The two are my parents.

"Yeah, that was my guess. Awkward."

I feel really bad about it.

The most important things I would tell everyone alive about ghosts being real if I could are:
1)  It's REALLY IMPORTANT to die with your body as whole as you can manage, even if it means dying sooner or more painfully
2)  Location location location
3)  Major religions are all super fake and bad

"Is there a good reason for me to not... gather newspeople to return here next Halloween, or something along those lines...?"

It shouldn't be tomorrow but it probably doesn't have to wait that long.

"Day after Halloween is unusually bad...?"

No.  I guess I might be more tired than usual after all this writing.  But it needs more than a day and maybe less than a year of planning.

"If you have a ouija board around I can probably get used to reading that, if that's easier."

No.  And this is better while I can do it.

"What's being a ghost like - besides, uh, informed in some way by your corpse's intactness at time of death."

For me or for everyone else?

"Both."

It's
Actually you should just read the book for this one.  Chapters 6 and 7.

The pen sets itself back on the page.

"Okay. I can probably finish this book before I need to get home if you don't have a lot else to say but feel free to write up notes for me while I'm on that, I have more paper." He grabs the notebook out of the bag to take occasional someone-over-the-shoulder notes on the book as he goes.

Chapter 6.  Ghosts are tethered to the place where they died.  This means that by default they cannot leave it.  Often the boundaries follow property lines, but not always.  Common exceptions include:  an effective property line such as one visible in the landscape that differs from the legal one; properties that are too small or too big for the number of ghosts they contain; ghosts who died in places with no concept of property attached, e.g. because they're older than the concept of property; and ghosts who died in the high bits of skyscrapers, who are usually confined to some number of floors above and below where they died, instead of having access to the whole building or only one apartment.  Places such as hospitals and sites of natural disasters or battles, where by default the density of ghosts would be very high, tend to have much longer tethers associated with them, and ghosts associated with them spill out into the surrounding area.  See these pages for spells affecting tethering.

Chapter 7.  Ghosts are unmoored in time.  This means that they spend most of their time after death not actually existing.  It's quite common for a newly-dead person to turn a corner and only arrive on the other side a month later.  Ghosts who died together tend to be moored to each other, though sometimes they will separate, usually temporarily.  Ghosts spend smaller percentages of time existing the longer ago they died.  If you interact with a ghost and later can find no signs of them, this is probably why.  But!  Some of the time that ghosts aren't at their tethers, they are in fact somewhere else.  Not much is currently known about these other worlds, such as where they are, whether they're physical locations at all or merely spiritual ones, or why ghosts can go to them.  They are primarily composed of strange biomes, with no buildings in them.  They are empty of living people, but not always of other ghosts.  In this way, ghosts with unrelated tethers may sometimes meet each other.  See these pages for spells affecting mooring.

Cam scribbles down what makes a property "too" big or small for N ghosts and could you graph your guesses about what times you have skipped/not or is it too hard to tell? do you want a clock with the date if I can find a battery op one? while he's reading through this.

When Cam's done with chapter 7, the pen drops conspicuously on the desk above the book.

"I do not know ghost nonverbal cues well enough to interpret that."

Tap tap tap on a page of notes.

The main ways I'm different are that I'm fully moored (no time skipping except sort of when I try to zone out really hard and can kind of sleep) and better at interacting with physical objects.  Sometimes ghosts can get really emotional and send a bunch of pots and pans flying around a kitchen or whatever like a horror movie, but I'm better at little stuff.  Flying is nice but it would be a lot better if I could go higher or farther.  I miss recorded music a lot.  I have all of this

(There are probably hundreds of albums up here, between the vinyl and the tapes and the CDs.)

but I can't play any of it without electricity.  What batteries does your flashlight have?  You can play anything you want if they'll go in my CD player and it still works.  I spend most of my time reading; I've read everything here so many times.  My night vision is better than when I was alive, I'm pretty sure.  Sometimes it's hard to turn the pages.  Once people know about ghosts we should play them lots of books on tape.  I think it might also be possible to kill objects and that would be pretty great, if we could pass out ghost books.  Or ghost food, especially if it can be tasted multiple times.  All of my senses are kind of flatter, I think, than when I was alive.  I don't know whether colors are as bright.  Touch is very different of course.

 

I realize that between the two of us I'm the one who's an axe murderer, but that doesn't mean I know you.  I don't want you to read too much of the book before I have a better idea of you.

"Batteries are double A. What kind of idea of me do you have in mind?" He goes to scan through the CDs with more of a view to what wouldn't distract him from reading a book, which alas his stereotype of most punk music definitely would.

Over here's a small (only ten discs or so) collection of classical?

You could start with your name.  But I've seen what this book can do in the wrong hands, and I've spent the last eight years trying to figure out what the right ones look like.  It's not like I can ask for references on you; anything I say I want in a person is something you can pretend to be.

The pen sets itself down, and a moment later a drawer opens itself and a CD player and a pair of little speakers bob over to the desk.

"I'm Cam. I mean, I could go get my dad, he doesn't have the day off but it's a small town and he can usually sit and wait for a call wherever he wants." He picks out some Beethoven and does the battery transfer. "If this runs 'em down I'm going to need to leave earlier, I don't want to try getting out to my truck in the dark."

Hi, Cam.  I'm Jeremy.  I'm not going to let you read the book today.  Sorry.

And you should leave before dark anyways.  The veil is thinner and my parents could show up at any time.  I don't think you'd want to meet them.

(Cam tears out another couple pages for him, it's not like he can't flip it over but if he's not going to read the book he's going to need more paper real estate eventually to have this conversation.) "I admit that is not my fondest ambition."

Th

The music comes in and the pen pauses.

After a few measures it starts conducting along.