“Well, we know we’re dealing with a real haunting,” Malory said as she daintily used a knife to cut her muffin into neat little pieces. “I didn’t see anyone hiding, although there are a lot of those toys under the chairs that they must have missed. Unless either of them was a mage of some sort?”

Steve shook his head. “Neither of them was using Spiritualism, and if they were using Flame, they’re very subtle.”

The older man glanced at Loren, shook his head. “No, no Flame. I didn’t feel any heat spikes from either of them when anything happened.” Heat was magic and magic was heat, after all.

“It’s weird,” Harmony said with a frown. “I don’t think they’re faking a haunting, and there’s no one else there to pull it off, but I don’t think we’re dealing with a ghost here. The only viable candidate to be a ghost is the husband, but he died in his sleep of a stroke. Of all the ways to die, that one’s a classic for being very unlikely to create a ghost under normal circumstances. Even if it had, you’d think he’d focus on trying to communicate with his family instead of trying to sabotage them moving. Should we have asked more questions about him?”

“It wasn’t time yet. We’re still not sure if we’re buying the house.”

“Speaking of houses,” Malory said, “is there any chance that the house has gained an animadomo?”

“Maybe if it was a multigenerational house, especially if the house is well-kept, then one can develop inside forty years,” Steve said. “But their situation isn’t anything like that. They have the timeframe, but not the number of people or the relationship with the house.”

“I don’t think it’s the house or ghosts,” Loren said.

The three turned towards him. “What?” Malory said.

“I don’t think it’s the house or ghosts,” he repeated. “While you were checking out the hobby room, I used a ghostlight Flame. There was no ghost in the main part of the house, and while it could have been in the bathroom or the bedrooms, a ghost would have no reason to hide and no reason to think to hide. And if it was a ghost trying to scare us away, then the best place for it to be is with us trying to figure out how to keep on scaring us.”

“And none of us felt cold in the hobby room, so not much chance of there being a ghost in there with us,” Harmony said thoughfully. “So you say that rules out the ghost?”

“Unless it was hiding,” Loren admitted. “Though I can’t think of why they would, since they’d be invisible unless they put effort into it.”

“We can’t rule that out,” Steve said. “Why do you think it’s not the house or a ghost?”

“I can’t say for sure it’s not a ghost or the house,” Loren admitted. “You’d know better than me about that. But I’m reasonably sure that the things we saw today were done by something other than a ghost. Especially when the figures fell off the shelf. If Sara was trying to do something like that, she’d have needed to push over the whole shelf. When the figures fell, not all of them did. That means either a ghost or spirit would have needed to push them all individually, and for some reason chose to push some and not others.”

All three frowned—or in Malory’s case her wide mouth became a very flat line—as they all tried to recall if all of the figurines had fallen or not.

“All right…” Steve said slowly, “I see what you’re saying. An animadomo could do it, but not a new one, and the same goes for a ghost. Both would need a few decades learning the fine control, and as you said, why would they bother when it would probably be more effective to just push over the whole shelf? But if it wasn’t either, what do you think is doing this?”

“I think… I think we’re dealing with tsukumogami,” Loren said.

Steve frowned. “I know that term…” he said.

“Oh… OH!” Harmony said as she realized what he was talking about. Then she paused and frowned. “Wait, that can’t be. It’s even less likely than the house.”

“Could someone explain the term to me?” Malory said as she daintily ate piece of muffin with a fork.

“A tsukumogami is an Amatsushiman term,” Loren said. “It refers to an object that has developed its own spirit and become both self-aware and capable of independent movement after being used and cared for over a hundred years. While objects developing their own spirit isn’t unheard of, it’s usually limited to certain items in most countries, usually houses, ships and weapons, maybe ritual objects or things people consider significant or lucky. In Amatsushima however, because of their native beliefs regarding spirits, nearly any object can become a tsukumogami.”

“That’s… interesting…” Steve said, “but I don’t see how that’s relevant in this situation. I doubt anything in that house is a hundred years old.”

The Flame mage nodded. “Yeah. But there’s four exceptions to those rules. One is houses. Like you said, a house can develop one in forty years. Another is weapons, like swords. Then there’s ships, because they’re basically a house on the water but with orders of magnitude more people and are more likely to be sophomorphized. The fourth is dolls.”

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“Wait… you mean like in that movie, Doll Story?” Malory said.

Loren made a face and waved a dismissive hand. “That was the dub name. It was the nineties, they had to localize things for the market. The movie’s original title was Tsukumogami Monogatari. And there was nothing about wishes in the original story—I’m getting off topic. The point is, dolls can develop spirits extremely fast, between as little as three to seven years, sometimes even just one. It’s why they have rituals to give dolls an honorable funeral and cremation in Amatsushima, and why they don’t just throw dolls away. I think it has to do with the fact that dolls are both very easy to sophomorphize and children being able to believe unreservedly and therefore cause a stronger reaction on ambient magic, or something like that.”

