Page 22 of Ghost With the Most
“Don’t get greedy.”
We clinked glasses. The drink tasted like champagne had made love to a sunbeam and raised the child on honey and mischief. The tightness between my shoulders began to ease. Candlelight shimmered across hanging glass baubles and dangling sigils. Outside, the wind sang through enchanted windchimes on her porch, their notes a little too human-sounding to be comfortable. Somewhere in the back garden, something hooted, then cursed in French.
Zelda leaned back, watching me over the rim of her glass like she already knew what I was going to say. “So,” she said, casual as you please, “ready for your next job?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Already?”
“There’s always a haunting somewhere,” she replied breezily, tipping her glass with a faint clink. “Demonic toaster in Asheville. Haunted hot tub in Miami. Possessed peacock in New Jersey. You name it.”
I should’ve laughed. Normally, I would have. But instead, I felt... dislocated. Like I’d stepped out of my own skin and left the rest of me somewhere back in that funeral home with Beau’s ghost and all the weight he carried. I’d moved him on. Said the words. Closed the circle. Did everything I was supposed to do. But something inside me hadn’t come with. Not all the way. I felt... thin. Not empty, just scraped raw in places I didn’t have names for.
People thought helping ghosts find peace was this beautiful, sacred calling. And maybe it was. But no one ever talked about what it took from you. How you gave a little bit of yourself to every soul you guided over, like breadcrumbs dropped at the mouth of the veil. And now, sitting there in the quiet aftermath, I wasn’t sure who I was without that tug of unfinished business anchoring me to the dead. The idea of jumping straight into another case didn’t thrill me… It unsettled me. Because what if I couldn’t feel normal anymore unless I was chasing grief?
“Did you just say peacock?” I shuddered, thinking about the taxidermied one in Gigi’s shop.
She sipped with an enthusiastic nod. “Extremely aggressive.”
I snorted and shook my head, but the sound felt thin in my throat. “I think I’m done, Zelda.”
“Done like… done for tonight?” she asked, eyes glinting with teasing curiosity. “Or done-done? Like, done with ghosts, curses, weirdly horny spirits, and people who think crystals can solve murder?”
I didn’t answer right away. Just stared into my glass and watched the golden bubbles rise and burst against the rim like tiny exhalations. The silence stretched, soft and heavy. “I don’t know,” I admitted finally. “Something about this one felt… different. It got in deeper than usual.” I didn’t say his name. I didn’t have to. Zelda felt it too — the way his absence still pulsed in the corners of the room, like a breath someone had forgotten to release.
She didn’t crack a joke this time. Just studied me for a beat, then nodded, her voice quieter than usual. “It was different. You gave him peace. That matters.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with the weight of it. “Maybe. But why does it feel like something’s still missing?” The words surprised me even as I said them, raw and unfiltered. “I’m supposed to be the one who moves things on. Spirits. Pain. Closure. That’s what I do. But now that he’s gone…” I trailed off, unable to finish the thought. Because the truth was, I didn’t feel lighter. I felt adrift.
Zelda slid off the counter and crossed the room, her steps as soft as spellwork. Barefoot, grounded, luminous in the candlelight… a woman made of glitter and grief and stubborn love. She placed a hand on my shoulder, warm and anchoring. “You’re allowed to rest,” she said gently. “Even storm-chasers need calm weather sometimes.”
I didn’t respond right away. Just closed my eyes and let the atmosphere wrap around me. The scent of herbs curling in the air, the subtle warmth of bourbon still clinging to the glass, and the faint metallic echo of windchimes through the open window. It all felt like a ghost story with no clear ending. Beau might’ve crossed over, but part of him still lingered. And maybe, just maybe… part of me had gone with him.
She looked at me over the rim of her glass, quirking a brow. “Done done?”
“For now. Maybe longer. Maybe permanently.” The words surprised me as I said them, like I’d plucked them from a place I didn’t usually let myself go. I gestured vaguely toward the ceiling, where the last shimmer of spectral energy still clung to the corners like smoke after a candle's been blown out. “I helped him move on. That’s the part that feels good. Not the theatrics. Not the chaos. Just… the closure.”
Zelda didn’t argue. She didn’t smirk or crack a joke or try to convince me I was wrong. She just nodded, slow and thoughtful, the kind of nod that said she understood too well to make it a thing.
“Your loss, ghost girl,” she said eventually to lighten the mood, but the softness hadn’t vanished from her eyes. “But I get it.”
She turned and rummaged through a drawer I could’ve sworn hadn’t been there five seconds ago. A narrow piece of furniture carved from driftwood, etched with moons and foxes, and lined in something that looked like crushed velvet and smelled faintly of cinnamon and sea spray. From it, she pulled a small velvet pouch. Midnight blue, threaded with silver that shimmered like starlight when she moved. It was tied shut with a knotted bit of twine that glowed faintly with protection magic… subtle, but potent.
She set it gently on the table between us.
“For emergencies,” she said, then shrugged. “Or boredom.”
My brow arched. “What’s in it?”
She gave me that slow, wide grin that usually preceded either disaster or transcendence. “A surprise.”
“Is it going to bite me?”
“Statistically unlikely.”
I picked it up. The velvet was softer than I expected, warm against my skin in a way that didn’t feel natural. Not like fabric warmed by sunlight. More like a pulse. Like the pouch was alive in the quietest, most patient way. It thrummed softly, like it was waiting.
“I don’t take gifts from witches lightly,” I murmured.
“Good, because I don’t give them lightly,” she said, and that was all.
