Page 9 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
SIENNA
I don’t know what compels me to go back to the harbor at sunrise. Maybe it’s the coin. Maybe it’s the photo. Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m running on thirty-six hours of bad sleep and spite.
The fishermen are already out. Their boats slice through the morning mist like blades through cream, nets trailing behind like ghost stories waiting to happen. I nod at a few of them—they don’t nod back. Lowtide Bluffs never forgets.
The statue near the docks has always creeped me out.
It’s this weatherworn thing carved from dark granite, shaped like a hooded sailor holding a compass to the sky.
The face is too smooth, the expression too blank, and the whole thing looks like it’s waiting to come alive and lecture me about nautical safety.
Dad used to mutter to it like it was a confessional.
I never thought to check it before.
There’s something in the way the moss grows at its base. A faint outline—square, precise. Hidden in plain sight like a secret compartment waiting for the right level of obsession to pry it open.
I kneel and run my fingers along the seam. The stone shifts under my palm, groaning with age. Inside, wrapped in waxed cloth and just barely not falling apart, is a folded scrap of parchment. Damp, stained, and pulsing with old magic.
“Okay,” I whisper, glancing around. No one’s watching.
I sit on the edge of the dock and unwrap it.
The handwriting hits me like a gut punch. It’s jagged but deliberate. Ink faded to a tired brown, corners torn like it survived something that didn’t.
March 12th
They don’t know I saw them. Kerren and Dace whispering under deck, fingers too twitchy to be just superstition.
The object—whatever that bastard Greaves paid me to carry—it’s humming louder now.
I’ve ordered it sealed in the hold, but the crew’s eyes change every time they pass it.
Like it’s calling them. It was never meant to touch land.
The moment it does, it wakes. And we all burn.
My heart skips. My throat’s dry.
Kerren and Dace—those are names from Dad’s notes. He wrote them in the margins like puzzle pieces, never explained.
And Greaves —that’s new. Or maybe just old enough that no one dared speak it aloud anymore.
I reread the final line again.
It was never meant to touch land.
Well, shit. That ship sailed—literally and metaphorically.
I hear footsteps behind me and shove the page into my jacket, spinning around fast enough to make my vision tilt.
It’s a woman in a long yellow coat and work boots, hair braided tight and tucked into a fisherman’s cap. She looks about sixty but stands like someone who’s never lost a fight.
“You digging up curses again?” she asks.
“Depends,” I say. “You offering an exorcism or a shovel?”
She snorts. “Neither. Just wondering if you know what you’re playing with.”
“Who’s asking?”
“Name’s Margery. Used to run the harbor patrol until the town decided ghost lights and ferry tales didn’t need supervision.”
I narrow my eyes. “Did you know Jonas Vale?”
She nods slowly. “Everyone did. He was the kind of man who made people believe in monsters.”
“Were they wrong?”
“No.”
We stare at each other for a beat. The wind picks up, sending spray against my cheeks like cold fingers.
She jerks her chin toward the statue. “You find what he left?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Yeah, you do.” Her voice is low. “You’ve got the look. The eyes of someone who’s just seen the start of the real story.”
She turns to go but pauses. “You come across the name Greaves again, you run.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s not dead enough.”
That sends a chill crawling up my spine.
“Wait,” I call after her. “What does that mean?”
She doesn’t answer.
Just disappears into the fog like she was never there.
Back in my room, I lay the page out next to the map and Dad’s journal. I scribble notes in the margins, trying to draw connections that keep sliding out of reach. The relic—whatever it is—didn’t just bind Elias. It corrupted his crew. It wanted to be found.
Dad knew. Of course he did.
He left this page like a breadcrumb.
And now I’m knee-deep in a storm that’s been building for over a century.
I run my fingers over Elias’s name in the log.
And I feel the pull again.
Like the tide knows my name.
Later that night, the page sits between us like a loaded pistol.
I don’t say anything when I pull it from my jacket and lay it on the table. My eyes lock with his, gauging his reaction. I’m not sure if he’ll bolt, scream, or combust.
“The ink. The words. The names,” he says, looking over it. “I can still smell the mildew of the ship hold. Still hear the whisper of boots on oiled planks, Kerren’s voice low and snake-slick as he lied to my face, knife behind his back.”
For a moment it seems he’s stuck in some far away place, quietly contemplating, and then?—
“Greaves,” he growls.
I flinch.
“That bastard…” His voice scrapes through his throat like it’s being ripped from stone. “He paid me to transport the relic. Told me it was just enchanted cargo. Didn’t say it was cursed—or sentient—or that it talked when you got too close.”
My vision doubles. The room warps. The bond pulls us tight, and heat flares through my limbs.
The table rattles, and Elias doubles over, clenching his fists like he’s in pain.
I leap to my feet. “Elias—hey—what’s happening?”
“Too much,” he snarls. “Too fast?—”
And then he collapses.
Not like mist.
Like a man.
He hits the floor hard, shoulder striking wood.
Spectral light rolls off him in waves, flickering between blue and violet, like lightning trapped in flesh.
I kneel beside him, hand gently pressed against his chest. His heart—his heart —pounds once. Just once. And then silence.
“El,” I whisper. “Can you hear me?”
He manages a nod.
The light fades.
For a moment, he looks alive.