“Tell us about your haunting, Mr. Carter.” Joseph said. “Because from very little we’ve heard, it doesn’t sound like much of a problem.”

“Oh, it is a problem, Dr. Morton. And it’s getting worse by the night.” Mr. Carter said.

He told the manesologists all about his haunting. He told them about the players on the stage and how they would prance about without any awareness of their surroundings and how they would suddenly turn stock-still and leer at him if they detected him. He told them how they had appeared on the stage night after night and had recently overflowed the stage like water bursting through a broken dam. He told them how he feared that the ghosts would make it out into the street soon and ruin the reputation of the theater. He told them how he would be eternally grateful to Ernst, Morton, and Glass if they could just get the ghosts to go away.

“A small, quiet haunting, like what passes through rumors and only rumors, can be good for business.” Mr. Carter said. “It gets people talking. It gets people to come to the theater to see if they can “find the ghost’ and if they see a shadow change they feel like they’ve had an adventure. My actors, naturally, told everyone in their social circles about the ghosts, but not that they only come out at midnight after we lock up. So the portion of the population attracted to hauntings comes to have a little adventure while the sensible portion of the population that wants nothing to do with ghosts dismisses it all as an unfounded rumor. Yes, a small and quiet haunting can be good for business, our uptick in attendance proves that. But a large, loud haunting? That is very, very bad for business! I understand that there being several ghosts involved might run up the bill, but I’ll see that you’re paid in full. I know that you waive your fee for impoverished clients, but I assure you, I am not that kind of client! We’re a new theater backed by investors newly rich off reconstruction money.You will be paid in full, and what’s more, I’ll give lifetime passes to each of you.”

“That’s very kind of you.” Matthew said.

“Now, um, how long do you estimate the removal of the ghosts will take?” Mr. Carter asked. “And will you be able to do it without disrupting daytime operations?”

The three manesologists looked at each other. Mr. Carter instantly realized that he had missed a step, but for his life he couldn’t imagine that step was.

“We have a few questions.” Matthew said.

“Oh. Oh, certainly, go right ahead. Ask me anything.”

“First of all, could you throw in two to three more passes, please?” Joseph asked with a sly grin.

“Certainly, certainly!” Mr. Carter smiled back, feeling disarmed. “All your friends and family members can come as often as they like! Bring all of Blackwall if you want, just get those ghosts out of my theater.”

“Second question--what exactly are your intentions concerning the ghosts?”Joseph asked.

Mr. Carter shrugged. “I thought I made that clear. I want them gone, I want them removed from the property. Take them to one of those common houses for ghosts, like Morning Manor, it doesn’t matter so long as they’re gone.”

“Do you truly have no interest in learning about these ghosts?” Joseph asked. “You truly have no care for who they are or what they want?”

“Dr. Morton, I’m not a historian and I am certainly not a manesologist. I am a theater director. The ghosts could be the ghosts of old Globe actors, or the ghosts of Atlantean Necromancer Kings, it doesn’t matter to me, they can go on being what they want to be out of my theater and out of my life.”

“Well, before we discuss removing the ghosts, we should discuss whether they should be removed in the first place.” Matthew said.

Mr. Carter flinched. “Should? I’m well within my rights to request their removal! I guarantee that none of the ghosts are the ghosts of investors. I know the investors. None of them have perished since the Gnome was built. Even if by some miracle one was the ghost of an investor, the Manes Charter says that, excluding explicit instructions within a legal will, ghosts are not entitled to the property owned by their previously inhabited bodies. The law is on my side here. I am well within my rights to request their removal!”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“You are correct in that you are within your rights.” Matthew replied. “But as manesologists, we must consider what manes want as well as humans. I know Illustrated Phantom Stories likes to call us ghost hunters, but we are not hunters of any kind. We are negotiators. There are two parties here, you and the ghosts on stage. We’ve heard your side, but we need to hear their side. We’ve heard nothing of what they want.”

“I want them gone. There’s no reason you can’t attend to their needs after they’re gone from the property.”

