Cynthia looked bored as she lit up a cigarette and took a long drag. They were sitting at a table on the front patio of a coffee shop called Cafe Macabre. As the name implied, it had a sort of graveyard theme, with stylized skulls on black paper cups and matching napkins. The menu above the counter was on Styrofoam headstones, and all the tables and chairs were black with white bone trim.

"When is this guy supposed to meet us?"

"Six o'clock," Alex replied, scanning the street, watching the passersby. Across the street, a man with a long beard in a dirty trench coat shuffled down the sidewalk, hauling a large duffle bag. He passed a woman in her early thirties pushing a stroller while talking excitedly on her cell phone. The traffic lurched to a halt as the light at the intersection at the end of the block turned red. The weather was cool as usual, but there was no rain today, and Alex and Cynthia had taken the bus downtown.

Cynthia looked at the time on her phone and frowned. "That's like fifteen minutes from now."

"Yeah, I wanted to make sure we got here before him," Alex replied. She took the plastic lid off of her cup and proceeded to empty three hazelnut creamers and five packets of sugar into it.

Alex had to admit that she was being a bit paranoid. Nothing Spooky Jay had said during their brief encounter lead her to believe that he was particularly untrustworthy. Still, after all the chaos and confusion of the past few days, she wanted to remain in complete control of the situation. That was why she had told him to meet her in a public place, and why she had asked Cynthia to come along with her.

It was not a long wait. Spooky Jay arrived about ten minutes before eleven. Alex gestured to get his attention, and he approached the table.

"You brought a friend," he observed, still dressed mainly in black and wearing the same Cheshire Cat grin that seemed an almost permanent feature of his face. His tone was neutral, though, hard to read.

"This is Cynthia," Alex replied. "She knows all about what's going on."

Spooky took a seat across from them. He took an appreciative look at the decor of the coffee shop. "Nice place. I like your style, Alex."

"Did you want to get anything before we start?" Alex offered, gesturing to the front door of the coffee shop. Jay shook his head.

"Not unless you're buying."

"So you're Spooky Jay, huh?" Cynthia cut in. "Alex says you can see ghosts too?"

"Yeah, people like us are called mediums," he said. He ran his fingers through the mess of dandelion fluff that was his hair. "See, the spirit plane kind of overlaps with the physical plane, and even though spirits can see into the physical plane, sometimes even reach into it, most living people can't see or hear into the spirit plane. Mediums can, though, and the really strong ones can even physically touch spirits, sometimes. Are you...taking notes?"

The last part was directed at Alex, who had retrieved the black notebook from her backpack and was jotting down the terms he was using. She nodded, which seemed to please Spooky Jay. "That's good," he beamed. "There will be a written test next week.

"So how long have you been a medium?" Alex asked, ignoring the joke.

"About three years," Jay replied. If he took any offense to his jest being dismissed, he didn't show it. "I actually started off as an amateur ghost hunter. I'd go to places that had a reputation for being haunted—we call them "cold spots"—I'd go in with a camcorder, compass, EMF meter, the works. Eventually, I started to see and hear things that weren't being picked up on the equipment. At first I thought it was just wishful thinking, or maybe I was going crazy, but eventually, I could see them plain as day. I'm not sure if it was the constant exposure to cold spots, or if I just had a natural talent that took a while to really bloom."

"Why are they called cold spots?" Cynthia asked.

Spooky Jay then leaned back in his seat, propping his feet up on the table. "Pretty much exactly what you'd think—there tends to be a noticeable drop in temperature whenever there's a strong spiritual presence. You guys don't really know much about this stuff, do you?"

"Um, well...pretty much just what you told me." Alex confessed. "You said that thing in Ellison Park was some kind of corrupted spirit? A wraith, I think you called it?"

He nodded his understanding. "Yeah. See, most people who die just pass on to whatever comes next. But some people, their spirits linger. Usually it's the ones who have some kind of unfinished business, or who died suddenly or unexpectedly."

Like Lucas, Alex thought.

"Usually, if a ghost sticks around for very long, they start to develop some kind of abilities that let them interact with the mortal world. Sometimes, they can telekinetically move objects. We call them poltergeists. Some can physically manifest for a short period of time, like the one that attacked you and Lucas. Then there's the one that can possess the bodies of living people, or create trippy hallucinations and illusions. Occasionally, you get more exotic powers, like entering people's dreams, or making things decay rapidly."

