Sweet Romance18 min read
"I'm Not a Ghost": How I Built an Abbey and Broke a Bad Man
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I pinched a cabbage leaf and froze.
"I'll tell Master when he comes back," I said, but my voice was all small and steady like a sparrow.
Isaac Andrade looked at me over his bowl. "You can't sell the herbs. We need them."
"I'll tell him we used one," I lied and grinned, because lying about herbs sounded braver than saying I had a glowing ball of light talking to me in my sleep.
The light bobbed on the tatami like a tiny moon. It was not moon, it was not spirit. A voice came from it.
"Hello," the light said, clear and odd. "I am System 233. I can make your temple great."
I squinted. "System? Are you a ghost?"
"No," the light replied, and a list of words like rules and rewards floated in my head. "I am a management system. Complete tasks and I will give land, money, and skills."
I laughed a little and pushed the yellow talisman back into my hair because good children do not trust unknown things.
"You sound like a spirit," I told it. "Bad spirits take people. This one talks about land."
"You have a temple under your name," the light said. "You are young, talented, and eligible. Bind with me."
"Bind?" I tapped my small head. "I am five. I bind with sticky tape not contracts."
Isaac choked on his noodles.
Evert Cohen, my master, had gone down the mountain. He left a letter and his walking stick and a pot of dried mushrooms. When he left, he said, "Do not go far. Keep the incense clean. Keep your steps honest."
I placed the talisman on my forehead like the bravest little general and recited the silly charm my master taught me. The talisman fluttered off my head and landed on the mat.
The light said, "Binding complete."
I blinked. "Okay, you can help fix the roof. But if you try to steal my cookies, I will pin a talisman on you."
"Cookies are not in my reward list," the light said, voice blank. "Tasks: exorcise evil spirits, comfort ghosts, help people. Reward: land, temple upgrades, a permanent skill."
"Permanent skill?" I sat up. "Let me choose."
A wheel of words spun in front of me like a fortune cookie. I thought of food and games and then pulled my eyes back to the wheel.
"Stop," I said.
The wheel stopped at "touch-based mind reading."
I frowned. "Read minds?"
"Ten seconds per touch," the light said. "Upgrade with tasks."
"That sounds boring. I can guess faces with tea leaves."
"Choice is final."
"Can I change it?"
"No."
I stuck my tongue out at the light. "Fine. But if you try to read my master, I will tape your mouth."
The light blinked. "You are odd."
"I know."
*
"Who put the temple under my name?" I asked the morning sun.
Isaac shoved a steamed bun into his mouth and made a face. "The temple was under Master Evert's name until last night. Now it is under yours. That was in your letter."
I flapped my little hands. "Did he sell it? Did he die? Did someone reassign him?"
"He left a note," Isaac said. "Go to the bus, go to the city. The note says you must go."
I hopped like a rabbit. "The city! Cakes! I will find the biggest cake stall and then exorcise a spirit."
Isaac rolled his eyes. "And you will take Gregory Weiß with you."
Gregory, who cooked better noodles than anyone I knew, slung a patched backpack over his shoulder. "I'll carry the bag," he said kindly. "You are the boss."
We took the long bus down. I fed peanuts to sleepy people and said small things and listened with my new skill. It worked like a trick. If I touched a person's hand and thought "activate," a noise hummed in my ear for ten seconds: a tiny voice, their worry, or a song stuck in their head.
"Is that cheating?" I asked once.
Isaac patted my head. "It's a tool. Use it well."
We rode into the city, where buildings leaned like giants and smells of fried bread chased us down the streets.
At the rest stop, a woman gave me sweet potato chips. "For you, little monk," she said.
I sniffed. "They smell like home."
"Thank you," I told her, and the light in my head said, "This is a safe item."
A man sat with a hat and a mask. He looked like trouble. I touched his palm to read ten seconds.
"Not money. Not now. Hide. Don't trust her," his mind said.
I plucked a yellow paper from my bag. "Excuse me. You, sir. Are you a bad man?"
He scowled. "Leave me be, child."
"You look like you hurt people," I said bluntly, because my tool was blunt.
He tried to stand. I slapped a talisman on his arm. "Stop moving," I sang.
People gasped. He froze like a statue. Someone called the police. Isaac and Gregory explained we had seen him on the wanted list. The police took a photo.
Driver later called us brave. "That little girl saved us time," he said, clapping.
I watched the man with my eyes narrow. Inside I felt a silly little pride. "I don't like bad men," I told the system later. "They make ghosts."
The system buzzed. "Complete task: local safe. Reward pending."
*
We opened a folded wooden sign that read "No-Request Abbey" in crooked paint and sat on the street. People paused at my face. I sold little readings. I used my mind tool only a little. I liked to watch people.
A young man parked his car and stared. He had fine clothes and a face like my mother's picture in a box.
He came closer. I tilted my head and smelled his clothes with the little nose my master taught me to use.
"Are you for real?" he said. "You look...like my sister in a photo."
My heart did a strange flutter. "My name is Autumn," I told him.
"I am Beau Ray," he said. "This is my brother Vaughn Peters. We thought...are you..."
He stopped. A trickle of wetness hit his hand. He laughed and covered his mouth.
"Is this your aunt? Your sister?" Beau whispered to Vaughan.
"I am not an aunt," I said. "I am five."
He laughed and hugged his own small puff of a memory. "You could be my cousin. Our family lost a girl five years ago."
I felt a pull in my chest sharp and warm like soup.
"Do you want someone to be your family?" Beau asked.
I blinked. "Do you have cake?"
He laughed and bought me a warm bun.
"Your face," Vaughn said quietly, "is the same as old photos."
I touched the bun and thought "activate." Through touch I heard something small: "He remembers us." The thought bounced in my head like a pebble.
I kept my mouth shut. My life had a mountain and a master and two helpers. My head buzzed with the system quizzes. I was not sure where I belonged.
*
Then dirt and ghosts and money mixed into a story.
A man named Guillermo Donaldson came to my little stand with a woman who looked like sad flowers. He had things in his pockets like false charms and another man's picture.
When I touched his sleeve, a whisper flashed: "It was easy. She could not say no."
I did not like his smell. He tried to buy my help and sneer.
"This temple can exorcise your problem," Guillermo said. "How much do you charge?"
"I charge stories," I said. "Tell me truth, I will tell you a way."
He laughed like he had many masks. "Fine. Pay later."
We followed him to his building. A woman in red stood behind him, floating like a sad doll. She cried tears of black water. Her name was Juliet Costa.
"I want them to know," Juliet said. Her voice was like an old song. "I want my story known."
"Tell," I said, because when ghosts ask, you listen.
She told of pain. "He pushed me. He beat me. I cried for my child and then he was gone. He laughed. He laughed. I was dead."
Guillermo's face flushed. He laughed like a man who had never seen a jail cell.
"You can stop," I said. "You are seven days away from being broken by your own choices. You will die if you do nothing."
He paled. "You lie," he hissed. "You are a child."
"Punching and paper prayers will not save you," I told him. "You need witnesses. You need songs. You need to tell the truth."
He offered money. I drew a pattern in the air and wrote on the wind, "If you lie, I will not help."
Juliet's eyes clouded and she reached for my hand. "I do not want revenge, small star. I want to move on."
I thought of Evert, who taught me both kindness and truth.
"You will stand in public," I told Guillermo. "You will answer for what you did. If you refuse, I will bring witnesses. If you lie, I will make them hear the recordings."
He flamed red. "You cannot prove anything."
I tapped my small bag and pulled out the recordings Juliet had given me in her whisper: a tape, a message, a confession he had made in anger.
"You will sign to invite us to your family banquet," I said.
"Fine," he said. He was arrogant like a big dog. "I'll have your little duo. I will humiliate you."
"I will humiliate you better," I told him.
*
We went to the big house. Its name was the Duke estate—Dmitri Duke's house. The Duke family was tall like a tree and wide like a tree's shadow. Dmitri Duke sat at the head of the room like a cliff.
They had been having strange things—dishes cooked wrong, pets gone missing, a son who smelled of an odd hunger. That son, Crew Patterson, was ill and had been strange for nights.
"Why bring children?" a man snapped. "Our boy is no fit subject for games."
"He speaks the truth more than many," Isaac said calmly. "We do not play."
"You must show proof," Dmitri said. He was an old man with a face like a map. "My house is not for tricks."
"You will let us try," I said, and I did not bow low. I looked like a small warrior and a small thief at once.
We climbed the stairs. Inside, ham and sweets and family pictures watched like soldiers.
A man screamed upstairs.
"Juliet is close," I breathed. "I can feel her."
We ran up.
Crew Patterson stood at the stove, pumping and trembling. Around him were burned pots. When he saw me his face went pale as a blank paper.
"Help," he croaked. "It tastes like meat that is not meat."
I slapped a talisman on him. It did not work the way it did on petty thieves. He shook and his veins clouded with something old and cruel.
"That is not my father," he said, voice thin. "I feel someone in here that calls itself a hunger."
A red cold came from the corners.
I grabbed a wooden club—my father's old toy and my master gave me permission—and I punched air.
"Stop," I shouted, and my hands did a thing I had practiced: a motion of child play, three strikes and a shout.
The room felt like it cracked.
"How dare you!" a voice inside the man's skin screamed. A thin man, small and full of shame, floated out like a moth.
I looked straight at it. "You will be judged," I said.
Crew slumped like a puppet, freed. He began to cry in a real human way.
Dmitri remained quiet, his face a hard stone. "Explain," he said.
"We found a spirit," Isaac said. "A greedy one. It took the wrong shape. We fought it."
Dmitri's son, a younger man who had been ugly to us, looked furious. "This is theater," he said. "How dare you accuse me of aiding such things?"
I pointed a finger. "You hide things. You hide rotting habits."
The house trembled like a struck gong. Secrets hit the air. Dmitri leaned forward. "Who is this child?"
I did not answer. I ate a bun. I kept thinking of the strange tug in my chest—the line of blood and time that might connect my small face to the photographs those two boys held.
"Everything will be checked," Dmitri said slowly. "We will test. We will prove. If you are who you say, we will welcome you. If not—"
He did not finish. The sentence hung like a lid.
We left with a tray of food and questions. Beau and Vaughn followed like two loud birds. They needed truth as much as they needed story.
"Can we test?" Beau asked gently. "We should do DNA. We will not let anyone be angry if it's wrong."
Vaughn was quieter. "We owe you peace," he said.
I smiled because I liked buns and the thought of more food.
*
Two days later, a thing happened that made the city sing.
Guillermo Donaldson had gathered a banquet. He wore a suit like a mask. The Duke family was in the crowd. Some from the town had come. I had told him, "If you wish your guilt to remain secret, sign this paper and release evidence to the police. If you do not, come to the feast."
He said he wanted the feast.
I touched my talisman and listened. "He is worried," the system warned. "He will lie."
He did.
They set a stage. Guillermo smiled as if the world was only for him.
I stood small by Isaac and Gregory. Beau and Vaughn were there too. I held the recording in my bag—Juliet's voice like a needle that could pierce shame. I held the other things we had found: messages, a nurse's testimony, names of a broken hotel clerk.
The room smelled like boiled cabbage and pretense.
"Guillermo Donaldson," I said loud enough that people turned. "You have a story to tell."
A murmur ran like wind in grass. Guillermo laughed like he was safe in a house with many locks.
"Kid, step aside," he said.
"I will not." I touched his cuff and felt, just for a second, a cold like a saved lie.
The lights were bright.
"Please," I said to the room, "watch his face."
Someone shouted, "A trick! He is a liar!"
I opened my mouth and played Juliet's voice on my small recorder. Her words filled the room like a bad smell: "He pushed me. He laughed. He said the baby would silence me."
Guillermo's smile fell like a cracked plate.
"You bought witnesses," he said. "This is a trap."
"Tell Dmitri to look at the recordings," I said.
Dmitri watched his face. The people around the table watched too.
Guillermo's color, which had been a greedy gold, turned as if someone had washed his face in cold water.
"You cannot prove it," he said. "Those could be fake. Lies. She is dead. She cannot speak."
"Then why do you have payment receipts?" Isaac asked. "Why does your message say you feared being exposed?"
Beau stood and spoke, voice shaking. "We thought you were just a good man. But you are not."
Guillermo's jaw clicked. "You cannot break me. I have... money. Power. People."
