Forging Ties (Ties, Book 3) | ✓

Chapter 19

Earlier in the day, Skye had climbed up into the crow's nest and cried his eyes out for the first time in... well, he didn't even know how long. Crying felt familiar, but he couldn't remember ever having done it before.

He couldn't remember ever feeling this was before, either, but it felt familiar too. This desperate, clinging, inescapable bad. He didn't know where it had come from or why it had happened, but there had been a moment in that storeroom when everyone had been looking at him and trying to get him to explain himself that it had clawed up from within him and strangled him from the inside. He'd tried to ignore it, to find comfort in food and Duran's attention, but it had only gotten worse until finally he'd just done the only thing he could think of and ran away.

Being on his own and crying had helped a little. Taking a nap had helped even more. Now it was dark and everyone else had gone to bed and he was finally considering coming down.

But... not everyone was in bed. Standing at the front of the ship where nobody had been a moment ago was a teenage girl with long, black hair that the wind didn't catch.

Skye climbed down from the crow's nest without making a sound and crept up behind her.

The girl turned and offered him a smile, seemingly unsurprised by his presence. "Feeling better?"

Skye walked up to her, scrutinised her unfamiliar face, and then poked her in the forehead. Or tried to, anyway. His finger went right through. "This ship is very haunted."

"It's a good thing you're not afraid of ghosts."

Skye stepped up next to the ghost and looked out over the dark water. "Why would ghosts be scary? You can't even touch me."

"True," the ghost said. "Skye... can I tell you a story?"

"Okay."

"A long long time ago, when I was a living girl going to high school, I got bullied. Like, a lot. At one point I tried going to the school counsellor for help because I was getting desperate, and you know what he told me?"

Skye shook his head, though that had maybe been a rhetorical question.

"He told me that I can't control what other people do, only how I feel about it," the ghost continued. "I was so pissed off, like, oh, I guess I'll just decide I'm fine with people threatening me and telling me I should die every day. Guess it's my fault I'm sad about that. I just won't be from now on. Thanks, I'm cured." She shot Skye a smile. "Anyway, with over a hundred years of time to learn and reflect, I think he might have been onto something. He had no power to stop the bullies. The only thing he could do for me was help me cope with it. So, did he say the right thing?"

"Umm..." Skye shrugged.

"No, he didn't, because I left his office and I never went back," the ghost said. "It doesn't matter how correct you are if what you say just leaves the other person feeling worse, right?"

Skye nodded. He had no idea where this was going. Maybe the ghost just wanted to vent about her unfinished business.

"I say all this because I want you to know that I get it. The important information I need to tell you is that if you want to remember, you have to want to. You have to choose to. But if I just say that, you're probably going to feel the exact way that school counsellor made me feel. Like you're being blamed for something you didn't do, because that's not a choice you remember making."

"Well, I don't remember a lot of things, so maybe I did make that choice," Skye said. "But if I did, I don't know how to unmake a choice I can't remember making."