Ghost Writer

There’s a special kind of humiliation in clawing your way out of obscurity, only to slip and feel gravity drag you down again.

Kat Green knew that shame better than most. Nobody cared if you fell from a skyscraper—nobody even bothered to look up.

At sixteen, she’d written her first novel in a caffeine-fueled haze of naïve bravado, and it had detonated: over a million sold, a Goodreads Fantasy nominee, HarperCollins, a rabid swarm of teenage fans.

She’d convinced herself it would always be that easy. Now, at twenty-one, she was chasing shadows, praying for the lightning to strike again—before everything she’d built crumbled beneath her.

The latest review still pulsed behind her eyes, impossible to shake:

"I read The Red Moon Wolf series in high school and was OBSESSED! I picked up the second book and it was just okay, but this? THIS?!! How did this get published? What a snooze-fest! I got it on audiobook and nearly drove off the road it was so boring. Ugh! Subplots that went nowhere, pointless conversations, and not even the tiniest bit of spice... and don’t get me started on how she glamorized domestic abuse. DNF! I really think this author has lost me forever. SAD!"

~ BookRaven99

Screw you, BookRaven99, she thought, but the words clung to her ribs like thorns. There were hundreds like it now, all echoing the same disgust. Tears burned her eyes as she rolled down her car window and pressed the buzzer at the gate. The speaker sputtered, then a too-cheerful woman’s voice sliced through the darkness: “Welcome to Reid’s Writer’s Retreat. Access code, please.”

“Seven-seven-seven-five-eight,” Kat said, surprised she’d even remembered. Grief had shredded her memory into confetti.

The iron gates yawned open with a groan straight out of a gothic novel. “Pull forward and turn right. You’re in building 7A. Enjoy your stay—and let the creativity flow,” the voice chirped.

Kat drove in, forcing herself to look at the scenery. Pines pressed in tightly, mountains hunched in the distance, the grass outside too green, too perfect. Cozy-looking lodges dotted the grounds, golden windows glowing with soft, artificial light. It should have been beautiful. Maybe it was. But the quiet pressed down, suffocating, as if the trees themselves were watching.

She needed this next book to work. Needed it like breath. Most of her money had evaporated paying for her mother’s treatments. Now she was the only one left to carry the scraps of their life. Even this trip was paid for with the last of her mom’s life insurance. It wouldn’t last.

She felt a peculiar guilt as she passed women in pristine yoga gear, clutching mats, drifting like ghosts along winding trails. They looked wealthy, but their faces were pinched, hollowed out by something she recognized—quiet desperation. Maybe they were chasing lightning, too.

Her assigned lodge loomed, set back from the others, half-swallowed by shadow. The parking lot was empty. Maybe she’d have the place to herself. Huge windows leered out at her, their glass smeared with grime. The lawn was clipped but thirsty, and unlike the other cabins, there was no cheerful wreath at the door—just a dead one, the color of rust.

She stepped inside. Her boots sank into a faded Persian rug. Two stories of bookshelves loomed overhead, crammed so tightly with battered spines and cracked leather that the air smelled of dust and mildew. Worn chairs slumped beneath dangling lamps that flickered and buzzed like trapped flies. From somewhere to her left, voices drifted—loud, urgent, with a brittle edge.

Kat dumped her bag, let the suitcase clatter to the floor, and followed the noise. Down a corridor and through wide doors, a group—mostly women—sat at a scarred wooden table. Everyone had a typewriter in front of them. The air reeked of old paper, coffee turned sour, and musky armpits.

A tall, elegant woman stood at the dust-filmed window, sunlight catching in her amber hair, which hung in a razor-sharp bob. She wore blue glasses and a sapphire dress, and her smile was a little too wide, as if her mouth had been carved that way.

“Try harder, gang. You need to create characters that explode off the page. Is that really so much to ask?” Her voice dripped with syrupy southern charm, but it was sharp underneath—like honey laced with glass. She stopped mid-lecture and glided over to Kat, her footsteps utterly silent on the warped boards.

She reached for Kat’s arm, and a chill like ice water shot up Kat’s spine, making her muscles twitch. She recoiled, heart racing.

“Oh, hello!” the woman sang. “I've been expecting you. All right, everyone! Here’s our newest guest, Katherine Green. I’m Beatrix Reid, your host. Would you like to introduce yourself?”

Kat tensed. This was supposed to be an isolated retreat. She hadn’t paid for group workshops or forced socializing—just solitude, nature, and anonymous critiques.

