The Ghost's Tale

The air in the clearing hung thick and still, a palpable silence that pressed in on Claire’s eardrums. Beside her, the ghost girl, no more than a shimmer of moonlight and regret, wrung her translucent hands. Claire, still damp with tears and the lingering chill of terror, found herself surprisingly… calm. The frantic energy that had propelled her deeper into the woods, the sheer, unadulterated panic that had threatened to swallow her whole, had receded, leaving behind a quiet, almost somber curiosity. She’d faced her own personal poltergeist, a whisper that had nearly driven her mad, and here it was, a spectral damsel in distress, ready to spill the beans.

“So,” Claire began, her voice a little hoarse, a far cry from the defiant bark she’d used to dismiss her mother’s pleas that morning. “You… you lived here? Or, I guess, you *died* here?” She winced. The phrasing was terrible, but what did one say to a ghost?

The ghost girl sighed, a sound like dry leaves skittering across a forgotten path. “I lived in the town, not so long ago. Or perhaps a very long time ago. Time is… slippery, in here.” She gestured vaguely with a hand that passed through the trunk of a gnarled oak. “My name was Elara.”