Page 83 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
His journal.
It’s leather-bound, cracked at the spine, and tied shut with fraying twine like he thought someone might try to steal his secrets. And I guess someone did. Me.
I sit down cross-legged on the dusty floor and open it.
And then everything else disappears.
He wrote in loops and slashes, his scrawl impatient and brilliant, just like he was. Some entries are nothing but tide measurements and cryptic notes about ley lines and “energy responses” from the beach.
Others are about me.
March 12th:
The sea was calm today. Sienna laughed when she found a shell that looked like a tiny horn. She said it was for summoning sea dragons. God help anyone who ever tries to tell her she can’t command the ocean.
I press my fingers to the page, smudging the ink. My eyes sting.
There are dozens more—entries about the relic, yes, and the dangers he saw coming—but more often, it’s just him documenting a man trying to protect the one thing he could never keep safe enough.
Me.
I don’t cry pretty. I snort. I hiccup. My whole body shudders like it’s trying to let the grief crawl out through my bones. Elias finds me like that, curled in the corner of the study with the journal pressed to my chest.
He doesn’t say anything.
He kneels behind me and just wraps his arms around me from behind, pulling me into him. No demands. No questions. Just breath and quiet.
“He wanted to destroy it,” I whisper, voice cracking. “The relic. But he didn’t. Because he couldn’t bear to loseyou.”
Elias presses his lips to my hair. “And you brought me back anyway.”
I nod. “Because I finally understand.”
That night,we sleep on a mattress tossed on the floor in what will be our bedroom—no electricity yet, no paint, no hot water. Just us and a space that smells like hope and mildew.
The next morning, I hang the first photo on the wall. It’s not us. It’s not even Dad.
It’s the wreck.
Elias cocks his head at it. “Really?”
“It’s the beginning,” I say. “We wouldn’t be here without it.”
He steps closer, wraps an arm around my waist. “Then we’ll build something stronger than it ever was.”
And maybe that’s what this is.
Not just rebuilding a house.
But building a life.
I find him outside with his sleeves rolled up and sawdust in his hair.
There’s a nail between his teeth and sweat on his brow. He’s barefoot in the dirt, barefoot and absolutelyat home,hammering planks into a frame that will eventually be a porch. Or a deck. Or maybe just a very determined platform—we haven’t decided yet.
He doesn’t notice me at first. He’s humming.
Not a ghost’s hum, not the eerie kind that echoes in dreams.
