We split up. Was it the smartest idea? No, probably not. But I couldn't take the two ghostly voices pelting me in rapid-fire, unsure where to look, while Bronte hovered at my side and kept repeating herself. "What are they saying? What did they say? Stella, come on, what are they–"

"Time out!" I shouted, making the motion and everything. The voices stopped immediately. I pointed at the planchette and board, forgotten on the couch. "Can one of you use that? Or do you both need to be there?"

Bronte dived for it as Oliver—I'm pretty sure it was silvery voice Oliver —answered. "One of us should be able to move it individually."

"Great. Bronte, you use that." My telling her was redundant at this point. She was already replacing the board on the coffee table and plopping down excitedly on the couch to watch it move, pen and paper in hand.

I turned toward the empty room. "And whichever one of you touched me, no, I guess I touched you—whatever—the one I felt up—we're going into my room."

It was impossible to tell if he followed me into my room or not. I hesitated with the door open, wondering if he needed it to be open to enter. Ghosts floated through walls, right? Would it be rude to shut the door and make them go through the wall?

Stress replaced my excitement faster than I thought humanly—or ghostly— possible at the thought of learning spectral etiquette. I could barely figure out human etiquette. Rose was our people-person, both mine and Bronte's. She knew how to read people, the exact words to say, how to talk with them. I tended to default onto snark when I felt surrounded by people while Bronte just hovered silently in the background.

I threw the door shut then turned to my room. It felt weird talking to a boy—even a dead one—while on my bed on our, I guess, first official meeting. So I sat in the maroon wingback chair in the corner, my own book nook apart from the one in the living room, and pulled my legs up to my chest.

"You in here?"

"Yes."

Maybe splitting up wasn't a good idea? I hated not being able to see anything. At least with Bronte nearby, I knew where to look.

"Which one are you?"

"Cyril."

"Cyril," I repeated. The one with the lower voice. Huskier and baritone. "Can you, I don't know, tell me where you're standing or something? Just talking to an empty room makes me feel stupid. Or crazy. I haven't decided which yet."

Nervous laughter floated through the room. "I'm standing beside the door."

"Oh. Thanks. Um, would you like to sit down, or something?"

"No, thank you."

Silence stretched between us. I stared at the door, eyes screwed up, trying to see the vague outlines Bronte swore she saw. But there was nothing. Just my bedroom door, as always.

How many times had he been in here, watching? And I completely unaware?

Shivers tingled down my spine for creepy reasons, rather than supernatural ones.

He cleared his throat. I didn't even know ghosts could do that—but he did. "Did you—did you have questions?"

"A few." Hundred, I added silently.

"You're welcome to ask anything. I understand this must be..." he struggled to find the right word.

"Stressful," I blurted.

"Stressful," he repeated, his tone sinking. "I do apologize for that. It is not my intent to—"

"Do you prefer walking through open doors or walls?" I blurted. "Because if I just slammed the door on you, I'm sorry. It's my first ghost-girl situation and I don't really know what to do."

He took a beat of confused silence. When he spoke, I could hear amusement and bemusement waring in his tone. But, more importantly than that, he sounded more relaxed. "Walls are just fine. Please, don't trouble yourself with social niceties if they're making you uncomfortable or stressed."

"Bronte's big on pleasantries."

He chuckled. "Yes, I noticed."

"But just sandwich pleasantries, I guess. Saying hello and goodbye. All the stuff in between? Not so much. I mean, she's fine if she has to do it, but she prefers sitting back and watching, you know."

"Oliver is the same. He enjoys playing the role of observer. It’s only when he feels quite at ease that he deigns to interact."

"I guess being a ghost helps with that."

His tone shifted. "Yes. It does leave one with the time and ability to do just that."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"I know. You're not the type to speak callously."

I took in a breath. "I guess that leads to the next question: how long have you been here? Since we moved in nearly a year ago? And at night, do you, um..."

"No!" he shouted then cleared his throat. "No, we don't—nothing invasive. We value your privacy and try to give you your space. When you're in the living room, we're in the kitchen or the reading area. When you're in your bedrooms, we're in the living room. We know you didn't sign up to having men watch you in such a private place—we respect that as much as we're able." He sighed. "I'm trying to word this so it doesn't sound disturbing."

"It's already disturbing, and we're definitely coming back to setting up rules or something, but how long have you been here? In the apartment, with us?"

"Since you bought the pocket watch."

I blinked. "The what?"

"Pocket watch. It's on your fireplace mantle. From the estate sale."

I tried to think back to the watch, envisioning it. The rusted glint of gold, the still hands, the broken chain. Bronte had seen it when we'd been yard sale hopping a few weeks after we moved in—looking for cheap decorations. She'd loved the history of it, how old it seemed.

And we'd put it on the mantle fireplace with a massive painting of Paris in the past. I hadn't given it another thought since.

"You're haunting a pocket watch?"

