Smoke wafted from the kitchen to the second story, seeping through the frame of Gadalik's closed door. The teen was asleep, and the scent was enough to shift his dream to that of flames, and he stirred.

"Gadalik!" Glacia called from downstairs. "Get dressed and come down here!"

His mother's voice woke him fully. The thickness of smoke in the air was real. The sun was still on the verge of rising; there was no reason for a night-owl like her to be awake. His mind raced to one conclusion: Fire.

No time to dress nice…! The spook traded his pajamas for an old, plain T-shirt and jeans, then stumbled toward the staircase, struggling to fit the outgrown shirt over his head and torso as he descended the steps with reliance on muscle-memory.

By the time his face popped through--followed by his bed-headed striped green hair that was further messed up from the fabric--he was at the base of the staircase and saw two strangers staring at him: a girl perhaps three years younger than himself with short hair in an asymmetrical bob cut, and a freckled man almost Glacia's age with long yellow-green hair, curls sticking out every which direction down to his waist, where it transitioned into a braid that trailed on the floor. His eyes of the same color narrowed, one eyebrow lifted, unimpressed by the sleep-deprived teenager.

The girl's face turned as red as her hair, her matching eyes quickly darting away from Gadalik--who then realized they'd all seen his bare abdomen on his way down. He felt his cheeks flush with humiliation.

Glacia peered out of the kitchen. "Well somebody's hungry! Smelled breakfast and couldn't wait to get down to eat it, huh?" She grinned at her son, holding a plate of black, rock-solid toast and dripping undercooked sunny-side-up eggs. "Tea is in the making!"

"Oh! It, uh… It all looks great," he lied, "but eating this early will disrupt my whole mealtime schedule. I'll have to pass on it." While he appreciated his mother's efforts, the last thing he wanted was another trip to the hospital for food poisoning. When it came to housework, the duo had traded their chores as mother and son, one of which being that he'd do all the cooking and she would wash the dishes for this very reason.

"Aw. Suit yourself."

"So...who are they?" he asked about the guests.

"Potential clients for ya. Maybe you should put your work clothes on," she suggested, giving his too-tight shirt a disapproving onceover.

"I-I was planning on that!" Gadalik stuttered. When she laughed at his reaction, he rushed back upstairs and--after a fight to get the old shirt off--changed into his light green shirt and pants, then tied on his darker green robe over them. After he brushed his shoulder-length hair and pulled it back in a ponytail, he returned rather sheepishly to properly introduce himself.

"Here, your tea is ready. It's my own recipe, and it's very healthy!" Glacia chimed, setting the tray on the living room table.

The girl took a sip, choked, but swallowed and forcibly smiled. She never touched the cup again.

The man politely declined it.

"Hello. I'm sorry for my...indecency," the older teen chuckled nervously. "My name is Gadalik."

"I-I'm Grace… This is my father Gavin," said the girl.

Father?

Grace seemed to notice his perplexity. "I know he's only eleven years older than me… But he raised me since I was six years old. He's taken care of me for eight years now."

"Hey, we get it," Glacia soothed her. "I'm just less than a decade older than Gadalik; he's adopted too. I've raised him since he was nine years old, and it's been eight years for us too!"

The girl eyed him curiously at that.

"Regardless," Gavin spoke for the first time, "we have had an occult problem at our homestead. Our livestock is being slaughtered nightly, and I fear our safety is jeopardized. While I'm reluctant to consult a child on the matter, you happen to be the only spook who fits within our budget. I hope you're more capable of doing your job than you are of...dressing yourself."

Gadalik and Grace both shrunk.

Glacia laughed. "Don't worry! He's got this."

"I can't make any promises," Gadalik spoke for himself. "How long have these attacks been going on for?"

"For the past three days," the girl answered solemnly, gripping her pale-orange skirt tightly.

"Are you sure it's a ghost, and not, say, a wild animal?"

"I've seen what wild animals can do… and this isn't it," Gavin objected, rather grimly. "Our livestock were killed cruelly, not eaten. And this has become a pattern every night."

"Have you tried setting up spirit wards?"

"We have," Grace answered. She dug through the brown pouch on her belt and handed the other teen a spell tag. "It hasn't made a difference…"

"Is it real?" Glacia wondered.

