The Peformance
If you see a vague title that begins with "The," you should know it is a short horror story from me.
Marie stepped out of her Hyundai Sonata and paused. For a moment, she just stood, taking it in. Garin Manor rose like something preserved from another time, its white marble veined with creeping moss that clung stubbornly to its edges. Rows of high windows stared down at her, dark and reflective, while balconies jutted out at uneven intervals, ornate and excessive, as if each addition had been built not out of necessity, but out of ego. The whole structure carried a kind of tired grandeur, still imposing and powerful, yet unable to fully hide the slow creep of age beneath its polished surface.
The long driveway told a different story. Modern, gleaming. A Tesla sat among a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley, and a pair of BMWs, their finishes immaculate, their presence almost curated. She shut the car door, and the sound seemed to disappear into the open space around her. As she moved forward, her shoes whispered against the stone path, passing trimmed hedges so precise they looked artificial, a lawn cut to uniform perfection.
The front doors loomed larger with every step, heavy and carved, the kind meant to impress before they ever opened. Marie slowed as she approached, her reflection faint in the polished brass. For a second, she barely recognized the woman looking back. She thought of where she’d come from. Of what she’d left behind. Of the moment she’d decided to become someone else entirely. Then she straightened slightly, the hint of a smile returning. And of what this performance might earn her.
The mark was, fittingly, named Mark, Mark Garin. From what Marie had gathered, he was exactly what you’d expect: fifty-something, well-kept in that expensive, forgettable way. His photos online showed the same expression in every setting. His email pleasant, distant, and faintly expectant, as if the world had always arranged itself in his favor. The attitude of a man who didn’t need to assert himself because he had never once been truly questioned. The kind of man who had been handed everything.
He’d come through her website, Mystic Medium Marie, not her TikTok, where most of her business lived and died in sixty-second clips. Better. People like him didn’t swim in that constant stream of content, didn’t build up the same quiet skepticism. They still wanted to believe they’d discovered something rare and real. They were easier.
There was no bell. Of course, there wasn’t, she thought. Instead, a massive gilded knocker hung at eye level, clutched in the talons of a bronze owl. Its surface was cold and heavy when she lifted it, and when she let it fall, the sound that echoed through the door was deep and resonant, less a knock than a pronouncement. That, at least, impressed her. The first detail that felt like real wealth rather than a curated display.
The door opened after a moment. An exhausted-looking man in a bow tie stood on the other side, his posture rigid in a way that suggested it had been trained into him. His eyes flicked over her, quick and assessing.
“Marie, yes?”
He gave her a brief once-over, though mostly up. He was several inches shorter than she was, narrow-shouldered, his expression caught somewhere between deference and strain.
The help, dismissing him almost immediately. She gave a small nod.
“I am…” Marie brushed past him before he could finish, stepping into the house as though she already belonged. The interior opened wide around her, rooms branching off to either side, a long hallway stretching forward between twin staircases that curved upward like something out of a set. Her performance had already begun.
“Quiet,” she murmured, just loud enough to carry.
She slowed, tilting her head slightly, as if listening to something just beyond the edge of hearing.
“There’s… an energy here.”
She closed her eyes, her face settling into a careful mask of concentration.
Somewhere to her left, something shifted, a soft rustle, the subtle adjustment of weight. She didn’t need to look to know who it was. The audience. When no one spoke, when no one immediately challenged her, she knew she had them. Silence like that was attention. The kind that leaned forward, waiting to be told what to feel.
Marie drew in a slow breath through her nose, letting it out just as carefully, as if she were tuning herself to something unseen. She let her shoulders slacken, her posture loosen, as though she were yielding to whatever currents moved through the house.
There was something here. Not real, no, not in the way she would get them to believe, but something in the air nonetheless. Old houses always had it. A weight. A residue. Memory clinging to walls and floors, to the spaces between rooms. And she had done her homework. Still… there was an edge to it. Something she couldn’t quite place. A faint, creeping wrongness she couldn’t immediately shape into something useful.
