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"No, not exactly. I'm talking about Ben. He's a ghost. He’s an actual, speaks-and-thinks-and-has-emotions ghost. He's been residing in this building for years."
Lucy blinked, her mouth opening and closing as if she were trying to find the words. "A ghost? Are you serious? Because if this is a prank, I’m not amused.”
"Lucy, I wish it were that simple. I've seen him, talked with him, even...well, emotionally connected with him. He exists in spectral form, and he's tethered to this building. And now we're trying to find a way for him to interact with the physical world, to be more than just a lost soul."
Ben interrupted us, his form materializing slowly as if woven from moonlight and mist. As he came into full view, Lucy was sure to take in all the intricate details.
He wore a faded denim jacket that appeared almost transparent. His eyes were such a vivid blue that they could have been cut from a cloudless sky.
Ben extended a hand toward Lucy, the gesture stopping midway as if he suddenly remembered he couldn't touch the living. “Benjamin Foster at your service.”
She stared at Ben and then looked back at me. Finally, her expression softened. "I see. This is a lot to take in, but I trust you, Logan. So, what do you need from me?"
"Your trust is the biggest hurdle. Now that we're over it, maybe you can be an ally, an extra pair of eyes and ears. We could use the support."
She looked past me and stared at Ben, almost as if she were trying to peer into the spectral realm. "Alright, Logan, you've got yourself an ally."
I excused myself, explaining that we were going to practice our ritual on the roof.
“I’ve got dinner in the oven anyway,” Lucy said. We thanked her for her support before she left.
The connection with her was reassuring. Ben and I would need it if the ritual worked. I didn’t know yet what I would tell other neighbors about the new resident, particularly since some of them might remember him from previous hauntings.
Scaling the staircase to the rooftop felt like entering sacred ground. Ben trailed behind, muttering to himself about the stairwell accident that took his life.
We emerged into the chill of the evening, the moon looming large and full. "This is the spot," I said, laying down a red cloth.
I pulled out a tiny vial I'd brought. Seeing the questioning expression on Ben’s face, I explained, "I read that a tear shed in genuine sorrow could add power to the ritual."
Ben looked puzzled but intrigued. "And you need that tear from me?"
"Well, you can't cry, so I'll have to do it for both of us. Tell me the story about your untimely death one more time.”
My eyes blurred as he shared the details, a hauntingly familiar tale by now. A few tears fell, and I caught them in the vial. Seeing me cry, Ben sniffled, but he couldn’t produce actual tears.
"I wish I could cry for you," he said.
"You don't have to," I whispered.
I arranged the candles around us, setting my velvet-lined box of ritual items in the center. "How do I look?" Ben asked.
"Handsome as always."
Just as I began to chant, the door to the roof burst open. Lucy appeared, disheveled. "I couldn't let you do this alone."
My heart sank. Had she come to stop us?
“What does that mean,” Ben asked.
“Listen," Lucy began. "I used to be a ghost too. Years ago. I came back."
Ben's eyes widened so dramatically that I thought they might pop out of his ghostly face. "You need to tell us how."
As Lucy began her story, her voice trembled just enough to underscore its gravity. We were spellbound, clinging to her every word. For the first time, her eyes weren’t just looking at us—they were looking through us as if she were reliving her spectral past all over again.
She took a deep breath and focused on the flickering candles before looking back at us. "I was like you, Ben, tethered to a place. For me, it was an old one-room schoolhouse. That was my haunting ground. I was a teacher in my past life, and a fire took me."
"A young woman named Sarah moved into the schoolhouse after architects converted it into a house. She found some old relics, things that had belonged to me. There was a diary and a locket. She grew curious, started digging, and—much like you, Logan—she set up a ritual."