“Um, it’s Kat, actually,” she managed. “I’m working on the third book in my Red Moon Wolf trilogy. And I… uh…”

She trailed off. There was nothing else—writing was all she had left.

Most of the group stared, glassy-eyed, a few offering stiff, puppet-like smiles. There were two middle-aged men, and four women, with one who didn’t look much older than her.

They looked like her kind of people—rumpled shirts, stained jeans, hair wild and neglected. And yet: their skin had a dull, waxy pallor, and they hunched over their typewriters as if chained to them. Why typewriters? Why did they all look so… hollowed out?

A young woman with almond skin and a jagged pixie cut tried to smile, then asked, “What’s your genre, Kat?”

“Romantic fantasy,” Kat said, bracing herself. “I’ve never really written anything else.”

The woman shot Beatrix a long, unreadable look. “Bit of a detour from our mission, isn’t it, Bea?”

Kat bristled. Romance writers always got sneered at, but romantic fantasy? People acted like it was a punchline. Just because her hero grew fur and fangs once a month didn’t make him less compelling.

“Nonsense, Penelope!” Beatrix snapped, her eyes gleaming with manic excitement. “Fresh perspectives are exactly what this group needs!”

The air thickened, pressing down on Kat like a heavy blanket. She forced a smile, but the chill from Beatrix’s touch lingered in her bones.

Beatrix led Kat to her room on the upper floor of the library. It looked like a converted office—small, windowless, lit by a single jaundiced bulb. One wall was lined with bookshelves, the other with a cheap dresser and a battered desk. The bed stood in the center, facing a door made of cloudy wood and frosted glass.

Maybe this was what you got with the “basic” package, but after paying five grand, Kat had expected more.

Beatrix lingered in the doorway, still smiling. Kat noticed a bouquet of wildflowers in a vase shaped like a typewriter. Next to it sat a small white stone block.

"Writer's block," Beatrix said with a giggle. "Today, you rest. Enjoy the grounds. Tomorrow the real work begins—no more writer’s block, pinky promise. Meet us in the war room at one o’clock after lunch. I have something special planned."

Kat nodded, then checked the bathroom—if you could call it that. Shower, toilet, sink, all crammed together in a space barely wider than her outstretched arms. Before Kat could ask if there’d been a mistake, an icy draft washed over her. Beatrix was gone.

After a coffin-sized shower, Kat dressed and decided to take Beatrix’s advice. She’d driven all the way from Illinois to Wyoming; her legs needed stretching.

On the bed sat a brochure labeled “Reid’s New Beginnings Retreat.” She raised an eyebrow. The Facebook group had called it “Reid’s Writer’s Retreat.” Was this a rebrand?

She then scrolled down to the bottom, where it said: Seminar: Letting go of the past to write your best life. Workshop: How to recognize red flags in relationships. Okay….What the heck does red flags in relationships have to do with writing? Kat thought. Maybe this retreat was more than just a writing retreat. Maybe it was a support group.

She perked up at the mention of a complimentary massage and facial. She bounced down the stairs, pausing to listen to the relentless clatter of typewriters below. The writers from earlier were scattered around the room, some hunched at desks, others slumped in battered chairs, all typing with a feverish, almost frantic intensity.

Kat wished she could bottle that energy. No one looked up—except Penelope, who pinned her with a stare so urgent it bordered on desperate, hands still dancing across the keys.

Kat looked away, shivering, and headed out. Aside from her disappointing room, the rest of the resort was immaculate. She spent the afternoon getting pampered and stuffing herself at the buffet. The other guests—all women, all in yoga pants—kept to themselves.

The consummate eavesdropper that she was, she’d caught snippets of conversations which usually had something to do with a recent divorce. A woman with short auburn hair strode past, surrounded by a cluster of admirers. She looked eerily like Beatrix, but slimmer, her skin sun-kissed instead of corpse-pale.

Suddenly, an idea wriggled into Kat’s mind: what if her protagonist had a long-lost twin, threatening the wolf pack’s balance? She fumbled for a pen, turned to an older woman at the next table.

“Excuse me, do you have a pen?”

The woman smiled, rummaged, and handed one over. “Are you going to the seminar tonight? I hear Kelly’s got someone special coming.”

“Kelly?”

“Yes, Kelly Reid. The owner.”

Kat frowned. “I know Beatrix Reid. Haven’t met Kelly. Is she a writer too?”

