She just nods.

Can a ghost cry? Apparently, yes.

He frowns. "What's wrong?"

"I'm pushing responsibility onto someone else. Again."

He shakes his head. "I'm taking responsibility. It's what I do. I'm making this choice, informed."

Ghosts can't hug. Kaede's arms would go right through her.

She turns away again. "Thank you."

He nods, though she can't see. "I'll do my best," he repeats, and off he goes.

The ghost grows steadily less talkative and more singleminded over the next several months.

And winter comes, and she turns sixteen.

She wants to emancipate. She has a job, her father doesn't care, her teachers can attest she's hard-working and independent and can deal with it. It takes a while still. She visits the ghost when she can, and she studies rare beetles.

She presumably keeps up with the genie-spotters. Sofia Los, the Witch Trials genie, wandered off south somewhere after a couple weeks. Rare Beetle Genie is still frolicking about in that national forest as far as anyone can tell. Another genie was involved in some kind of fracas down in Hartford, but other than that it's a quiet few months, genie-wise.

She's emancipated. She has a small apartment, and will hopefully never see her father again. She signs the bloody form, and marches towards where that Rare Beetle Genie is, with camping gear.

The park rangers warn her quite stringently that it's a dangerous time of year to go hiking in the deep woods, and try to dissuade her. Does she at least have a radio or a satellite phone or something?

Radio, yes. She's come prepared.

...Right then. The place is open to the public. But she'd better treat the outdoors respectfully. (It helps that she's alone - they don't suspect she's going to get drunk and high and set off fireworks and poke wildlife with friends. It doesn't help that she's emancipated at sixteen. Whatever.)

Why not, it means she's not some crazy reckless teenager, she's responsible enough to convince the government she's good.

On she goes, anyway.

There isn't really a specific clearing the genie was said to be. It wanders around the general southeast area of the park. She has to wander around the hiking trails hoping to run into it. Maybe shouting about beetles occasionally.

...eventually she'll try that. And she has books! And pictures! And this one stuffed beetle in a jar!

This is not a very talkative genie. "I don't want that." Is the extent of his first reply, referencing the jarred beetle.

"That's alright," she says, putting it away. "What do you want?"

"Something never seen before."

"A beetle, in particular?"

"Beetles are varied."

"They are, but lots of other things are, too, like bacteria."

"I do not know how to observe bacteria."

"I will help you, but I want something in exchange."

"I do not know if new bacteria will be interesting. I refuse."