A torn dress fifteen years out of fashion flutters around her legs. No one told me her name. I doubt she remembers her name. Yet her shapely silhouette on the edge of the bluff rips a hole in my gut and cuts a trench to my heart.

She's trapped. A fate I understand well.

The air inside the bar chokes me with noise and heavy cigar smoke. The table in front of me is sticky with old beer. But I have a perfect view of the ghost from the window. She sways like a dancer on the cliff's edge. A cloud from my cigarette creates a haze which lends a proper air of solemnity to the distant figure outside.

I could still turn back and leave her to the salty winds and whispering townsfolk.

My notebook weighs heavily in my jacket. Though it is small and by a scale's measure light, its pages exhaust me as if I carried a pocketful of boulders.

I cannot turn around.

I am the ghost hunter. I am a killer.

Someone in this town was eager to pay my price, which is substantial. But the anonymous payment makes it hard to begin. I have the money already and if I did any of this for the pay, I'd walk away now.

Over their drinks throughout the day, the men of the town babbled that the ghost appears every full moon, and should any pass near, she lunges at them screaming, "Over the cliff. Into the waves. Over the cliff."

Through the ingrained smoke of years, my cigarette is tasteless, but I wait until I've inhaled the very last before standing. I slap a wadded bill onto the table, paying for the beer I have yet to touch. I'll have to return here soon enough, but now it's time to see the ghost girl.

Outside in the salty air, I take a moment to adjust to the howl of the wind. The sunset is a ferocious red, and paints the single tree on the cliffside like an accusation of wrongdoing.

The ground approaching her slides beneath my feet, nothing more than loose rocks. She doesn't turn despite the noise my leaden feet make.

She doesn't exude anger. How could none of the feeble-minded townsfolk realize her cry was not a threat but an accusation? Someone killed her, tossed her into the waves.

I pull out my book. The cover is leathery to the touch, but I've never known what actual material stretches across. It could be the aether of Hell.

With my luck, it is.

The pages flip though I don't touch them. The book selects a page.

Three names blaze over the yellowed sheet. That is a manageable number. As long as I don't think of the other pages, I can bear the weight.

Nearer to the ghost, I sense that she knows I am here. Still, she doesn't launch into her tirade. Often, the ghosts understand what I am. Some resign themselves, or anger sweeps them up. I can't tell with this apparition.

I draw up to her on the cliff and look into the foaming waves below.

"Over the cliff," she sighs. This is no screech of a banshee, but a plea. "Into the waves. Over the cliff."

She turns to me. Half of her face caved in, and her dark hair covers the damage in limp strands. The other half is lovely. I wish I knew the color of her eyes, but a fog like substance composes her. All white.

A wispy hand falls on my shoulder, and I brace for the onslaught.

Words and pictures barrel through my mind in a jumble. All that exists of her is in this complex web. Going to get married. She is there in my mind alive and happy, black hair floating about her shoulders. Then pain in my back, as if a large hand has driven into my spine. My stomach lurches and the rocks and waves arise to meet me. Stay here, a voice says, it is not hers but it rings through her frigid touch, stay with me.

I fall back, away from her and away from the cliff. Her good eye meets mine, and then she turns back to the cliffside.

When I catch my breath, I rise and return to the village.

The answer to how to be rid of a ghost is always in the ghost's touch. I must take a minute to understand. As I walk, I parse through the images, isolating the ones that matter. The ones that aren't just about dying, which is always an obsession of the lingering dead. She is obsessed by two other things-- her upcoming wedding, and a man who appears again and again. By the time I reach the pub, I have a headache and have endured the agony and terror of her demise a dozen times.

I also know a name.

Ray Whitaker—the man who killed her.

I sniff the air. I hate coastal villages. They all smell of fish.

As I wait for my drink, I survey the room looking for Ray. There is no other place her killer would be tonight. With her hovering out there, he would come here to gloat. Yet among the sailors and laborers that fill the room, I can't locate the eyes seared into her memory.

It's only when my beer comes that I spot him. Older than I imagined. The ghost came into being fifteen years ago. I assumed her bridegroom would be somewhere in his forties. This man is well into his sixties. Gray and bent. Yet, it is him. There is no doubt of that.

I approach him, lighting a fresh cigarette, and he looks up. If I had any doubt, they would have been dispelled by that look. He expected me.

"She loved you," I say, as I sit down across from him. A ghost is nearly impossible to understand. Other than her love and trust of this man, I know nothing of him. Hopefully, Ray will fill in some of the blanks.

"Aye," he responds, more a grunt than a word.

"I've been called here to exorcise her."

