Haunting the narrative means that the character’s absence heavily impacts the plot. They’re not present or active in the story when their influence is most strongly felt, whether they’re alive or dead!
I saw in your bio that you like steven universe, but I have never seen anything related to that from you. Have you ever done any doodles related to SU? And if not, now would be a great time. (Audible wink)
If you search the "steven universe" tag on my tumblr you will find a plethora of art there for you to peruse! (I actually think a couple of my most popular posts are from SU?) I haven't drawn any for a long while because, like KH, I fell out of the fandom and got into UT/DR stuff instead. But there's definitely a big chunk of art there for you to look through!