“I’m sorry, but that’s complete bullshit,” Circe said. When she woke up, Luke and Liam told her what I’d said, and she’d been raving ever since. “I saw something leave you, and you saw the candles! What more do you need?”

“Andi said that she didn’t see a ghost leave Luke,” Liam said, his arms crossed. For someone who was so excited about her arrival, I thought, he didn’t seem particularly happy with her now. Granted, I wouldn’t be happy about someone nearly screaming at me in a hotel room either. It was a wonder we hadn’t been kicked out yet, if you think about it. “Why do you expect us to take your word over hers?”

“Maybe because you’ve known me for years, and she’s just some rando that came to you and said that she could see ghosts?” Circe asked angrily. “She didn’t even bring a single piece of ghost detecting equipment here, and you said she didn’t even see a ghost in the Peters Building, which is super haunted! For all you know, she just wanted to up her follower count!”

“That would be more likely if she had been the one to ask about being on the show, Circe,” Caitlin stated, probably the most calm out of all of us. I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to calm the energy in the room, or if she actually wasn’t bothered by any of it. “But that’s not the case. She just reached out to us to see if we had the contact information for the owner of the Peters Building, and we were the one who asked if she wanted to join since you weren’t available to film videos more consistently.”

“And so far, she has seen a couple of ghosts,” Luke said, jumping in. He still didn’t look great, but at least his hands seemed to have stopped shaking and there was a bit of color to his face. “She even pointed out one in this room the first night, and we actually caught some evidence on a static cam!”

Circe huffed, then grabbed her bag and started throwing candles back into it haphazardly. “So she gets lucky enough to run into one actual ghost and all of a sudden she’s this saint? Fine, then, I guess you guys don’t need me anyway!” She threw one last bottle into her bag and started heading toward the door.

“Circe, wait!” Caitlin said, but Circe didn’t, and Caitlin followed her into the hallway, trying to catch up.

We all stared at the closed door for what felt like an eternity, waiting to see if she would come stomping back into the room. Finally, Liam gave out a low whistle that broke the silence. “Drama,” he said in a sing-song voice.

“She’s always been dramatic,” Luke reminded him. “It’s part of the reason why she does so good on the channel. But,” he said, swinging his head toward me, “it can also lead to situations like this. You’re sure of what you saw? Or, rather, didn’t see?”

“Positive,” I said.

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“But you haven’t seen the warping on Luke’s face any other time, right?” Liam asked. I shook my head. “Is it possible that it’s just a trick of the camera?”

“We would have seen it, then,” Luke argued.

“Hmmm. Or maybe a ghost walked through him and we just didn’t notice them approaching?”

“I guess it’s possible,” I said with a shrug. “I’ve never seen it happen, but I’ve never seen this happen either, so I don’t know the rules.”

“By ‘this,’ do you mean a ghost possession, or a drama queen meltdown?” Liam asked, his grin returning to his face.

“Either one,” I said, smiling back at him.

“Which is great,” Luke said, “but if it is a possession, then that means that the ghost is still in me somehow.”

“True…” I said. “Have you ever just tried asking nicely to see if the ghost will leave?”

They both looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “Do you actually think that would work?” Luke asked after a minute.

“No clue, but I know that can work for objects. There was one customer I had who had a ghost that was attached to an old painting and the spirit needed me to send a letter to someone, but it involved tracking them down and it was going to take quite a while. So, I asked them nicely if they could detach themselves from the painting and instead attach to the letter I had written, and they did it.” I shrugged at their stunned silence. “Ghosts are just people. It doesn’t always work, but some people are reasonable.”

“Well, it’s worth a shot,” Luke said with a sigh. “Roll the cameras again.” Liam flipped the nearest one on, and Luke looked straight down the lense. “Spirit inside me, if you can hear me, could you please haunt something else instead?”

“It’s a small child, I think, judging by the voice,” I suggested. “Didn’t you have a stuffed animal you were working with before.”

“Boo Buddy!” Liam said, and went to rummage through one of their ghost hunting supply packs. A moment later, he came back and handed a disheveled looking bear to Luke. “Try that.”

“Okay.” Luke held the bear up in front of him and looked straight into the plastic eyes. “Can you please possess this bear instead of me?”

As he finished his sentence, I saw a flash of light that was so radiant that I had to squint my eyes and turn away. “Andi?” Liam said, lightly touching my back to check on me. “Are you alright?”

“The light is too bright.”

“What light?”

Well, that was unexpected - if they couldn’t see it, it meant that it was probably related to spirits, but I’d never seen one that was a bright light before. They always just looked like people. But since I’d started hanging out with Luke and Liam, nothing was ever normal anyway, so I guess I couldn’t be too surprised.

The light started to die down, so I turned back to them. Both guys were staring at me, totally oblivious to the light source that was now rapidly dimming inside the bear. It didn’t look like a person, or like anything I’d seen attached to an object before, but rather it just looked like the bear itself was glowing, like someone had put a bright lightbulb inside of it. “I think it worked?” I asked.

“You think?” Liam replied, cocking an eyebrow at me. I couldn’t help but notice that he still kept his hand on my back, as though he just wanted to be sure that I was okay.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life,” I said. My voice felt hoarse in my throat, as though the light had affected me internally as well.

“That makes three of us,” Luke said holding up the bear again.

“At least it’s in this now.” Liam grabbed the bear from Luke and put it on the counter in the kitchenette. “And, on the plus side, this camera,” he said, tapping the one lightly on the side, “was recording the whole time. We’re going to have some interesting footage, one way or another.”