"I know that."

And that ends any idea of getting information from Ray. Sometimes remorse haunts the guilty more than any ghost-- so much they'll follow wherever I bid. But Ray is calm and belligerent. Talking him into joining me in a trek out to the ghost won't work, but that is where I must get him.

A glance around the place shows me there are plenty of burly men in supply. I can try to hire someone to rough him up and force him out. I used to enjoy that sort of violence, but now it's tainted. The book knows when I enjoy another's pain.

And the book blames me, even if from my point of view the bastards deserve it.

I wave to the waitress and hold up two fingers. Once the beverages arrive, I speak, with my eyes lowered to the amber liquid as if it is far more important than my question. There used to be days where that was true. On occasion, I could calm myself down with booze. But that all changed the day I shot that woman.

Now I never was a psycho, or anything along those lines. Or I don't think I was. But death comes with the line of work I chose before this. And I always figured it was a bonus that I didn't mind taking a human life. I didn't relish it, but it wasn't like they were real people—just numbers to tick off.

Then I shot that woman, and as she died, the book appeared in my jacket—filled with names, her name and the names of every other life I ever took. Booze doesn't make a dent any more. I slit my wrists when I realized what had happened. The book laughed. I've died dozens of times since then, often the ghosts will take me with them when I purge them from this world.

And God forbid I stop following the path of ghosts. The nightmares don't stay in my sleep but terrorize my every moment. No, the book means for me to hunt-- so I do.

I die. Then I live. And each time, the agony of my body shutting down hits me fresh as if I'd never endured it before. I've seen my own heart beating its last from inside my exposed ribs.

But this moment isn't about me—or the hag who cursed me. It's about the girl on the cliff.

"What was her name?" I ask Ray.

"Lucille. Why you asking me?" He downs the beverage I paid for and glares at me. "Let's get one thing straight. I dun like you. I dun want you here. Hassling the dead... that's no profession."

Not the opinion I expected, or one I agree with. The dead want to be free—they have that in common with me. I stand. A drunk bastard with an opinion like that won't give me anything.

The attitude is odd. Usually, the murderers are the loudest, wanting the apparitions gone.

Ray makes me curious, but not enough to take the time to figure him out. Lucille only comes on the three days when the moon is fullest. I'm not waiting around a month for her, and she deserves her rest.

Ray's peculiarity is something I could ponder in the weeks to come. But, he isn't the only odd one. As I approach the bar, I get a good look at the barkeep. Not the typical fishing town type, let alone the sort of deadbeat to run a hole-in-the-wall tavern. Everything from his haircut to the quality of his suit screams wealth. Hell, the fact he wears a suit makes him stand out here.

After taking a seat at the empty bar, I survey the room. Most tables are filled, and the place is noisy, rowdy and dirty. All the tables near the window and the ghost girl are taken. Yet no one comes to sit at the bar, closer to the booze. Stranger and stranger.

"Thank you for coming," the barkeep says. His voice is rich and cultured. So whatever money makes him stick out in this dirty town is probably something he was born into. "Anything you want? It's on the house."

Well that establishes that he wants me here. Even if old Ray, the killer fiancée doesn't. Is the barkeep the benefactor paying my bills? But why? Having a ghost outside his tavern could be great for business if he spins it right. And from the crowd, he's not struggling for business from gawkers. People love to watch suffering—to feel above it. And ghosts are nothing but concentrated suffering.

"Nothing to drink tonight, but if you wouldn't mind," I say, pausing to let him lean closer. "I'd like to wrap up business tonight. Anyone here that wouldn't be averse to doing some slightly shady work for a coin or two? I need to get Old Ray over there out to the cliff. Seems he has some unfinished business."

The bartender smiles. "You won't need coin for that, ghost hunter. He goes out there every night Lucy appears. He gets ripe drunk first, but I'd say he's approaching that line. You could just take a nice stroll out there and wait. Can you... can you really set her free?"

"I've never failed before." The barkeep is clearly involved in this haunting. Just the way he phrased it, not freeing the town of her but setting her free. His attitude is pleasant, but it makes me wonder who he was to Lucille. A former beau? School friend? Brother? The last seemed the most likely.

I do as he suggested and head out to the cliff. The cold wind claws through my old jacket. Lucille's weeping reaches me long before any mortal sound could, and goosebumps break out on my arms. Womanly curves flow on her slender form, standing there, back turned, hair glimmering and half-etched on the wind.

Lucille's suffering will be over soon. She'll be able to rest, and I'll be one name closer to a rest of my own. I tuck myself behind a rock where I can see her but where someone approaching would not see me.