I open my eyes and find my arms wrapped around a freezing block of ice. I force my eyes fully open from bleary, dreamy sleep and see that my arms are currently wrapped around the ghost girl, holding her tightly to me like a phantasmagoric body pillow.

            No way, was I like this…

            … ALL NIGHT?

            I scramble back from the ghost girl, my face heating up in embarrassment.

Ghost girl-- G.G.—Gigi?—and I make my spluttering apologies.

            “Oh my gosh, I’m so… I didn’t know you could… I…”

            It’s okay, she looks up and her hair is folded behind her ears now. Sorry, when I’m dreamwalking, I take a more corporeal form. Unfortunately, that form is cold as ice cream. Perhaps colder. 

I narrow my eyes at her. References to goddesses and now ice cream, but she doesn’t know a computer? “How old are you?”

She puts a fluttering hand to her chest. Her form goes translucent again. Don’t you know you shouldn’t ask a lady her age? She asks with mock indignation. Especially one that dreamwalks for you to make your nightmares a bit more pleasant! 

“Dreamwalking?” And then. “Nightmares?” 

She ignores the second question. When you’re dead a long time, you pick up many, many skills. Skills that old spirits learn in whispers and the roots of trees reaching down into the deep. 

“Wow,” I can hardly breathe, trying to wrap my head around the dumb luck of having roused a witching spirit in my own home, “you’re magic!”