Page 8 of Gone for the Ghost (Maplewood Grove #3)
Julian
The aftermath of our merger haunts me more profoundly than ninety-eight years of death ever managed to accomplish.
For those impossible moments when my consciousness flowed through Lily’s living form, I experienced resurrection in ways that transcended mere physical presence.
Her heartbeat became mine, her courage coursed through spiritual veins I’d thought permanently emptied, her fierce protectiveness merged with my own territorial instincts to create something more powerful than either of us could achieve in isolation.
But beyond the intoxicating return to sensation, beyond the miracle of occupying space in the living world again, I felt something infinitely more dangerous—the exquisite completeness of being truly known by another soul.
Through our merged consciousness, I experienced Lily’s feelings for me with devastating clarity.
Not just affection or gratitude for supernatural assistance but love—deep and transformative, the kind that rewrites your understanding of what happiness means and makes every other connection feel like pale approximation.
She loves my sarcastic commentary and protective instincts, the way I challenge her writing while accepting her exactly as she is.
She loves that our partnership feels natural despite its impossibility, that arguing about punctuation somehow became the foundation for the most meaningful relationship of her life.
The knowledge should fill me with joy. Instead, it terrifies me more completely than anything I’ve encountered in nearly a century of existence.
Because I felt my own response with equal clarity, and it’s everything I swore I’d never risk again.
Three days have passed since the storm, and I’ve spent them in careful retreat, pulling back into the translucent shadows that allow observation without genuine engagement.
I materialize only when absolutely necessary—when Lily asks direct questions about her writing, when she needs assistance with some practical matter that requires supernatural intervention.
Otherwise, I maintain the kind of polite distance that suggests helpful cohabitation rather than the dangerous intimacy we discovered during our merger.
I tell myself this withdrawal is wisdom, the mature recognition that some connections are too costly to pursue.
Lily deserves better than the complications that come from loving someone who exists outside the natural order.
She deserves Blake’s uncomplicated affection, his ability to offer her a complete life with physical presence and social legitimacy.
But the truth is simpler and more selfish. I’m protecting myself from the devastating possibility of loss that caring for someone always carries in its wake.
Victoria’s disappearance nearly destroyed me once.
The agony of loving someone completely and then losing them without warning or explanation, the endless questions that multiply in the absence of answers, the slow dissolution of everything I thought I understood about connection and trust—it took death itself to free me from that particular torture.
Allowing myself to care for Lily with equivalent depth would be inviting the same destruction, and I’m not certain my spirit could survive another such fracturing.
Better to maintain careful distance now while I still possess the strength to enforce boundaries between us.
Better to preserve what we have—friendship, intellectual companionship, the safe territory of mutual respect—than risk everything in pursuit of something that could only end in heartbreak for us both.
The rational argument sounds convincing even to me, which should probably be the first warning that I’m lying to myself with impressive sophistication.
“You’re different,” Lily observes from her position at the kitchen table, where she’s ostensibly working on her manuscript but has spent the last twenty minutes stealing glances in my direction. “Distant. Like you’re trying to fade away even when you’re visible.”
The accuracy of her observation cuts deeper than comfortable. Of course she’s noticed my retreat. Lily possesses the kind of emotional intelligence that makes her an exceptional writer and an impossible person to deceive about matters of the heart.
“I’m simply providing you with the space necessary for productive work,” I say, maintaining the carefully neutral tone I’ve adopted whenever we discuss anything more personal than comma placement. “My commentary can be… overwhelming… when applied too consistently.”
“Your commentary has never bothered me before.”
“Perhaps it should have.”
The words emerge more sharply than intended, carrying implications I don’t entirely understand myself.
Lily sets down her coffee mug—which still contains too much cream, a domestic detail I have no business caring about—and turns to face me with the expression of someone trying to solve a puzzle whose pieces keep shifting when she’s not looking directly at them.
“Julian,” she says carefully, “are you upset about what happened during the storm?”
The question strikes like a physical blow, forcing me to confront exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid examining.
Am I upset about our merger? About experiencing the most profound connection of my existence, living or otherwise?
About discovering that the woman I’ve been trying to keep at a safe emotional distance cares for me in ways that make solitude feel like self-imposed exile?
“Not upset,” I say, which is technically accurate while being completely inadequate. “Concerned about the implications.”
“What implications?”
How do I explain that loving her feels like standing at the edge of a cliff, exhilarated by the view but terrified of the fall?
That every moment of happiness she brings me is shadowed by the knowledge that I have nothing substantial to offer in return?
That caring for someone who deserves a full life with a living partner feels like the height of supernatural selfishness?
“You’re alive, Lily,” I say finally, settling on the simplest version of our impossible situation. “You have a future, possibilities, the chance to build something meaningful with someone who can offer you more than philosophical discussions and transparent companionship.”
“What if I don’t want something meaningful with someone else?”
The question hangs between us like a bridge I don’t dare cross, weighted with implications that could reshape everything we’ve carefully constructed around our supernatural cohabitation.
The hope in her voice makes me want to reach for her and retreat simultaneously, to claim what she’s offering and protect her from the complications that accepting it would create.
“You should want that,” I tell her, though the words taste like ash. “You deserve someone who can take you to dinner, meet your friends, build a life that exists in the daylight rather than the shadows.”
“Someone like Blake.”
“Someone exactly like Blake.” The admission costs me something essential, but it’s also the truth she needs to hear. “He’s everything you moved here hoping to find: stable, reliable, capable of offering you the complete life I cannot.”
“And what if what you can offer is what I actually want?”
Her persistence reveals the heart of our dilemma with painful clarity.
What I can offer—intellectual companionship, shared creative passion, the kind of emotional intimacy that transcends physical limitations—might indeed be what she wants.
But wanting something and being wise to pursue it are entirely different considerations.
“What I can offer,” I say quietly, “is limited by the fundamental impossibility of our circumstances. I’m dead, Lily. However much we might wish otherwise, that reality imposes certain constraints on what we can build together.”
The words sound logical, responsible, exactly what someone should say when faced with the temptation to pursue connection that defies natural law.
But as they leave my lips, I realize I’m not just explaining practical limitations.
I’m talking myself out of the first genuine happiness I’ve known in nearly a century.
Lily stares at me for a long moment, her expression cycling through confusion, hurt, and finally something that looks disturbingly like understanding.
“You’re scared,” she says, and it’s not a question.
The observation strikes with the force of absolute truth, cutting through all my careful rationalizations to the naked fear that drives them.
Yes, I’m scared. Terrified, actually. Caring for Victoria had been the greatest joy and deepest wound of my existence, and losing her had taught me that love and devastation often arrive in the same package.
“Of course I’m scared,” I admit, since denial would be pointless with someone who’s witnessed my emotional landscape from the inside. “Caring for you means risking everything I’ve spent nearly a century learning to protect.”
“What if it also means gaining everything you’ve spent nearly a century mourning?”
Her question reframes our entire dilemma, suggesting that my fear of loss might be preventing me from recognizing the possibility of genuine restoration.
But restoration requires hope, and hope requires the courage to risk heartbreak again.
I’m not certain I possess such courage, however much I might want to.
Days pass in this strange limbo of careful distance and growing tension.
Lily continues working on her manuscript, which has become extraordinary under our collaboration, though I can barely bring myself to acknowledge that truth.
Her writing has gained depth and authenticity that speaks to her growing understanding of complex emotion and genuine human connection.
When she receives the call from her agent, I’m hovering at the edges of the living room, close enough to hear but far enough to maintain the illusion of detachment.