At the edge of Matthew’s olprt radiance was a gray imperfection flowing like smoke and oozing like water.

Mr. Carter gasped. “What is that? What on Earth is that?”

“What we’ve been looking for.” Matthew said. “But it isn’t actually on Earth, not if you consider Earth as being solely physical reality.”

“The magic men of the Ror Raas sometimes call this an Astral hand.” Joseph explained. “As in, it’s a hand from the Astral, reaching down into our world.”

“So…that’s the ghost?” Mr. Carter asked.

“It sure isn’t a dust bunny.” Joseph said

“These gaeite candles of ours work through principles of displacement.” Matthew explained. “A ghost creates a black silhouette because his physical ectoplasm and Odic energies displace the cloud of olprt. We can increase the strength of our olprt radiance so that weaker traces of ectoplasm and Odic energy don’t appear, or do the opposite so that any trace appears, no matter how faint. That’s what this is, the faintest possible residue of a haunting. And now, we’re going to examine it.”

“I’m surprised the haunting reaches this far out.” Mr. Carter pointed to the door leading to the stage, several feet behind the Astral hand. “I’ve stood here, and closer, nights before, but the ghostlight never reached this far.”

“There are two possible explanations for that.” Matthew said. “The first is the gradual expansion you previously mentioned. It may not be so gradual anymore.”

“Good lord!” Mr. Carter exclaimed. “Then I truly did get you three here in the nick of time!”

“The second is that the haunting has always extended this far. It’s not uncommon for the Astral hand to extend further than visible manifestatios.” Matthew said.

He turned to Martin and Joseph. “Done?”

They nodded.

“Wait? You’ve examined the haunting already?” Mr. Carter asked.

“Yes.” Matthew answered.” I know Illustrated Phantom Stories likes to depict us gesturing and mumbling whenever we perform our manesological Operations, but we really don’t need to do all that.” Matthew tapped his head. “It’s all a mental exercise. All we need to do is visualize some images from the Dyeus culture, preserved through the ages by the great Abramelin and taught to us by the Ror Raas, and concentrate. It’s really simple, once you grasp the basics of meditation and disciplined thinking.”

“I once managed to pull off an Operation while playing the piano.” Joseph said. “And I’m a very bad piano player.”

“I detected one manes, and only one.” Matthew said, “How about you two?”

“Just one.” Joseph said.

“Just one for me as well.” Martin said.

“Just one ghost?” Mr. Carter asked. “That’s not possible! Wait, does that mean the others fled?”

Matthew shook his head. “We would have detected the path of their flight. No. There’s only one manes in this haunting, and there has always only ever been one manes.”

“But there was a small army on stage!”

“Manes are not limited to one body, or one form. We once encountered an entire army of 17th century Cavaliers, all created by one soldier who felt lonely on an empty battlefield.”

“One ghost…” Mr. Carter mumbled to himself. “Only one…what does that mean?”

“We’ll have to ask him to find out.” Matthew said. “Now, please excuse us a moment, Mr. Carter. We need to conference together. When we examine the spiritual components of a manes, it’s not like measuring something with a meter stick, there’s a degree of subjectivity involved. I may think one component is strong, and Dr. Glass might think the same component is weak while Dr. Ernst thinks it’s average. So, excuse us, please.”

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

“Take all the time you need.” Mr. Carter said.

The manesologists briefly conversed on how strong various Egyptian words Mr. Carter recognized from Nesbitt’s Guide to Manesology were. Mr. Carter attempted to follow along, but the pronunciation of various words threw him. Was khet really pronounced cu wat? He couldn’t believe it. He hoped that the next edition of Nesbitt’s Guide to Manesology came with a pronunciation guide.

When they were done, Matthew turned to Mr. Carter.

“For the two spiritual components that control a manes’ externalized powers, the khet and the sekhem, we find that they’re both strong.”

“Oh!” Mr. Carter winced. “That means they could have seriously hurt me!”

“Even a ghost with a weak khet and sekhem can hurt a person, Mr. Carter.” Joseph said. “People say “The living have no defense against the dead” for a very good reason. Compared to a human, a ghost’s strength is always overwhelming no matter how it ranks. We rank how strong a ghost’s sekhem and khet are not to judge how dangerous a ghost is, but to determine how a ghost may behave. For instance, say we encounter a ghost that is physically moving a locket with the power of his khet. If his khet is powerful enough to crush the locket, we can conclude that him moving it demonstrates that he wants to protect it. But if his khet isn’t powerful enough, it opens the possibility that he’s not trying to protect the locket but shatter it, for whatever reason.”

“But…what exactly does a strong sekhem and a strong khet mean?” Mr. Carter asked.

Joseph rolled his eyes. “Did you not hear a word that I’ve told you, Mr. Carter?It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, if it doesn’t matter,what’s the harm in telling me?”