"Well…yes," the spook replied. "But it's a weaker variant. A ghost that's strong enough to kill would hardly be fazed by it."

Grace seemed mortified at that. "Ghosts have different strengths?"

"Yeah. The majority of ghosts aren't strong enough to interact with worldly objects. The more powerful the ghost, the more they can make physical contact. And killing is no easy feat."

"You've dealt with worse," his mother pointed out.

"True. I'm just saying that these general-store tags won't work against them. You'd need something more like...this," he said, retrieving a similar tag from his robe's right pocket. Although the difference was subtle to the untrained eye, it was stark in effectiveness. He handed both tags to Grace.

She inspected them for a moment before giving them to her father. "Where would we find these?"

"In a hex shop. They're, uh...pricey."

"Tell me about it!" Glacia groaned.

"But they work well, and should last you long enough for the spirit to lose interest."

"So their effects are temporary," Gavin muttered half to himself. "Hypothetically, if the spirit doesn't lose interest, they will be a necessity for quite some time, and a costly one at that."

"Well, kind of. Their power can run out, but they can also be recharged by someone who has magic."

"Then we're making the right call by hiring you. Thank you for the information, but I would prefer you get rid of the ghost instead." He returned the spelltag to Gadalik.

To the spook's surprise, it was the correct one. Was it a lucky guess, or can he actually tell them apart? Something about the man intrigued him. His blunt nature was odd, as if he were socially ignorant, yet he was undoubtedly knowledgeable and bright.

"We left last evening in order to arrive here at dawn. If we want to reach our home before tonight, we must leave within the hour," Gavin explained.

"That is, if you accept the job!" Grace quickly added. "We don't expect you to accept it, especially on such short notice… We understand if you can't do it."

"It's alright," Gadalik said. "I'll definitely help."

The property was of modest size, a relatively-small fenced-in pasture with a stable on one end beside an older, but well-maintained, house. A chicken coop and a pigpen were on the other side.

"It's a cozy little farm," Glacia commented.

"Homestead," Gavin corrected her. "We don't sell our crops or meat; they're meant to feed us."

"Geez. Touchy."

Gavin unlocked the door and went in, leaving it open for the guests while he disappeared into a room.

"Come in," Grace invited them.

Glacia obliged, and her son began to follow--then nearly ran into Gavin, who had suddenly reappeared in the doorway with a camera hanging from a lanyard around his neck; he held rubber gloves in one hand and empty trash bags in another. Gadalik felt small and somewhat intimidated by the taller man blocking his way, and they both just stared at each other.

"We travelled all night," Gavin stated, as if that explained everything.

The younger man opened his mouth but couldn't think of how to reply. He had no clue where this conversation was going.

Gavin narrowed his eyes with a hint of annoyance. "The ghost strikes at night."

It took him a second to process this. "You think it might have killed something while you were gone…?"

"That's what we're going to find out." He passed the spook and strode toward the pigpen.

Gadalik had to power-walk to keep up, and nearly ran into him again when he abruptly stopped at the gate, followed by the sound of the camera's shutter. The teen reluctantly peered around him.

Bits of flesh and bone were scattered everywhere in the pen, and the muddied earth was tinted red. Flies scattered from the remains as Gavin hung a pair of gloves on the gate, put on the other pair, and went in to pick them up.

Gadalik couldn't believe what he was seeing. A pig had been practically shredded apart, and the stench of blood and rot made him ill. Yet Gavin hardly seemed deterred.

"Don't just stand there," he called back to the teen, and pointed at the hanging gloves.

He can't be serious…! But he was. Once again, the two just stared at each other until Gadalik swallowed the rising bile in his throat and put on the gloves to help clean up.

"What kinds of animals do you raise?" the spook asked after they'd disposed of it all.

"Horses, cows, chickens, and pigs," he answered.

"Can I ask why you checked on the pigs first?"

"They've been the target for the last few nights."

…Strange.

The two washed off out back, then Gavin led him inside the house.

It was spacious and organized. Gadalik's attention was drawn to the photographs hanging up. Pictures of exotic animals were on one side of the short hallway, and on the other were various photos of Grace, organized by date. She was with their horses and livestock in most of them, but surprisingly only a handful depicted her and Gavin together, and even fewer were of Gavin himself.

