D:  It is.

"Can I get you guys anything? Jeremy wanted books..."

MA:  Oh, I don't think we're going to be here the next time you are

—the jacket turns back to the center of the room.  Converses converses, lightly hits the desk (to no production of sound or feeling of vibration), sighs, and adds—

, dear.

"For next Halloween, maybe?"

D:  Most likely sooner than that.  There seems to be a bit of an unevenness around Halloween, from what we can tell.  If one's already around for it, they'll tend to stick around for and through it, but if you show up on the day itself it'll probably only be a few hours.  But we haven't missed an entire year yet.
MA:  We just got back from a little world all covered in water.  Decent to fly around on, but a little small and no variety.  Or, it feels like we did; of course it could have been any amount of time.
D:  We'd love some books for learning other languages.  There were other ghosts there but we didn't have any tongues in common with them.
MA:  Oh, yes.  And—I don't know if there are any books about, can you look at the stars and figure out where a place is.  I don't know that I'd have the mind for it, since we can't write anything down, or draw it for comparison, but if there's anything with general principles, there's a chance we could meet someone who meets someone with a steel-trap mind, you know.

"Those sound like great ideas, I'll see what I can find." He makes a note. "Do you have any guesses what languages you run into most often?"

D:  It's hard to tell apart the non-European ones more closely than by continent.
MA:  We might prefer to start with some of the ones closest to English, to get proficient faster.
D:  But maybe a set of basic phrases in lots of them.

"Phrasebooks, sure. I assume you aren't going to want to ask where the bathroom is and whether they take American dollars, what are you going to want to say?"

Conversing conversing.

D:  If you're going to be sticking around, the best shot might be to ask for a message we can memorize phonetically.  But our stays in different places are almost always too long for that to be the best thing; we could memorize a few of them before we came back but probably not dozens.
MA: It might be best to stick to things that are a little more immediate.  Maybe just a basic, friendly greeting.

D:  I'm thinking Latin for the first language, or Ancient Greek.  If we have to pick a set of Europeans it's better to sort by education than geography.
MA:  Do you know, or can you find out, which one was spoken more?  Throughout all of history.

"I can try, I don't know how hard estimates by experts will be to find or if those estimates are any good. I think Latin for hello was 'salve' but I don't remember how I know that. - do longstanding ghosts get rusty on even their native languages?"

MA:  People almost always try and talk to us at least a little.
D:  I think the time-skipping helps with that.  The older you are, the more you skip, so the less time you have to forget things in.

"I guess that makes sense."

D:  What sort of things are you planning to do now that you know about ghosts?

"Research and groundwork for going public. There are a lot of implications and applications but I don't know what they all are yet, it deserves thought."

MA:  It most certainly does.
D:  You kids be careful.

"That's the plan."

MA:  Did you bring a camera here today?

"I did not, sorry."

MA:  Seems more an inconvenience to you.  It's not as if photos can't be faked, but you'd get better ones tonight than any for a while, and then you'd have something to show folks so they'd know that you're putting in at least enough effort to be serious about it.

"I expect to be able to convince my dad, and to want longer before I'm telling anyone other than him."

MA:  Suit yourself.

Always. No, he's being less snarky. "Will you want to help stage photos if you're around whenever I get to that?"

MA:  I don't see why not.  Could be fun.

"Could be. I don't have any specific photos in mind, besides the very basic 'stuff floating'. Video will probably be better anyway."

D:  We'll think on it.  Though we'll have less time to than you two.