Page 6 of Ghost With the Most
He grinned, slow and wicked, and for the first time I wondered if maybe I wasn’t just unraveling him,but myself, too. He glided closer to the salt circle and crouched, peering at it like it was quaint before poking a ghostly fingertip above the edge. The protection barrier I’d cast rippled in response, making him snatch his hand back like it burned.
“I know I was murdered,” he said finally. “That much is obvious. But how? Why? Who? That’s the part I can’t seem to hold onto. Like trying to catch smoke with your hands.”
“That’s not uncommon,” I murmured, shifting slightly on my knees to ease the pressure. My legs had begun to fall asleep, prickling at the edges where circulation failed and magic hummed. “Spirits sometimes block the trauma. Or someone blocks it for them.”
He tilted his head, watching me again with those pale, unblinking eyes that seemed to see through the veil and everything I didn’t say. “You think you can help me.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“But you think it.”
I sighed and sat back on my heels, fingers brushing over the worn grain of the floorboards inside the salt line. “I think you don’t wear that kind of suit to bed. Which means you were dressed for something important. I think you were charming in life, which means someone probably hated you for it. And I think you’re too anchored here for it to be natural.”
The flicker that passed across his face was subtle. “It’s like... a part of my brain is missing,” he said quietly. “A part of the story I’m not allowed to know.”
“That happens sometimes when there’s magic involved.” I didn’t mean to sound so certain, but the truth of it coated the back of my throat like ash.
His eyes sharpened, catching the light in that uncanny way spirits sometimes do. “Magic?”
“You’re haunting a funeral home in a town so full of magic it hums,” I said, rising to my feet with a slow stretch that popped one of my knees. “Let’s not pretend this is just about unfinished business.”
He leaned in slightly. The barrier between us shimmered, flickering like it was holding its breath. “And what about you, Miss Hearst? You smell of mugwort and Florida water, but you don’t call yourself a witch.”
“I’m not,” I said, too fast.
He smiled again. Like I was a puzzle that had gotten up and walked away from his parlor table before he’d finished it. “No? You speak to the dead. You hold court with candlelight. You command the undead. You sure you’re not lying to yourself?”
That hit a little too close. My spine stiffened instinctively, an old reflex, like muscle memory from a part of my soul that I didn’t use on purpose and didn’t want to examine too closely. My mouth opened, then shut, and I felt heat climb the back of my neck. I didn’t like being seen. Not like that.
“Drop it,” I said, sharper than I meant to.
He did. But the knowing look didn’t leave his eyes.
A loud bang shattered the tension, followed by the unmistakable crash of something ceramic giving up on life. Again.
“Son of a—ZELDA!” I shouted, already turning.
A door at the back of the parlour creaked open and Zelda poked her head in, holding a tray stacked with what I could only assume were cupcakes. Purple frosting. Little bone-shaped sprinkles. Possibly humming with latent hexes.
“Snack?” she asked innocently.
“Did you just throw something?”
“No. I launched something. My teleportation charm malfunctioned. Happens to the best of us. Cupcake?”
I stared at her.
“They’re gluten-free,” she offered in a sing-song tone, like that would solve the physics of whatever had just exploded. Then her gaze fell to Tall, Dark, and Deceased. “Well hello, vintage Armani.”
Beau watched the exchange with visible amusement, arms crossed, weight shifted slightly to one side like he’d never leaned against anything that didn’t want him there. “She’s dramatic. I like her.”
“I’m sure you do,” I muttered, rubbing my temples. “Go away, Zelda.”
“Rude. Fine. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me. Or if you suddenly crave poorly-baked goods and great love advice.” She waggled her eyebrows pointedly in the direction of the handsome ghost and then disappeared again.
I brushed away the blush her words had conjured, trying to tamp it down before it could betray me. The silence that followed wasn’t just quiet… it settled, stretching out like a long exhale from somewhere I couldn’t see, filling the space between us with weight. I turned back to Beau. He was watching me with that unreadable expression again, eyes steady and still, like a man trying to memorize a photograph. Neither of us moved. Neither of us blinked. For a heartbeat, it felt like we were caught in the same current, two stones on opposite banks, waiting for the water to decide which of us it wanted to carry away.
“Well?” I asked finally, folding my arms across my chest as if that could keep out the sudden chill sneaking under my skin. My shiver wasn’t about temperature. The room hadn’t shifted. I had. His presence did that to me. A quiet, relentless gravity that pressed against my walls without ever pushing. “Don’t suppose I can convince you to move on so I can go home?”
