Page 6 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
ELIAS
T he wind changes just after dusk.
It always does when she’s near.
I feel her before I see her—her footsteps dragging through the sand with all the conviction of a woman who doesn’t want to believe what she already knows. She’s angry. That’s clear in the way the surf pulls harder, the wreck groaning louder as if echoing her mood.
She’s come back to Wrecker’s Bay. Brave or foolish—doesn’t much matter. They’re the same thing, in the end.
I step from the rocks where the tide has half-hidden me all day, letting the sea peel off my shoulders like old skin. I’m stronger now. More here . Each time she draws close, the veil weakens, and the air thickens with salt and memory.
She climbs the broken hull of the Ruthless Maiden like it owes her something. I let her.
I want to see what she does when she finds me already waiting.
And when she does—when she freezes with one boot on a rotted beam and her eyes locked on mine—it’s worth every year I’ve spent bound to this wreck.
She doesn’t scream.
Doesn’t run.
She just stares, jaw clenched, like if she blinks I’ll vanish again.
“You always show up uninvited,” I say, my voice gravel and surf.
Her eyes narrow. “You’re not real.”
I arch a brow. “And yet, you’re talking to me.”
“You’re a hallucination. Stress. Repressed trauma. Maybe I licked mold. I don’t know.”
“If I’m a hallucination, you should really reconsider your subconscious. It’s got a thing for brooding seafarers.”
She bristles. “Okay, no. Nope. I am not flirting with a ghost.”
I smirk. “You just did.”
Lightning cracks somewhere offshore, and she backs off the beam like the wreck just growled.
“This is a dream,” she mutters. “I’ll wake up in my bed and laugh about how I made out with a cursed relic in a foggy-ass town and?—”
“You haven’t made out with anyone yet,” I say, stepping closer. “And trust me, if you had, you wouldn’t be confused about it.”
Her nostrils flare. “God, you’re insufferable.”
“Thank you.”
“Not a compliment.”
“I know.”
She rubs her hands over her face. “Okay. Fine. Let’s say you’re real. What do you want?”
I stop just shy of touching distance. Her presence is a fire I shouldn’t get too close to, but I can’t help myself.
“I want answers,” I say. “Same as you.”
Her laugh is brittle. “Oh yeah? You gonna read my tarot next? Tell me my aura’s stressed?”
“No. I’m going to tell you your father wasn’t just chasing ghosts—he was running from something. And now that something’s chasing you .”
She goes still.
“You knew him?” she asks, quiet now.
I nod. “Jonas Vale. He came here years ago. Carried a map. Talked to the wreck like it had a voice.”
“It does,” she mutters.
“I know,” I say. “I’ve heard it scream.”
She meets my gaze then, the sarcasm bleeding out of her expression. She’s scared. Angry. And underneath all that—curious. That’s the part that’ll get her hurt.
“Who are you?” she finally asks.
“Captain Elias Thorn. Or what's left of him.”
Her mouth moves like she’s tasting the name. She’s heard it. Probably in some dusty journal or a bedtime ghost story.
“That ship,” she says. “It was yours.”
“Still is. In a way.”
“Then what the hell happened to you?”
I pause. The memory’s like smoke—there and gone.
“I was betrayed. Hired to smuggle a relic I didn’t understand. My crew turned on me for it. Blood on the deck, a storm rolling in, and then... nothing. Just the sea. And this wreck.”
“And now?”
“Now, I’m stuck. Bound to the Maiden . Until the relic is destroyed or someone finishes what Jonas started.”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Why me?”
“I don’t know yet. But I think you’re the key.”
“Cute. I actually have a key. Want to try it on your chains?”
“You joke,” I say, “but that key opens something. Something your father feared and I died protecting.”
She swears under her breath and turns away. “No. No, this is above my pay grade. I came back for a funeral and some dusty treasure maps, not to exorcise a hundred-and-fifty-year-old pirate with cheekbones sharp enough to stab me.”
I step forward again, more solid now than I’ve been in decades.
“I don’t need you to believe me,” I say, low and calm. “I need you to help me.”
“Why?”
“Because if you don’t… the wreck won’t be the only thing cursed. The tide’s changing, Sienna. And you’re in the middle of it.”
She exhales hard, staring out toward the sea like it might cough up a better option.
Then she looks at me again.
Eyes like fire meeting storm.
“Fine,” she says. “We make a deal. I help you. You stop haunting me.”
I offer her my hand.
It doesn’t pass through hers.
It touches .
Warm.
Real.
Her fingers close around mine, and the wind dies down.
The sea holds its breath.
The deal is made.
She pulls her hand back first, flexing her fingers like she’s not sure they’ll behave.
“Okay,” she says, glancing at me like I might vanish again. “Ground rules.”
I arch an eyebrow. “We’re making rules now?”
“Damn right we are.” She points a finger at me like I’m a particularly sassy raccoon. “Rule one: no cryptic ghost riddles. If you know something, say it like a human being.”
I smirk. “You’re assuming I remember how.”
She ignores me. “Rule two: if anything tries to eat me—sea monster, cursed artifact, angry mob—you help. None of this ‘watch from the mist’ crap.”
“Agreed.”
“Rule three—when this is done, we’re done. You go your ghostly way, I go mine.”
That part shouldn’t sting.
But it does.
Still, I nod. “Fair.”
We both step back, like distance will make it feel less binding.
“So,” she says, crossing her arms. “Where do we start?”
I gesture to the map tucked under her jacket. “That thing your father left you—it doesn’t just show where he was looking. It shows what he was avoiding .”
Her brow furrows. “The blank spots?”
“The dangerous ones.”
She mutters a curse and pulls it out.
“I swear, if this gets me murdered, I’m haunting you .”
I grin. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
She shoots me a look. Then she turns back toward town, the map rolled tight in her hand and her shoulders squared like she’s preparing for war.
I watch her walk away until the fog swallows her again.
An uneasy alliance.
But it’s more than I’ve had in a very, very long time.