The Smell of Candles

The new wife hated the smell of candles. Her husband had gotten used to the smell on account of his previous bedmate but she could never grow accustomed to the sickly hot smell of old wax. His previous wife had been frightened of the dark, he had said, and would need the candlelight to lull her to sleep. His clothes emanated the scent, so vomit-inducingly potent, that she had not been able to embrace him for months. Her snoring husband beside her, she decided firmly that sleep was not likely to come for her that night. She had taken to wandering the halls at night, refusing to use a candle to light her way, as that was counterproductive to her goal; that is, for the scent to leave her, for her predecessor’s ghostly hand to release her shoulder. And so, she wandered and wondered.

She had always preferred the cold dark to the false hot light of the candles. She enjoyed the feeling of the clean, cold wood against her bare feet and the house, which seemed to expand in the night, as if releasing its breath, felt large and bare. The night was a time for the cold to seep in the grand front doors of her new home and as that thought fell into her mind as did another, her predecessor must’ve been a foolish woman to have tried to fight what was natural, the notion of being frightened of something as inevitable as the night struck her as childish. The thought did not stick, but the feeling it induced did. The vexation that a dead woman caused in the new wife frightened her, as it did her husband. He had long since tired of his new wife’s obsession with her predecessor, and assumed that it was only some twisted feeling of jealousy that spurred her hatred of the candles. He had assumed that if he had ignored her pleas to throw them away, she would simply move on, for she would have little choice otherwise. But her aversion persisted.

One night she had sequestered herself to the parlour. Her eyes had long since accustomed to dark, and so she marvelled at how the trees stood darker against the dark blue expanse above it through the stained glass. She thought of some painter that her mother preferred, who had always painted the sky in that manner. The door creaked open but she did not turn around. The scent of old wax drifted towards her and so, assuming it was her husband, waited for his strong arms to envelope her. No embrace came, and instead she placed her clammy hand on the warm one that had gripped her shoulder. She spoke quietly, but when no response came from her husband, she turned and sat still in quiet terror. There was no husband, no person there at all. At least, she could not describe what she saw as a person. It was a ghastly creature, an entity soaked in monstrosity. Something that had once been a woman, a woman she recognised if she had not in reality met her in her lifetime. She recognised the fair hair that hung in ringlets and the wide blue eyes. She had noticed those very same eyes the first time she came to this place, painted in a large canvas that hung in the foyer. Her predecessor stood in front of her, gripping her shoulder tight and her face, or what used to be her face, contorted into what could only be described as the face of death. She would not scream, she had not even screamed as a child when nightmares came to her late at night. But having made up her mind not to scream, there was little more she could do other than stare. She stared all night. She stared until her eyes stung and watered. She stared until she grew numb. She stared until the sun broke out over the horizon and she could no longer see the ghoul in front of her. She stared until her husband found her.

Her husband had woken up to a cold bed, as was usual for the young couple. He had grown accustomed to his new wife’s nightwalking, even though he had not grown to like it. His previous wife would never have done such a thing, choosing to remain in the warmth of candlelight and her husband’s embrace. His new wife enjoyed the darkness too much, which unsettled him greatly. But she was still his wife, and still he loved her. Maybe her love of the night showed some kind of bravery. This is why it pained him to see her so shaken. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, her mouth held open in shock. She was shivering, which induced the most terror in him, as his new wife was never cold. She clung to him, confounding him even further, she usually disliked holding him too close for too long as the scent of his old wife’s candles clung tightly to him. He summoned the doctor who declared she was in fine physical health but would prescribe valerian to induce her to sleep. Her husband had hoped that would be enough. But alas it was not. She would walk the halls of the manor, but to somehow protect her from her whatever caused such restlessness. She would hold onto his arm as they walked in companionable silence, and darkness. Always darkness. Not even a single candle to light their way. In time, her husband began to understand his new wife better. He began to hold the night in great esteem, for those were the rosy times that he and she would walk as one. Eventually, the smell of candles began to fade, quietly and without fanfare as all faded things do. She became more herself than she had ever become since arriving. Her complexion had once again become rosy, her eyes became brighter, even her dark hair now looked healthier. The scent of candles slipped away, out of wide open windows until one day, after three decades of walking together in the night, the new wife - who was now, she supposed, the old wife - lit a single candle and placed it in the window of what was once their bedroom, to greet her husband who rested outside in a forever night in a cold dirt bed.