They called her the lady in the dark.
She wasn't really a lady. Not yet. Or so they would murmur, edging away from the shadowy corners to avoid the feel of her cold fingers on their wrist. According to legend, she had been a year shy of eighteen- a mere child, really, younger than most people who entered the old house. Too young. But that didn't stop them from being afraid, and there was nothing she could do about it, so the lady in the dark she remained.
She had been there for a long time. At least two hundred years, they would say, pointing out the old walls all covered in ivy and the missing glass in the windowpanes. The curtains were still in place, though, billowing through the empty frames even when there was no wind. She was responsible for that. The curtains had always enchanted her when she was alive, the way they fluttered and danced like... well, ghosts. The curtains no longer held the mystical, magic feel they used to, but she still loved to see them dance. In a way, she even resembled those curtains; according to the frantic whispers of those who had somehow glimpsed her, she wore a delicate white gown that drifted around her as if she were floated in water. Still floating in water. If she twirled behind the curtains, she was even less visible than she always was.
The lake was still there. She could see it through the empty windows of the house. If she stood by those empty windows and leaned out as far as possible, she could see it. Beyond the paths that led from the doors to the world outside, now barely trodden; beyond the overgrown gardens that had once been the pride of the mansion, and were now a maze of thorns and dead leaves; beyond the line of previously well-kept trees, that had become twisted statues reflecting the deterioration of the old house. If she gazed past all those, she could see the lake, as shimmery and glassy smooth as it had been the day she'd died.
She could still remember that day, remember it clearly as if it had been yesterday.
"Camelia!"
The young woman ignored her mother's shouts as she scurried down the steps of the mansion, black boots thumping against stone. Her black hair streamed behind her in curls and tangles, laced with delicate roses and shining in the sunlight. The girl's white dress gave her the appearance of some kind of spirit as she tore through the house's delicately-grown gardens. A few tiny daises bounced around in her carefully cupped hands.
"Camelia!"
The girl's feet carried her down to the edge of the crystal-clear lake, where she promptly collapsed to her knees and reached out to brush the surface. The daisies dropped from her outstretched fingers and scattered across the still waters. The girl stretched out even farther, but the flowers had already floated out of her reach. The girl took a tentative step into the shallow water before her. It was cold, but not unbearable; she quickly waded in deeper, giggling as her dress slowly got wetter and wetter.
And then, abruptly, the lake floor dropped off into a deep underwater pit. The girl gasped, water rushing into her mouth, and her legs flailed in an attempt to find surface beneath her feet once more. The lake was too still for any waves to carry her back to the shore. Her heavy, water-soaked dress weighed her down as she floundered helplessly against the numbness in her limbs, and she felt herself losing the struggle as the water closed over her head-
"CAMELIA!"
They called her the lady in the dark.
Most people never saw her, and those who did only caught a glance- a lock of dark hair here, a ghostly rose there. Whispers and murmurs and rumors about her abounded. She was the ghost of the mansion, the lady in the dark, the girl who had been killed by her own home. A memory, weighed down by the remains of her past. A girl of seventeen. An ancient being of two hundred.
Nothing but a ghost.