She shut it out. Whatever it was, it wasn’t part of the act. Every place has something like this. Atmosphere. Nothing more.
Marie tilted her head, letting the tension climb into her neck, drawing it tight until it showed. Her hands lifted slowly, fingers curling and uncurling as if feeling through something thick and unseen.
“Someone…” she began, her voice thinner now, strained, “someone has been killed here.”
She turned slightly, her body swaying, as though pulled by an invisible thread. “Violently.”
She almost laughed at herself. It sounded cliche and ten minutes online would’ve told anyone that much. But truth didn’t matter. Delivery did.
A sharp, feminine gasp cut through the room. Marie let it hang there for a beat before opening her eyes. She rolled them back as she did, a practiced motion, smooth yet unnatural, so that when they settled again it looked less like blinking and more like returning from somewhere else.
She found the source immediately. Dark glossy hair framed a face that had been nudged just past natural. Young and undeniably attractive, her dress was a deep, aggressive red, low-cut, emphasizing curves Marie would’ve bet good money weren’t entirely hers. And on her hand, catching the light with every slight movement, a ring just large enough so as not to be mistaken for taste. Beside her stood a slender man, older by at least a couple of decades, with immaculately kept salt-and-pepper hair. Marie took it all in at once, filing it away with quiet satisfaction. Of course.
Her gaze moved past them, sweeping over the rest of the group, five in total, each watching her now with that same fragile mixture of skepticism, excitement, and hope. The exact balance she needed.
A small smile curved her lips.
“Come,” she said softly, her voice steady again, threaded with quiet authority.
“We have much to do.”
Quick introductions followed, brisk and perfunctory, as Derrick was dismissed with a curt flick of Mr. Garin’s hand.
Mark Garin himself looked different in person, broader through the middle than his carefully curated photos on Facebook or LinkedIn suggested. Still, he carried himself with that same polished ease, his tone smooth, practiced, faintly condescending.
Helen Garin was tall and composed, her blonde hair beginning to silver at the edges, a look she wore elegantly. There was a dignity to her posture, to the way she held her chin slightly raised, but Marie caught the flush in her cheeks, the soft blur around her eyes. And, of course, the glass in her hand. Not her first of the evening. Not her second, either.
Next came their son. “Mark Jr. Markie,” Garin added, with a note of indulgence that sounded more like ownership than affection. Markie stood with an old-fashioned glass in hand, expensive bourbon catching the light. He was handsome in a way that would’ve been effortless if it weren’t so clearly rehearsed. The slight curl of his lips, the lazy confidence in his stance, undone entirely by the way his eyes lingered just a moment too long on Marie’s chest. Robbing him would be a pleasure.
The final pair were Mr. and Mrs. Alexander and Eleni Sylvester, the former a friend “from our Exeter days,” Garin added, as though that explained everything worth knowing. Marie filed them all away.
“Come,” Garin said, gesturing down the hall. “We’ll use the parlor.”
The room they entered was immaculate in a suffocating, deliberate way, velvet curtains drawn just enough to dim the light, tall bookshelves lined more for effect than use, a polished bar gleaming in the corner. At the center sat a table prepared for them, simple in contrast but no less intentional, surrounded by cushioned chairs carved with obsessive detail.
Marie stepped in behind the group, aware of Markie lingering behind her. Garin motioned them to their seats, then turned to her with a thin smile. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
Markie lingered. “Markie, sit down,” Garin snapped, the warmth vanishing from his voice in an instant. The younger man obeyed, though not before what Marie figured was one last glance down at her ass.
They settled, all eyes turning toward Marie, expectant, eager. She ignored them.
Instead, she began to pace slowly along the perimeter of the room, her movements measured, deliberate. When she faced them, her eyes were closed, her expression distant; when her back turned, they opened again, sharp and observant. Every detail was intentional. Every second stretched.
She could feel it, their attention beginning to strain. People like this weren’t used to waiting. They were used to being entertained, indulged, answered.
Helen’s voice broke the silence. “Derrick, more Lafite. And not that 2010 swill.”
