Page 2 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
“Wow, thanks for the welcome. You moonlight as the town’s cryptic harbinger now?”
“Nah, that’s Lyle’s gig. I just fix boats.” He eyes the key in my hand. “You opening ghost doors or something?”
“Maybe. You know where this goes?”
He laughs. “Hell if I know. But if it came from Jonas Vale, it probably opens trouble.”
“You were always good at pep talks,” I mutter.
Quinn doesn’t leave, though. He sits beside me, pulling a piece of licorice from his jacket like it's the most normal thing in the world. “He used to rant about something buried out in the wreck. Some nights he’d just sit by the rocks, talking to the wind.”
I glance at the map again. Wrecker’s Bay. That place used to give me chills as a kid.
“You ever go out there?” I ask.
“Only idiots and legends go out there.” He grins. “So you’ll fit right in.”
I snort despite myself. “Thanks.”
He stands, brushing off his jeans. “Watch the tide, Vale. It’s got a long memory.”
Then he walks off, whistling some sea shanty I can’t place. Typical Bluffs boy—born half feral, raised by fog and superstition.
I stare at the key and map again. My fingers trace the golden symbol. Wrecker’s Bay. A cursed wreck. A dead man’s riddle.
“Okay, Dad,” I say, voice low. “I’m listening.”
The tide kisses the dock, and something cold slips over my boot—like a hand, or maybe just sea foam.
Either way, I don’t flinch.
Just before sunset, I find myself back at the shoreline. Not sure why. Maybe the map’s working on my subconscious, or maybe the fog is just playing its usual tricks, whispering half-formed memories I don’t want to examine too closely.
The beach is almost deserted, just a few gulls circling something too far down the shore to see clearly. The wind shifts. Carries voices on it.
Not real voices—no one’s out here, not close enough. But they curl around me anyway, low murmurs under the crashing waves.
“Cursed ship.”
“Ghost never left.”
“She brought the tide with her…”
I whip around, heart thumping. Nothing. Just sea grass bending and the creak of an old buoy bell moaning offshore. And yet…
The hairs on my neck rise. My father used to say the sea had a memory. That it could hold onto pain. I always thought that was poetic nonsense.
But tonight, the fog wraps around my legs like fingers.
And I swear something in the distance walks out of the water and disappears before my eyes.
CHAPTER 2
ELIAS
The tide drags at my ankles, pulling me backward like it’s trying to remind me who I belong to. Who Iwas. But the wind shifts, and with it comes something sharp. New. Like the air’s gone electric.
I freeze mid-step, foot buried in salt-wet sand, and lift my head toward the cliffs. Someone’s here. Not just another tourist with a camera and a death wish. No, this one hums.
