Emily was born in Hotan, but she did not remember China. Her parents had moved to Limerick, Ireland when she was still too young to remember. Her earliest memories were of her running along a creek close to their house, where her mother used to do their laundry.

Her father had not succeeded in finding a job, even though he was out the whole time, looking for one. In the meantime, her mother started to make some of her Chinese home remedies to sell. Thanks to the upper-class ladies who thought her “exotic ointments” were nothing short of a miracle, they could get by. 

Emily was not allowed to go to school or interact with any of their neighbors’ children. She had to help with the shopping, cooking, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, sewing the holes in worn clothes, and drying herbs for her mother’s ointments. Once she dared to ask why she wasn’t allowed to learn how to read, and her father had to sit her down and explain the importance of family to her. Sometimes people had to sacrifice themselves for their family, he reasoned with her. “You should be willing to carve up your own flesh to feed your family if you need to”, and “you have to lie on ice to pray for carp”.

Emily deeply loved her father, and although it wasn’t reciprocated much, she was happy to make him proud. She never complained even when her fingertips cracked in the ice-cold water doing his laundry in the winter. She never asked for anything even when her clothes had turned into rags from years of use and looked too ill-fitting on her.

When her mother died, it wasn’t only their source of income that left them, but god as well. There was a hollow hole inside Emily’s chest that never went away, no matter what she did. Her father changed after that, too. He became irritable, unstable, angry, and a drunk. 

Morning after morning, he left the house to ‘look for a job’, and Emily pretended she didn’t know he was spending his whole days in the pub, drinking and gambling. She stayed home, cooking and cleaning for him. They were running short on money, and once, Emily tried to make her mother’s ointments, but she failed. She couldn’t read her notes, and she was never fully present when her mother was making them to learn.

One evening, her father came home with a middle-aged man, whom he introduced as Liam. Three days later, Emily was his bride. “He will treat you like a queen,” her father told her. “He’s a powerful man; he can give us anything we want!”  Nothing could make Emily happier than seeing the light back in her father’s eyes, and that was enough for her to go through the wedding. 

The fairytale life her father had pictured for her quickly turned into dust and ash. Yes, Liam was wealthy and successful, a powerful man, but what powerful men don’t have is a strong ego. They need a fragile, defenseless thing to beat and torture, so they can feel dominance. 

Nothing in his big mansion could soothe Emily’s aching heart. All she ever wanted was a fatherly affection to caress her soul, but no one in her life was willing to give her that. She knew her father could hear her cries every night, begging for Liam to stop, to have mercy, to be more gentle. But he never did or said anything to help his daughter. 

She knelt in front of him one evening, pleading with him to take her away, to help her escape from the claws of the monster that had shattered her life. But a hungry vulture will not leave the carcass in front of it for anything. “Family troubles should not be spread outside, darling. Getting a divorce is worse than being six feet deep.” He wiped Emily’s tears away and smiled at her. “We are better off with him than out there. Do you remember how hard life used to be?” He rolled down Emily’s sleeve, covering a fresh gash in her arm. “Remember, the stain of blood can be wiped clean, but nothing can wash away the stain of disgrace.”

One year later, Finn, their first son, was born. Liam was pleased with her, so pleased that he forgot how much he loved to bruise her pale skin for a few weeks. He was a different man with the baby. A proud, gentle father. Emily suspected that he loved being a father more than anything else, because he couldn’t wait to put another baby in her. 

In three years, she had given birth to two boys and a girl. Finn and Oscar were spitting images of their father, but Shauna had her mother’s pearly skin and red hair. Emily never admitted this, but she worshipped Shauna like a tiny goddess. It was with the birth of her daughter that Emily felt like she could go on. She wanted to fill the child’s heart with so much love that she never felt the lack of it from Liam. She didn’t want Shauna to grow up and look for a fatherly love in men three times older than her. And she wished she would always be around so Liam couldn’t sell her off as her own father had. 

This shift in Emily’s mood did not escape Liam. He could see the sparkle of life back in her eyes, and he did not like it. It made him feel like she was defying him, like she knew something he did not. And he knew who was responsible for that. 

One morning Emily woke up to Shauna's empty crib. Her father, the maids, the nannies, no one knew where she was. She searched everywhere from the house to the grounds, to the stables, and even the river near the house. There was not a sign of her little daughter.

“You look lost,” Liam said with a smirk from the corner of the living room. He was sitting calmly with his pipe smoking in the corner of his mouth. 

“Where is she?” Emily managed to spit through gritted teeth. 

Liam stood up and walked slowly to where Emily had collapsed on the floor. She flinched away, feeling a kick or a shove coming. Liam smiled and crouched down to be at eye level with her. “There was never a girl, do you understand? We have two beautiful, strong little boys, and that’s it.” He blew the smoke into her face. “Two sons.” He repeated before leaving the house, whistling a happy tune.

No one ever mentioned Shauna again. They all acted like she never existed, like it was all Emily’s imagination. But it couldn’t have been. She remembered giving birth to her; she remembered bathing her and singing her lullabies; she remembered feeding her and putting her to sleep… or did she?

Emily fell ill. Her body ached to hold Shauna again; her mind was itching to hear her laugh one more time. All she could do, day and night, was to walk the house and sing Shauna’s favorite lullabies. Nothing mattered to her anymore. She was paler than a human should be, with deep bags under her eyes, thin as a skeleton. Deep inside, she blamed her father for everything that had happened to her. If he hadn’t been that selfish to sell his own daughter, she would have never met the monster that imitated humans and called itself ‘Liam’.

Until one day, she finally heard Shauna’s voice again. She was laughing, calling Emily. She got out of bed and rushed outside, barefoot and in her nightgown. Her daughter’s playful voice carried her further away from the house and lured her into the river. She shouted Shauna’s name over and over again as she stepped deeper and deeper into the water. As the water filled her lungs and set them on fire, all she could think of was Shauna. And when her limbs went senseless and her brain fogged up, she wondered why her father hated her so much. 

A century later, the Murphy’s Mansion still stands on the outskirts of Limerick. No one dares to walk the halls, since witnesses say Emily’s love for her daughter and hatred for her father and husband did not allow her to die peacefully. Her ghost is stuck between the world of the living and the dead, not allowing her body to decompose fully. She roams the mansion looking for Shauna and her father both. Until the day she can hold one and take revenge on the other, no one in that mansion will be safe from her wrath.