What amazed Gadalik was how well most of the pictures looked. Even the ones of Gavin, which were rather candid, had great clarity, and more admirable were the angles from which the rest of them were shot. He'd never seen home photos of such high quality.

Grace noticed his interest in them as she welcomed them in. "They're great, aren't they?"

"Amazing," the older teen agreed. Gavin moved past them. Gadalik watched the man pull up the cellar door and go down.

"That's what I thought," Glacia commented, in response to Grace. "Y'know, I don't see why you can't just buy the spelltags, if you can afford to waste money on a professional photographer all of these years."

"That professional photographer is my dad," the girl laughed.

Glacia's cheeks reddened. "Oh…"

"Well, I took these..." Grace picked up one of the candid ones of her father. "It's a bit ironic that he's camera-shy."

The more he learned of the man, the more Gadalik wanted to know. "So, Grace… Has your dad ever spotted the ghost when you couldn't?"

"Well, neither of us has seen it," she confessed. "But there's no other explanation for what's been happening every night."

He shuddered at the reminder. "What time do the attacks usually occur? Do you know?"

"It's inconsistent," Gavin answered for his daughter as he left the basement and walked straight back to his room, shutting the door just a bit too hard.

"Wonderful," Glacia said sarcastically. "Sounds like we'll be up all night waiting for it."

"Actually, I think we can get it here sooner," the spook said. "Remember the ghost of the hex shop worker we helped, back by the beach resort?"

"Oh yeah! Sheila, was it? We were with Gale and that fishy sailor."

"Gentri."

"Right."

"Sheila gave me that spirit trap the same day you got the pocket watch. If we can set the trap and find a lure for the ghost, it shouldn't take long." He reached into his outer right pocket, where he kept wards in bundles of various strengths. "I'll set up wards around the farm, so the only animals it can reach would be the one we'll use to lure it."

"Sounds like a plan! So... where do we set the trap?"

Gadalik drew in a breath to answer, but drew a blank. I didn't think that far ahead...

"Well, it came from the forest; that's where its first kill was found. Ever since then, it seems to have a vendetta against our pigs," Grace recounted. "My dad takes pictures before he cleans everything, if that helps at all."

"Yeah… Sure," the older teen begrudgingly agreed.

The girl opened a drawer and took out an album, handing it to the spook. Gadalik opened it where the book marker was to find pictures of mostly severed limbs--no, not severed… it looked like they had been twisted and torn off of pigs while they were still alive. He felt sick. The more he turned the pages backward, the less gruesome the kills were, at least. He landed on the page of a chicken that had been nearly flattened. "What's this one…?"

She peeked over his shoulder. "The first thing of ours it ever killed was a hen that escaped our property. It wasn't in such bad a shape as the pigs, though," she said softly.

Gadalik exhaled, closed the book, and gave it back.

"Wonder what it has against pigs," Glacia said. "And if it hates them so bad, why stop at one kill per night?"

"It takes up a ghost's energy for it to interact with worldly objects," her son reminded them. "To kill takes a lot of energy, probably all it has until the next night renews it."

Gavin left his room and passed them to get to the kitchen.

"Gavin, could you show me where the chicken was killed? That's where I'll set up the trap."

"Alright," the man answered without so much as facing them.

"Grace, you're good with the animals, aren't you?" Gadalik addressed her, remembering the photos on their wall. "Would you mind leading a pig out with us? We need it secured within the trap. I promise I won't let it get hurt."

She seemed reluctant to risk its life, but ultimately nodded.

"Last but not least, I need someone to be on the lookout. Normally that's my job since I can see ghosts even when they're invisible… But I'm going to be setting up the wards and the trap, so that leaves Glacia." He paused, then glanced at Gavin. "Unless somebody here besides me can also see invisible ghosts."

It took a second for the man to catch on to the implication. "I'm a photographer. My eyes are sharp, but I have no magic."

"...Rufus could probably help with that," Grace figured.

"Rufus?" Gadalik echoed.

"One of our pigs," Gavin specified.

"I've noticed that our animals seem to get riled up before the attacks. I think maybe they can sense spirits, like you can," the girl explained.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Now that she mentions it, I have read about that before. Familiars were often used in the past for various reasons when magic was commonplace; ghost-detection wasn't unheard of. "That could work."

"I can still help. If the ghost does show up when the preparations aren't complete, I can literally buy you more time," Glacia said, holding up the enchanted pocket watch.

