Page 8 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
She ducks into a shop with a little bell that chimes above the door. I drift close and pause outside, fingertips brushing theglass. It feelsreal. That’s new. I grip the doorframe, testing it. My fingers leave a faint frost behind, but I canholdit.
The bell doesn’t ring when I step inside.
The place smells like burnt sugar and old books. There’s a line of jars on the counter—things floating in them. Probably decorative. Hopefully.
“Large dark roast,” she says to the woman behind the counter, who’s wearing a half-shaved head and an apron that reads:ESPRESSO YOURSELF.
“You look like you saw a ghost,” the barista says, snorting.
Sienna gives a laugh so dry it could cut glass. “If I start crying, it’s just because I had to come back to this cursed toilet bowl of a town.”
“I’ll add extra espresso.”
They chat like people who used to be friends and aren’t anymore but can still fake it. I keep to the shadows near the shelves, watching Sienna tuck her hair behind her ear like it doesn’t matter that her hands are shaking.
I see her.
Not just with ghost eyes.
Withrealones.
She looks older than the last time I saw her, though I don’t remember that either—just the echo of something familiar. Like when a ship’s bell rings in fog and you know it’s close but can’t find the shape of it.
Her voice pulls me forward. She’s talking about keys and maps and old wrecks like she’s trying to make them sound ridiculous. But the weight in her words says she knows damn well this isn’t just legend.
She grabs her coffee and heads out, muttering a thanks. I follow. Again.
She cuts through a narrow alley between the bookstore and the fish market, and I see things that make me stop cold.
A poster flapping in the wind—colorful, bold, stupidly cheerful:GHOST TOURS, NIGHTLY!
A man in a headset shouting into a glowing rectangle that flashes like lightning in his hand.
A sign spinning above a shop that smells like burnt meat and grease—“Big Bite Burger”.
“What the hell happened to the world?” I mutter.
A couple kids on scooters zoom past me, shouting into the air at no one. One clips through my shoulder and lets out a shiver.
“Did you feel that?” the girl says, pulling over.
“Just wind,” her friend shrugs. “Come on.”
They vanish.
I keep walking. Slowly. I can feel the tug, the connection. Every time Sienna turns a corner, it yanks me with her like the tide pulling driftwood.
She stops outside a narrow brick building and pulls a set of keys from her coat. Not the relic key—the mundane ones. She fumbles with the lock, muttering, “Piece of shit town, piece of shit lock, piece of shit ghosts.”
“You should oil it,” I say.
Her back goes ramrod straight.
I freeze.
She doesn’t turn.
Just breathes. Slow and sharp.