I touched his hand again. The ten seconds filled my head with a flash: "If she speaks, I will pay. Keep quiet. It was messy."
His own voice—his own memory—was the worst witness.
"Stop!" he shouted. "This is slander."
The eldest of his own circle, a thin man who had believed in his parties and fine suits, stood up and searched his pockets. He found a compact with a receipt and a name. He saw numbers that matched the recordings.
Someone in the crowd took out a phone.
"Don't!" Guillermo cried.
The camera light blinked like a star and the video spread—one person, then two, then dozens. People recorded. The room filled with the sharp sound of recording. Guillermo's face went a deeper red. He babbled. "This is not real. I was protecting the family. I was protecting... I—"
He reached for a glass and spilled it. Someone shouted, "Call the police."
"He will lie," Guillermo said. "You cannot trust small girls."
No one listened.
A woman near the door—Mrs. Donaldson—had a phone in her hand and tears in her eyes. She flicked through messages and found one she was not meant to see. Her face changed to a knife swing.
"You liar!" she screamed. "How dare you!"
She threw her drink. It hit him squarely on the chest. Her hands trembled. The room formed a circle of eyes. People were muttering. Some were phones, some were witnesses. A waiter stepped back.
Guillermo's face lost color like moonlight.
He ran to speak with the people who mattered, but every door creaked closed. A cousin who had been on his side walked away and shook his head. Men who had given him contracts sent quick messages and hung up. The footage spread across the phones and into the street.
"You're done," a voice said. It was a worker who had once taken his temper. He spat, "You broke a woman. You will pay."
The police arrived because someone called them. They came with the normal kind of calm that makes guilty men sweat. They listened to the film, the messages, the receipts. They put Guillermo in handcuffs. He knelt on the marble like a broken toy.
"You're under arrest," the officer said.
Guillermo went white and then red and then like a man who couldn't breathe. He begged, "Please! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to—"
People laughed and some recorded as he crumpled. His wife signed the papers for divorce that night, and her lawyer told the press. The company he once ran issued a short statement, then a longer one. Investors called their lawyers. A partner who had hidden misdeeds found reasons to withdraw.
The next morning, his office had fewer lights. Headline emails called him "one-time philanthropist now suspect." Phones stopped ringing. His social pages filled with sharp words. The bar where he drank had a sign that said "No longer welcome."
When police walked him out, he kneeled in the middle of the street and called my name.
"Don't!" he wailed. "Please! Autumn! I'm sorry!"
Someone pushed a phone nearer. "Say it for them," a woman said. "Make it go viral."
He tried to cry. "I didn't mean, it was an accident."
"What you did hurt people," a former friend spat.
He was taken away, screaming that it wasn't fair. Neighbors filmed and clapped. A child in the crowd said, "Bye," and the video of that child waving while Guillermo begged was shared like a splinter.
His company lost clients that week. His partners left. A bank froze some accounts. He found papers and emails that proved he had bought silence. Investors dropped him. He walked into his office like a man who had been unmasked by mirrors. People were quiet. Then they were loud in their own safety.
The punishment was not one small thing. It was a chain reaction.
At home, his wife filed for separation the same day. She packed her bags and took only a small red suitcase. She left a note on the table with one sentence: "I do not want to stay near lies."
He sat alone in rooms full of former trophies. The police took statements. The city liked to clap at clean endings.
I watched him go from the window. I felt nothing but the same small grin a child makes when she has done a worthy thing.
The system buzzed. "Significant energy increase. Reward granted."
"I do not care for rewards," I told it. "I care for truth."
The system had no answer ready for that.
*
The DNA test came soon. I sat in a sterile room with two handsome brothers and one quiet man who had been good and steady—Vaughn. Beau was loud and offered me cotton candy like peace.
"She is almost everything in the DNA match," Isaac said to the man with the government clipboard, who looked like a machine that sometimes could feel.
"You are certain?" Dmitri Duke asked, voice trembling.
The clipboard man looked at his computer. "There is a high probability. But we will confirm with court DNA."
My hands were small and my heart made itself into a drum. I looked at the two brothers who had cried when they saw my face. They were not all kinds of family, but they had a kind of patience like warm bread.
"You," Beau said, "you can stay with us."
