Page 91 of The Ghost of Ellwood

Love, Your Harvey

By the time I reached the end of the letter, my vision blurred with unshed tears. With a shaking hand, I wiped at my eyes and cleared my throat. The words broke my heart—Harvey losing his kids and moving away, him still missing Theo after seven years, but most of all, it was the intensity of their love that I felt through his grief.

“I tried contacting him so many times,” Theo said, re-taking his spot beside me. “I stood in front of him when he came to the manor, and I screamed for him to look at me. He never did. It took me almost twenty years to be able to control my visibility.”

I folded the letter and returned it to him, watching as he tucked it inside his vest.

“Theo, I…” I looked away. “I understand if you don’t want this anymore.”

“Want what?”

“Me.” Heat spread through my face, and the tips of my ears prickled. “You and Harvey were so in love. I was stupid for thinking you could ever feel that way for me too.”

“Ben, where is this coming from?” Theo grabbed my hand. “I loved Harvey. I still do. But what I feel for you goes beyond that. Harvey and I might’ve been the moon and the stars, but you and I? We’re the sun and all the planets circling it.”

“You’ve been watching too manyNetflixdocumentaries about space.”

“Don’t turn this into a joke,” Theo said, his tone serious. “You mean more to me than I can ever say. For so many years, I prayed I would move on from this life, to see what waited for me on the other side. Now, I find myself thanking God for each day I’m still here. With you.”

More tears surfaced, and I fought to hold them at bay.

“But I see how upset you are,” I managed to say around the lump wedged in my throat. “I shouldn’t have showed you the letters.”

“I’m only upset because Harvey didn’t have the wonderful life I assumed he did.” Theo looked at the stars. “I thought he lived happily with Lillian and the two children. I didn’t know she left him for another man and he was forced to leave town. It pains me to think of him alone and heartbroken.”

“Like you’ve been all these years?”

His dark eyes moved to me. “Precisely. I wouldn’t wish my existence on anyone. Then again, I wouldn’t have met you had I not been trapped here for the past hundred years. A silver lining.”

His confession warmed me despite the chill snaking along my skin.

“Come to bed with me?” I asked, standing from the steps and holding out a hand to him.

He accepted my hand, his body flickering a moment. “Not for sleep, I hope.”

I smiled. “Your inability to tire will probably kill me someday.”

He could literally go on for forever.

“Nonsense.” Theo led me into the house and closed the door. “Get up the stairs and take your clothes off.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered with a smile.

Chapter Seventeen

The book was finished.

I stared at the last sentence, feeling all sorts of things at once: relief, sadness, and pride. Fear. Two and a half months from the day I started writing it, and I had reached the end. It was the fastest I’d ever written a novel, which made the self-doubt even worse.

This book was personal. It meant more to me than any other.

Although most of the content was fictional, I had placed pieces of my life into the pages. It was a ghost story, much like the real one I was living. Alex moved into a haunted mansion, met the spirit of a troubled young man who’d died on the property, and he dove into the search of unraveling the mystery. Other ghosts had appeared in the book, some more sinister than others, and townspeople began to go missing. Amidst it all, Alex fell in love with the ghost.

Their ending had been bittersweet, though. Alex helped the spirit move on.

“What will you title it?” Theo asked, placing a hand on my back as he bent down to read the screen.

“I’m not sure yet.”