Marie didn’t so much as glance in her direction. She let the quiet deepen, let it press in around them, let their anticipation sharpen into something just shy of discomfort.
She enjoyed this part. And she knew better than to rush it.
By the time Marie finally let the silence break, the slight butler had returned, drifting in with another bottle of red as if summoned by Helen’s impatience alone. The soft clink of glass and quiet pour of wine only deepened the room’s tension.
At last, Marie moved.
She crossed to the head of the table and lowered herself into the chair with deliberate grace, folding into it as though she were settling into something far older than the room itself.
“Tell me,” she said, her voice slipping into the low, dark, almost sultry cadence she had perfected, “why have I been called here?”
Markie scoffed. The sound was sharp, careless. His father’s head turned immediately, a look flashing across his face, brief, controlled, but unmistakably cutting. Markie sank back, though the smirk lingered.
Garin opened his mouth to answer, but Helen beat him to it.
“The ghost, my dear. The ghost.”
She waved Derrick away without looking at him, her attention fixed on Marie. Then she drank, not a sip, but a full swallow, and lowered the glass with a faint, expectant smile. Almost saying, your move.
Marie held her gaze for a moment, then let her eyes drift, just slightly, taking in the details she’d already catalogued. The necklace caught her attention again. Gold, understated, with a single diamond set at the end. Elegant. Intentional. Expensive without needing to announce it. Dolce & Gabbana, maybe. A quiet contrast to the louder, more desperate jewelry adorning Mrs. Sylvester. Marie filed it away.
Then she inhaled slowly, letting the room settle around her again. “I sensed as much,” she said softly. “Though ‘ghost’ is not quite the term I would use.” She let the words hang, watching them lean in despite themselves. “There is… a presence here.” A pause. “A dark one.”
That part, at least, wasn’t entirely performance. “I felt it the moment I arrived.”
She tilted her head slightly, as if listening again. “This is not simply a spirit. It is… residue. The echo of someone taken from this world in violence. Something that has not, cannot, move on.”
Markie let out another scoff, louder this time. “Yes, yes, spare us the theatrics,” he said, waving a hand lazily. “Anyone with Google could tell you someone was murdered in this house.”
Marie turned her gaze to him slowly, deliberately, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make the others uncomfortable. An intoxicated, lecherous ass. But he’s not wrong.
Before she could respond, Mr. Sylvester spoke up, his tone distracted, eyes flicking down to his phone before returning to the table.
“What’s the story again?” he asked. “Murdered servant girl, right?”
Eyes turned to Mark Garin. For the first time, he looked like a man who would rather be anywhere else. His hand drifted to the back of his neck, fingers pressing there as if searching for something to steady him.
“So they say,” he muttered. “Marcus Garin began work on this house in 1799…”
Markie let out a short, sharp laugh. “Jesus, just cut to the fucking chase, Dad.”
For once, Marie found herself in agreement.
Mark exhaled through his nose, the sound thin with irritation. “Fine. His grandson, Benjamin Garin, was said to have had… close relations with a servant girl. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Mary Williams.” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully now, as if the story itself might reflect back on him. “Benjamin was more than twice her age. His wife was pregnant with their fifth child at the time.”
A pause. No one spoke.
“We don’t know the nature of it,” he continued. “Not officially. But Mary was found dead in her chambers sometime in April of 1856. She had… hanged herself. Supposedly.” His mouth tightened. “Benjamin made the claim. There was no autopsy.”
The silence that followed was heavier now. Mark gave a small, awkward shrug, the ghost of a smile flickering across his face. “Not exactly a shining moment for the family legacy.”
No one laughed.
“Since then,” he went on, more quickly now, “there have been stories. Servants, mostly. The occasional trespasser or eccentric comes by asking questions. I’ve never put much stock in it, but, ” He trailed off, the confidence slipping just enough to notice.
Helen Garin picked up smoothly, “There has always been… something,” she said, her voice lower now, steadier despite the wine. “I’ve never seen anything. Not like that. But the house changes. Especially in early Spring.” She turned her glass slowly between her fingers, watching the wine catch the light. “There’s a chill that doesn’t belong to the season. At night…” She paused, just long enough. “I hear sobbing. Soft. Like it’s coming through the walls.”