“You say that now, but you might not want them gone once they start talking.” Joseph said. “The way you described the ghosts, it seems they’re in what we call a phantasmagoria. They only notice you, and when you aren’t present, they’re so caught up in their own acting they don’t even notice the other ghosts around them. I know that right now, they seem like things from out of a dream, things without a lot of sense, but we have ways to increase the awareness of ghosts, to bring them out of their fog, as it were.”

“Dr. Morton. I am aware that you have, through gaeite Operations, increased the lucidity of certain ghosts and made them communicable and sociable. Your two helper ghosts, odd as they are, represent that fact. But you could turn this troupe of night-time goblins into the most articulate, well-behaved ghosts imaginable, and I would still want them out of my theater.”

“I think you’re being hasty. What if all they want is a job?” Joseph asked. “What if this is all just an audition filtered through a phantasmagoric fog? Would you really say no to them? I heard a theater up in Scotland has had great success with ghost performers.

“The Gnome theater gets along fine without ghosts. Dr. Morton, I don't want to give them a job. I don’t want to talk with them. I don’t want to deal with their histories or their mysteries. I don’t want to deal with them.”

“Another question, Mr, Carter, if we were able to stop and reverse the ghosts’ expansion throughout the theater and confine them to the state, would that suffice?” Joseph asked. “If we reduced what’s quickly becoming a large and loud haunting back to a small, quiet haunting, nothing more than a few ghosts occupying the stage in the dead of the night, would you be satisfied with that?”

“Absolutely not.”

“What if we could guarantee that the ghosts would never again overflow the stage?” Joseph asked.

“I don’t see why you need to keep asking these questions.” Mr. Carter said. “My position is clear. I want the ghosts gone, and I’m in my right to request that they be removed.”

“As Dr. Ernst said, we must consider the feelings of the ghosts.” Joseph said. “Removal can be distressing. For all we know, these ghosts only want to perform on an empty stage.”

“I understand that removal can be distressing, but I’m not saying that you should, I don’t know, affix them to a stone and toss them into the sea. There is nothing, absolutely nothing those ghosts can get from my theater that they can’t get somewhere else. If there’s some sort of hidden locket buried below the theater, dig up and give it to the ghosts. If they’re old performers, find them another stage. Direct them to that theater up in Scotland. Dr. Morton, are you suggesting that you can’t remove the ghosts from my theater?”

“Mr. Carter, all we’re saying is that there are steps we need to take before removal. Very important steps. We’re not like Burke and Robins, Mr. Carter. We take steps before affixing a ghost, and sometimes those steps make it so that we don’t have to affix a ghost at all.”

“I think I prefer their approach better.” Mr. Carter said.

“Then you may leave and seek their assistance in Bristol.” Matthew said.

“No. While I don’t like all these extra steps you place before affixing ghosts, your reputation, diluted as it is through the lurid contents of broadsheet publications, speaks for itself. And, well, Burke and Robins have the incident of the Rot Umhang hanging over their reputation.”

“Yes. That was such a dreadful incident.” Matthew said.

“And entirely avoidable, if Burke and Robins had even the slightest bit of consideration for the poor ghost.” Joseph said. “But another question, Mr. Carter--is it true that you never talked to them? Not even once?”

“No.”

“You didn’t even wave or mutter a “hello?””

“Never. Night after night, I’ve watched them, and on nights in which I am not very fortunate, they watch me. That has been the extent of our interactions.”

“Mr. Carter, why haven’t you talked to them?”Joseph asked in a tone of voice that reminded Mr. Carter of when his old schoolmaster would ask him why he didn’t finish his letters.

Oh no.

Not this again.

Mr. Carter couldn’t help but remember the face of the treasurer, and of Teddy.

Why were so many people asking him to talk to ghosts--as if that was something sensible to do?

It wasn’t as insulting, however, coming from Dr. Morton. Unlike the treasurer, Dr. Morton wasn’t afraid to face ghosts. He had faced some truly horrific nightmares according to Illustrated Phantom Stories. Mr. Carter remembered reading about the Brute of Epping Forest--that was a ghost that could frighten even other ghosts. It was so powerful it snapped trees in half for fun. Of course Dr. Morton wouldn’t see what the big deal was with interacting with ghosts. The Blackwall dog catcher probably didn’t understand why sensible people were so nervous about dogs, either.