Page 10 of Gone for the Ghost (Maplewood Grove #3)

Lily

Organizing should be mechanical: fold, stack, seal, repeat until a life becomes manageable.

Instead, every item I touch carries the weight of shared memory, each piece of clothing or book or random household object transformed into evidence of the partnership I thought I was building with someone who apparently saw me as a temporary assignment rather than a permanent fixture.

The coffee mug Julian always criticized sits on the counter, still bearing traces of this morning’s too-sweet brew.

The notebooks filled with story ideas we developed together stack beside my laptop like archaeological evidence of collaboration that felt significant but was apparently just marking time until he could complete whatever cosmic task I represented.

My romance novels—the ones he initially dismissed as literary dreck before grudgingly admitting they understood something about hope he’d forgotten—wait in neat piles, no longer needing to share shelf space with his invisible presence.

Everything looks smaller without the possibility of his commentary, as if Julian’s opinions had been expanding the very dimensions of domestic life.

I’ve been avoiding the closet for three hours, finding increasingly creative reasons to organize other spaces first. The kitchen cabinets have been thoroughly reorganized.

My desk drawers now contain the kind of precision arrangement that would make Julian’s control-freak heart proud, if he possessed either heart or pride in my accomplishments anymore.

But eventually, procrastination runs out of territory to occupy, and I’m left standing before the space we shared with supernatural civility and growing emotional investment.

The closet feels different without Julian’s presence.

Not empty exactly, but diminished, like a stage after the performance has ended and the lights have dimmed.

My clothes hang beside invisible spaces where his formal attire once materialized, creating gaps that speak to absence more eloquently than any direct accusation could manage.

I’m reaching for a dress I wore to our first farmers market expedition when my fingers encounter something unexpected behind the back panel—paper, aged and fragile, tucked into a space that predates my occupancy by nearly a century.

The hiding place is so carefully concealed, I might never have discovered it if Julian’s departure hadn’t made me desperate to find any remaining trace of his existence.

The paper unfolds with the delicate resistance of something that’s been waiting decades for attention, revealing handwriting that makes my heart lurch with recognition.

Julian’s penmanship, but different from the quick annotations he scrawled across my manuscripts when he deigned to materialize long enough to do so—this is formal, careful, the kind of script reserved for documents that matter.

My Dearest Victoria,

The salutation stops my breathing entirely.

This is it—the unfinished love letter Julian mentioned during his confession about Victoria’s disappearance, the words he never got to complete before illness claimed him.

I settle onto the closet floor, handling the paper like it might dissolve if I breathe too harshly, and read the declaration that explains everything about Julian’s capacity for love and his terror of losing it again.

I find myself struggling to articulate what you’ve brought to my existence, though perhaps the inadequacy of language is itself revealing.

Before you, I moved through life with the careful precision of someone who believed meaning came from maintaining proper form rather than risking genuine feeling.

You’ve shown me that my wealth and position aren’t accidents of birth to be maintained through careful social navigation.

They’re tools I can use to matter, to contribute something meaningful to the world beyond my own comfort.

Through your work, your causes, your complete refusal to accept injustice as inevitable, you’ve taught me what it means to live with purpose.

The plans we’ve made together—the theater we’ll fund, the voices we’ll amplify, the systems we’ll challenge—they represent more than political activism.

They’re evidence that love can become a force for transformation, that two people who see each other clearly can create change that transcends their individual limitations.

The letter continues, Julian’s feelings for Victoria pouring across the page with the kind of raw honesty that makes my chest ache in sympathy.

He describes her fearlessness, her integrity, the way she challenged his assumptions and expanded his understanding of what a relationship could accomplish.

But underneath the celebration of Victoria’s qualities, I recognize something deeper—Julian’s amazement at being chosen by someone extraordinary, his wonder that love could inspire him to become worthy of such choice.

If something separates us—and I fear it might, given the dangerous nature of the work we’ve undertaken—I need you to know that loving you has been the greatest privilege of my existence.

Not because you’re perfect but because you’ve shown me what it means to be fully alive, to care about something larger than personal comfort, to believe that individual actions can contribute to meaningful change.

Whatever forces might conspire against us, I want you to remember that you’ve already won the most important battle. You’ve proven that love can be revolutionary, that two people who refuse to compromise their principles can build something beautiful despite the world’s resistance.

You’ve made me better than I ever imagined possible. You’ve made me—

And there it stops. Mid-sentence, mid-thought, like Julian’s hand simply couldn’t hold the pen anymore.

The incompleteness feels like a physical wound, this declaration of love cut short by mortality and circumstance, leaving questions that have echoed through ninety-eight years of supernatural existence.

But as I sit holding Julian’s unfinished words, something clicks into place with the force of revelation.

This letter isn’t just about Victoria. It’s about Julian’s pattern of loving completely and then losing catastrophically, his conviction that caring deeply inevitably leads to devastating separation.

Victoria disappeared before he could finish expressing his feelings.

Now he’s disappeared before I could finish understanding mine.

History doesn’t have to repeat itself, especially when you recognize the pattern and possess the courage to write a different ending.

I retrieve a pen from my purse, my hands trembling with something between nerves and determination. If Julian couldn’t complete his declaration to Victoria, maybe I can complete it for him—not replacing his words but adding to them and bridging the gap between what was and what might be.

