"Well. Around here as far as I know it's just ghosts but if you want the theistic perspective Michael married a Catholic."

"Which," puts in Ana, "is still really weird, my mom's not religious at all."

"What is a Catholic?"

"Flavor of a broader religion called Christianity. If you do want to get into it I'm sure Rebecca's around somewhere."

"Unless we think mad Christianites kidnapped us that seems like a waste of time. Isn't there anything you can do to speed up the rescue?" Isun asks Merenre.

"Are you in a particular hurry?"

"If I disappear and I'm presumed dead and only then reappear the insurance will be a tremendous headache."

"I expect they'll be here any minute, possibly unless the pharaoh disappears too. Your society does death insurance?" He sounds very approving.

"How else are my assets supposed to be divided? And it'll be even worse if my brother's missing too."

"Well, if we're not found by morning I can do a Sending and I can attempt one to your world too. 25 words to a person of your choice."

"I don't know that I should expect that to work better than any of the other kinds of telepathy."

"Then I don't think I can help. Though I do expect a reasonably prompt rescue."

Hala creeps out of the house.

"I was wondering what kept you," Ana says.

"This is kind of stressful! I wrote my parents first. And uncle Aitim. Um, hello everybody, I'm Hala."

"She's an anthropologist," says Ana.

"I have really no idea what to make of this living situation we've landed in and don't even know what questions are rude."

"I mean, we're not going to get offended? Or not very offended and we won't be irritated with you about it."

"I don't know that I've successfully called to your minds all your sensitive cultural taboos!" says Ismat.

"In school we had to do taboo desensitization," says Hala. "And haven't had much trouble here. I guess I don't know if you'll bother the ones with tails or the ones with beards."

"Wizards don't go in that hard on cultural taboos that don't involve any magic or any touching people."

<I have encountered humans before.>

"And in your extensive acquaintance you didn't learn not to put your blades to our throats? Anyway I'm just puzzled by the household structure -" says Ismat.

"The family of the household is a married couple, their sons, the wives of two of the three married sons, the stepdaughter and children of the married son who has those, and the house elves like Nipsy over there," says Hala. "Karen is dating one of the sons but they aren't married and she doesn't live here, and Aaron's wife lives in another country with her sister. Ana and I moved in to study their magic and culture from an Amentan perspective, because our parents are alts of in my case Aaron and his wife though they don't have kids themselves, and in Ana's case her alt is yea high and in there. They're also hosting some other people you haven't met for their protection but they're not really part of the household. For a while Miranda's alt lived here, on the books as my and Hala's bodyguard for tax purposes, but now she's doing stuff in space instead. Other people like my grandfather are in and out as called for by various projects."

"Wow," says Ismat, "and I thought disentangling my finances after I spent ten years in drag was a mess."

"You what?"

"I -" begins Ismat.

"I wonder why more households don't have ghosts of their ancestors," muses Ana. "Portraits, but not -"

A ghost appears. It's sitting on the ground and startles at the change in environment and leans forward disbelievingly and flops facefirst into the ground like a ragdoll or a newborn.

"- ghosts," finishes Ana.

"Ghost!" says Karen. "Hi ghost! - Muggles can't see ghosts. That's going to make the translation issue worse. Uh. I volunteer as ghost translator if Eskillimi can't do it and if Merenre can make me able to understand this ghost."

"Is there a ghost?" asks Merenre. "Detect Magic. - oh. Huh. I can't cast Tongues again until tomorrow."

"Okay, then, Minor, you have to be the ghost translator."

"This is so many languages I'm going to be really impaired at learning any of them. Hi," he says to the ghost.