I thought of the temple on the mountain, of Master Evert's calluses, of Isaac's kindness and Gregory's noodles. I thought of two brothers in a car. I thought of many things.
"I don't want to leave my temple," I said quickly. "I like it there."
Beau's face fell. "We can have two homes," he said.
Dmitri watched me and then stood, slow as a tree. "If she is ours, she will have a place here too. But not all of you will have my welcome if you are cruel."
There was a silence like the one after the rain.
I climbed into the car with Beau and Vaughn just like that. We ate more buns. We laughed awkward jokes. We planned a test. We scheduled the second DNA test at the government place.
A few days later the result came. It was written in cold black letters across a sheet: "Confirmed: Autumn Jensen is a blood relative."
The room dropped.
"Why did no one come for you?" Beau asked gently. "Why did no one search for you?"
"They thought I was gone," I whispered. "People had told them I was taken and gone. I survived alone."
"That is awful," Vaughn said. "We are sorry."
"They lied," a cousin in the room said. "They covered up."
Dmitri closed his eyes. "I promised to fix this."
I watched faces change. Some softened. Some got harder. Dmitri reached out and held my small hand. It was an old man's hand but it was steady.
"You are welcome," he said. "If you want, you will have a place. But you will not be made sore again. We will test every case. We will not be cruel."
I stared at him and then nodded. "I will live where I want," I said. "I want to help people. I want a place for those who got hurt."
He laughed and then, quietly, sighed. He signed some paper. He sat with me and made the strange sound of an old man who was learning to be new.
Not everyone was happy. Some family members still wore the old colors—greed, fear, and small lies. They could not be fixed in one speech.
*
The system rewarded my deeds. Acre by acre it gave land near the mountain. With land I could extend the temple and build enough rooms and an herb garden. Isaac, Gregory and I worked. Beau and Vaughn held nails when we needed hands. Dmitri gave funds for a roof.
We built a small shrine. We opened the gates. People came for incense and truth. We took stories and we called the police when someone had broken laws. We gave food and shelter to those who could not sleep.
"You are doing so well," the system said, happily. "Progress: building. Reward unlocked."
"Don't call me 'progress,'" I told it. "Call me Autumn, please."
We had small happinesses. I told Beau that his cooking was okay. He gave me one of his shirts once because he said my sleeves were too small and would get dirty. I said it made me feel like I had a big soft bird on my shoulders.
And then, something bitter happened.
A cousin who had loved money more than truth tried to accuse Isaac of doing wrong for profit. He trumped small tales and called him thief. He wrote a nasty post. He said our temple stole property.
I watched him with both hands in my pockets and thought of the way Guillermo had looked before he fell. Then I made a plan.
"Let's show them," I told Isaac.
We invited him to the shrine and then to the public square. We told the truth. We let the people film. The cousin's face crumpled like paper when the temple's books came out and the old ledgers showed donations and receipts all clean like honest bread. He had no answer. He tried to fight. He shouted that we had tricked them.
I walked forward and told a quiet story about the woman who had given me a sweet potato chip and then gave a single donation to the charity fund.
"He said we were cheats," I told the cousin.
"You are a liar," he said.
"You will kneel and apologize," I said. My voice was small but it had a strange power. People listened.
He hesitated, and then he knelt like a puppet and begged forgiveness, wept, and promised to do better.
We made him volunteer at the soup kitchen for a month. People shouted and recorded. He was not ruined like Guillermo, but he was humbled and the town liked the show.
Sometimes punishment did not have to be public and destroy. Sometimes it needed to be public and reforming. But Guillermo needed to fall so hard that no one would trust him again. That could not be mercy. That needed to be justice.
The hospital got the tapes. The police finished their reports. Courts opened a hearing. Guillermo lost contracts, his wife left him, his bank froze money, the company dissolved. He pleaded later for mercy. I did not go to the prison to see him.
When the city had time, they called me "The Little Exorcist." Kids drew my picture with a pink suitcase. Beau said it made him laugh.
"That pink suitcase changed the world," I told Isaac once. "I will call it my traveling shrine."
"Don't get too proud," Isaac said. "You are a child. Eat your buns."
"I will," I promised.
