Page 180 of A Soul to Keep

“But I cannot hold you like this. Where is your body? You’re a ghost, Reia. This isn’t what I wanted.”

She refused to allow him to get away by following him.

“Can you take me home, Orpheus?”

He shook his head. “I already searched there.”

“I promise you everything will be alright. Only when we are home can I be with you.”

He whimpered lightly in response, his head turning to look in the direction he’d been heading like he wanted to keep searching.

“Please?” His head turned to her once more at the sound of her plea. “Don’t you want to keep me safe?”

Actually, as Reia was right now, she was as safe as she could possibly be in the Veil. Nothing could ever harm her like this.

“Home?” he asked, hesitantly stepping forward slightly. “You will be at home with me?”

“Yes. At home I’ll turn physical for you.”

He tilted his head at that, but started to walk. He stopped if she wasn’t in front of him, like he wanted to see her, stare at her, look through her, as he made his way back to their cabin.

It was slow, and he stayed low as though he was uncertain.

“I miss you, Reia,” he said softly, reaching out to touch her again before bringing his hand back when he couldn’t. “How can you be with me if you’re a ghost?”

Am I a ghost?Ghosts couldn’t turn physical.

They were humans that were so desperate to live after being eaten by Demons that they haunted the places they were killed. They were trapped within the borders of their homes or the forests, stuck there forever.

But Reia kept returning to him, and she could turn back to normal.

What am I then?She tried to think on what else she could be.

Then a section in one of the books the Witch Owl gave to her came into her memory, the one about creatures–both real and mythical. She’d recently learned that Elves were real, but from another world, and there had also been a page aboutPhantoms.

Creatures that lived on the cusp of life and death; a spirit being who had a human body if they wished. They were usually anchored to something, and she turned her gaze to the floating flame above his head between his horns.

But it wasn’t a flame.

It was the little spirit she’d pulled from her body. She was curled up in the fetal position, facing forward. Her ankles were crossed, her knees to her chest as she hugged them, while her face pressed against the nook of them. The flame hair was still floating.

From afar, it looked like nothing but a rounded flame, but up close, it was easy to see it was her soul.

She looked comfortable, as if it was only sleeping while being wrapped in the black, goopy string that threaded around its legs, its body, and even throat, that then attached to his horns.

He is my anchor.Orpheus had tied her soul to him, literally.

“I think you made me a Phantom,” she told him, not looking behind her, trusting that he would lead them back.

“What is a Phantom?”

He didn’t know this would happen to me?She explained what she thought over the time it took them until they were passing over the salt circle.

He took them inside and she was greeted by the chaos of him searching inside the house.

The dining table was skewed from where it usually rested, her chair turned on its side. The chairs in the living room were parted with the little table between them knocked over. Items on tables had been scattered to the floor, as if he’d lifted the object they rested on to check underneath in places she couldn’t possibly hide.

How silly,she thought with a sad smile.

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