Page 9 of Gone for the Ghost
The words settle into the space between us like stones dropping into still water, creating ripples of understanding that change everything about our conversation.
“Disappeared?”Lily prompts gently, and I realize she’s heard the weight these memories still carry.
“One morning she was simply gone,” I say, the old helplessness flooding back with surprising intensity.“No note, no explanation, no forwarding address.Her landlady said she’d paid her account and left before dawn, as if she’d never existed at all.”
The pain of that discovery feels as sharp now as it did ninety-eight years ago—the devastating confusion of losing someone without warning or understanding, the terrible questions that multiply in the absence of answers.
“I searched everywhere,” I continue, needing Lily to understand the depths of my desperation.“Hired investigators, followed every lead, used every connection I had.The theater community was protective.They saw me as some rich dilettante trying to buy his way into their world.No one would tell me anything useful.”
“That must have been terrifying,” Lily says quietly, and her empathy makes the memory somehow more bearable.“Not knowing what happened, whether she was safe.”
“I considered every possibility,” I admit.“Maybe she’d been threatened because of our political work.Maybe she’d gotten an opportunity that required secrecy.Maybe she’d simply decided I was a liability she couldn’t afford.”
The last possibility had been the most torturous—the idea that Victoria had assessed our relationship and found it wanting, that my love had become a burden she’d chosen to escape.
“I got sick,” I say, approaching the part of the story that explains my current circumstances.“The searching, the sleepless nights, the constant anxiety—my health collapsed.When the Spanish flu epidemic hit, I didn’t have the strength to fight.”
Lily’s expression shifts to something deeper than sympathy.Understanding, maybe, of how grief can weaken more than just emotional defenses.
“I died still loving her,” I conclude.“Still believing I’d failed her somehow, that if I’d been stronger or smarter or more worthy of her trust, I could have prevented whatever forced her to leave.”
The silence that follows feels different from the comfortable quiet we usually share.This is weighted with revelation, with the understanding that I’ve shared something fundamental about who I am and why I’ve remained anchored to this world for nearly a century.
“Julian,” Lily says finally, and something in her voice makes me look at her more carefully.“What if you didn’t fail her?”
The question catches me off guard.“I’m sorry?”
“What if Victoria left to protect you?”she continues, leaning forward with the kind of intensity I recognize from her writing sessions.“Someone with that much integrity, that much courage… she wouldn’t just abandon someone she loved without a compelling reason.”
The possibility she’s suggesting reframes everything I’ve believed about Victoria’s disappearance and offers an interpretation I’ve never allowed myself to consider.
“You think she was protecting me,” I say slowly, testing the idea.
“I think someone who challenged the system, who used art to expose corruption and fight injustice, might have made enemies powerful enough to threaten the people she cared about,” Lily says with growing conviction.“What if leaving was her way of keeping you safe?”
The suggestion settles into my consciousness like sunrise, illuminating landscapes I’d been too consumed by guilt to explore.What if I’d spent ninety-eight years blaming myself for a sacrifice Victoria made out of love rather than disappointment?
“Julian,” Lily continues, her voice carrying the kind of determination I’ve learned to recognize when she’s solving particularly complex plot problems, “what if solving Victoria’s mystery is the key to your freedom?What if understanding what really happened would finally let you find peace?”
For the first time in ninety-eight years, I feel something approaching hope.Not just for answers but for the possibility that those answers might transform grief into gratitude, guilt into understanding.
“How could we solve a mystery that’s nearly a century old?”I ask, though part of me is already imagining the possibilities.
“We’re writers,” Lily says, her eyes bright with the kind of excitement that makes her most dangerous and compelling.“We know how to research, how to piece together stories from scattered evidence.And you have firsthand knowledge of everyone involved.”
Looking at her face… animated with purpose, determined to help me find closure I’d stopped believing was possible.I realize that somewhere between critiquing her comma usage and providing supernatural dating advice, this woman has become the most important person in my existence.
And for the first time in nearly a century, I’m not afraid of what that might mean.
Chapter 5
Lily
Thestormarriveslikesomething conjured from the pages of a gothic novel, rolling across Maplewood Grove with a theatrical intensity that makes me wonder if the universe has been reading too many atmospheric romances.Thunder shakes the Victorian’s old bones while lightning transforms my apartment into a series of stark snapshots—furniture appearing and disappearing in brilliant flashes, shadows dancing across walls that seem to breathe with each rumble of celestial percussion.
I’m deep in a scene where Ava finally confronts her fear of vulnerability when the first lightning strike hits close enough to rattle the windows.The lights flicker once, twice, and then surrender entirely to the storm’s dominance, plunging us into the kind of darkness that makes electric civilization feel like a recent and fragile invention.
“How wonderfully atmospheric,” Julian’s voice carries genuine amusement from somewhere near the window.“Nothing quite like authentic period lighting to inspire proper literary endeavors.”