Marie watched her carefully. Not just the words, but the way she delivered them. Not performative. Something else. “And things move,” Helen added. “Not misplaced. Thrown, almost. As if something is… upset.”
Alexander Sylvester blinked, his expression politely blank, as though unsure whether he was meant to believe any of this. His wife, on the other hand, leaned forward, eyes bright, practically vibrating with interest.
Markie just snorted. “Yeah. Derrick, or one of the Mexicans, helping themselves.”
The words hung in the air, ugly and careless. Mark shot him a look, sharper this time, but said nothing.
Helen didn’t so much as acknowledge it. “Eleni,” she said instead, gesturing lightly, “is the one who recommended you.”
Marie turned to her.
Up close, the girl looked even younger. Mid twenties, maybe. Marie kept her gaze politely level, resisting the instinct to catalogue the work, her lips, certainly, and lower still. Eleni smiled, warm and earnest in a way that didn’t quite fit the room. “I love your TikTok,” she said. “Really. Your work is incredible. The Chase House videos? I was obsessed.” She gave a small, almost shy laugh. “I even sent you money after that series. And when Mrs. Garin told me about Mary Williams…” Eleni went on, “I just immediately thought of you.”
There was something disarming about her. For a moment, a brief, unwelcome one, Marie felt the edge of her earlier judgments soften.
Alexander leaned back in his chair, smirking. “Ah. So that’s what that TikTok invoice was.”
The tension cracked. Laughter followed, easy, relieved, just a shade too loud. Even Marie felt a smile tug at her lips, though she kept it measured, controlled.
She inclined her head slightly. There was no point pretending she could sense anything now. Not yet.
“So,” she said, voice even, “why call upon me?”
The question hung. The Garins glanced at one another, a flicker of hesitation passing between them. No one rushed to answer.
Marie let the silence stretch just long enough to become uncomfortable, then stepped in to reclaim it.
“Your email was… vague,” she continued, her tone softening just a touch. “What is it you’d have me do?”
Again, that brief, collective blankness. Expectation without direction. They wanted something, they just didn’t quite know how to ask for it.
Markie leaned back in his chair, a crooked sneer settling in. “Aren’t you the expert?” he said. “We’re paying you good money. Entertain us.”
Before Marie could respond, Helen cut in, sharper than before. “Talk to her.”
Of course. They weren’t here for answers. They were here for a performance whether they believed or not.
Eleni leaned forward, eager, her voice bright with interest. “Could you… release her?” she asked. “More than just a séance? Like you did at the Stanley?”
Marie paused. That had been a good show. A few hundred dollars for a vintage fringed dress, some clever vocal work, a bit of smoke, and every ounce of physical control she could muster. People saw what they wanted to see.
She folded her hands lightly on the table. “Do we have anything that belonged to the girl?” she asked.
Careful. Neutral. She had no intention of giving shape to anything real, if there was anything real. She was here to misdirect, to guide, to take what they were so eager to offer. Not to reach into whatever lingered in places like this. She tried not to open doors, only knock on them.
The silence that followed gave her her answer. Nothing. Good.
Marie let her gaze drift across them, slow, deliberate, taking in each face, each expectation. Then she drew in a quiet breath and let her voice drop, settling into that low, husky register she had perfected.
“So,” she said softly, “you’d like to speak to the dead?”
Derrick dimmed the lights with quiet efficiency, moving through the room like something trained not to be seen. When he returned with the candelabras, their flames trembling faintly in the heavy air, he was dismissed again with little more than a glance.
It was all painfully familiar. The darkness. The candlelight. The expectant silence. Cliché.
But cliché was only a problem in unskilled hands. In the performance, she could make it feel like something else entirely.
Marie felt the cold bite of the metal hooks sewn into the billowing sleeves of her otherwise severe black dress, funereal, deliberate, clinging where it should, flowing where it needed to. As the candles settled, shadows stretched and distorted along the walls of the parlor, bending the room into something older, less certain.
