A year had passed since the funeral. The seasons had turned, stripping the trees bare and cloaking the house on Blackwood Lane in winter’s chill. The stream of visitors had slowed to a trickle, and Elias and his mother had settled into a quiet, structured existence.
Elias spent most of his time in his bedroom on the third floor. It was a spacious room, nestled under the eaves of the roof, with a large dormer window that looked out over the bleak landscape. He had transformed the space to suit his needs. The toys of his childhood had been packed away in boxes, replaced by heavy wooden bookshelves and a sturdy oak desk.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, and the house was silent save for the drumming of sleet against the windowpanes. Downstairs, Eleanor was entertaining her sister, Aunt Marge, a boisterous woman whose loud laughter occasionally penetrated the floorboards.
Elias was sitting at his desk, carefully adjusting the focus on a brass-fitted microscope he had brought up from the basement. He was examining a slide containing a cross-section of a moth’s wing, marveling at the intricate, microscopic scales that provided its color and lift.
The door creaked open, and Aunt Marge poked her head into the room, a glass of sherry in her hand.
“There you are, you quiet little mouse,” she boomed, stepping into the room without invitation. She surveyed the meticulous order of his desk, the gleaming microscope, the rows of perfectly aligned textbooks. “Lord, you are just like him, aren’t you? Your mother says you practically live up here now.”
Elias paused his examination and turned in his chair. “I like the quiet, Aunt Marge. It helps me concentrate.”
Marge walked closer, her eyes squinting as she peered at his face in the dim, gray light filtering through the window. She sighed heavily, a dramatic exhalation of sherry-scented breath.
“It really is remarkable,” she murmured, shaking her head. “Every time I look at you, Elias, it sends a shiver down my spine. It’s like Julian is still here in the room with us.”
Elias offered his polite, practiced smile. “People tell me that often.”
“It’s not just the shape of your face,” Marge continued, leaning down to look him squarely in the face. “It’s the intensity. And the eyes... Lord above, you have his eyes. Those exact, piercing blue eyes. It’s a miracle of genetics, it truly is. Your mother’s are so plain, but you... you got the Vance eyes.”
“Thank you, Aunt Marge,” Elias said evenly.
Marge patted him heavily on the shoulder, seemingly satisfied. “Well, I’ll leave you to your science, Dr. Vance junior. Don’t stay cooped up here all day.”
She turned and bustled out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
Elias listened to the heavy tread of her footsteps descending the stairs. When he was certain she was gone, his polite smile vanished, replaced by a look of clinical detachment. He reached up and rubbed his own eyes—brown, unremarkable, and perfectly functional. People saw what they expected to see. They saw the ghost.
He stood up from his desk and walked across the room to a tall, glass-fronted mahogany cabinet that had once belonged in his father’s study. The cabinet was locked. Elias retrieved a small brass key from a chain around his neck and inserted it into the keyhole. It turned with a satisfying click.
He swung the glass door open.
The cabinet was lined with velvet. On the middle shelf, sitting in a place of utmost honor, was a single, pristine antique Mason jar. It was filled to the brim with a perfectly balanced solution of formalin, crystal clear and devoid of any impurities. The lid was sealed tight with a thick layer of dark red wax to prevent even the slightest evaporation.
Elias reached out and gently rested his fingertips against the cold glass.
Suspended in the fluid, staring back at him with an unblinking, eternal intensity, were two vivid, aquamarine eyes, ringed with a dark, almost navy blue limbus. The optic nerves trailed behind them like pale, severed tails. They were perfectly preserved, immune to the decay of the grave, forever arrested in the fluid.
Elias smiled down at the shelf, a genuine, quiet smile in the dim afternoon light. Aunt Marge and the others were right, of course.
He really did have his father’s eyes.