Ghost Glasses – Rikki Goodwin

How long has it been, an hour? Maybe an hour and a half? He might not even be asleep yet. I’m sure he has a lot of thoughts buzzing, too. Does he maybe like me, like me? Don’t be stupid, you’re an unseen specter, literally haunting him. You’re not Rebecca. The kitchen cabinets are almost empty. There’s a stack of paper plates in one, and three mismatched coffee mugs in another.

One says, “World’s Greatest Dad.” Another displays the logo for the trucking company he works for. The third is pink, with a gold rim and white polka dots. My heart clenches, and I touch all three with trembling fingers. Another cabinet has two flashlights, a portable radio, and batteries of every voltage.

I start to carefully close the cabinet again (this one squeaks), but then grin, remove the radio, and place it on the counter by our whiteboard. There’s no television to watch, and I worry about turning one on, anyway. I have a feeling that Buddy would notice. He notices me. I can’t help but grin at the thought. I rock back and forth in the weird little space between the kitchen and living room that I suppose it meant to house a small table.

I’m so full of energy, I can’t just gaze out a window and watch the day go by like I sometimes find myself doing. I can’t even— Buddy’s bedroom door opens, and he appears. “Hello?” he calls softly. “I couldn’t sleep.” I can’t wipe the stupid smile off my face as I turn on the radio to static, and Buddy grins right back in my general direction IT’S SEVEN THIRTY-SEVEN in the morning when Buddy’s phone rings for the first time.

We had just decided to go get some breakfast somewhere (“I don’t keep any food in the house,” Buddy admitted sheepishly), and trill of the phone sounds from his bedroom. We both stop dead in our tracks, me more than him I guess, and gaze down the short hall. It’s like a literal wake up call.

We can’t just hang out and play house, August Waters is looking for us. Addie is waiting. I need to get Buddy to go home, and I haven’t even asked him yet. How did I forget to ask him to go home last night? “I guess I’ll get that.” He sighs, as it rings again. I don’t follow him into his room, he deserves his privacy, but I hear him murmur an answer, and then I hear that murmur raise into a panic.

I rush forward, forgetting the privacy. Buddy is charging out, and his face is both angry and frightened. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. © COPYRIGHT 2026 by Rikki Goodwin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

AI was not used to write this book, to create the cover art, or in formatting. NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s and publisher’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited.

The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models. *Warning: Not intended for persons under the age of 18. May contain coarse language and mature content that may disturb some readers. Reader discretion advised. Cover Art Design by: Kelly Moran/Rowan Prose Publishing Photo Credit: Adobe Images/Deposit Photos First Edition ISBN: 9798230166702 eBook Edition Rowan Prose Publishing, LLC www.RowanProsePublishing.com Published in the United States of America Praise for Rikki Goodwin: If you’re a fan of light, cozy horror that’s high on the creepy factor, then“ you won’t want to missLovers’ Leap.”

-E.M. Lund, author of The Urbex Trip “Lovers’ Leap gets its hooks in you from word one and doesn’t let up.” -Jo Kaplan, author of It Will Just Be Us “Lovers’ Leap hooked me from the very first page. I was more invested in these characters from the prologue than I have been after reading entire books. Goodwin’s descriptions are vivid enough to make your insides clench, and I found it genuinely creepy throughout.

I finished reading in the small hours, and I regretted it when I finally turned out the light.” -Laura Livingstone, author of The Boy With the Heart of Sea Glass “Creepy and engrossing in equal measure. Trust me, if you read this book and think you know where it’s headed…think again.” -Tom Carter, author of The House of Whispers OTHER BOOKS BY RIKKI GOODWIN: For you, on the days you feel invisible.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 6248bd628ec7985a
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,631,438 bytes (1.556 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9798230166702
• Pages: 254
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 411.72 minutes
• Total Words: 82,344
• Total Characters: 440,421
• Average Words per Page: 324.19
• Average Characters per Page: 1733.94

Most Frequent Words

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