Uncertainty
Uncertainty pervades every room of the old house, through to the peeling wallpaper. The stink is pungent, but comforting in its familiarity. She’s like a ghost in her ability to get everywhere, go through walls, get into nooks and crannies, no place too large or small. Like a slithering snake, she writhes. Like a mouse with little teeth, she gnaws. Is there something she is looking for? Is it true she'll never ever find it? Is there comfort in this limbo? Is it merely stubborn impotence? She taunts, banging a frying pan in the back kitchen as if it were a snare drum. The radiators sizzle. The floors creak. Her nightgown is ragged and see-through. She wants to be important. She wants to thwart plans. She wants to make grown men doubt themselves, then bring them to their knees, reduce them to tears, make them beg her forgiveness for their mock sincerity, their pompous arrogance, their lying tongues, their inadequate tools, their inadvertently poisonous potions, their ignorance, their will, their ill-begotten power.
Nothing will make her lie down. Nothing will make her leave this old house.