about as lucky as anyone could have wished.
But she remembered how it had been for Dina. Her best friend hadn’t come out to her parents for such a long time, and even though they’d accepted her immediately, the fear that she’d built around her heart had stopped her from getting there for years.
Rosemary supposed she could try to explain to Juliet thatqueerness was natural, but her only frame of reference was bird species like sand martins and Eastern bluebirds, who tended to form same-sex relationships. She doubted bird facts would work in this instance.
No, Rosemary needed to show Juliet that she could have her happily ever afterlife, with Cecilia. And given the time frame, she suspected there was only one way of doing that.
Rosemary found Lyn back on set.
“I have a weird request.”
“You want me to source some alkaline spring water, boil it, then cool it down, add in one wedge of perfectly ripe lime, a single drop of thirty-five-year-aged balsamic vinegar, and a teaspoon of manuka honey for you?”
“What?”
“That’s what my last boss asked for, that’s all she would drink on set.”
“Okay, less weird than that.”
“Shoot,” they said.
