Page 8 of Between Heart and Stone

There’d been too many occupants in this house over the years.

He slowly learned what the internet was. What a computer was and did. He watched the first phone make its way inside, and then watched it transition again to that small square everyone carried in their pockets.

The horse and carriages were traded out for cars. The stoves in the kitchen were swapped out to something else. The ice chest was drained of its ice and shoved into the corner like the relic it was.

The entire world changed, but Wolfe remained the same as when he died.

Barely thirty-one with the world before him.

Now, there was an endless pocket of time hanging over his head. He’d been dead two hundred years now. In the beginning, he thought maybe he had unfinished business with the castle and his family. He watched over his brother diligently, offering advice that he could not hear. When Patty died and crossed over, Wolfe had stared at the spot he evaporated from and howled in rage.

And then Clara, Patty’s wife, died.

He watched her go, too.

Over and over it repeated and eventually, Wolfe resigned himself to never finding peace.

The woman was on the move again, crossing to the built-in bookshelf on the left side of the room. He’d installed the glass casings the year before he died. He wanted to protect his books from the damp air that always seemed to seep into the castle.

“What are you doing?” he asked, crossing to her. “Those are clearly behind glass for a reason, you know.”

She continued on, climbing the ladder attached to the ceiling and helping herself to his things. His books. Ledgers. Christ almighty, his journals.

Patty had warned him once it was bad form to keep a journal. One day someone would find it and all his secrets would be exposed.

In all the years he’d been stuck here, after all the visitors that had come and gone, none had dared to pull his case apart.

“You are a nosy little thing, aren’t you?” he mused. Her fingers were long and slender, bare of any rings or jewelry. “What are you looking for?”

She ran a finger down the spines, careful not to disturb anything. He moved closer, his chest nearly brushing into her shoulder. She shivered, hair on her arms raising. It was about as much of a presence as he could give, a chill in the air or a nail tracing down a spine.

“Beautiful,” she murmured. She touched one of his journals and plucked it free.

The black leather had faded into a dusty gray. The strings holding it shut were dry rotted with age, but she handled it with care.

She opened the binding and Wolfe’s heart—or what would have been his heart—plummeted to his ghostly toes.

“R. J. Wolfe.”

Hearing his name spoken out loud brought a zap of energy to his skin. The sun seemed to shine a little brighter through the window, skittering over the floor and across his hands.

He eyed his knuckles, pale and freckled just like his brother’s. He wore his family’s signet ring, a green emerald nestled in a golden band, on his littlest finger. All the Wolfe men were given one when they came of age. Patty’s stone had been a ruby to match the color of his hair.

“Who are you, R.J. Wolfe?”

“The lord of this castle,” he snapped. “And you’re being intrusive. Please—Jesus. Don’t crinkle the pages!” He raked his fingers through his hair. His elbow bumped the ladder she rested on and it wobbled in response.

The woman lifted her head, eyes falling to the spot his elbow had brushed.

“So I didn’t imagine the footsteps last night.”

“No,” he deadpanned. “You did not. You made yourself right at home, didn’t you?” He bumped into the ladder again.

“You don’t like me in here, do you?” She scanned the room.

No matter how hard she looked, she’d never see him.

No one ever did.