Joseph pulled the blanket away and Mr. Carter saw that he was standing before his Gnome theater.

He blinked. The trip through the air didn’t seem long enough to be real. He remember standing outside, waiting for them to put the blanket over his head like a man being led before a firing squad. Then the wind was howling, blowing cold against his body, and then he was here, on solid ground, in Essex.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Joseph asked.

“No. It wasn’t bad at all.” Mr. Carter admitted. “It wasn’t…anything at all, really.”

“We told you so.” Joseph said.

Mr. Carter brushed some moisture off his arm and gazed upwards at the clouds. To think the light sprinkling on his body came from up there, all the way up there…

Matthew turned the knobs on his gaeite candle and his friends followed his lead. Small, tight halos of silvery-white radiance hovered close to their skin. Mr. Carter gasped. This was the second time in his life he saw gaeite candles in action.

The glow was startling--but not as startling as it was the first time.

“Alright, everyone into the theater.” Matthew said.

“Why are we going inside if the haunting hasn’t started?” Mr. Carter asked.

“Because hauntings don’t rightfully end.” Matthew answered. “They just become immaterial. Gaeite is a physical material that can, when you run an electric current through it and conduct it with clear, disciplined thoughts, produce Astral phenomena. This is the opposite of a manes, which is an Astral being that can circumstantially produce physical phenomena.”

Matthew tapped the gaeite column of his candle. It made a delicate, ringing sound, like a bell. ‘This is always a physical column of matter, no matter what, and hauntings are always a cloud of Astral substance, no matter what. We’re going to find the edge of that cloud.”

“Think of it like checking on the ghosts while they’re sleeping.” Joseph explained.

“Oh. Alright. So long as you don’t wake them up, that should be fine.” Mr. Carter said. “So, I trust you can find where the stage is, it’s the big room through the large double doors. I’ll wait out here.”

Joseph gave him a look. “Come with us. We may need you when it starts getting physical, and we’re not going to turn our backs to it to run out here and get you.”

Joseph manipulated the knobs on his candle and his olprt aura expanded enough for a person to share it with him.

Mr. Carter slowly shuffled to Joseph’s side. A large arm folded around his shoulders. “Come along, friend. There’s no safer place to be during a haunting than inside the olprt radiance. It’s to the old magic pentagram what the Neander man is to us.”

Mr. Carter looked down at himself. There in the light was his black thorn again, jutting from his chest.

He knew he couldn’t touch it, but he kept moving his fingers over it, regardless.

Together, the group made their way to the Gnome theater.

Upon noticing the stone gnome above the entrance, Martin stopped and smirked at the little wrinkled man with a pointed hat and long beard.

“Look Joseph, it’s you in miniature!” Martin said.

“I think I may have looked like this as a babe.” Joseph said. “You know, I think that conical hat of his looks rather smart. I think I would look smashing in one, pity no one makes them.”

“They’re called cornuthaum.” Martin said.

“Seriously?”

Martin smiled. “Well, if I was lying to you, you’d never know it…”

“I just want to know if the magic men in the Ror Raas really wear those Merlin-looking things.”

“Of course not. Have you ever seen Dr. Lumen wear one?”

“I don’t see Bob all the time, though. Maybe it’s like a bow tie for the magic men and they only put one on for formal occasions?”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“They do not. Don’t be absurd.”

“Well you’re the one that suggested the hats were real…”

“Excuse me, are you talking about Dr. Robert Lumen?” Mr. Carter asked. “The thaumaturgist?”

Mr. Carter had heard about Dr. Lumen. Everyone had heard about Dr. Lumen. He was the most public of the thaumaturgists, which meant he would occasionally lecture about thaumaturgical and manesological topics to packed auditoriums and streets, but that was, of course, far more than what the others would do.

“Yes.” Joseph pointed at Martin. “Dr. Glass has just revealed to me that thaumaturgists wear pointed hats in the fashion of Mr. Gnome here at parties and social gatherings to honor Jubjub the unicorn. They consider Jubjub a great and enlightened teacher, you see.”

Mr. Carter looked at Martin.

“Unicorns are real?” he asked.

“He’s lying.” Martin said. Please forgive him, Mr. Carter. Dr. Morton does that sometimes. He thinks it's funny, because he’s old and his sense of humor decayed back when Napoleon took a beating at Waterloo.”

“Dr. Glass…if the Ror Raas does have unicorns, the secret is safe with me, I promise.” Mr. Carter said.

Martin narrowed his eyes at Mr. Carter. “Please don’t be absurd, Mr. Carter. The Ror Raas is an organization consisting of humans, manes, and the great Abramelin.” Martin said. “Those three races, none more.”

“But…are there such things as unicorns?”

Martin ignored the question and pointed to the gnome statue. “I take it the theater was named after the Gnome race of the Dyeus culture, correct?”

