"Bronte isn't here?" Noah asked as he stepped into the apartment.

I shut the door behind him. "No. She had Saturday plans with her mother. But I didn't tell her anyway. She doesn't know that you're here."

He'd been taking off his coat and scarf but now he stopped and gave me a curious look. Whatever thoughts wandered through his mind must not have been strong enough to voice because he finished taking off his winter items without a word. "I didn't tell Rose either."

"We should probably keep it that way."

"Yeah."

"Do you want something to drink? Tea? Coffee?"

"No, thank you. We should probably just get this over with." He stepped into the living room, looking around expectantly. "Where do they usually appear? Is there an object they seem to gravitate toward? A space?"

I wrapped my arms around myself and stared at Noah. "Before we start...I have questions."

He turned, his brow furrowed in confusion. "What questions?"

"Is it going to hurt them?"

He blinked, as if the thought had never crossed his mind before. And he took entirely too long to answer. "I wouldn't know. Considering none of the ghosts stick around, I haven't had the opportunity to ask them."

"And you don't use this on the monsters that come after ghosts? Does it not work or have you never tried it before?"

The wrinkles on his brow deepened. "What's with the questions?"

"Have you ever tried to purify the monsters that come after ghosts?" I insisted.

"No, I haven't."

"Shouldn't we try that before trying it on the ghosts? I mean, they aren't hurting anything." The look he gave me kept my lips rambling. "I mean, you wouldn't want someone to come in and exorcise or purify or whatever the little old widow you met, would you? I mean, they don't deserve to be forcibly pushed on to the next life, right?"

"Well they certainly don't belong in this world."

"But shouldn't that be their choice?"

"Sadly, no," he frowned. He took a step closer. "Where are they, Stella?"

"How could it not be their choice?" I asked, taking a step back. My heel bumped against the closed front door.

"As sad as it is, that choice was most likely taken from them. If these ghosts were murdered or committed suicide—as most are—or have some other strong emotion tying them to this place such as grief or fear, they tend to stay. But it goes against what should be. Humans live here, die, and their spirits move on. If their spirits stay here, it goes against what should be. I can fix that."

"But what if it isn't something that needs fixing? I mean, it's pretty arrogant to assume that, right? Who died and left you in charge of ghosts and when they get to move on?"

He took another step. "Stella, where are they?"

"That's close enough," Cyril said, his voice filling the room.

Noah whirled around and made eye contact with something near my bedroom door, on the far side of the living room. For a moment, no one spoke. And the silence resounded loudly in my ears. "Cyril?" I asked, more to break the silence than anything. "Is Oliver with you?"

"Yes," Oliver's voice sounded, again from the far side of the room.

Noah glanced at me over his shoulder, surprised. "You can't see them?"

"No. Just hear them. And sometimes touch."

His surprise deepened. "And Bronte?"

"She can see and sometimes touch."

"Interesting," he said, turning back to face them. "I can see and hear. But I've never touched one before. I wonder what it's like."

"Cold," I blurted out and then thought better of it. I amended quickly. "But not unpleasant or too cold. Like a chill. It's not a bad feeling."

He nodded absentmindedly, still staring at the ghosts in the living room.

"How does it work?" Cyril asked. "The purification."

"Yes," I added, thinking that Noah might not answer to the spirits themselves. "I'm curious about that too."

For a moment, Noah continued to stare at the ghosts, his back to me. And I wondered if he planned on ignoring us when he answered. "The way I figure it, humans able to perceive ghosts are more in tuned with energies than most. There have been, after all, cases in which humans and ghosts have cohabitated without the veil being torn and perceptions deepening. Those that can perceive ghosts, in common language, would be called psychics."

I scoffed and he glanced at me with a wry grin over his shoulder. "No one's ever accused you of being a psychic before?"

"Of course not."

His stony gaze softened slightly. "Yeah, well, if I'm right about you, you're one hell of a psychic. Or Bronte is."

"What does that mean?" Cyril asked.

Noah whipped around again, his posture straightening. "It took me years for my perceptions to reach the point where I could sense a ghost with only one of the five senses. Sound. We're talking ten years or so. Stella and Bronte have cut that time by a tenth. So, from my thinking, one of them has been channeling spiritual energies on full blast. Like, if you imagine it as a faucet, I'd be a dripping faucet and either Stella and Bronte would be on all the way."

"And why do you figure that?" I asked. "Just because we could perceive our ghosts in a year?"

"Yes, and more than that, it's affected the other. It's just a guess, but I think whichever one of you is going on full blast, it sort of filled up the other's sink too. Like it overflowed into it."

"By why just each other?" Oliver questioned. "Why not the people they lived with previously? Their families?"

Noah shrugged. "Well, not everyone has a sink and faucet."

"Which is which?" I wondered. "Or who's overflowing?"

He shrugged again. "I have no idea."

Oliver let out a huff of exasperation. "As fascinating as this is, what does it have to do with the purification?"

"Because psychics perform it. I think, as psychics, we can tap into life energies—or whatever you want to call it—and that's why we're able to see ghosts." He looked over his shoulder at me again. "You've seen The Lion King, right?"

I smiled weakly and nodded.

He gave me a slight smile too. "The circle of life? Everybody in this world, the people on the dot from the paper towel last night, are a part of it. Ghosts, monsters, and whatever is beyond are removed from it. So we're all on the circle, working our way through it: being born, living, giving birth, dying. But psychics can feel it on a level unlike most people. They can tap into it. And that's the energy behind the purification process."

"So what? We tap into like a communal...life...energy...circle?" I struggled to find the words.

"I think so."

"And how do we do that?"

He stepped aside and waved for me to stand beside him.

I hesitated.

"It's fine," Oliver said, his silvery voice gruff.

Noah frowned but then, when I stepped up beside him, he relaxed. He turned to face the room. "Bear with me. It might look weird from the get-go."

When I gave him a nod, he squared his shoulders. Then he reached up and covered his left eye with the palm of his left hand. He gave me an apologetic look with the rest of his face. "It helps. I always thought of it like an old-fashioned camera. Taking a picture. But it's got to build up first and the best way to do that is by covering your eye. Or you could close your eyes completely, but I at least like being able to see partially. Go ahead."

I copied his movements, placing my left palm over my left eye as well as I could, though my glasses stopped me from covering the eye directly. But it did the gist of it. I could only see out of my right eye. "And what happens next?"

"Concentrate on purifying. Cleansing. Removing what needs to be removed. Focus on that, concentrate on it. And channel your will into that thought. You want it. You want it with every fiber of your being."

I tried to do as he instructed. But the welfare of Cyril and Oliver kept creeping into my mind. I turned toward Noah, to see him with my uncovered eye. "This isn't going to purify them, is it?"

"If I did it, it would. But with you, since you're not as strong yet, I think it should just stun them a bit. Though, that being said, if you're the geyser and Bronte's the sponge, maybe it will."

My hand fell to my side. "I don't know, Noah. I just—I don't think they need to be purified."

"I've done this dozens of times before. If it helps, don't think of it as purification. Think of it as helping them move on."

His attention was fixated on the living room. I couldn't see Cyril and Oliver, but I knew he was watching them. Staring.

I turned toward where I thought they were. "Do you guys—"

Noah removed his hand.

Light erupted from his eye. It was unlike anything I'd seen before. A wave of pure light that didn't give off any shadows. It wasn't blinding, it didn't shine like sunlight, but it was light nonetheless. It didn't stop when it reached an object, but wrapped around it, enveloping it under a layer. Under a film of whatever it was.

And when it touched Cyril and Oliver, they screamed as if seized by a sudden, sharp pain.