Like a set of dominoes that a kid had haphazardly set up across the kitchen table, shelves fell one after the other while we all watched in stunned silence. By the time the commotion had finally ended, half of the bookstore's stock was now splayed across the floor. Paige slowly turned back to face Serina, a nervous chuckle escaping her lips. 

"Oopsie..." She said before rapidly jumping into a book just as Serina tried to grab at her. Lucas and I stood back as we watched the two girls run around the store, with Paige managing to stay just ahead of Seri with her book-hopping. 

"Is this...is this normal?" I ask Lucas. 

"Pretty much. Oi Seri! Stop trying to catch Paige and let's clean this mess up!" He shouted, managing to catch Seri's attention despite her previous focus on catching the pocket-sized poltergeist that had trashed her shop. 

"Right right," she said before pulling out the phone I had seen earlier. However, instead of transforming into the tome like it had before, it instead formed into the figure of a young woman, her body seemingly formed from shards of glass and metal that constantly shifted about. 

"What is it this time Ser- oh," The girl said as she looked around at the mess surrounding us. "What the hell did I miss..." 

"Can you fix this, Necro?" Serina asked, gesturing to the mess that was now the bookstore. The girl, who I assume Seri was referring to, scanned the room before nodding her head and throwing out one hand. A swirl of purple mist shot out, picking up the piles of books and replacing them on the newly-righted shelves. Off to one side, Paige quickly jumped out of her current hiding spot just as Necro lifted the book into the air, replacing it with the rest of its set. In a few moments, the mess Paige had made was erased. 

"Thanks honey!" Seri said jokingly, hugging Necro from behind. Necro jumped a bit, but didn't seem to mind once she realized what was going on. 

"It's not that big of a dea-" Before she could finish, Necro began to buzz and vibrate. It was Seri's turn to jump before she pulled herself together and held out her hand, Necro's human form reverting back to a phone and falling into her open palm. It was clear now that a call was coming through, which Seri promptly answered. She walked out of the room to talk to whoever it was, leaving me with the two ghosts. 

"Soooo, this is all a normal day for you?" I ask the two, trying to break the awkwardness in the air. Despite my best efforts, the tension was still strong enough to cut with a knife. Lucas merely stared after Seri while Paige yawned and searched for another book to call home for the time being. As I continued to watch Lucas, I noticed that his form was becoming a bit fuzzy around the edges. 

"Lucas, you're looking a little... I don't know, less put together?" I said, which seemed to snap Lucas out of whatever daze he had been in. 

"Ah, that would be Serina's bind at work," Lucas replied with a calm smile, "It's not any problem with me, but rather with how you see me. I'm fine, promise!" 

I tried to comprehend what he was saying, but the flood of information still running through my brain made even the most basic of cognitive thought seem like a momentous task. I tried to slap my cheeks and pull myself together, but the more I thought about this, the more confused I made myself. None of this should be possible! Ghosts and magic and weird phone people, none of this could possibly be real. So far I had just followed along because I had no choice, but with Seri preoccupied with her call, this was my chance to get out and pull myself back to reality. Just as Lucas reached out to me and started to say something, I bolted for the door. I scrambled with the knob, my hands sweaty and slippery on the metal. Eventually I pried it open and slammed the door shut before racing down the street. I found myself in an alley after who knows how long, and I practically collapsed on the concrete. 

"What the hell was my dad thinking, sending me to someone like her! He must have been tricked or something...that girl's a whackjob" I said to myself, wiping the sweat from my forehead. Typically my old man was a pretty cautious guy, but when it came to history he could get overly excited and lose his common sense. If this lady had found some sort of book he wanted for the museum, she could practically convince him that the sky was yellow if he was excited enough. I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down and clear my head. Despite how much I wanted to believe I was asleep, a part of me knew that I was awake and in the real world. I stared down at the swirling chain of runes on my right arm, the only sign that maybe that lady was telling the truth. How could you possibly fake something like this? I didn't know, and at that point in time, I didn't want to know. 

"Whatever that all was, it must have been some sort of dream or hallucination... did that lady drug me or something? I mean, I suppose it's possible..." I muttered. 

"Drugs? You may not think too highly of me, but even I wouldn't stoop that low," a voice echoed from the end of the alley. I bolted upright. 

"What do you want with me?!" I shout. 

"Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot," Serina began, sitting down at the mouth of the alleyway, "I can tell you don't believe me. That's fine, I've dealt with many other people who were the exact same way. It's nothing new to me, and if you want to run off and pretend this meeting never happened, then go ahead," I took this as my lucky sign. She was going to let me go! I was free from this lady and her crazy talk! I was practically jumping with joy. However, she held up a single finger as if to stop me. 

"I do hope that you'll choose to stay after what I tell you though. This world, it has a lot of problems. Some of them you can see clear as day- corruption, poverty, disasters, wars, they plague our society and tear at the seams of our civilization. Some of those problems, however, are deeper than that. Some of these issues can't just be fixed by a normal human being. No, this sort of issue is much darker and much more... potent, so to speak. It gnaws at us from the shadows, and for the most part, we can't do anything about it. I was one of the few people born with the ability to do something about that. In the end, all I want to do is help people, both alive and dead, to move on with their existence and escape their vices. I sincerely think that you could help me with that." 

We stared at each other in silence. A part of me still wanted to get as far away from her as possible, but another piece of me was almost drawn to this woman before me. In the light of the late afternoon sun, her face was almost aglow from where she stood. She watched me carefully before taking a breath and continuing. 

"Your father, he sent you here to help you cope with life outside of the museum. He knows about all of this, he's known since before your... before you were old enough to talk, perhaps. He wanted you here because he too believed that you could help people. So, Joey Vargas, I ask you again," she stood up, holding out one hand to me as her black hair caught in the breeze and waved around her face, "Will you join me?"