Page 7 of Ghoul Me, Maybe

SIENNA

I dream in salt and candlelight.

Not the flickering electric kind, but real flame—fat wax drips, low shadows, the kind that licks the walls like it’s alive. The air is heavy with pitch and brine, and the boards beneath my feet creak with a rhythm I recognize in my bones but couldn’t name in waking life.

I’m standing in a ship cabin. Not mine. Not real.

But his .

The walls are close. There’s a map pinned to the desk, corners curling from damp and age. A compass spins uselessly next to it, and on the wall, a coat—long, worn, with salt-slick edges. It smells like old storms.

The door flies open.

Elias stumbles in, breath ragged, coat torn. His eyes dart around like he’s expecting a knife to the ribs. And judging by the way his hand drops to his belt—no sword, just a rusted dagger—I think he is.

“Thorn,” someone hisses behind him. “You’ve got to move—now!”

He spins, wild and too late. The voice comes from a man with a sea-dog’s face and hands that shake more from guilt than fear.

“What did you do?” Elias growls.

“I didn’t—he said—he promised?—”

Then the ship shudders.

Wood cracks.

Water pours through a split in the floorboards, icy and violent.

Elias looks at me.

Dead in the eyes, like he knows I’m there.

“Sienna.”

The dream jerks like a pulled thread.

Suddenly I’m underwater. Cold. Weightless. Screaming without sound.

And he’s gasping.

One breath. Two. Blood in the water. Eyes wide. Reaching for something just out of frame.

For me.

Then darkness.

I wake up soaked in sweat, tangled in sheets that feel like sails. My chest is heaving like I ran a mile through sand, and my muscles ache like I did more than just dream that fall.

The room smells like salt.

I blink blearily toward the window. It’s shut tight. No rain. No waves. No excuse.

I sit up—and hiss.

There’s a bruise blooming across my ribs. Purple and green like a storm cloud. I press it, and it sings a song of pain right down to my spine.

“What the hell…” I mutter, peeling back the covers.

There’s another one on my thigh. Faint, but real. Definitely wasn’t there when I passed out last night.

I stumble into the bathroom and flick on the light. My face is pale. Eyes bloodshot. Lips chapped like I spent hours in the wind.

I splash water on my face and lean into the mirror.

“Okay, this is not normal. Even for me .”

My phone buzzes from the nightstand. One missed call from Mira. Three unread texts.

MIRA: You up yet?

MIRA: Call me the second you wake.

MIRA: I mean it, Vale. Don’t make me hex your ass.

I text back: On my way. Something’s wrong.

Mira doesn’t wait for me to knock.

She opens the door in a flannel robe and fingerless gloves, holding a steaming mug in one hand and a wand-shaped thermometer in the other.

“Get in,” she barks. “You look like a ghost and smell like seaweed.”

“Charming,” I mutter, stepping inside. “I dreamed again.”

She spins, eyes locking on mine. “How bad?”

“Ship cabin. Storm. Elias bleeding. I woke up with bruises.”

She curses in three languages and yanks me by the wrist into her back room. The walls are covered in sigils and dried herbs. There’s a half-burned candle in a jar marked “Memory Ward - Lavender & Sage.”

“Take off your shirt.”

“You’re going to have to buy me dinner first.”

“Sienna.”

“Fine, fine.” I peel off my sweatshirt.

Mira lets out a low whistle. “That’s a phantom bruise. You didn’t get that from tossing in your sleep.”

“No kidding.”

She presses her thumb gently to the edge. “That’s deep magic. You’re feeling what happened to him.”

“Why now?”

“Because you touched the coin. Because you made a deal. Because maybe you’re the only one who can carry what’s coming.”

“Not ominous at all.”

She meets my eyes. “You have to stop going to sleep near the wreck.”

“Noted. Unfortunately, it’s everywhere.”

She nods. “Then we find a way to protect you.”

I sit down at her cluttered desk, heart still thudding like a warning bell.

“He said my name,” I whisper. “In the dream. Just before he... before it ended.”

Mira looks grim. “He’s starting to remember.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Maybe. But if he remembers too much too fast, it could burn out what’s left of him. Or you.”

I glance down at the bruises, purple maps of pain I didn’t earn.

“Then we slow it down,” I say. “We find the relic. We end this.”

Mira hands me a charm—a glass vial filled with ash and salt, strung on a black cord.

“Wear this,” she says. “It’ll ground you. Keep your soul from drifting too far when the dreams hit.”

I slip it over my head, and it falls heavy against my chest.

“Thanks,” I say quietly.

She reaches out and squeezes my hand.

“I got you. Just… don’t lie to me. Not again.”

I squeeze back. “I won’t.”

Not this time.

Later that night, I sit in bed with the charm around my neck and the map spread across my blanket.

The bruises ache like they’ve been lit from the inside.

Mira gave me tea that’s supposed to knock me out without dragging me into dreamland, but it tastes like swamp water and regret, and I’m still very much awake.

The coin lies on my nightstand. Quiet. Innocent-looking.

“You better not pull any haunted nonsense tonight,” I mutter.

“I don’t think it listens to threats,” a low voice says behind me.

I jump, twisting toward the sound.

Elias stands in the corner of my room, shadows sticking to him like another layer of skin. His coat’s damp. His boots drip on the hardwood. And somehow, he looks less see-through than the last time I saw him.

“You need to start using a door,” I snap.

“You need stronger wards.”

I rub my face. “What do you want?”

He steps closer, gaze flicking over the map, the bruises, the charm Mira gave me.

“You dreamed again.”

“No, I ran into a doorknob. Twice. ”

He doesn’t laugh. “It’s starting.”

“What is?”

“The bond.”

I blink at him. “Excuse me?”

“The relic… it wasn’t just cursed. It was crafted. To bind souls. It’s how it kept me here. How it’s keeping me here. And now it’s using you.”

Mira’s words echo in my skull—tethered. Dangerous. Unnatural.

I cross my arms. “It’s not magic. It’s trauma. Nightmares. I’ve got a long, broken history and my brain’s just sorting through the mess.”

Elias says nothing.

Just closes the space between us in three silent steps.

Then he reaches out.

I flinch—but he stops just short of touching me, fingers hovering a breath away from my collarbone.

“If I touch you,” he says, “you’ll feel it. You’ll know .”

I want to call bullshit.

I want to laugh in his face and tell him he’s full of seaweed and melodrama.

But I don’t.

Because something in his voice sounds like truth wrapped in heartbreak.

I nod once.

He presses his hand lightly to my chest, right over the charm.

The room disappears.

There’s a jolt—not pain, not pleasure, but recognition . Like the first gasp after surfacing. Like falling and flying at the same time. My body goes hot, then cold, then his . Like we’re two storm fronts colliding.

When he pulls away, I’m gasping.

“You felt it,” he says quietly.

I nod again.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I did.”