Page 76 of Ghoul as a Cucumber

As he’s reaching for me, Edward’s hands slip right through my arm, and he falls through the table and ends up on his hands and knees. “Owwww. It hurts so bad.” He rolls on his side, clutching his shoulder where it took the brunt of his table fall. “Why did I just fall through that table?”

“Because you’re still a ghost.” I drop his silver cord. Tears spring in my eyes. “I’m sorry, Edward. It’s not working. You’re not being surrounded by light the way Pax and Ambrose were. Uncovering your murderer wasn’t your unfinished business after all.”

“But…but it must be!” Ambrose’s voice squeaks. “We puzzled it all out. We solved the mystery. What could be more important to Edward than figuring out who killed him?”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t discovering my oldest friend betrayed me,” Edward says drily as he gets to his feet and swipes invisible dust off his ghost flouncy shirt.

“Edward…” I step toward him, but the grim look in his eyes stops me in his tracks. All we’ve given him is the cruel words in Hugh’s letter, and he will internalise them, turn them over and over until they are part of who he believes himself to be.

We were trying to help, but we’ve made things so much worse.

“It’s okay. We’ll keep looking.” Ambrose thumps his fist on the sofa arm. “There must be something we missed. We’ll talk to the other ghosts, maybe there are other spirits around who knew Edward in real life, and they can help us—”

“Don’t concern yourself.” Edward snaps to his feet. “I am perfectly happy to remain a spectre.”

He’s not happy, though. He’s miserable, and he’s hopeless at hiding it.

“Edward—” Tears prick in my eyes. “Don’t be like that.”

“I’m being only myself, Brianna.” Edward steps away, his voice remote, devoid of the emotion that I know is welling inside him. “If you’ll excuse me, it’s late, and I should turn in for the night. While I still have a boudoir to myself, I intend to enjoy it.”

With that, he sweeps off. I look over at Ambrose. He pretends to be immersed with a loose thread in his greatcoat, but I can see from his wobbling lip that he’s completely crushed.

“Forgive me,” he says without raising his head. “I have made things worse.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I was socertain…” he whimpers. “We solved the mystery. We found Edward’s murderer. Thatmustbe his unfinished business.”

“Maybe we were wrong about Hugh?”

Ambrose screws his face up. “But…it doesn’t feel wrong, does it? The letter, Hugh’s final words to Edward, Hugh’s guilt…they must all be connected.”

“Or maybe there’s something Edward’s soul seeks more than the truth about his murder?”

“Perhaps…” Ambrose strokes his chin. “Yes, maybe that’s it! We must look deeper. Maybe there’s a clue in one of Edward’s poems. Although it is a great trial to immerse myself in such self-aggrandizing drivel, I shall get to work immediately on my analysis.”

“But, Ambrose—”

Our night together?

But Ambrose is muttering ideas to himself as he gathers his cane. He’s already too wrapped up in saving Edward to remember our plans. I try to stamp down my disappointment. He’s doing this because he is kind, and good, and wonderful. But it stings.

With a quick kiss on the cheek, Ambrose saunters off to ride on the trolley on the back of Pax’s bike to Mina’s, leaving me with an aching pussy and a delicate heart.

I place my head in my hands. “I don’t know what to do about Edward.”

“We could throw him into a sack with a monkey, a snake, and a chicken, and then throw the sack into the duck pond?” Pax says helpfully.

“What?”

“What?” Pax shrugs. “It is calledpoena cullei, the penalty of the sack, and it is a popular Roman punishment. It’s quite funny to watch. We all take bets on which animal deals the killing blow. Although I guess it wouldn’t work on a ghost.”

“That’s very helpful, Pax, thank you. But I’d like to keep Edward around.”

Pax tilts his head to the side. “As…a boyfriend?”

Not you, too. I can’t deal with any more trouble from ghosts or ex-ghosts tonight.

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