“Yes.” Mr. Carter said.

“That’s not actually what they looked like.” Martin said. “But I can understand why you would depict them that way. They’d be confused for modern humans if you depicted them as they were. They’re very much like you and me, physically speaking, so much so that some doubt Dr. Darwin’s theory of common ancestry with apes and believe we arose from Gnomes that stayed on Earth when the rest of the Dyeus left for the Astral.”

“We were aware they looked like men instead of well, little men. But sometimes, you need to give people what they expect.” Mr. Carter said. “Take it from someone in the business of making large groups of people happy. If you’re going to present scenes from Hamlet, for instance, you’re going to have to include “To be, or not to be,” because that’s what Hamlet is to many people.”

Mr. Carter moved past the manesologists. “Excuse me, I’ll get the door.”

Mr. Carter pushed it open.

“You don’t lock your doors?” Joseph asked.

“No need to in Essex. Don’t take this the wrong way, Dr. Morton, but when Blackwall took on London’s populace, it took on London’s problems. People go to Blackwall to make money, legally or otherwise, and well, when they go to Blackwall, they don’t come here.”

“That’s just the truth.” Joseph said. “People have been stabbed in the streets for tins of jellied eels. Blackwall’s a rough city. In fact, our own business has been burgled. Twice.”

“Really?” Mr. Carter asked.

“And that’s not including the assassination attempt.” Martin said.

“The what?”

Joseph chuckled. “Oh, it sounds grim, but it was quite a funny event. Oh, you should have seen their faces when their bullets stopped dead in their tracks!”

“Well…you two are having quite a good reminiscence about an attempt on your lives.” Mr. Carter said.

“Murder is hilarious.” Joseph said. “So long as it's only attempted murder.”

“You won’t be hearing about the assassination in Illustrated Phantom Stories.” Matthew said. “They’re very adamant that every story they print about us involves a phantom. But they’ll print it in Illustrated Police News, one day, maybe. It’s a rather contentious subject, things might have to be redacted in the telling to protect certain people.”

“Well, if I happen to come across that issue, I’ll take a look…”

“The two burglary stories will be in Illustrated Phantom Stories, the publishers have confirmed that with us, though only one features a ghost.” Joseph said. “But the story that doesn’t have a ghost leads into the one that does. It’s complicated, but it’ll make sense when you read it. It’s also a pretty funny story.”

“I’ll attempt to brush up on Illustrated Phantom Stories’ ghost stories after we take care of my own story.” Mr. Carter said. “Now, follow me, gentlemen.”

Mr. Carter led the way through the door. He was surprised to see how different his theater looked bathed in silvery-white olprt radiance. The light penetrated even the deepest shadows and the imperfections those shadows hid were revealed for all to see.

Mr. Carter ran a finger along a framed illustration of the Globe theater and cringed at the grit he felt.

“Oh, it’s so dirty…” Mr. Carter mumbled. “My apologies, gentlemen!”

“We’ve been in houses more than a century old, don’t you worry about a thing.” Joseph said. “We’ve been in houses where the cobwebs are as thick as blankets.”

“We’re a new theater, though. We shouldn’t be in such a shabby state, I’ll have to get on to the maid about her neglect.”

Martin spied a round glass object affixed to the wall.

“Ah, electric lamps!” Martin said, gesturing to one. “This really is a modern building!”

“Thank you, though I’m skeptical of these things. I prefer gas, but the investors want electric, so we have a mixture, and every day we get more electric lamps.”

“They are kind of funny-looking things, aren’t they?” Joseph said. “I think they look like glass onions.”

“It’s not so much the look of them that bothers me as it is the…well, people say they start fires.”

Joseph shrugged. “Well, I suppose anything that makes heat can make a fire, but if they were really more dangerous than gas, I don’t think they would have caught on.”

“Well, there are other rumors…um, this may sound like an odd question, but…do they have any…interaction with ghosts?”

“Interaction?” Joseph asked.

“Well, I noticed back at your office that you used gas lamps instead of electric lamp, and, well, I’ve heard rumors that electric lamps work similarly to gaeite candles.”

“Ha! Similarly? Yes, I suppose they would be similar-- if you connected the filament of an electric lamp to a block of esoteric super-matter mined from pre-human ruins!” Joseph said.

“Mr. Carter, electricity does have the appearance of something mystical and metaphysical.” Matthew said. “Sometimes, it is literally lightning captured in a bottle. But electricity is still a physical phenomena, not an Astral phenomena. Whatever the reason for your haunting, it has nothing to do with the electric lamps in your theater.”

Mr. Carter felt foolish. “I never believed the haunting was because of the lights! I just heard rumors, and those rumors stuck in my mind, nothing more.”

“You need to be careful about rumors, especially when they stick in your head so easily.” Martin said.

Matthew held a hand out. The group stopped.