I don’t really believe in ghosts.  Or, more accurately, I think I believe that if ghosts exist, they do so in a way that’s just not relevant to me, that our worlds are completely separate, and that theirs does not affect mine.  I’m pretty sure that’s what I believe.

It can still be fun to indulge in a good ghost story on occasion.  Especially around Halloween.

Ghosts, and ghost stories, I think, have a way of connecting us very deeply to our human-ness.  They connect us to things that are simultaneously absolutely real, and also intangible in the extreme.  Things like our ancestors and their ways of life.  Or old memories that plague us.  Or terrible deeds committed or disasters suffered by our fellow humans that we hope very much we will only ever know from stories.  Ghosts are another kind of memory, an important kind of memory.

From a literary standpoint, ghost stories also have a wonderfully visceral quality.  These are stories that we understand better with our bodies than we do with our minds.  Emotions live and bloom in our bodies, and ghost stories tell us about things that can’t be simply understood with pure rationality, that require emotion as an intermediary, even if only to just get the point across that much more quickly.  So, it’s not surprising that ghost stories often cross over into both bloody horror and romantic longing (or perhaps not longing after all).  In this way they are tangible, and tactile.

I don’t believe in ghosts, but a solid half of the poetry I’ve ever written uses ghost-inspired metaphors somewhere in there, and when I make up a new fantasy world, the people who populate it wind up telling ghost stories.  It connects them (and us readers) to their ancestors, to their memories and longings, to their human-ness.  Conversely, in science-fiction, ghosts can be used as a way to explore possibilities.  Like the ghosts of alien civilizations long dead and still producing ripple effects.  Or ghost realms that are really just different planes of existence.  Even in science, we need reminders that the universe if vaster than our minds by themselves can rationalize.  Without that understanding, we lack the imagination to reach for that next, rational bit of truth.

Below I offer excerpts from two unpublished stories that dabble, even if just briefly, in ghosts and ghost stories.  The first, longer excerpt is from a story is set in my Realm #1 of big writing projects, which I haven’t yet published anything from before this.  At this point in the story, the main character is telling a ghost story, but is mostly interested in flirting, even if he does end up running into clues to some actual trouble along the way.  In the second, shorter excerpt, I provide a ghost-tinged second sneak-peek to the Serial Steam-of-Consciousness Story no.3 that will be showing up in weekly installments starting at the beginning of January 2025.

See below for:
ghostly excerpt 1
ghostly excerpt 2

Excerpt from Ghost Boots, set in the world of my Realm #1 of big writing projects:

The main character, Drissen Meadowstar, is a guard captain who’s on leave and has arrived at an upscale brothel with some friends.  They’re trying to catch the attention of some of the women.

—

“My friend here is a skillful storyteller,” Ilahr wheedled.  “Oliithiya, won’t you stay?”

The woman’s eyes flicked across to Drissen at this, and he was amused to catch Ilahr look past her in that moment and cast a wink to a fair-haired woman standing behind her.  “Is this true?”  The dark-eyed woman, Oliithiya, spoke with a rich voice fine as red wine.  “I should warn you then, that I have vowed tonight to linger only for a tale I have not heard before.”

Drissen smiled.  “Then you shall have it, my lady.”  He sketched a court-styled half-bow where he sat.  “For I am sure you have not yet heard tell of the ghost lover of the south shore.  He who pulled two score and more women beneath the water to hold them in his cold, hungry embrace on nights when the moon hides in full dark.  Though perhaps,” Drissen winked at her, “before I got to him, you may have passed him on these very streets of Trademouth.  A handsome villain, you would have known this ghost when you saw him, for he wore these boots, rough worn by River mud and sleepless nights.” 

And here Drissen propped his feet up on the table, showing off the scuffed, grey boots that stood out so starkly against the black of the rest of his clothing.  Pouring out a cup of wine from a decanter set on the table, he offered it to dark-eyed Oliithiya with a gentle flourish.  She accepted it, drifting nearer, but did not yet sit.

“Shall I tell you of this ghost who was once a man,” Drissen continued, “who grew up along the banks of the River but ventured deep into the Ironteeth mountains when he first sought a wife?  Or of the man as he was a ghost, having lost his life to passion for a woman who spun her own form out of moonlight and lived by day in the depths of a pool beneath a heartwood tree.  The ghost of a man who once loved a witch.”

Drissen drew out the words of the tale, lingering over the descriptions that brought a sparkle to Oliithiya’s dark eyes or a touch of pink to her cheeks.  As Ilahr had hoped it would, the story lured other women near their table as well, and before too long the big Highguardsman sat with a beautiful house lady to either side, whispering counterpoints to Drissen’s tale into their ears while they giggled, plying them with wine and warm touches.

