As I glanced over to the same table where I’d first spoken with her, a memory flooded back to me. That same night, sitting around the table next to us, had been four hooded vampires. I hadn’t paid attention to their faces much, and now I wondered if they had been the same four companions who had accosted me on Julie’s ship.

I shook away the memory. It didn’t matter anymore, anyway. Whatever Julie had been thinking, however long she had been planning her deception… it was all irrelevant now.

I continued drifting slowly around the pub, moving from table to table, until morning arrived and the crowd began to thin a little. So far, I hadn’t heard anything that could help me. Most who’d sat in the pub that night seemed to be wanderers, and although they’d spoken of recent travels, none mentioned a voyage to the human realm.

It was so bizarre to be here in this supernatural world, a world that only a tiny fraction of the human population was even aware of. I should have been fascinated by these creatures’ tales, and yet once I’d realized a conversation wouldn’t lead to the information I sought, it faded into the background, mundane and uninteresting.

All I wanted now was to return home. It was what my soul ached for, even though I’d already had premonitions of how painful it would be.

Chapter 6: Ben

I waited all day in the pub, listening to the conversations of the myriad of supernatural species coming in and out, until evening arrived. Now that it was more crowded again, I stood up to avoid someone coming over to my bench and sitting right on top of me. I settled into the same routine as the night before, wandering about the tables, listening and trying to catch hint of a traveler who might be intending to pass through a gate.

It was toward the end of the night, having still had no luck in overhearing mention of a gate, that I decided to leave this room and head upstairs, toward the bedrooms. Since the crowds were thinning from this place anyway, perhaps I might overhear some useful information in the guest rooms above, like comrades discussing plans before they drifted off.

I headed toward the exit and reached for the door handle before my hand just sank right into it. Straightening, I stared at the door in front of me before walking headfirst into it. I winced a little, half expecting my etherealness to disappear just as my head made contact with the wood. But I sank through it, emerging on the other side, at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the guest rooms. The staircase I’d climbed only days ago with Julie.

I drifted higher and higher until I arrived at the very top floor. I figured that I could start wandering around here and then make my way down to the lower levels.

To my right was a large window—the same one I’d taken refuge at to get away from the scent of human blood. I looked out through the glass, able to see the ocean beyond the high wall that surrounded the island. The window was closed, but judging from how the trees were swaying, there was a gentle breeze. I wished that I could feel the wind on my face right then.

Tearing my eyes away from the window, I turned around. Then I stopped in my tracks. Someone was slumped on the floor at the opposite end of the hallway. A man with a long, bushy gray beard, his eyes closed. His head hung over his chest, as though he’d fallen asleep while sitting… or was dead. Wrapped around him was a tattered brown cloak. I wasn’t sure what creature this was exactly—a vampire, a human, or perhaps something else—but whatever he was, he looked like a tramp.

As I approached him, his head shot up suddenly. I was alarmed to find his faded brown eyes on me. I gaped at him, speechless. He could… see me?

Now that I was closer, his skin was of the same quality as mine, pale, ethereal and slightly translucent.

He didn’t look surprised to see me. He just looked me over from head to toe with mild interest before rolling his head back down and resuming his previous position.

“Can you hear me?” I found myself asking.

He grunted. “Yes, boy,” he said, his voice deep and thick with slumber.

Keeping a distance of a couple of feet between us, I bent down to his level. “Who are you?” I asked. “And what are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” he mumbled.

Coming across another ghost was something I hadn’t expected. I’d no idea who this stranger was, but somehow it was comforting to meet someone who was in the same position as me, and had likely been in it much longer. It was like coming across a compatriot in a foreign land.

Slowly, he turned his eyes on me again. They looked heavy, as though it was a struggle to lift them halfway.

It hadn’t occurred to me that ghosts needed sleep. I hadn’t felt any need for it, just as I no longer felt hunger… or anything, for that matter.

“You disturb me, boy,” he said, irritation now crossing his face.

“I apologize,” I said. “I only recently left my body, and I have questions.”

He pursed his lips, his jowls trembling slightly beneath his beard.

“What exactly do you want with me?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

“I’m seeking the location of gates leading to the human realm,” I replied. “That’s where I have come from, and that’s where my home is.”

Even up close to him, it was hard for me to say exactly what body he had once possessed before he became a spirit—ghosts were already so pale—but I guessed from the formation of his upper jaw that he had been a vampire.

The old man’s eyes drooped closed, and his head lolled once again.