The Ghost and the Shore
A drowned girl haunted the village by the sea.
The girl had no name, for ghosts rarely ever did. She had no face, for ghosts rarely ever had those either. Her shape was an ephemeral thing, made of ever-shifting mist—vague impressions of a sailcloth gown, emaciated limbs, hair black as an oyster’s shell. All her edges indistinct, like a painting dipped in water. Few ever glimpsed her, but those who did only ever did so in periphery—in shadow, in moonlight, in hissing blasts of sea-spray. Fleeting enough that they could convince themselves that what they’d glimpsed had been nothing. Eerie enough to leave them with a prickling sense of unease; a feeling like frost sinking into the marrow of their bones.
From the village chapel to the courtyard, from its glittering glass storefronts to its shadow-swept alleyways—the girl wandered. She waited. But time and time again, she found herself lingering by the village’s shoreline, watching the sea-foam where it dissolved against the sand. To dissolve, to disintegrate, to melt away into nothing—it was what the girl wanted. What every ghost longed for, more than anything.
***
What did the drowned girl remember about her life? Nothing but fragments—the scent of bracken, a mother’s lullaby, rough hands dragging her out to sea. Fleeting moments of tenderness, so viciously washed away by the water that’d drowned her. She remembered enough to know that her life had been one of more cruelty than kindness. She remembered enough to know that those who died mercifully were rarely granted the power of haunting. And so it was that she learned to haunt with a vengeance:
First she selected her victims. A drunk who leered at the village barmaid. A blacksmith who left his wife speckled with bruises. Men with darkness, men with a hunger, men with malice calcifying the chambers of their heart. These men, she gifted with a rattled door in the dead of night. A creak in a floorboard, a shattered drinking glass. Windows frosted up even in broad daylight, painted with the oceanic chill of her breath. Each little haunting required immeasurable effort on her part, every ounce of her being funneled into solidifying her phantom fingers, becoming real enough to affect change upon the physical world, if only for a moment. But to see the men’s fear, to taste their dread; to see them whisper holy words and cling to their runes, in a futile effort to ward off her wrath—it was worth it. It was worth it to see them suffer.
Her favorite way to haunt a man was to seep into his dreams. While her victims slept, she pressed her phantom hands over their lips and nose. And always, always—the men dreamed of drowning. Of water filling their lungs, a vengeful current dragging them under.
***
Time moved differently for ghosts. The drowned girl had no notion of how long she spent in that village; whether it was weeks or months or years. All she knew was that with every haunting, every slammed door and frosted-up windowpane, she felt herself growing heavier. Colder. More weighed down by the world. Something was hardening within her phantom chest, something like malice, calcifying the chambers of her heart.
One day, after gifting the village blacksmith with a night full of terrors, the man beat his wife. Harder than usual. And though his wife usually took his cruelty in silence, with bowed head and bitten tongue, this time she ran away. Out the door, down the cobblestoned street, all the way to the village’s shore. And where the sand met the tide, she fell to her knees. And she wept, tears trickling over the bruises upon her face.
The drowned girl watched. She felt something, then—a flicker of emotion, stirring like wind through the mist of her form. For even though she did not remember much about her life—she remembered enough to know she’d suffered. She remembered enough to know she’d suffered alone.
She reached out, and touched the weeping woman’s face. The blacksmith’s wife stilled. And as the drowned girl’s finger glided across her skin…the pain of her bruises was momentarily washed away. Numbed by the oceanic chill of her touch.
The blacksmith’s wife squinted. But all she saw was the faintest glimmer of mist. She could almost convince herself it was sea-mist, kicked up by the nearby waves. Why, then, did this sea-mist seem to take on the shape of a girl?
“Who are you?” she whispered.
The drowned girl did not reply. She couldn’t, not with the memory of water filling her lungs. But she lingered there, funneling every ounce of her being into the touch of her fingers. Into offering this woman a moment’s kindness—kindness the drowned girl had never received in life.
***
It was a strange thing, to haunt with kindness. For ghosts like the drowned girl, malice and retribution came so much easier. But slowly, over the course of the seasons, she learned all the ways in which even a haunting could be kind.
She learned that her touch could soothe the pain of bruises. Burns, too. Wives, children, maids and servants—she soothed them all, phantom fingers a salve against their skin. She learned that the chill of her breath could serve as a warning. When children strayed too far from home, when the barmaid drew too close to that leering drunk, when any woman or girl found herself drawn in by a hungry man’s smile, charm stretched like a second skin over the calcified heart beneath—she breathed against their neck. Sent icy tremors of fear down the length of their spine. And more often than not, her warnings were heeded.
She learned, too, that she could seep kindly into a person’s dreams. With a phantom caress against a dreamer’s temples, she imbued them with visions of the oceans at sunset, dolphins at play, kingdoms of coral sprawling beneath the sea. No more holy words to ward off her presence now; no more runes clutched in fear and trembling. Instead, those she aided murmured words of thanks, sometimes even left out offerings—seashells, wildflowers, little bits of sea-glass. Each one leaving her lighter, warmer, less weighed down by the world—a spring gale clearing out the chambers of her heart.
***
One day, the blacksmith’s former wife returned to the shoreline, where the drowned girl had first soothed the pain of her bruises, all those seasons ago. And she spoke. She told the drowned girl that she’d left her cruel husband. Taken shelter with a seamstress on the other side of the village. She told her that even though she did not know her name, or who she was—she hoped she found peace, wherever she was now.
“You gave me a kindness, that day,” she said. “You gave me kindness at a time when no one else would. I don’t know how to repay you, or if you can even hear me now. But whoever you are…I hope you have someone to help you, the way you helped me.”
And then, after a moment’s hesitation—the woman extended hand. The drowned girl did the same. And as their fingers brushed, what she felt was not the familiar cold, the oceanic chill of a soul severed from its body, but instead—warmth. A faint, crackling frisson of warmth, exchanged like a secret between two souls.
***
On the drowned girl’s final day in the village, she lingered on the shore, watching the sunset. She watched as the sky bloomed with kaleidoscopic colors, amber and gold, periwinkle and rose. And slowly, very slowly—she felt herself dissolve. The mist of her skin dispersing like fog. Her sailcloth gown unraveling into nothing. Everything she was, and ever had been, disappearing like sea-foam into sand. And she knew that this was how it felt to let go, to un-haunt, to sever your last tenuous ties to the world. This was how it felt to be free. And what awaited her beyond the horizon, she could not say—all she knew was that as the wind swept the last traces of her away, it felt like a kindness. It felt like coming home.
