Page 62 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf
I don’t know how long I stand there before I hear the soft thump of small boots on gravel.
“Hi, Miss Evie.”
I turn.
Jamie’s bundled in a puffed-up navy jacket, his face half-lost in a scarf three sizes too big. He’s holding a stick, poking a puddle like it might fight back. Rowan trails behind him, coffee in hand, looking far too amused for this early in the day.
“You’re up early,” I say.
Jamie grins. “I’m ghost hunting.”
Rowan raises an eyebrow at me. “Told him the tide brings in good ones after a fog.”
“Cruel,” I mutter.
“Effective,” she says.
Jamie wanders over to the edge, peering down into a tide pool.
“Do you think ghosts are lonely?” he asks, not looking up.
The question slams into me. Not because it’s innocent. But because it’s not.
“I think maybe they used to be people,” I say slowly. “People who got too tired of being misunderstood.”
Jamie nods like that makes all the sense in the world. “Maybe they just need someone to see ‘em.”
I blink fast. “Maybe.”
He shrugs and pokes at a sea snail. “I think if I found one, I’d ask if it wanted to play.”
Behind him, Rowan’s smile fades into something quieter. Something knowing.
They don’t stay long. Rowan makes some excuse about cinnamon buns and cold toes, and Jamie waves with both arms, stick still in hand like a flag. They vanish around the corner, and I’m left with his question echoing in my chest.
Are ghosts lonely?
Or are they just tired of pretending they’re not?
I push off the railing and keep walking, past the newer docks and the fish market, up the road that leads toward the bluff where the older houses live—the ones that still have wind chimes and real shutters and creaking porches no one ever replaces.
My mother’s house used to sit up here.
Used to.
It’s gone now. Sold years ago after the hospital visits and the paperwork and the slow unraveling of everything we never said to each other.
But I remember the fence.
Painted seafoam green. Chipped.
I remember her voice drifting from the garden—singing to basil plants like they were lovers who needed coaxing. I remember how she used to dance in the kitchen, barefoot and wild-eyed, her laughter thick like honey, sticky and sweet and clinging to everything it touched.
And I remember the silence that followed when the world finally took too much from her and didn’t give back.
Love was joy to her.
And terror.
