"Can I at least read more of the first half, you had me skipping ahead in there."

The pen 'sighs'.

Why do you want to so bad?

"...it's about fucking magic? That exists?????"

If I point you at a useful but harmless spell will you chill out some?

"I was going to just spend the afternoon talking to you instead of reading the book, there's a case to be made that's a better use of your pen-holding hours anyway, but then you seemed like you'd rather focus on the music."

I really fucking missed music and I needed a minute.  Singing's a bit easier without lungs but it doesn't make up for not having everything else.  Will you miss the batteries if you leave before dark?

"Not especially."

Then maybe we pause it and I jam out after you go. 

Do you want a spell to let you know whether there's a ghost around?

"Yeah."

Go turn off the music while I find the page.

To Sense the Presence of Ghosts

Cast within the pair of Hours before or after Dawn, Noon, Dusk, and Midnight and not on Sundays, under the Quarter Moons, in the Week surrounding an Equinox or Solstice, on May Eve, or on The Caster's Birthday unless Halloween.

Take in Hand one Grave Flower.  Over a plate of any material on which a candle stands centered, destroy it Manually, Incanting:

O candle, you cradle of light and enlightenment's shining
Already revealing the world to my sight
Already disclosing the forms which by night try declining
Now add to this power, by my will and rite
The knowledge of spirits' proximity to your divining

Light the Candle.  Its Flame will then burn no other objects, and may not be extinguished until the Candle is spent.  In the presence of Ghosts, the Flame will burn blue, and more strongly so the closer they are, until it burns white at closest distance.

"Bossy," mutters Cam, but he turns off the music. "Grave flower mean a flower that was left at a grave or one that grew there or is there just a kind of flower I've never heard of? Does this mean that it's okay to do it before midnight Saturday but not the hour following on which it would technically be Sunday, does it track formal timekeeping like that? What's May Eve, just the last day of April? Week surrounding an equinox or solstice like three days either side of it or like seven days either side of it?"

Sorry.  My manners are 8 years out of use.

A grave flower is one left or grown on a grave with intent other than it being a magic ingredient.  Magically, the end/start of a day happens between midnight and dawn.  Walpurgis Night.  3½ days.

"Between midnight and dawn, that's not very specific."

There's a specific point but it moves around compared to human clock numbers.

"Gotcha." He rewrites the spell in a mostly-checklist format in his notebook.

Before I died, I had some luck with getting them to move closer and farther away for yes/no questions.  It works even if they can't touch anything.

"Who were you talking to?"

A few people.  There was a girl, a town over, who wanted me to get a message to her mom.  I think she was going to move away.  You shouldn't count on being able to find any of the same people I did.  But I guess you don't have anything else to go on.

"I mean, I can probably buy a ton of birthday candles and do some looking but I have school and stuff and college after that."

No response.

"Unless I discover ghost stuff substantial enough that I should ditch higher education, which is not impossible. Summer's open for finding that out."

Hard to say.

"I can ask Charlie to bring you batteries, or whatever."

Maybe.

"Do you have, like, goals, here, besides being able to put on music?"