She lowered her head. When she spoke, her voice had changed.
“Oh tout-puissant an, pèmèt nou bat liy ki genyen ant lavi ak lanmò…”
The words rolled slowly, each syllable placed with care. She cracked her eyes just enough to see them. Eleni sat forward, completely captured, wide-eyed and open in a way that bordered on reverent. A child dressed in silk and jewelry. Her husband leaned back, a faint smile tugging at his lips, intrigued but unconvinced, watching the performance rather than feeling it.
The Garins had committed. Mark sat rigid, head tilted slightly upward, as though offering himself to something he didn’t quite believe in. Helen’s eyes were closed, her body swaying just slightly, whether from the wine or the moment, Marie couldn’t yet tell. Markie wasn’t even pretending. Chin lowered, eyes fixed on her, that same lazy smirk playing at the edges of his mouth. Amused. Skeptical. Certain he was the smartest man in the room.
Marie held his gaze for just a fraction longer than necessary. Then she let her eyes fall closed again.
“Tanpri pwoteje nou epi veye sou nou pandan nou rele sou mò yo…”
The invocation of protection was perfunctory. It always was. But the language itself did most of the work. To people like this, unfamiliar meant ancient, and ancient meant powerful.
She let the last word fade into the room before continuing, her tone shifting again, deeper now, more formal.
“Tu qui moraris… tu qui hic occisus es…”
A pause. The candles flickered, just slightly.
“Nobis te ostende.”
Show yourself.
“Do we… respond?” Markie muttered. “Or is this more of a spectator thing?”
Marie ignored him as the Latin settled into the silence differently. Heavier. Sharper.
It didn’t fade so much as sink, into the walls, into the floor, into the hollow spaces between breaths. The candle flames wavered, not with any draft she could feel, but as if something unseen had passed close to them.
Then the cold came. Not a creeping chill, but a sudden, invasive drop that seemed to press inward from all sides at once. It slid beneath Marie’s dress, coiled around her ribs, settled damp and intimate at the base of her spine. Her breath caught, not performed, not controlled.
Real. For a split second, something in her stuttered. Something had answered.
“Te oro, ab hinc abeas,” she said quickly, the Latin tighter now, less theatrical, more instinct than act.
I beg you, leave this place.
The words felt thinner on her tongue. The cold didn’t vanish, but it recoiled, slightly. Like something withdrawing just beyond reach.
Marie opened her eyes a fraction.
The room had changed. They could feel it. Eleni’s hands were clasped so tightly in her lap her knuckles had blanched bone-white, her breathing shallow, eyes shining with something dangerously close to belief. Alexander’s smile had slipped, replaced by something more uncertain, his gaze darting toward the corners of the room. Helen had gone very still. Mark’s jaw was set, but the confidence had drained from his posture, replaced with something rigid, braced. And Markie. Even he had lost the smirk. Good.
Marie let the silence stretch. Counted it.
One. Two. Three.
Nothing moved. Nothing happened. Control returned in a slow, practiced wave. She drew in a breath, deep and shaking, this time on purpose, and let a thin, rising whine build at the back of her throat. Her eyes rolled violently behind her lids, tendons in her neck pulling taut as she tipped her head back.
Her hands drifted downward, slow, deliberate, so the sleeves vanished just beneath the edge of the table.
The hooks found their marks. Cold metal anchoring. Her fingers hovered just above the surface as her body began to tremble, lightly at first, then harder, the tremor spreading through her arms, her shoulders, her spine. A practiced escalation. A performance she had done a hundred times.
Only this time, it didn’t stop.
Not where it should have. Not at all.
The tremor snapped into something sharper. Violent.
Her muscles seized, not in rhythm but in jagged, tearing spasms that yanked at her limbs out of sequence. Her back arched too far, a white-hot line of pain ripping up her spine as her head jerked sideways with a crack of protesting muscle.