—you’ve made me understand that love doesn’t end with loss. It transforms, evolves, finds new expressions and new objects worthy of its intensity. Victoria, wherever your spirit has found peace, know that what you and Julian shared was real and precious and worth every risk you took to protect it.

My handwriting looks stark against Julian’s elegant script, modern urgency contrasting with vintage formality, but somehow the combination feels right—past and present in dialogue rather than competition.

To whoever finds this letter: some connections transcend the boundaries we think define possibility. Love doesn’t diminish when shared across time or circumstance. It multiplies, creating space for what was and what might be without forcing them into competition.

Julian, if these words somehow reach you, know that Victoria gave you a gift beyond the love you shared.

She taught you how to love completely, how to choose connection over safety, how to let someone transform you through the simple act of being seen.

Don’t let her sacrifice become your prison.

Don’t let the fear of loss prevent you from recognizing that some risks are worth taking precisely because they might not succeed.

The words flow faster now, my heart speaking directly through my pen without consulting my rational mind for approval.

I love you. Not as replacement for what you lost, but as continuation of what you learned.

I love your sarcastic commentary and protective instincts, the way you challenge me to be better while accepting exactly who I am.

I love that you make creating stories feel like the most important work in the world, that arguing about punctuation somehow became the foundation for the deepest partnership I’ve ever known.

Choose to be present instead of protected. Choose the woman who’s here now, who sees who you really are and wants that person—complicated history and all. Choose to believe that some forms of love are strong enough to transcend every limitation, including the ones we place on ourselves.

Victoria taught you that you could love completely. Let me teach you that you can love again.

Love always,

Lily

I read the completed letter aloud, my voice growing stronger as I reach the words I added, speaking to both Victoria’s memory and Julian’s presence with equal conviction.

The air in the closet shifts as I read, growing warmer despite the autumn evening, charged with the kind of energy that suggests something fundamental is changing in the space between possible and impossible.

“Choose to be present instead of protected,” I repeat, the words carrying more weight than their syllables should be able to bear. “Choose the woman who’s here now.”

The temperature shifts again, and for a moment, the apartment feels full in ways that have nothing to do with furniture or belongings. Something stirs in the corners of perception—not quite visible, not quite audible, but unmistakably there.

Then, so quiet I almost miss it, Julian’s voice whispers my name.

“Lily.”

Not sarcastic or teasing or filtered through the careful distance he’s maintained since our merger. Just my name, spoken with the kind of wonder reserved for miracles you’d stopped believing were possible.

“Julian?” I whisper back, looking around the closet. “Are you here?”

The air shimmers, and suddenly he’s there—not translucent this time, but solid, real, kneeling beside me on the closet floor with an expression of such profound gratitude that it takes my breath away.

His blue eyes are bright with something that looks suspiciously like tears he shouldn’t be able to shed.

“You finished it,” he says softly, reaching out to touch the letter with reverent fingers. “You completed what I couldn’t.”

“Julian, how are you…”

“Love,” he says simply, as if that explains everything about supernatural manifestation and the temporary suspension of otherworldly limitations. “Love makes its own rules.”

Before I can ask what he means, his hand cups my face with warmth that feels impossible and absolutely real.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and then he’s kissing me—lips soft and solid against mine, carrying the taste of possibility and the promise of connection that transcends every boundary I thought existed between living and dead.

The kiss is gentle, reverent, filled with everything he couldn’t say during our weeks of careful distance. It’s gratitude and love and goodbye all wrapped into one perfect moment that feels both eternal and achingly brief.

When he pulls back, his thumb traces my cheek with tenderness that makes my heart race. “You’ve given me something I thought was lost forever,” he says. “The courage to hope.”

“Julian, don’t go,” I start, but he’s already beginning to fade, becoming translucent again and then transparent.

“Some stories require patience,” he says with that familiar sardonic smile, though there’s warmth in it now instead of distance. “Trust the process, love.”

And then, just before he vanishes completely, he winks—that same infuriating, charming expression that first made me think he might be more than just a grumpy ghost with opinions about my coffee consumption.

The closet falls silent, but it’s different now—charged with possibility instead of hollow with loss. I fold the letter carefully, tucking it into my purse next to the contract that will launch my writing career, next to all the evidence of the life I’m building through courage rather than safety.

Maybe I’m imagining things. Maybe completing Julian’s letter to Victoria was just my way of processing grief, finding closure through creative expression rather than spiritual communication.

Or maybe some stories are powerful enough to rewrite their own endings when someone finally has the courage to say what needs to be said, to choose love over fear, to believe that the heart knows possibilities the mind hasn’t learned to calculate.

I guess I’ll find out.

But as I finish packing, leaving space for hope in boxes that could just as easily carry disappointment, I find myself humming something that sounds suspiciously like a love song.

Because sometimes the most revolutionary act is believing that impossible things become possible when you’re brave enough to love them into existence.

And if anyone deserves that kind of revolutionary love, it’s a century-old ghost who taught me what partnership means and a Broadway actress who loved him enough to disappear to keep him safe.

Some stories end with separation. Others end with the courage to write new chapters, even when you can’t see how the plot might resolve.

I’m betting on the second kind. I’m betting on us.