He smiled. "It's settled, then. Whenever you're all ready."

With their property protected, Gavin led them to precisely the spot he'd found the chicken's corpse in the nearby forest. Gadalik still couldn't believe how accurate his visual memory was; it matched the photo perfectly, and who knew how long it had been since he even saw it.

Grace hammered a post into the ground where her father instructed, tying Rufus' lead to it and speaking words of comfort. Glacia kept an eye out, while her son reviewed the instructions to the trap.

It was simple enough. Twenty-one tags; one in the center, and the rest surrounding it. Usually the centered tags were for the height and depth of the area it covered, so adding it in would be a requirement.

However, the instructions revealed that those boundaries adjusted on their own based on how far apart the rest of the tags were. This centered tag in particular was instead included as a failsafe able to be used by the captured spirit to release itself from the inside. That's how Sheila escaped, he realized. I'd better not chance it.

He strategically placed the rest of the tags in as wide a circle around the pig as the instructions claimed they could be without losing effectiveness--creating a fifty-foot diameter. When the last tag was in place, they all briefly glowed at once, signifying the setup was successful. He then buried them with leaves and dirt.

"The trap will trigger when a spirit is completely within the circle," Gadalik read aloud. "It detects the ghost by the otherworldly energy of its makeup, keeping anything with said energy enclosed, unable to escape from the inside unless the optional Phantom Tag is activated--which I didn't include, to prevent that. The trap can otherwise be disarmed if any one of the tags in the circle are either deactivated, or misaligned."

"How will Rufus escape?" Grace dared to ask.

"Mortal beings can freely pass through the trap regardless of its activation."

"But he's tied up…"

"I'm mortal. I'll untie him."

She seemed worried. "Won't the ghost hurt you?"

"I have shield tags," he informed her with a gentle smile.

She exchanged a glance with her father. Gavin didn't protest. "Okay… I'm counting on you, Gadalik."

"I won't"--he yawned--"let you down…"

"Aww… Someone's tired," Glacia teased him.

"The ghost only arrives after nightfall. You can rest until then if you need to," Gavin offered.

"I have spare bedding in my room," Grace added. "I can get it out for you!" Her enthusiasm dwindled as she glanced uncertainly at Rufus.

Her father noticed. "Glacia and I will stay here to keep watch, just in case it comes early," he decided. "The instant Rufus gets anxious, I'll stay to keep watch over him, and Glacia will come get you."

"Since when are you in charge of this operation?" the light purple-haired woman huffed. Gavin looked her dead in the eyes until she grew antsy. "I mean… It's not a bad idea, so I'll go with it." Under her breath, she muttered, "Touchy…"

Relieved by that, Gadalik followed Grace back to her house. She guided him into her room, the door left wide open. Her floral-patterned walls were decorated by framed insects such as dragon- and butterflies. She gestured him toward her bed, and he sat there, surprised by how much he sank into it. The comforter was just as soft; it was like a cloud beneath him.

He patiently watched as she sifted through a crate in the back of her closet. She chose a blanket and had set it aside, but now was striving to pull something else out.

Gadalik hopped down after a moment to help her, taking one end of what was revealed to be a fold-up mattress wedged tightly in the bottom of it, so she could focus on the other. They pulled it simultaneously--then both overbalanced backward as it suddenly gave, being flung over them.

The teens exchanged an embarrassed glance before laughing at themselves. Gadalik tucked the mattress under one arm and helped her up with the other.

"Th-thank you," she said. "You can set it up in the living room whenever you're tired."

"That's very kind of you. I appreciate it."

Grace moved to pick up the blanket, then seemed distraught, standing there with it in her arms.

"Something wrong…?"

She drew in a breath. "You...were adopted, too, right…?"

He tensed, caught off-guard by the question. "Y-yeah."

The girl hugged the blanket tighter, her back still toward her guest. "Can I ask what led up to that…?"

The spook didn't know why he was beginning to feel backed into a corner, a strange defensiveness arising. He was normally open about the topic, but for the past several months it's become somewhat of a sore spot. To be fair, I can't say I'm not curious about her background, too... "I was orphaned," he answered as a matter of fact. "We--my parents and I--rented Glacia's boat to confront a murderous spirit, and...I was the only one who survived; they died protecting me."

