"I think they might be the same thing. The anglerfish's feet don't quite touch the ground, and neither did the figure in your video."

“Maybe. Floating isn’t exactly unusual ghost behavior, though, so I don’t know if just that is enough to be conclusive. Suggestive, though, given Sarah Baldwin... I need to do more research on Old Fishmarket Close. Does the research digitize, at least? I can take photos of all of that and then copy the statement on a typewriter. ...If you’re okay with that.”

"The research digitizes. And oh, yeah, go ahead. I think we can probably photocopy the statement too if that's easier? Ask Martin about it."

“—Oh, that’d be great! Thanks.” She takes out her phone and takes pictures of all the research. “What do you think is going on?”

"Honestly mostly I'm incredibly confused about everything. Spirits don't typically seem to have physical manifestations like that, and their servants are more human. And they normally have, uh, coherent aesthetics, which this one does not, unless you think 'floats a few inches off the ground, doesn't appear to anyone except the target, looks screwy on video and in photographs' is an aesthetic. --Also confused about what's up with the multiple people who interact with magic and then seem to stop existing. No job, no housing, no friends, they just show up occasionally in statements."

“...You do realize that floating, looking screwy, and appearing to people involved in the supernatural despite not actually existing are... ghost traits, right? You just described a ghost. I dunno, maybe there’s something else up with some of them—I’m pretty sure Sarah Baldwin was decidedly unghostly—but, uh.”

"Well, I don't know, ghosts have a lot of other traits and I don't want to make assumptions. Like, I don't know that the anglerfish is a dead human. And the ones who are dead humans are, like you said, decidedly unghostly. --I guess not always. Raymond Fielding showed up at the house where he died and then disappeared leaving only a patch of scorched wooden floor, I guess that's pretty ghostly of him. Although he didn't float and could touch things."

“I guess not making assumptions is probably good. ...Raymond Fielding definitely sounds like a ghost though.”

"Well, if he's a ghost," Lev points out, "it seems weird for the anglerfish, who does float and probably can't hand people things and is not obviously a dead human, to also be a ghost. They have totally disjunct sets of ghost traits."

“Fine, call Raymond Fielding a ghost and the anglerfish an ‘unseen presence’, or call the anglerfish a ghost and call Raymond Fielding ‘undead’, they're both the sort of thing I’d investigate on my show. Might work fine for a research institution but Unseen Presence Hunt UK doesn’t exactly have as much branding potential.”

He laughs. "Yeah, okay. --I guess 'ghost' can just be the word to refer to things that are obviously paranormal enough that you can investigate them even without a convenient spirit telling you that this guy nailing a bunch of meat to his wall is doing it for paranormal reasons."

“Hey, it works for me.” She grabs the statement. “I’ll ask Martin to photocopy this, then? Thanks again for letting me know about all this.”

"Not a problem. It's the least I can do if I'm subjecting you to indefinite nightmares."

“Well, when you say it like that. —I’ll keep in touch?”

He waves.

"Keep a nightmare journal! --It's therapeutic if they're PTSD nightmares."

She gives a thumbs up and then waves back as she leaves!

Wow, she's extremely good!!!!

He goes into the Archives where no one is watching him except the Beholding and Elias and then bounces five times. 

A few hours later:

"Martin," he says. "We have to leave work early! I have a surprise!"

“O-oh? Okay!”

Bounce bounce bounce bounce Lev is SO good at surprises he is the BEST boyfriend. 

"You know there are all KINDS of things you can buy online?"

“...I have... some sort of an idea, I guess? The internet is a weird place.”

When they get home, there is (as promised by the Royal Mail) a box.

"Open it! Open it!"

Martin laughs a little and rocks back on his heels. “Okay, okay!”

He opens it after a moment of peering suspiciously at it. What’s inside?

A glass terrarium! Various pieces of equipment for the terrarium, like a water bowl and a thermometer and some bark! A box with air holes poked into it labeled 'tarantula'!