*
Months passed. The system kept giving small land pieces. We built rooms and beds. People called us when something strange walked in their alley. We visited sick houses. We cleaned wounds and burned herbs. We made sure children did not go alone to dark places.
"Why do you help so much?" Beau asked me one afternoon under a tree in the courtyard.
"Because it is right," I said simply. "Because Evert taught me better than fear."
"Will you ever belong to us?" Vaughn asked, soft as a breath.
I looked at the two of them. "You belong to yourselves," I answered. "I belong to the mountain and the people who need me."
They grinned. "We will still visit."
"You must bring cakes," I said.
And they did.
Then the last big thing happened.
There was a banquet at the Duke estate to thank the temple. People came, even the old ones who had been mean. The town seemed to want to forgive and to be forgiven.
Dmitri stood and said things like an old man who has learned to see. "We made mistakes," he told the room. "We will be better."
A cousin cleared his throat and then made a small apology. Beau and Vaughn sat by my side. Isaac and Gregory watched the crowd.
After the banquet, a woman came to me. It was Juliet Costa's sister, a small woman with hands that were never idle.
"You spared him," she said. "You could have burned him. He is in jail now. But you let the law take its time."
"I don't burn," I said. "I help the ones who are hurting."
She smiled and offered me a small box. Inside was a wooden charm, carved with a tiny sun and a small hot bun.
"For the temple," she said. "For your kindness."
I placed it on my small neck. It was warm.
"Thank you," I said.
She took my hand. "Dmitri will help with the documents. We will start a fund. For children like you. For women like Juliet."
My heart felt like birds. I wanted to cry but I was a child and cried were for tea spills. So instead I laughed and asked for cake.
Later, alone in the temple office, I set the last roof tile. Isaac and Gregory stood by and passed me mortar. The system hummed.
"Reward delivered: main hall stone, shrine statue," it informed me.
I touched the small statue and whispered, "For those who can't come back, we will make a place."
Isaac rubbed his hands. "We should plant a tree."
"We will," I said. "And name it for Juliet."
We hammered the last nail. The tile fit. It felt like the end of a small job and the start of a big river.
I sat on the new stone step and looked at the valley. The sun was low and the temple roof caught the light. It glowed a red like an ember.
Someone asked me once why I did not accept all family right away. I thought of cheap men and kind brothers, of the two kinds of people in the world.
"I will choose my people," I told them.
"Who are they?" someone asked.
"You will know them," I said. "They carry buns and warm hands."
Beau laughed and threw a shoe at me.
The shoe was soft and smelled like the city and home.
The system pinged in my ear. "New task available: assist other temples. Reward: knowledge."
I yawned. "Later," I told it.
A child from the village came running with a flower braid and handed it to me.
"For you," he said.
I tied it to my pink suitcase. The ribbon fluttered in the breeze.
"Good luck," Isaac said. "Don't be too famous."
"Fame is sticky," I agreed. "I prefer sticky buns."
We all laughed.
At dusk, Dmitri walked up the temple path. He carried a small box that looked heavy for his age.
"This is for you," he said.
I opened it. Inside were two small envelopes and a photograph. The photograph showed a woman with a thin smile and a man with my nose. They were very young and very tired.
"You were loved," Dmitri said.
I pressed the photo to my chest. My eyes pricked.
"Thank you," I murmured. "I will keep building."
He nodded. "And I will keep learning to be less old in my heart."
Night came down and the lamps in the valley blinked on. Someone passed bread. Someone told a tired joke. The system hummed contentedly. I lay hugged by friends and family chosen by both blood and bread.
I closed my eyes and thought of the many small things: the yellow talisman, the pink suitcase, the wooden club, the first record of Juliet's voice, a recording that changed a banquet, a man whose lies could no longer hold him up.
"One more thing," I whispered, before sleep swallowed me.
"Yes?" Isaac said from the floor.
"I will never be a ghost," I said. "Not a ghost of memory, not a ghost of shame."
"Good," Isaac answered. "We do not need ghosts in a place that builds light."
I held my little talisman and fell asleep. In my dream, Evert was back at the mountain with a roof fixed and a pot of mushroom soup. He smiled like a man who had finally come home. I smiled back, small and full, and when I woke the next morning, the new shrine glowed and the town had one more place to go when they needed the truth.
The End
— Thank you for reading —