"I'm so sorry," she gasped, looking over her shoulder at him. "That must have been horrible…"

"Well...at the time, it didn't seem real," he confessed. "I mean… I know I was there, and I remember it happening, but it didn't feel like it happened to me. It all felt like...a book--or a movie. Like I was some character instead of myself." Gadalik sat on the bed once more, setting the smaller mattress beside him. "That's how I've viewed it for all of these years...like it was all a bad dream, so it didn't matter. I just focused on my day-to-day life, not thinking about it. But...just a few months ago…hearing Glacia talk about how their deaths affected her...made the reality of it sink in."

She folded the blanket on top of the little mattress, then seated herself with it between them.

"After that, everything started hitting me at once," he vented. "Those feelings from back then--the fear, the...helplessness, of not being able to save them--come rushing back in full force, even when the cause is minor. Like...just a few days ago I was out shopping with a friend, and I sensed a ghost nearby. I didn't have my staff to protect us--I didn't need it; the ghost wasn't after us, and it ended up being harmless anyway--but I still couldn't relax until it was gone. I mean…we were both safe, but my body was screaming 'danger' and 'useless' because I had no way to protect her--like I couldn't save them--I--" his voice broke. The silence, apart from his shaky breaths, reminded him that this was a practical-stranger's room. "I'm sorry," he apologized, managing to get a slight hold of himself. He laughed humorlessly. "I don't know why I'm telling you all of this..."

"Have you talked to anyone else about it?" Grace prompted gently.

"Kind of… The first time it happened was in the middle of a big argument with this ghost, and I hadn't been able to sleep that well beforehand. Glacia was there; she was very worried and made me go to a bunch of doctors to find out what was wrong with me, but they all told us it was normal to be overwhelmed in a stressful environment, and that not sleeping enough would've made it worse. And...that made sense, given the circumstances." He propped himself back on his hands and looked at the ceiling. "The thing is, every time after that wasn't a stressful situation, and I've also been getting enough sleep since. Glacia cares but she tends to go overboard; if she found out I was still having issues, I'd never see the end of it." He sighed. "I know I shouldn't be so afraid like that. I just...am. I don't know what's wrong with me...or if there even is something wrong with me. Physically, I'm fine."

"I...think I know what you mean," she empathized. "Sometimes insignificant things bring back the feelings from when I was still with my mom. Like somebody opening my door uninvited, or if they're coming toward me too fast, or even the slightest change of their mood for the worse...it's like they might come after me. And I know Gavin would never hurt me… I know I'm safe and I shouldn't be afraid of such harmless motions, but I still am--same as you. It's...like a reflex."

"Your mother hurt you…?"

The younger teen froze, as if she hadn't meant to reveal that. Then she nodded ever so slightly. "My real father left before I was born, and my mother blamed me for that. She would...hurt me over the most trivial things, and yell at me for crying. One day, I guess she finally got sick of me."

Gadalik leaned forward. "What do you mean…?"

"She...abandoned...me, in the woods. I had been left there for days, until Gavin found me when he was on a business trip. H-he's a wildlife photographer."

"That's truly awful, what your mother did," he consoled her. "You didn't deserve that… Nobody does."

"Yeah… But the same could be said to you," she pointed out. "And...trust me when I say things can get better. It's hard to convince yourself that you're safe when your body tells you otherwise… My dad--Gavin--tells me to treat those fears and bad thoughts like they're a fly buzzing around you."

"How do you mean...?"

"W-well, you can acknowledge it's there, and, yeah, it's a nuisance...but we all know it'll buzz off after a while. The thing is, if you let that little fly get on your nerves, and waste your energy swatting at it, well… It's just prolonging the situation. You'll be chasing it around for a lot more time than it'd take for it to fly away if you'd only left it alone."

Gadalik narrowed his striped blue eyes thoughtfully.

"Letting it buzz around you can be difficult, even if it's only there for a minute or two. Maybe some days it will fly too close to your ear--and it's okay to swat it if it does! But...it becomes easier to dismiss the more you manage to wait it out, instead of engaging with it."

He let that sink in. "Thank you," he said wholeheartedly. "I've never thought about it like that--" Another yawn escaped him.

Grace softened, somewhat amused. "Want me to help you set the bed up?"

"Huh...?" He'd forgotten it was there. "Oh--that's okay! But...maybe wake me up before dark, if you can."

