The Eidolon
My husband arrives at sunset, two years to the day he went away.
His hat, when he places it upon the table, is a bone-white lizard, which scurries off into the buzzing dark of the house. I search the floor behind him for fresh dirt, but there is none.
“I have come to love you,” he says.
I don’t know how to reply. I’ve longed to hear his voice. The moment aches, like a pin stuck in my thumb. Finally: “I’m happy. I want to love you, too.”
“We’ll make it this time.” His icy hand finds mine. “I’ve been taught so much.”
I stir my tea. It’s gone cold, too. “How many are inside?”
He shows his teeth, laughing. “What is it they say? Legion?”
I make him toast with honey that he doesn’t eat, lilac tea that he doesn’t drink, and we sit on the couch, watching the late news. The white lizard re-appears, but it is a sliver of moon reflected from the window glass. I shut the heavy velvet curtains, and at ten, we go to our bed.
He disrobes by the settee, underpants gray and sagging; the once verdant plains of his physique now pale, barren furrows. There is a mirror above the vanity, and I look for us there.
We lie on our sides beneath the chill sheet, facing each other, like the handles of an amphora. My husband was bearded when he left, but now is clean-shaven. I touch his face, then touch my stiff, clipped beard, feeling guilty, like I’ve stolen something from him.
His tongue pokes between his lips, a wriggling grub. We kiss.
At midnight, we climb the spiral staircase to the attic. This time I have built a shrine: a doll lying in a homemade coffin, surrounded by candles. I’ve painted dates on the cheap wood, the ones I remember, at least, to commemorate when we’ve come and gone. My husband stands in the doorway, always unsure.
I light the candles, multiplying flames, until they’ve cast a chorus of flickering shadows across the walls. My husband reaches down to touch the doll’s brown corduroy suit and horsehair beard.
He smiles. “It doesn’t look like me.”
I hand him a bottle of red wine; place glasses next to the coffin. “It did.”
The bottle goes quickly, and our hard brows unknit. Flushed, we descend the spiral steps to the bed, and embrace, this time more fervently. Soft, ropy muscles press, and our bones clack, clack, clack, poking against skin polished to living leather.
My husband is on top of me, and then he is beneath.
When we’ve finished, he lays his head on my sunken chest, and sighs. “Is two years such a long time?”
When cold morning sunlight fills the bedroom, I know for certain he is gone. Throwing back the sheet, I stumble from bed to the water closet, intent on ridding myself of this beard, but the mirror reveals that I am already clean shaven.
Feet like ice, I walk the spiral steps, already knowing I will find the coffin empty, the candles burnt low. Now, there is no hurry. I have years to mourn; silent years to inventory the many things we have learned to take from each other.
© 2025 Marc Ruvolo
Marc Ruvolo (he/him) is a queer writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon who once considered himself a punk. He founded the seminal Bucket O’ Blood book store in Chicago, and his poetry and fiction have appeared in Cynthia Pelayo’s Gothic Blue Book Series, Slay and Slay Again: A Queer Horror Anthology, and Nocturne Magazine, to name a few. He’s published three horror novellas, Sloe, in 2023 by Unnerving Books, Pieties, by Off Limits Press in 2024, and Waste Ground by Slashic Horror Press in 25. Find him on Bluesky at @marcruvolo.bsky.social.