Steve was nodding slowly. “All right… I’m remembering the movie now. The dolls could move, but only if their body parts were soft, and while their capacity was exaggerated for the story, in real life something like that would function at about the level of a spirit-puppet.”

“Except figurines are made of hard plastic with articulated joints,” Harmony mused thoughtfully. “Ones stiff enough to be poseable. A frame like that… a figure would be probably be rigid enough to drag around a box cutter or a pair of scissors. As to falling… all the figures would need to do is jump off.” She blinked. “Wait. That implies that all of those figures that fell are tsukumogami, doesn’t it?”

“I suspect many of the figures that are older than four years are, though I doubt all of them are capable of moving. Tsukumogami or not, most probably wouldn’t have enough imbuement for it. Heat would be the most efficient way for them to passively draw in magic, and all of those display cases were positioned to not be in direct sunlight. It’s bad for the plastic they’re made of, especially the older ones. But even if only ten percent of them can move, that’s still a lot,” Loren said. “It would explain how Mrs. Halili’s story about the electric fan. There are literally hundreds of figurines in that collection. More than enough mass to push a fan from one room to another, even without wheels on it. The late Mr. Halili clearly put a lot of care into his collection, and some of the feeling seems to have rubbed off on his family. Danny was being very careful when he picked up the figures, and I don’t think it was because he was worried about the resale value on the collectors’ market.”

“Wait, the doll thing only happens to Amatsushima dolls, doesn’t it?” Malory said. “Why do you think it’s what’s happening here?”

“Because all those model kits are likely from Amatsushima, or rather, many people think of them as being from there,” Harmony said thoughtfully. “Would that be a factor? This really isn’t something I’ve thought of before, so all I know about it is from TV, and you know how that can be…”

“It sounds reasonable…” Steve said, “but it’s not really part of my area of expertise. Still, we need more information. Loren, since it’s your idea, I need you to conduct the research on it. Find out how likely it is for this to be the case, whether there have been any cases like it before, and how we’re supposed to deal with it…”

Loren felt a rush a panic. Wait, what?

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk you through how to do it,” Harmony said, and he let out a sigh of relief. “We don’t exactly need proper page and line citations, but the sources have to at least be reasonably reputable so we can be sure your research is grounded. Best if you find something online, then send them an email or DM. Maybe just call any collectors of figurines who are as much of a super fan as Mr. Halili and ask if their figures move on their own?”

“That would suffice,” Steve said. “A demonstration of some kind would be better, if they could get a figure to walk or at least move. Get started when we get back to the office. It will let you learn how to put together a proper report for this sort of thing. In the meantime, do you all think the house is worth buying?”

“Well, it’s in a good location,” Harmony said as Loren took a moment to adjust his thinking for the change in subject. “Things are pretty safe around here, and local government has been consistent about doing keres checks every three months. I don’t think this location will do as a rental though. It’s pretty far outside Selurong, and the traffic is terrible in the morning. And while a lot of the local schools are pretty good, they’re not the big-name prestigious schools that a lot of parents are going for, although speaking from experience they’re good enough to let you get into a good high school or college.”

“The roof’s in fairly good shape, but its beams are old and made of wood,” Malory said. “I saw signs of water damage in the ceiling. It’s old, so they probably caught it a long time ago and repaired it, but the damage is still there. Trying to repair it would be a nightmare, and we might be forced to remove the whole roof and replace everything anyway.”

Steve nodded, noting down what they said as Loren heard the barista call out their order.

“I’ll just go get those,” Loren said as he got up, mostly to extricate himself from the situation and figure out anything he could contribute to the discussion about the house itself. He didn’t know anything about what to look for when buying or selling a house, after all.

He came back and distributed the drinks, trying out his apple iced tea thing. Loren knew that the stereotype was Flame mages preferred hot drinks and alcohol, but he’d never really been the sort. The temperature wasn’t a problem for him, but he’d always had a sweet tooth, and very few hot drinks were to his taste. As to alcohol… well, he’d drink it if he needed to, but most of the things that had it tasted atrocious, in his opinion.

In hindsight, it had probably set a terrible example for Harmony, given how she self-medicated now.

He listened attentively for the rest of the discussion, taking notes on his phone as to things he should pay attention to next time, as well as possible avenues for researching whether his tsukumogami idea was possible given the circumstances. Now that he mentioned it, Loren wasn’t sure if it was really something he could prove. It was just something he’d remembered from an episode of a detective show his dad and sister liked to watch that he’d seen in passing! Sure, it was a good idea and fit the facts, and it had seemed like a brilliant idea when he’d come up with it, but proving it…

Well, they could go back to Mrs. Halili’s and examine the figures, but unless one of them obligingly moved, the figures could probably play dumb for long enough for the woman to decide they were wasting her time and kick them out.

So first, see if there were similar cases to what he’d proposed—outside of fiction, that is—and take it from there.

Loren sipped his apple iced tea and listened as the three more experienced house flippers talked about the what needed to be repaired, what needed to be renovated if they were going to rent or sell it, and whether the bathroom needed to be retiled or made bigger.