"Will do."

He went to the living room and spread out the little mattress, took off and folded his spook's robe, and lied down.

Gadalik found himself back in the basement of a hotel. He was alone, which felt off for a reason he couldn't pinpoint. Then the ground shook, and he turned to see the gigantic mole-like hand of a semi-transparent beast behind him. Its featureless head ripped open where its mouth should be, but instead of a roar sounding from it, there was a distorted human scream.

Gadalik was strangely calm. He knew this wasn't real because the actual event had played out differently. Without a second thought, he approached the enraged spirit. "You were right," he admitted. "I can't understand what it's like to die. I can't understand how painful it must have been for you to be crushed and bleeding out, with nobody to save you…"

It lifted its other clawed-hand in preparation to strike him.

"You're done asking to be saved… Aren't you," he realized. "All you want right now is to be understood."

It shoved him against the cold stone wall and slowly pressed harder on his ribcage.

The spook didn't flinch. "Nobody can understand your death, and your anguish, unless they die the same way as you… is that why you're doing this?"

It screamed again, its voice choppy as though coming from underwater.

"I'm sorry…"

The sound continued, as if Gadalik's lack of suffering frustrated it.

"Even though you're dead, this is no way to live… You're suffering." He remembered the confinement and exorcism tags his companion at the time had planned to use before Gadalik had involved himself.

"Gadalik?" A young girl's voice made the dream dissolve.

He awoke, somewhat curled, with his arms crossed protectively in front of his chest. "...Grace?" He sat up, then glanced toward a window.

"It isn't quite dark yet," she informed him, "but it looked like you were having a nightmare… I-I couldn't just watch."

"N-no, it's okay." Gadalik pulled his robe on and felt inside his pockets; there were several stacks of tags banded together: shield, stun, and disfigurement in his left outer pocket, kept on his dominant-hand's side for ease of accessibility in combat. His outer right pocket contained wards and dispel tags'.

In his inner-right pocket were his wallet and other such personal items, but his inner-left pocket was the one he was double checking: it contained the spell tags for confinement and exorcism. He could distinguish them all from how they felt.

"I'm going to check on the others," Grace announced.

"I'm coming with you," he decided.

They arrived back at the trap-site to find Gavin on one knee, intently staring at Rufus, and Glacia resting with her arms crossed and back against a tree, snoring.

The pig tugged on its lead, jumping toward Grace despite the distance between them. That got her dad's attention. "Rest well?" he asked.

"Yeah, thank you," Gadalik said.

Rufus was practically choking itself trying to reach her, squealing loudly.

"Huh--what?" Glacia came-to from the racket.

Grace went over to her pig. "It's ok, it's alright," she tried to soothe it, and although it quieted down, it still struggled.

At that moment Gadalik sensed a ghost nearby. He closed his eyes and tried to figure out which direction it was in. It's...coming from their homestead. It's only a matter of time before it finds us. "It's heading this way," Gadalik reported. "Everyone get on the opposite side of the trap so it'll get caught if it targets us."

They did as told, although Grace didn't budge. Gadalik gripped his speared staff and a shield tag. Once the spirit would be trapped, he'd free Rufus and then assess what he was up against from the safety of the outer side.

"Grace," Gavin called.

She looked at him and then her pig, obviously torn.

The ghost seemed to be wandering around aimlessly, its pace rather slow. Then it stopped. Suddenly its presence was growing stronger--and fast.

"Grace, get out of there!" Gadalik cried. "I'll save Rufus--don't worry about him!"

She froze at first, but then scrambled to her feet and began to run. When Rufus squealed for her once more, she hesitated.

"Go!" Gadalik cried.

Gavin darted in to retrieve his daughter, but Glacia--who was closer--got there first.

"Come on, girly; you don't want to get caught up in ghost business," the woman halfway joked, pulling her by the elbow safely to her father. The three of them were headed out of the trap when the ghost suddenly shot through the trees and halted a short distance from the trap.

It was maybe ten feet tall with broad shoulders that were hunched over, its arms and neck too long for its torso; the hands' spindly fingers dragged in the dirt with each heavy step of its rather short legs. It had a snout much like a bulldog's, which it used to sniff around. Its eyes were very small; Gadalik doubted it could see very well...not that it needed to.

