I just started a new game after freshly getting out of the temple, too.
I'll see if I can get a screenshot next time I see her showing what I mean. The best way I can describe it is that every ghost seems to have dialogue after your HP reaches zero, but it only goes to a certain point where progressing it any further results in an early game over screen with no 'absorbed' dialogue.
After messing with it a few times,I found the point where the game over screen comes at the end of Zahara's scripted dialogue, but in my case that last message remains even after you're absorbed. Which makes sense, since you said that she doesn't have any 'absorbed' dialogue, however when I went past that point she started to say something else (I heard the little 'text is being added chatter noise') but it gets interrupted by the game over screen. Hopefully that helps?
Anyways thank you for the response! I'll see if I can mess with the values in the files o: