"It was rare to find me outdoors at any time let alone during the heat of the day. I can't stand to be too warm, it makes me light headed and I suppose you'll tell me that my experience was a combination of sun and too much heat producing exertion, but it was as real as I am standing here before you. Yes I was light headed, but mostly from shock rather than the heat because once I was inside the gate it was cool, almost too cool.

We had recently moved to a new location, my husband and I. Days were spent packing and rearranging while he was at work. I was doing my level best to restore order to our new surroundings when I just couldn't stand it anymore. I had to go and investigate the abandoned property down the road. The cab driver that brought us from the station when we arrived had seemed uncomfortable when I asked about the place. The two stone pillars, the wrought iron gate slightly open, and all those flowers. Those lovely flowers just begging to be picked, yet when I said this the driver averted his eyes and said that they'd all grown over with weeds. Weeds, I saw no weeds, just this well kept and inviting patch of beauty. The type of beauty that I myself will never manage because I'd have to be out of doors to care for them. I did say I seldom went outside didn't I?

I found myself taking an old hat down from the peg, putting on my sturdy walking shoes and without any thought, set off down the road. Oddly it hadn't seemed, while in the car, that the property was that far away. By the time I reached the gate I was sweating heavily and not sure I could go that much farther. Just inside the gate, underneath the oak tree was a bench. Just what I needed and not a moment too soon.

The flowers were well tended but the grass had been allowed to grow so tall it was impossible to push the gate open so that I wouldn't have to squeeze against the pillar to get in. Odd that the flowers should be so beautiful and the rest of the property so unkempt. Once inside I wandered over to the bench and sat down. By then I was needing to sit so strongly that I never even cleaned the seat the way I usually do. I am deathly afraid of spiders, and would normally have checked my surroundings more carefully , I just needed to sit down before I fell down. I don't know how long I actually sat there, I may have fallen asleep. It didn't seem that I had been asleep, felt as if I had barely closed my eyes when I noticed how cool it was there. I began to shiver a bit, like you would when first diving into cold water on a hot day.

Then I began to notice little things that just didn't feel exactly right. It's difficult to explain. Warm muggy air feels heavy on the skin, while cooler air tends to feel damp. This cooler air felt very heavy, almost as if it had a substance to it. It felt like a blanket oozing over all of me. A blanket made of a substance similar to slime. My eyes tried to open and couldn't. I couldn't see what was all over me. I could just feel this coolness, this ooze of something that grew progressively colder and colder until I was quite uncomfortable. I was wishing I had brought with me a sweater or a warm wrap of some kind. I couldn't hear the buzzing of the bees anymore. Everything was still and I could hear the rapid beating of my heart. Oddly I wasn't frightened, just curious, and then I could open my eyes.

I was still seated on the bench with my back against the oak, but things had changed. The path was clearly visible where I had trod through overgrown grass. The path led through the trees to a house so beautiful that, in my eyes, it qualified as a mansion. A stately Victorian with wide front porch and tall windows, and curves common to the homes of the era. I lived there. It was my home. No husband was waiting for me in the library, it was getting near dinner time and we were expecting guests. Who are "we"? My sister and I. We live together in this house, a house so beautiful that the neighbors are envious that we own it. We are important now, women of substance Emma and I.

I must hurry, it is getting late, Nance will be arriving from Boston soon. I am excited as we have not seen each other in a month or more. Can't have her come too often, my beautiful Nance. Emma will be suspicious and we can't have that. We shall have to ply Emma with wine so that she will sleep well tonight. I can't have her catching Nance and I in the act. It wouldn't do, then she'd believe that I did have something to do with that other thing.

Emma with her mousy ways and her friends in Boston that she could escape to when Father was so abusive. She left me there to deal with it on my own with no one but my darling Bridgette to keep me sane. Father nearly caught Bridgette and I one night but I convinced him that the scream he heard was not one of delight, but from a nightmare I was having. He took my word for it but it was a close call. The penny pinching bastard and his shrewish wife. We could have had a house like this if he wasn't such a miser, but no...we had to live in that dump on Second St. How I hated that house. How I hated him for being so mean.

The bitch that he married was making my poor Bridgette wash the windows, and her just out of a sick bed. Food poisoning my foot. They were trying to get rid of the only friend I had in that hateful house. She knew it...that's why she never said anything. She helped me wash up afterwards, she burned my clothes in the kitchen stove, they were stained with blood. She hid the axe I used to do the job and she never said anything, nothing at all about who killed them. I loved her for that. After the trial we sold the house and purchased this beautiful mansion on the hill here. I gave enough to Bridgette to keep her in style the rest of her life, I owed her that. Sadly she chose not to stay here with Emma and me. I understood, Emma might have caught us and then Bridgette would have had to help me again. It's better this way. The townspeople don't accept me very well, but I don't much mind. It would have been nice to be a part of society but I have my beautiful house and Nance. Oh! I must hurry I hear the train whistle, Nance will be here soon.

All of this was going through my head, and at the same time I knew clearly that I was still me and yet I was...her. I could see that the cab driver was right, there were no flowers there in front of the gate, just weeds. The stench of rotting leaves was overpowering and it was no longer cool there. I know it was 100 degrees out and I hurried home in that heat as fast as I could go, but I was still not home before my husband came. He was so hateful. I had only gone for a walk I told him, but the house was not yet in order, and the dinner was not cooking in the kitchen and he was so angry. I had to, don't you see?

I was frightened of Andrew. He was always Andrew, never Andy. I wish I could have called him Andy. Maybe it would have made him less frightening, more human and not so mean somehow. Andrew Borden and his lovely wife Elizabeth. That was us. Never Liz or Beth, always Elizabeth, just like he was never to be called Andy. He just kept screaming at me and pushing me and pushing me. Finally he was tired and went to sleep on the sofa in the small room. His den he called it. I was fixing his dinner in the kitchen when I saw the axe in the woodbox just outside the kitchen door. As soon as I saw it I knew what I had to do. I couldn't let him hurt me any more. I had to Your Honor, I just had to. "She" took over me again and I took that axe and swung it at his head while he lay sleeping and I just kept swinging and swinging. "She" made me do it, my husband Andrew Borden was killed by the ghost of Lizzie Borden. I swear it wasn't me. Lizzie Borden took the axe and she gave my beloved husband forty whacks."