Overall it looked mostly humanoid, but there was no denying it had lost a lot of its humanity long ago.

It stopped before reaching the trap and it briefly turned in Gadalik's direction, its flat, wide nostrils flaring. Then it faced ahead toward the others. "Stockman," it moaned in an exhausted voice.

For a moment, everything fell silent, save for Rufus snorting and huffing.

The spirit swiftly launched itself at them. Gavin held Grace protectively and Glacia gripped her watch, but then it crashed into the trap's barrier between them.

Gadalik activated a shield tag by placing it on his staff, and charged in to free Rufus just as the ghost recovered and swung itself around. He used the speared tip to cut the lead, and Rufus took off, but the specter was faster; it threw its heavy hand like a lasso at the pig. No! The spook slashed at its arm with his staff, tearing out a cloud of its wispy body.

It shrieked and dropped the pig, which then escaped.

Gadalik followed suit...and then collided with the inside of the trap's barrier and ricocheted to the ground. What…?

"Stockman," the ghost said again. It lumbered toward the spook.

Gadalik got to his feet and put a hand on the barrier. It didn't let him through despite how much pressure he applied. Panic began to set in, but the fact that his shield spell was still active gave him a sense of security.

"What's the matter?" Glacia said, meeting her son from the other side of the trap.

"I-I don't know," he admitted, unable to hide the fear muddled in with his confusion.

The ghost extended and swung its arm, batting against the teen's shield, which--although didn't hurt him--knocked him far to the other end of the trap, where he once more hit the inner barrier and then the earth.

Unharmed, but shaken, he stood up and faced his attacker. "What is…"--he caught his breath--"Who is stockman…?"

"Killer," the spirit strained to speak.

Gadalik didn't know if that was an answer or an accusation. "Stockman killed you?"

"Pigs," it groaned.

"I… I don't understand--"

The specter shrieked with frustration and struck him a second time, harder than before; the impact shattered his shield and sent him flying. Glacia ran alongside the outer barrier to try to catch him, and this time he passed through the trap and crashed into her; they both tumbled down.

The trapped soul shrieked and beat on the inside of the trap, to no avail.

"...I'm out?" Gadalik breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yeah," Glacia said. "But why were you stuck in the first place?"

He thought it over. 'It detects the ghost by the otherworldly energy of its makeup…' "My shield spell! It must have the same otherworldly makeup as a ghost…"

"Does that mean using a spell will trap you?"

"I guess so…"

"Then what should we do? We can't risk you going back in," Grace said as she and Gavin caught up to them.

"I say leave it trapped there," Glacia huffed.

"The trap won't hold forever," her son disagreed.

Gavin seemed distracted.

"What is it?" the spook quarried.

"...Keep it talking," he commanded.

"Oh… Alright." ...How?

The spirit shrieked some more.

"Y'know, I'm getting real tired of that sound," Glacia muttered.

Me too… Gadalik cleared his throat, and reflected on the few words it had managed to say. "Did the pigs kill you…?"

"Consumed," the ghost answered.

Gadalik's brows furrowed. Yes, he's clearly a consumed-category ghost. But what does that have to do with pigs? Maybe I'm reading into it wrong? Consumed could also mean 'eat.' "Uh… You consumed the stockman's pigs, and were killed by it…? Like...poisoned?" He cringed at how stupid that sounded. The ghost's flustered screeches suggested they were at least in agreement with that. "Never mind… So how does this stockman fit in…?"

"Killer!" it wailed again.

This was going in circles. Gadalik was starting to feel as frustrated as the ghost.

Gavin approached the barrier. "You were killed by a stockman… and then consumed by his pigs…?"

For once, the spirit quieted down. Its little eyes focused on the man for a moment. Then it roared, swung around, and began beating the barrier.

Gavin and Gadalik exchanged a glance. Right… Keep it talking.

"Who is the stockman?" the spook questioned it. The ghost responded with another shriek.

"It doesn't know," Gavin translated.

"Where is the stockman?"

It shrieked again, beating the barrier more forcefully.

"You're making it more upset," Grace warned him from Glacia's side. By now, Rufus had returned to the girl, albeit cowering at her feet.

Gee, I couldn't tell… "Wandering spirits wander for a reason: they're looking for something…or someone," Gadalik explained.

