A Ghost Story
By Olivia Allen
The Tragedy of Lily Spectre
Once upon a time there was a lonely ghost who fell in love with an incompetent scientist. Before she was a ghost she was a sophisticated young lady named Lily Spectre. The irony of the name is not lost on me, dear reader, but this is how the story goes. Lily had a necklace, an amethyst pendant, that she wore always. It was an amulet, enchanted, given to her by faeries on the day she was born.
Growing up she had been told always to wear the charm, but its true nature was never revealed to her. A secret kept by her parents, who disappeared before they got to tell her the truth, though that’s another story entirely. On her 21st birthday she arranged a celebration. She was beautiful and it was lovely and before she could even greet her guest she stumbled and fell to her death from a tall tower. As she fell, her spirit was captured in the amethyst crystal, binding her soul to the necklace. As long as the necklace was kept intact, Lily lived. She walked the earth for years, a living ghost. She was thankful to be alive, but she was alone. Always missing something, always lonely.
One day she met a student of science, an incurably curious young woman named Zoe, and she was no longer alone.
They fell in love, and as she loved her spirit grew.
Her soul filled with emotion and could no longer be contained within the amulet. Finally, the chain snapped.
Lily lost strength quickly, and Zoe called on science to fix her.
Working late into the night, she built a mechanical body of spare parts, implanting the soul gem in its chest like a heart.
The body was crude and clumsy, but it was a success. But going from human to automaton with no warning is a terrible shock, emotion overcame Lily once more, fear, confusion. They tried to live as they had before but soon begun to see her breaking down. Zoe would fix her. Reattach an arm or a facial panel, but the gem had begun to fracture. Tiny cracks, a breaking heart. It was manageable at first, but the cracks would spread, and when it shattered Lily would be gone. As the cracks spread Lily fell into dreams of her past.
She woke to a scene of mourning. Tears. Someone she loved. A discarded metal shell. It was all small now, she was floating, ethereal, transcendent. She watched Zoe, her sorrow, but the veil was unforgiving, and they would not find each other again.