"Eventually, most of them come to terms with their death or see out whatever it is they felt they had to do. So like, say there's a mother who wants to watch over her daughter after she passes away. She sticks around, maybe for a few years, helping in whatever small ways she can. But then, once the girl graduates, Mama Ghost realizes that she's going to be okay, and she's able to move on and pass through the Black Gate."

"What's the Black Gate?" Cynthia interrupted.

Spooky Jay shrugged sheepishly in response. "I'm not really clear on that, to be honest," he admitted. "When a ghost is ready to move on to whatever comes next, a psychopomp escorts them through the Black Gate, and they're gone from this world forever. Maybe they go on to heaven or hell, or maybe they get reincarnated, or maybe... I don't know, something else?"

"Sorry, this is a lot of new terminology," Alex said, trying to process it all even as she furiously scribbled more information in her notebook. She was familiar with this one, however. "A psychopomp is like a spirit of death, right? Like the Grim Reaper?"

"Pretty much," Jay agreed. "They're not ghosts, but they kind of exist on the same wavelength, and normal people can't see them either. Mythology is full of them—valkyries, Charon the ferryman, shinigami, angels of death..." he made a rolling "et cetera" gesture with his hand. "They're also the ones that take care of the wraiths when it becomes clear that they can't be redeemed."

"Sounds like some psychopomp isn't doing his goddamn job," Cynthia observed, blowing out a column of smoke as she flicked ashes onto the pavement under her seat.

Spooky drummed his fingers on the table and pursed his lips. "Yeah, that's the problem lately. The psychopomp in our area? I call him Grim."

"Clever," Cynthia scoffed.

"Grim's the one who taught me all this stuff," Spooky continued. "About the Black Gate and the different types of spirits and all. But I haven't seen him in weeks. Now there's wraiths crawling up out of the woodwork, and they're a danger to any living thing they come across. Plus, spirits like your friend Lucas can't pass on without a psychopomp to escort them. If something doesn't change, I'm afraid things are going to get bad."

Alex tapped her pen against the page thoughtfully. "Is there anything we can do?"

"Well, your eidolon already exorcised the wraith in Ellison Park," Spooky pointed out.

"Eidolon... you mentioned that yesterday when we met outside of school," Alex recalled. She had looked up the word last night. Apparently, it meant a spiritual duplicate of a living or dead person; a phantom look-alike or idol. It sounded like a pretty accurate description of what Alex had been referring to as her doppelganger. "What does that mean?"

Spooky Jay stroked his chin in a very deliberate way, as though he were trying to decide how to phrase what he was going to say. "It's a sort of a... spiritual counterpart. I guess you can think of it as the ghost of a person who isn't dead."

Cynthia raised an eyebrow quizzically. "That makes absolutely no sense."

"It's a part of her spirit that is able to project itself and directly interact with other spirits," Jay elaborated. "It's a very rare ability. And from what Lucas told me, it sounds like yours is a pretty powerful poltergeist."

Alex leaned back in her seat as she took a moment to consider this information. "You said it exorcised the wraith. So it's gone for good now?"

Jay nodded. "Like I said before, wraiths are really dangerous, but they're also kind of fragile. They don't have a strong connection to the physical plane, because they no longer even know why they're here. If they're attacked by a spiritual entity with a stronger will, they can pretty easily be exterminated. They're spiritual essence dissipates, and they, like, dissolve into the metaphysical ether, or whatever."

"So is this why you wanted to talk to Alex?" Cynthia asked. "You want her to become a Ghost Buster?"

Spooky Jay made a casual gesture. "I mostly just wanted to tell you that you should visit Lucas. I think it would help you both deal with what happened. That, and it was pretty obvious that you're new to all this, and could use some guidance." Alex didn't care for his condescending tone, but she had to admit that she was grateful for the knowledge he had shared. "I'm not about to tell you what you should do, though. I mean, I know what I'd do if I had an eidolon, but..." He trailed off, spreading his hands wide in a grand gesture.

"But..." Alex stammered. "I don't even know how..."

"Have you tried?" Spooky Jay asked. When Alex didn't respond, he rose to his feet. "Listen, you've got a lot to think about. I'll leave you be. If you want to talk again, you've got my number." He got up to leave, and didn't look back. Alex and Cynthia watched him walk away down the street in silence for several moments before he disappeared around the corner.

"That guy was freakin' weird," Cynthia commented.

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "But then, so is everything else right now."

*     *     *

Lucas's funeral services were held late Saturday afternoon, and she felt miserable with guilt about not going. It would have been the perfect excuse for Alex to get out of her monthly appointment with her counselor, too. Even so, she just couldn't bring herself to go and see his body lying in a coffin, to hear people talk about how he was so young and had such a bright future ahead of him, or to see his family and other friends mourning his death without ever knowing what had really happened to him.