"The stockman?" Glacia guessed. "But if it doesn't even know who the stockman is, how would it find him?"

Good question… It wouldn't be easy. Her son blinked. "How long have you been searching?"

It shrieked.

Okay, it doesn't know. "...What year were you killed?"

The spirit's hands dropped back down. "Eighteen...forty-two…"

Glacia winced. "Geez…"

Grace looked at her father expectantly.

"That was one-hundred-nine years ago," Gavin calculated. "Whomever this stockman is, he's long dead by now."

The ghost was still for a short while. Finally, it faced them again. Out of nowhere it roared and lurched at them again, more upset than it had initially been. "PIG!"

Grace picked Rufus up and backed farther away.

"Get back to the house," Gavin commanded, and she obeyed, taking Rufus with her.

"Pig!" it continued to shriek.

"It's okay," Glacia comforted the spirit. "The pig is gone now. You're safe."

It continued whipping its long arms at the barrier, roaring like mad.

"That's the problem: it doesn't want the pig to be gone; it wants the pig here to kill it..." Gadalik couldn't help but think of the ghost he'd remembered in his dream. "To make it suffer and die the same way the spirit had..."

Gavin eyed it pitifully.

"The stockman is dead," the teen told it loud and clear. "You don't need to search anymore. You can rest now."

"Stockman!" it repeated. The barrier started flickering as it didn't miss a literal beat on it.

"Gadalik, do something," his mother prompted. "You said it yourself, the trap won't hold forever!"

There's still time... the teen convinced himself. "What the stockman did to you wasn't right... You didn't deserve that."

It hesitated.

"Nobody deserves that," Gadalik pointed out. "Not even the pigs."

"Pigs..." It growled. "Pigs....deserve. Pigs deserve!" It screeched and violently lashed the wall between them, more harshly than before. It flickered, threatening to give out.

The spook panicked and looked at the only other adult in hopes that he would know what to do.

Gavin was watching the spirit, his yellow-green eyes sympathetic. "You tried," he comforted the teen. "It can't let go of its misery."

Gadalik was taken aback by this. Once again his actual encounter with the ghost in hotel's basement, and the dream he had about it, came back to mind. "It's suffering… It has been existing in pain for over a century." He reached in his left inner pocket, placing a tag on his staff.

"Gadalik?" Glacia called worriedly.

The spook inhaled sharply, then speared the ghost's hand through the barrier; the tag activated, turning its target entirely tangible.

Out of the same pocket, he placed a new tag on it. By now it had floated up to the extent the domed-shaped trap would let it, trying to keep out of reach.

Gadalik stepped past the barrier, took aim, then threw the staff, unable to watch as the speared tip pierced the spirit's solidified body, which then began to morph back into wisps that slowly faded.

In a matter of seconds, his staff dropped.

The ghost had been annihilated.

Gadalik had recollected the trap's tags; he'd recharge them later. The three of them made their way to the homestead in silence.

Grace welcomed them back with initial relief to find they were okay, which transitioned back to worry when nobody spoke. "What happened? Did it get away?"

"No," Gavin replied.

"Then…?"

"Gadalik put it out of its misery," Glacia said supportively.

The girl softened when she noticed the aforementioned teen was silently packing his belongings, not looking at anybody. "Hey," she approached him.

He swallowed uncomfortably, facing away from her.

"It's alright," she soothed him. "Acknowledge it's there, and it hurts… But don't dwell on it. Let it pass on its own."

Gadalik sniffed in a vain attempt to keep everything in... then tears ran down his cheeks, and wouldn't stop. He sank to a seat on the floor, crossing his arms over his knees and burying his face in them, shoulders heaving in voiceless sobs.

She gently rubbed his back.

He breathed in deep, lifted his head and ran his hands down his face to wipe the tears. Then he sighed. "I'm okay…"

"You've never killed a ghost before, have you...?"

"I did, once… in self-defense. This time, it was different."

She hummed in acknowledgement. "You know... One time my horse escaped and was attacked by a wolf. He survived, but he was hurt...badly. Gavin said that even if he made a full recovery--which wasn't likely--he'd never be able to walk or even eat properly for the rest of his life. Finishing what the wolf started was an act of mercy."

Mercy...

"The first ghost was killed to end your suffering," she guessed. "This time, a ghost was killed to end its suffering. In both cases, there's now less suffering in this world."