Caroline and Charles were two of a kind in a strange land, filled with dark, silent people who didn’t speak their language. They met every night, up on the highest battlement of the fort, and when it was time for Charles’s regiment to head back to England, devised a plan for Caroline to stow away on the ship. As the day of departure approached, though, Caroline grew afraid of the unknown. She told Charles she would stay—here, in this place, a world foreign to her, but still her home.

The story goes that the lovers bid each other a painful adieu and parted ways. As Caroline paced their battlement on that night, a bright light over the river caught her eye. She ran down and across the grounds, past the sandy beach and to the harbour, where the flaming ship was sinking into the water. There were no survivors, and never was anything heard of Caroline again.

Some say that you can see her on certain nights, a long shadow in an old-fashioned dress, her eternal soul still keeping vigil on the shore.

The caretaker, sweet old man that he was, never wearied of repeating the story, but could only do so by rote. I peppered him with questions, thirsting for more details, for more story— what happened to the ship? Why did she run to a sinking ship anyway? Did she burn or did she drown?

‘Such strange questions you ask, little girl. No one knows these answers.’

‘But you must have searched around, to find out more of what happened! Don’t you want to know?’

‘Too much curiosity is dangerous, beta,’ he would caution, and bribe away further questions with another biscuit.

So I spent a lot of time playing with the story in my mind, filling in gaps, embellishing the contours. On the weekend getaways, I sometimes slipped out of my room late at night to go looking for Caroline. She was the only ghost I had never felt scared of.

Now, I heard footsteps behind me. Someone was walking up the razed path. Reflexes told me to turn around and check that it wasn’t some psychopath killer with an axe and a chainsaw. But I felt quite numb, and couldn’t exactly move, though I’m not really sure I was even trying.

A déjà voice asked whether he was interrupting me.

I shook my head, no, and hoped he wouldn’t try and make small talk.

I cannot take any more small talk. I cannot answer another question about how I know the bride or which grade I’m in. Where was Caroline when you needed her?

‘Alas. No signs of a shipwreck.’

Caroline’s wreck?

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘I heard a nice story about this place. There should be a shipwreck somewhere around here, according to it. Perhaps it was only a myth.’

‘Perhaps the wreck you’re looking for isn’t something you can see.’