But Drissen kept his words and his looks for Oliithiya alone, watched her parted lips for indrawn breath, the flutter of her pulse at her throat. Into a second cup of wine, shared between them, the long-necked beauty had taken a seat beside him, close enough Drissen could taste the wine and sweet herbs on her breath, her eyes shining with a low heat.

“And so, having vanquished the hero, the ghost took the lady by the hand and set a kiss to her wrist.”  Drissen lifted Oliithiya’s hand and did likewise, barely brushing the soft, warm skin with his lips.  “And the lady felt her pulse-beat slow, and the colors of the night grew richer around her.

“And then the ghost brushed a kiss at her shoulder.”  Drissen bent and breathed out softly over the white skin of Oliithiya’s neck and shoulder, breathed in the scent of flesh and salt and rose oil.  “And a chill passed over her flesh, like a cold wind flowing off the River where it rushes out to sea.  The lady felt herself grow lighter and the ghost’s lips brushing her skin seemed to grow warm. 

“And then the ghost pulled her close, drinking in the scent of her flesh and her life slipping out into the night.  And he set his lips to her breast, just over her heart.  And then,” Drissen pulled Oliithiya close, bent and breathed in her scent more deeply this time.  “What do you think happened then?”  Her heart was a fast flutter beneath the hot flesh of her breast.  Drissen’s lips tingled with the touch of salt on her skin and he flicked his tongue out once, so that she gasped and reached up a hand to the back of his head.

And that was when he caught the other scent – faint – clinging to the edges of the shawl still wrapped around her fingers.  It was a sharp scent, like juniper, but with a smooth, licorice-sweet undertone that caught in the back of his throat and settled over his tongue.  Just a hint, but still…

Drissen cursed inwardly.  The Queen’s orders echoed in his mind: I’m only asking for your eyes.  Yes, or his nose, as the case may be.  Queen Ghanyess demanded report on any signs or hints of the drug-trade operating in Trademouth, and, faint as it was, the scent clinging to the edges of Oliithiya’s shawl was unmistakably that of razor smoke.

“I dare not guess,” Oliithiya breathed.  Her fingers were tangled in his hair, and her voice thrummed low through the flesh of her breast.

Pressing his face for one heartbeat more into that perfect heat of soft skin and sheer linens, Drissen tucked the Queen’s orders out of his mind and gathered himself back into his tale.  Then, drawing away from Oliithiya, he said, “Why, that is when I appeared, my lady, and rescued her.”

He cast his gaze ceiling-ward as though remembering and continued, “The woman’s hair was fanned out on the surface of the black River like a swath of pale moonlight, or a disappearing glimmer of sun, but the ghost had not quite pulled her under.  Drawing her back up and into the cold, night air, I took the ghost by the throat when he followed and plunged my knife to the hilt where his heart might have been.  When I pulled my blade free, the River rushed into the wound, and, for a moment, his face showed a strange, dark joy before he expired.” Drissen grinned, smiling up at Oliithiya from under a cocked brow.  “And, having lost my own boots to the sucking mud of the River, I took his in replacement, though they are old and worn, and I think I shall need a new pair very soon.”

“Ah yes, the fancy new pair he’s already purchased and that he would be wearing now, if they didn’t pinch his feet so and set him limping.”  Kindark’s voice cut across the end of the tale, and Drissen scowled and cast a mock-glare over his shoulder at the Willowfist Second Hand.

“Just as you left-off bringing your pipes because you hoped your tongue would be busy elsewhere?”  Everyone at the table laughed.  Indeed, the tale had brought Drissen Meadowstar up to top form, and the rest of the night proceeded most excellently from there, ending just as it ought, with sweet, long limbs wrapped about him and hot flesh beneath his lips and teeth.

Excerpt from midway through SSCS03, coming soon:

The two characters have just escaped into a noodle shop from out of the rain.

—

Before I could think of a better answer, though, Jack frowned, looking past me toward the window.  “What’s wrong?”  I half turned in my seat.  All I could see out the window now was rain, coming down a lot thicker than when we’d got here.  A cold, little shudder walked its way up my back and I glanced back at Jack.

“I don’t know.”  He shook his head.  “I thought there was something.”  His eyes flicked to me, nervous now.  I just looked back at him, neither of us saying the fear that was rising up between us.  And no one else in the shop was talking now either.  Except for the hard pounding of the rain, it would have been silent, all of us watching out the windows.  The rain was hitting the sidewalk hard enough to come bouncing up again, filling the view with a hard, white rain mist.

And then something dark went by fast, almost too fast to properly see, so that what I thought I’d seen was a lion, running, with its mane plastered down around its neck making it look strangely skinny.  It had been mostly a shadow against the rain.

And then another went by, just as quick.