The woman blinked rapidly, lips pressed thin. Kat scribbled her idea on a napkin and handed the pen back.

The woman opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Kelly glided over—her movements gracefully smooth—and embraced her. “So good to see you again, Eloise.” The two women sank into conversation, leaving Kat to wander back to her thoughts.

She would have pressed for answers, but her mind was lost in plotting for her hero’s next crisis. When she returned to her building, the sun was sinking. The typewriter clatter inside was as relentless as ever. Penelope’s chair was empty. Tomorrow, Kat thought, I’ll join them.

At one o’clock, Kat found herself in the “war room” with the others, eager to discover their secret to such obsessive focus.

Everyone was gathered around the long, battered table, but none wore Kat’s hopeful expression. A skinny man with thick brows gave her a look of raw panic, his hands trembling. Then a frigid wind swept through, slamming the door shut. Beatrix appeared, her eyes too bright.

“Welcome, everyone! As promised, I have a special surprise. On the table, you’ll find the beginning of a story. Finish it in 5,000 words or less. You have three days. Our esteemed judges will choose the winner.”

Kat’s heart sank. She wasn’t here to ghostwrite for someone else. She’d paid for solitude, for her own work.

Beatrix caught her disappointment. “Wanna know what you’re competing for?”

Kat barely cared.

“A full refund. And ten more days, premium accommodations, plus $5,000.”

Okay, maybe she cared after all.

Kat glanced around. No one looked excited. Penelope’s eyes met hers, pleading. The man beside her—a balding Black man—rubbed her back, staring at the table.

Kat could use the money. She could use a little luck. Penelope seemed to see her as a threat, which stoked Kat’s stubborn pride. She scanned the prompt: a romantic thriller, a widow hellbent on vengeance against her husband’s killer, only to fall for the man’s father.

“I’m in,” Kat said, and it was settled.

For three days, Kat wrote like a woman possessed. She barely slept, only pausing for food or to squeeze into the bath-closet. Words poured from her, hot and frantic.

On the third day, Kat delivered her story to Beatrix—smoldering, complex, full of morally gray characters.

Beatrix took the pages, her smile razor-sharp. “Best of luck. The winner will be announced tomorrow.”

A slow dread crept over Kat as she eyed the thick stack of other entries. Had she wasted precious time, stolen from her own story, for nothing?

When she returned to her room, a note was taped to the door, typed in frantic caps: GET OUT NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN. YOU ARE IN DANGER.

Irritated, Kat ripped it down, balled it up, and tossed it aside.

The next day, Kat entered the war room, nerves buzzing. Beatrix beamed at her, and Kat felt a weird sense of relief. Kat sunk into a seat opposite Penelope.

“Congratulations, Kat! You’re our winner," Beatrix announced.

“No,” Penelope said softly, her voice cracked a little.

A surge of smug satisfaction swept through Kat. Beatrix’s skirt swished as she left, returning with a bright blue typewriter. “I just knew you had what it took to be my new ghostwriter.”

Kat’s stomach dropped as Beatrix sat the typewriter In front of her. “Excuse me?”

The door slammed of its own accord, the hanging bulb flickered, and the table rattled. Beatrix’s eyes glowed like headlights, her smile stretching impossibly wide. “I need you to write that same story again—a full-length novel this time.” Her voice was silk over steel. “Meet your new editors. I trust you’ll all create literary magic together.”

Kat’s skin prickled with cold. When she exhaled, her breath fogged the air. A single tear slipped down Penelope’s cheek.

“Beatrix, I’m not interested in ghostwriting. I came here for my own novel. I’ll be leaving now.”

Beatrix’s pupils burned, the whites of her eyes almost luminous. Her smile grew lupine, predatory. Kat started to cry. Something unnatural, something hideously wrong, was happening.

Beatrix giggled and glided backwards, her feet hovering inches above the floor. The window shutters slammed shut. Kat spun around, but Beatrix had vanished. Then a chill breath pressed to Kat’s nape, icy fingers teasing her skin.

“Enjoy your stay—and let the creativity flow,” Beatrix’s disembodied voice whispered in her ear.

Kat looked at Penelope, her throat tightening. “Penelope, what’s going on?”

Penelope’s eyes shimmered with tears as she met Kat’s gaze across the table. “That isn’t just a block in your room. Those are Beatrix Reid’s ashes. Writing the perfect story was her obsession—her life’s mission. Not even death could stop her.”