"I suppose that's one way of putting it."

"Both of you?"

"Yes."

"How?"

He didn't answer. I gave it a moment and then opened my mouth to apologize. But his voice beat me to it. "I'm sorry—can we discuss that later? It's not a pleasant story."

"Yes," I said, half a beat too fast, afraid that I'd touched on something too personal. I cleared my throat. "Yes, absolutely. But..."

"Yes?"

"As far as unpleasantness goes, there is one story I'm going to insist upon hearing."

He sighed. It was heavy, resigned. He'd been expecting this. "The creature?"

"You said it was harmful and angry. I need to know what that means. Are we in danger here? I need to know—Bronte didn't hear it. She doesn't understand how...it was..."

"Haunting?" he offered, a slight tick of false humor as he ended the word.

"I've never heard something like that before."

"Me either."

I frowned. "So it's gone then? It's..." my voice died without any words to add.

"It appeared suddenly," he answered with another sigh. "It hasn't been here before. Neither Oliver nor myself had seen anything like it before—though Oliver was the only one to see it. Just as I was the only one to hear it. Well, aside from yourself, of course."

"So Oliver could see it? And you could hear it? But you don't know what it was?"

"Correct."

"Is it dead? Or, I don't know, deader?"

"No. It left. Vanished. But I believe it could return."

I shuddered at the thought.

"Stella, I am so sorry. I don't know why it's here, where it came from. It—it connected with you when you were here earlier. Do you recall? You stumbled into the refrigerator?"

My body stilled as realization struck. I'd suddenly felt dizzy. Like when you stand up too fast. My head had spun and my body had felt cold. Weak. I'd felt suddenly so weak and tired and just...cold.

Like a corpse, I thought.

I shuddered again.

"Stella—" Cyril's voice sounded closer and I jumped "—I'm sorry. Whatever it was, I am so very—"

"You don't have to keep apologizing," I said, wrapping my arms around myself. My eyes swept the room again. "Are you still near the door?"

He cleared his throat, embarrassed. "I, um, might have taken a few steps closer."

My face flamed red. "How close?"

When he didn't answer immediately, my blush deepened. Then, at the bookcase standing against the wall between me and the bedroom door, one of my hobbit Funko minis—a gift from Bronte—began floating.

"Can you see it moving?" he asked.

Samwise Gamgee hung in the air. "Yep. That helps. Thank you."

"I am sor—"

"You said it was harmful but the most I did was trip into the refrigerator. Is that the extent it can interact with us? Sudden wooziness?"

Samwise floated back toward the door. The farthest point in the room away from me, I realized. "I don't know. It was aiming for me when it struck you. Bumping into you like that—I think it was unintentional."

"Aiming for you?" I frowned. "Did it hurt you?"

He cleared his throat, hesitated. "Slightly," he finally admitted. "I think...I think I'm bleeding."

My frown deepened. "Ghosts can bleed?"

"Evidently. I think this thing causes us to bleed. When Oliver strikes me, I ache, but considering I have no blood left to spill, that's the extent of the damage. This feels different. It hurts like when I was alive, when I was cut."

"Maybe you aren't spilling blood then," I mused, "but something like..."

"Whatever we're made of?" he guessed.

I nodded uncertainly. "Could be? Spirit, or something? You're oozing your ghostly spirit from the cut?"

"Makes the most sense, I suppose. Though it does nothing to relieve my concerns."

"Or mine," I admitted.

Cyril sighed. "Oliver and I will find a way of handling it before it returns. We'll not allow it a second chance to harm anyone. You and Bronte included, of course."

"How do you plan on doing that?"

A knock came from the door before he could answer. I pushed up from the seat as Samwise floated over the bed.

Bronte peeked at me when I cracked the door open. Wide eyed, she glanced over my head to see into my room. "Is he still in there?" she whispered.

I opened the door wider as I glanced over my shoulder, with Bronte moving to see in as well. Samwise continued to hover a few feet over my bed. "Yes," I said, turning back to Bronte. "What's up?"

"I just had a thought."

"Ok?" I worried at her tone.

"Oliver's been telling me about this thing earlier—the one you heard. He could see it and he's been describing it to me."

I could see my panic from earlier—from when I'd heard it—reflected in her eyes now. "But it's not here anymore, Bronte. Cyril assured me that it's gone. For now." I looked behind me to see that Samwise had floated closer.

She nodded hurriedly and then glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes locked on something just there, something only she could see. Then she turned back to me. "I know that—Oliver's told me the same thing. But I was thinking, he told me that Cyril could hear it? Just hear it?"

"Yes," Cyril answered, the frown evident in his tone.

"Yeah, that's right," I told Bronte.

Her eyes widened fractionally. "If only Cyril can hear it, and only Oliver can see it—and if only you can hear these two, and only I can see them—then, I don't know how, but—"

"The ghosts are being haunted," I finished.