Page 4 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
The shadow doesn’t answer. Just stands there. Watching me. Or maybe watchingherretreating back.
The tide licks at my heels. Behind me, the wreck whines, a sound like a dying animal and rust splitting bone. Something’s shifting beneath her ribs. Something wantsout.
“Not yet,” I mutter, placing a hand against her barnacled side. “Not yet, old girl.”
For now, theMaidenstill obeys.
But just barely.
Later—when the fog curls tighter and the moon slices clean through the clouds—I stand at the shoreline again. My form is flickering, caught between what I was and what she’s making me. I don’t like it. Don’t understand it.
But I want more.
I haven’twantedin a long time. Not like this.
When the waves lap up past my knees, I see the shadow again. Only now, it’scloser.
“You were warned,” I snarl. “This place is mine.”
The shape tilts its head, and for a second I swear it smiles. Then it fades.
Coward.
I stare back up toward town. I can’t follow her there. Not yet. The veil’s thicker inland. But it won’t stay that way.
No, she’s dragging the past back to shore whether she knows it or not.
And if she’s Jonas Vale’s blood?
Then she owes me. Everything.
She’s gone now—back up the path toward the chapel, her figure swallowed by mist and memory. But the imprint she leaves behind sizzles in the air like lightning that hasn't yet found ground.
And me? I’m still here, chest tight, fingers curled into fists of nothing. For the first time in I don’t know how long, Ifeel. Not just the pull of the tide or the hunger of the curse—I meanpain. Sharp, precise, as if someone reached into my ribs and scraped out what little peace I’ve made with being forgotten.
I sink to my knees in the surf.
The water laps at me, indifferent. But I feel every grain of sand grinding into phantom skin. Every pull of the tide is a heartbeat now. Every drop of wind across my jaw a brand.
And gods help me, I miss being alive.
She’s more than a spark. She’s a match to a powder keg I didn’t know I’d buried.
I watch where she stood, the fog still curling like it’s trying to hold her shape. I don’t know her name yet. Don’t know why her presence cleaves through the fog like a blade.
But Iknowher.
In the way storm clouds know the sea.
In the way the wreck creaks and cries when she draws near.
In the way every part of me aches toward her like gravity.
And when I whisper into the night, “Don’t come back here,” it’s not a warning.
It’s a prayer.
Because if she does—if she walks that shore again—I don’t know what I’ll do.
