I first prepared the room by removing all mirrors from the vicinity, in this case it was just one sitting on top of the wardrobe, next I layed out my tools on the bench. Candles, incense and a small bell.

The candles, once lit; burned with a pleasant soft blue light, the incense smoked with a scent indiscernible to those still alive.

Hopefully this all goes smoothly.

I took a deep breath, with my left and made the sign for calling and with my right picked up the bell.

“Hear me, oh Pharisa, dearly departed, deeply missed, I call out to you.” I chimed the bell, its soft tone cutting the silence, the sonorous wake lingering long in the air.

“Daughter of Clarise and Ernard, from beyond the void, I call to you. Come back to us.” I chimed it a second time.

“Hear my voice, follow the lights, your remains yearn to embrace your spirit once more.” a third chime.

The air above the shrine shimmered faintly.

“Child of earth, child of flesh, leased from the maw, I bid you return to this plane once again.” The fourth.

The air now glistened with faint light which gradually shaped itself into the form of a young woman, her mostly transparent body floating gently in the air above us.

“h-hello?” she asked softly, her voice muffled slightly, as if emitted from beneath a thin layer of water.

“Ph-pharisa is that-ah.” Ernard called out but I stomped on his foot.

“Pharisa, can you hear me?” I asked.

“Y-yes I think so, what happened, where am I?” Her head turned to examine the room, her shape seemed to flicker, minutely adjusting and readjusting itself, as if it were indecisive over how it was supposed to look.

Perhaps it was; the spirit unable to clearly recall the memory of the body. They don’t always look how they did when they died, from my observations, this depends on multiple factors.

“You’re home dear, you were in a bad accident but you’re fine now. Everything is going to be ok.” I confirmed.

“I see…”

“Your father is here to see you, He was worried sick, weren't you Ernard?” I gestured towards him.

“oh pharisa, I’m so sorry!” he practically wailed, the tears already forming in his eyes.

“Father really, I’m fine.” She reassured him.

“Pharisa! please know that I love you more than anything else, you are my world.” Ernard wept.

I really don’t care for the bawling they always seem to do, but in these scenarios, it's practically obligatory.

“Please father, Where is this coming from all of a sudden?” she asked sheepishly.

“he’s simply so relieved to see you’ve made such a flawless recovery.” I stepped in with a believable excuse for her father's state. “He was afraid you might have suffered some kind of permanent injury? Isn't that right?”

“y-yes I- was so worried.” Ernard agreed.

“I’m sure he just wants to hear you say you love him back,” I suggested.

“Oh father, of course I love you too.”

Ernard seemed to ease up a bit.

Sometimes they don’t say it back, they try to avoid it or even just flat out refuse, now those ones are really uncomfortable.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“And who are you?” she asked me.

I prefer involving myself in these conversations as little as possible but it's usually unavoidable that I have to explain myself to some degree. Fortunately, my fabricated backstory is tried and true.

“I’m the assistant of the Traveling Healer Walten. He’s the one who saw to your injuries, He’s out for the moment but he will be back with us later.”

Claiming to be an assistant works far better than claiming to be the healer myself, that way I can simply defer all questions of medical expertise to the good non-existent doctor.

“Well then I thank you very much.” She bowed her head slightly.

“The doctor and I appreciate your gratitude.”

I used to say something humble like ‘Oh it was nothing’ or ‘Oh I’m only a mere assistant’ but that frequently led to an obnoxious back and forth of insisting and deferring thanks.

“Your father here thought he might have lost you, fortunately, he had nothing to worry about.”

I gestured back to Ernard, this should cue him in to say whatever it is he has to say.

“Pharisa, Pharisa what happened to you?”

What?

I gave him a kick to the leg but he ignored it.

“I’m not sure I…”

“On the cliff, what happened to you?”

I stomped on his foot hard.

“the cliff…” she paused.

“there's no need to discuss such things.” I cut in. “much better to focus on how glad you should be to-“

“-please, I need to know what happened?”

“I remember falling… falling for so long how… How did I-?”

“-Enough!” I held out my arms and made the cession signs with my hands.

There was a flash of light and her spectral form dissipated.

“Pharisa-!” he cried out but I struck him across the face.

“What the crux do you think you're doing?! Did you listen to anything I told you!” I shouted.

“I did but-“

“-the purpose of this ritual is for you to say farewell, not for you to reopen dead wounds.”

“I know but-! But I have to know what really happened!”

“You know exactly what happened! She died! She fell off a cliff and splattered her organs on the ground.”

“no.” he spoke silently, but adamantly.

“no?”

“She’s been up that cliff hundreds of times! There's no way she just fell!”

“Yeah and I’m saying you know why that is as well.”

“What are you saying?!”

“Exactly what we both already know, she jumped.”

He shot me a briefly furious glare but swallowed it down.

“N-no, never, I know my little girl.”

“Clearly not as well as you think.”

“And what the crux would you know?! You’re a corpsewik! What do you love? What do you have that loves you?” he demanded.

“I know the truth and the testimony of countless souls who preferred the companionship of the void to the ‘love’ of their present company.”

He made no reply.

“I’m finished here.”

“wait!” he cried.

I began to pack my tools.

“Please! I have to know!”

He held his hands over the mat.

“You broke the rules, it's over.”

“I’ll pay you extra, I still have-“

“It’s not about the pay you oaf! It’s the risk, and I'm not taking it.” I snapped.

“Please I beg you, I’ll give you anything you want! I have nothing else left, this one ounce of closure is all that I have!”

I stopped.

“…You really think this will bring you closure?”

“Yes, I know it will, I just-“ he began.

“-You don’t know anything, what will you do once you learn? When she tells you she just got fed up with being alive?”

“I-”

“I’ve done this ritual dozens of times and you know why I demand payment upfront?”

He remained silent.

“The ‘dream state’ these specters exist within makes them easy to deceive but it also makes them more candid and more inclined to say things they’d ordinarily keep to themselves. All too often you end up hearing things you didn’t want to hear, learning things you can never unlearn. Even if they already made the agreement, no one likes paying for that.”

Ernard seemed to consider my words, he took a moment before he spoke.

“And what's the alternative? To be left eternally wondering? to live the rest of my life forever consumed by the unknown?”

Hmmm…

“Tell yourself a comfortable lie, tell it to yourself every day and every night, you’ll start to believe It eventually.”

“My daughter, my only child is dead, no lie could ever bring me such comfort. No, I want the truth, even if it hurts.”

I sighed.

“you’ll eat those words, just you wait…”