“Alright then. His khet is powerful enough to uproot mountains, twist metal like flower stems, and carry the very oceans upon his back.”

The blood ran from Mr. Carter’s face.

Joseph thought it best not to talk about all the psychic violence the ghost could commit with his sekhem.

“Oh, don’t you blanche on us, Mr. Carte!” Joseph said. “You haven’t listened to a word I said! Even the little wisps that can’t so much as pinch with their piddling khets can kill a man just by reaching through his skin and pinching his heart! A ghost’s sekhem and khet tells us the least about their personality, the least about whether or not they pose a danger! If you want to know whether a manes is a danger or not, you look at its personality components.”

“Speaking of which, let's discuss that pair now.” Matthew said, hoping to take Mr. Carter’s mind off ocean-carrying ghosts.

“The ba and ka are the personality pair. The ba determines the strength of memories and behaviors copied from the living host. The ka determines the strength of novel impulses. The ba and ka oppose each other under a theory I developed, and out of this struggle springs the manes’ personality.”

“I understand that.” Mr. Carter said. “The concept wasn’t hard for me to grasp when I read it in Nesbit’s.”

“Mr. Carter, we have determined that the manes has a strong ba and a very strong ka.”

“Oh, lord…” Mr. Carter wiped the sweat from his face. “Dr. Ernst, why do you keep telling me the ghost is so strong?”

Matthew shrugged. “Because it is.” he said.

“Just my luck…so, what are the implications of the ghost having ba and ka components this strong?”

“Manes with a strong ba and a very strong ka are known informally as specters. Their strong ba means they remember their life near perfectly, better than their living body ever did. They remember all ambitions, desires, and dreams their body once possessed, no matter how deeply buried they might have been. In a manes with a weak ka, a strong ba causes a manes to cycle through familiar behaviors in a phantasmagoria. But this manes has a ka greater than his ba, and so he is a specter. Specters are known as seekers of unfulfilled dreams. They seek to fulfill the desires of their ba in novel ways, and are stuck cycling through unfamiliar behaviors, daring in death what their body feared to do in life.”

“In other words, your ghost wants to be an actor, and is stuck continually trying to become an actor.” Joseph said.

“So, how do you fix the ghost and restore his lucidity?” Mr. Carter asked. “Will you use a manesological Operation to decrease the power of his ba and ka?”

Matthew shook his head. “No. We don’t like to alter naturally strong bas and kas unless absolutely necessary. Alteration can destroy memories and fundamentally alter behaviors. It’s not right to do that to a sapient being unless there’s no other option. We’re going to have a discussion with the ghost. Often, words are a better treatment than taking a mane apart with manesological Operations.”

“You think you can break the ghost out of his phantasmagoria just by talking to him?” Mr. Carter asked skeptically.

“Of course. We’ve done it before.” Mathew said. “

Now, let’s discuss the physical impression pair. The sah and and shut are made of impressions of the physical world. This manes’ sah, which is an impression of the physical body, is very strong. This furthers our theory that the manes is taking on the forms you see on stage not because he is compelled to, but because he wants to. He could easily appear as he was in life, but he isn’t. Manes with a sah this strong can choose how they appear. He is choosing not to appear as who he was in life.”

“What about the other component?” Mr. Carter asked. “That’s the one that imprints on objects and locations, right? Like…buildings…like theaters…?”

“That would be the shut.” Matthew replied. “The shut is both an impression of objects close to the living body as well as a power that imprints upon such objects.”

“Yes. That one. How strong is his shut?”

“Strong.”

Mr. Carter sighed. “Why are they all strong, Mr. Ernst? Why am I so unfortunate?”

“They are not all strong. Some of them are very strong.” Joseph said.

“What can a ghost with a strong shut do, exactly?” Mr. Carter asked. “I know it means he can do something to the theater itself, but…”

Joseph rolled his eyes. “He can make the walls vanish, the halls stretch on forever, summon light to suddenly fill a room, anything, everything, does it really matter, Mr. Carter?”

“No, I suppose not.” Mr. Carter said. “It’s a nigh-omnipotent ghost, no matter how its powers are categorized!”

Matthew pointed to the thorn in Mr. Carter’s chest. “Now, about your connection. We looked at the Astral impression pair, that would be the ib and the rn. We discussed those two with you back at the office.”

“I recall.” Mr. Carter said.

“His ib, unsurprisingly, is strong. Its run, however, is only average. That I hope is of some comfort to you.

“Oh. How wonderful. It’s not all-powerful.” Mr. Carter said. “One part of it, the part associated with everyone but me, is only of average strength! Oh, I am so fortunate! Dr. Ernst, does this finally end the examination?” Mr. Carter asked.