She didn't even mention the funeral to her father, who she was certain would insist that she attend. He would say that it would be good for her, that it would help provide closure or something like that. It wouldn't, though. Not as long as Lucas's spirit was still haunting Ellison Park. If anything, that was where she probably ought to go. Instead, she sat in a stuffy, poorly lit office with Margaret Bernstein.

"I'm sorry to hear about your friend," Margaret said immediately as Alex took a seat on the old leather couch. Alex stared back at her counselor with a carefully neutral expression. Of course, her father had probably called ahead and let her know about the situation, so there was no hope of avoiding the conversation. "How are you holding up?"

Alex slouched in her seat, casting her eyes to the bookshelves on the far side of the room. "I'm fine," she lied.

"I'm sure you're not 'fine,'" Margaret said, although not without compassion. She steepled her hands and leaned forward, staring Alex directly in the face, even though she would not meet the counselor's gaze. "I know this must be very painful for you. It's okay to talk about it."

"I barely knew him. It's not a big deal."

"Alex, I know death can be very hard to deal with, but it doesn't help to bottle things up inside like this and cut yourself off from the rest of the world."

Alex leaned her head back to stare up at the ceiling. She knew what Margaret was getting at, drawing parallels between the way Alex was acting now and the way she had when her mother had first passed away. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

To her surprise, Margaret decided to humor her. "Alright then, what do you want to talk about?"

She closed her eyes tightly. "Nothing."

"That's not a very good use of our time together."

"Well, maybe I don't think this is a very good use of my time." She was being obstinate, and she knew it. She also knew that her counselor would probably let it slide, given the circumstances.

"And what would you rather be doing with your time?"

The question actually gave Alex pause for thought. What did she want to do? Where would she rather be? She certainly didn't want to be here, listening to her counselor's condescending platitudes about how she should deal with her grief and loss. She didn't want to go to school, where she had now been branded a freak, a psycho, a witch, and less savory terms. Where everyone stared at her and whispered with a sickening mixture of fear, loathing, and contempt. She didn't even want to be at home right now, with her family that was so oblivious, she might as well be completely alone. It seemed like there was no place she could turn to now, nothing she could do to escape the hell her life had suddenly become.

"I just want things to go back to the way they were," she bleated, piteously. She immediately regretted saying it out loud, as Margaret seemed to pounce on her words.

"You can't live in the past, Alex," she preached. "You have to learn to accept what's happened and move on."

Suddenly, Alex's emotions completely overwhelmed her, and she lashed out.

"I know, okay!?"

Her outburst was punctuated by the sound of shattering glass as shards of the fluorescent light bulb overhead rained down from the ceiling.

"Oh my goodness!" Margaret exclaimed, jumping up from her desk and rushing over to the couch were Alex was sitting. She scurried across the broken glass awkwardly in her shiny black high-heels, flustered and confused. "Alex, are you alright?"

Alex stared back at her, dazed. The counselor seemed not to have noticed that a piece of glass had grazed her own face, leaving a small, thin line of red on her left cheek. Alex herself was untouched—the broken pieces of light bulb had scattered across the office, but not a single shard appeared to have landed on her or the couch.

"I... I know," she stammered. "I know I have to move on, I just... I just need some time..."

"It's fine, Alex. I'm sorry," Margaret said, soothingly. "Just wait hear a moment, let me grab a broom and..." she trailed off as she made her way to the door, then paused to look back over her shoulder at the floor, then back up at the ceiling. "Honestly, how on earth...?"

Alex watched her leave the office wordlessly. To Margaret, of course, it had appeared to be some freak accident with no apparent cause. But Alex knew exactly what the cause was. For just a brief moment, right before the bulb exploded, she had seen it; a small, pale figure, looming over Margaret's desk. Her other self, the eidolon. Had it been trying to protect her? Had she seen the counselor as a threat? The thought was more than a little bit disturbing.

As she sat alone in the dark, waiting for Margaret to return to clean the mess her eidolon had caused, she took a moment to reflect again on the counselor's previous question.

And what would you rather be doing with your time?

She thought back to her conversation with Spooky Jay, about the wraiths and the missing psychopomp. Her life had been turned upside down overnight by forces she barely understood, but she had a weapon. She could fight back. Lucas was dead, and there would probably be others if somebody didn't do something about it. And as far as she knew, she might be the only one who could do something about it.

And so she would.