Chapter 15 #2
The woman’s lips move again and more water belches free. A smell rises; salt and putrefaction. A watery rot. Skin sloughs from her cheeks and neck, asking to be flayed away.
My stomach heaves.
We stare at each other, unmoving; her leaking over the floor, expression obfuscated by her distending body and dank hair.
Outside, the storm screams.
The woman steps toward me, and the spell breaks.
I spin on my heels and bolt, nearly pitching forward as I lunge for the crew mess and the stairs. No sounds dog my steps, but I don’t dare turn around to check if I’m being pursued. If there’s anything even there at all.
I tear past the cabinets, the found phone bumping in my pocket next to my own, and fling my body into the cramped staircase. My extremities tingle with exertion as I scurry upward. I expect to feel waterlogged fingers at my back at any second, wet hands around my waist.
But nothing comes.
When I blast back into the main level, wheezing and near tears, I’m surprised to find the others have gathered again in the kitchen.
Piper isn’t there, but the rest of them are grimly sipping hard seltzers, looking like vacationers who were put out by a little drizzle instead of people who are trapped during a hurricane.
“Whoa, Charlie, what the hell?” Fiona says, peering around Carl as I throw myself away from the crew door.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asks.
“Someone is down there,” I rasp, pointing at the crew door. “I fucking saw her.”
“Hang on, what’s happening?” Carl’s fine features crease in confusion.
“Char,” Viv says soothingly, coming around from the island to approach me as if I’m a wounded hawk. “It’s okay. Tell us what’s going on.”
“She’s down there. Dripping water. I don’t think she can speak.
She’s there. I saw her. She’s really there.
” I’m rambling; I shouldn’t be saying all this in front of my boss and coworkers, but I can’t help it.
My skin is on fire, as if it needs to burn to prove to itself it’s not drenched like the woman in the crew mess.
“Char—” Viv starts to say, but Trey puts a hand up.
He nods to me. “Show us.”
* * *
The crew quarters are empty. Of course.
The last thing I wanted to do was return, but with the whole party grouped around me, I felt marginally safer and finally calmed down enough to descend with them, leading the others into the crew mess.
The woman is gone, as is any trace of her. The floors are dry. When Carl and Trey come back from poking their heads into the crew cabins at the end of the hall, they shrug.
“Stripped beds and the tiniest bathrooms I’ve ever seen,” Carl informs us, coming to stand next to Fiona near the crew table. His voice is hoarse—he had another coughing fit when they were searching.
“Yeah,” Trey agrees. “All clear. No one is here, Charlie.”
I shiver. “I saw something, I swear.”
But did I? She looked so real, but the characters in my head do too when I write. Sure, I never found a mermaid in my bathtub or anything, but it’s easy for me to imagine things that aren’t physically present.
“What did you see?” Ashley asks, standing near the staircase with her twin, giving me some major side-eye. Despite that, her tone is surprisingly calm and curious. As if realizing she’s forgotten to be antagonistic, Ashley tries again, infusing a bite into her voice this time: “What was it?”
“I-I saw a woman. She was wet. Bedraggled. It looked like she was…drowned, or something.”
Ashley and Rachel both raise their brows, then glance at each other. Rachel’s fingers slip into Ashley’s.
Great. They probably think I’m losing my mind. Hell, maybe I am.
Viv, hovering near Trey, cuts her eyes at Fiona, who is resolutely staring at the floor, and then sighs, turning to me. “It’s been a rough start to your employment.”
“No, listen, someone is here—” I start, but cut myself off. Someone isn’t here, that’s the whole point. After all, no one else appears to be bothered by strange things happening on the yacht. Only me.
“You’re upset,” Trey says gently. “I totally understand. You’re in a stressful situation.
But you did good, Charlie! You found us some food.
” He nods to the still-open cabinet, stuffed with mac and cheese.
The cartoon bunny on the packaging looks normal now.
Childish and silly. “Everything will be okay.”
Viv steps close, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Char.” Her voice is sweet, but in a way that hurts my teeth. “You said she looked like she was wet? Like she…had drowned?”
I can’t speak. My tongue is too cold and heavy. Mutely, I nod, but over Viv’s shoulder, I catch Rachel’s dawning look of comprehension.
“And what happened to Sage, Char?” Viv asks, her voice a mimicry of kindness but too syrupy to be genuine.
I want to slap her. But through gritted teeth, I manage, “She drowned.”
Trey and Carl glance at each other. Apparently Viv hadn’t clued our boss in on my past yet.
“That’s right,” Viv continues. Her tone is fully condescending now, but it’s dressed up as compassion. Her lips turn down and her hand finds my back as she starts to rub tight circles into my shoulder. “So maybe you’re having a trauma response, hm? Trey is right. This is a stressful situation.”
“I promise, Charlie, there’s no one else on this boat except for the eight of us,” Trey chimes in.
I hate Viv’s tone, her presumption, but her words hit home.
I’ve actively buried all thoughts of Sage and her book for months.
Even before she died, it was too painful to linger on the state of things between us.
Yet since coming here, I’ve thought about her nonstop.
Talked about her, even. Told the truth about what happened.
Maybe Viv is right. Maybe this has been too much too soon, and my brain is protesting.
I saw someone down here. I smelled her. I heard her bloated feet dragging against the floor. But it wasn’t real.
“None of you have ever seen…anything?” I ask tentatively.
The others shake their heads, some watching me warily, a few looking amused.
Viv’s floral perfume blooms around me as she inches even closer, her palm on my back slowing and stopping.
“Char, it’s okay. You were vulnerable with us.
And then almost immediately after, you were put in a high-pressure situation at a brand-new job.
” She jerks her head up, at the sky we can’t see. “It’s stress, sweetie. That’s all.”
She’s right. She has to be. I try not to think about how I started seeing things the minute I stepped onboard Empress, even before I revealed anything about Sage to the others.
After all, what’s more likely? A horrifying ghost is living on this yacht, or I’m hallucinating due to fear or hunger or PTSD?
No. This boat cannot be haunted.