That wasn’t. Her breath hitched, breaking the sound she was trying to shape into something theatrical. It came out wrong. Wet. Panicked.
“My god, she’s good,” Mr. Sylvester murmured.
Her body convulsed again, harder, slamming her shoulder against the chair as her arms jerked downward. Too hard.
Pain flared, bright and immediate, tearing a sharp gasp from her throat that wasn’t part of anything. Her fingers clawed instinctively, but her arms didn’t respond the way they should have. They twisted, dragged by something that felt horribly, impossibly external.
Her scream came then, but it wasn’t crafted, wasn’t measured. It tore out of her, raw and jagged, scraping her throat on the way up.
The room blurred. Candlelight streaked.
She tried to pull back. Her body lurched forward instead.
The table rushed up to meet her.
There was a sickening, wet crack as her face struck wood, hard enough to burst light across her vision, hard enough that she felt something give in her nose, something splinter in her mouth. Heat flooded instantly, thick and metallic, pouring down over her lips, into her throat.
“HELP ME”
The words came out broken, gargled, choked on blood as it spilled from her mouth, hot and relentless. It dripped from her chin, spattered across the table, dark against the polished surface.
Her body spasmed again, weaker now, unraveling. The room tilted.
Marie’s vision collapsed inward. And then there was nothing.
Derrick turned the Marlboro Red over in his fingers, savoring the harsh, earthy chemical bite that he knew on some level was likely slowly killing him. The sham TikTok psychic would keep the Garins distracted for a while, giving him a rare window, a break longer than usual. He didn’t mind the girl, none of it was personal. If the Garins were foolish enough to throw money at her, good for her. But he didn’t like the way she’d looked down on him, not just physically. He could feel it. They were both service workers, both used to being stepped over, but she carried the kind of self-satisfaction that came from clawing her way out of the trenches. She had done well. Egotism, unsurprisingly, followed. So be it. At least it offered him a moment’s escape.
Nearly twenty years. Two decades of cleaning up after these cretins, carrying their secrets, absorbing their disdain. Mark, bloated and entitled, a literal and figurative mirror of the excess surrounding him. Helen, once a woman with subtle charm, now a preening, self-important drunk. Markie, he’d started as a spoiled child, a little scamp; now he was the perfect caricature of his parents’ worst traits. Thank God little Sophie had escaped their orbit. The guests tonight? Not his concern.
He checked his phone, scrolled through notifications, letting the cigarette burn dangerously low. Ten minutes had passed. He was pushing his luck. He crushed the butt under his shoe and started toward the manor. No smoking on the property, at least not for staff.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. Derrick had never believed the Garins’ tales. Never felt a presence, never heard the whispered sobs, never sensed the cold that they swore haunted the halls. But now… now there was something. A prickling cold that layered across his skin, crawling up his neck, goosebumps rising like tiny soldiers in alarm.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
He called out, his voice brittle in the still air. Silence. He moved closer to the parlor. Called again. Nothing.
Reluctantly, he pushed the door open.
The sight slammed into him. Visceral. Absolute. The room was a cathedral of gore. The stench made his stomach revolt, bile rising in violent protest. He vomited, the projectile splattering across the polished floor.
And then he saw her.
The only whole figure. The dark, almost funereal gown clung to her, ruined face twitching, moaning softly. Her hands gripped something he instinctively knew belonged within a body.
Derrick stumbled back, horror slicing through him, and scrambled for his phone. 911. Now.
Then, a glint. Gold, shining in the midst of the carnage. Mrs. Garin’s Dolce & Gabbana necklace, perfectly intact, mockingly elegant amidst the ruin.
He hesitated. Then didn’t. Instinct, greed, survival, all at once. He bent, slipped it into his sock, down to his foot.
They wouldn’t be needing it anymore.
The candles in the parlor were still burning when he pulled the door shut, their flames trembling in the dark. Behind it, the mystic let out a low, wet moan, thin, broken, and unmistakably alive.
Derrick raised the phone to his ear.
Well, that's one way to get proven wrong. Good one!
Oo this one got really visceral. Loved the ending!