Maybe once they got to this Girdwood Springs place it would just evaporate into thin air – though that was probably a little too much to hope for.
It seemed like the ghost was gaining more and more memories and abilities the longer it stayed here, so if it didn’t disappear once they arrived in Girdwood Springs, perhaps it’d at least remember why it was here?
Or,the pegasus added unhelpfully,it’ll gain the ability to take over your car, and drive us over a cliff.
Ethan firmly ignored it. After he’d calmed his stomach down from the clutch of fear it suddenly experienced.
“Truly,” he said.
~What kind of transportation will we take?~The ghost sounded altogether too eager to know.~Do you possess a train? You do appear to be quite wealthy.~
“Um. No. No trains,” Ethan said, even as his pegasus seemed intrigued by the idea of acquiring its own personal train.
As unlikely as it was, he knew that if therewasa chance that the ghost was just playing dumb before it tried to kill him, he wasn’t about to put a trainload of other people at risk. “We’ll take… my car. It’s, uh, like a really, really small train.”
~Oh, like an automobile?~the ghost said.~I think I have heard them spoken of, but have never ridden one myself. I believe that they were not common where I lived.~
“Yeah, an automobile,” Ethan said. He held up his cellphone awkwardly. “This will tell us how to get there.”
~I have never seen a compass like that,~the ghost said, its brow creasing in puzzlement.~Or is it some kind of sextant?~
“Uh. Kind of,” Ethan said. “Really, it’s a little hard to explain.”
The ghost drifted closer, peering down at the phone.~Does it also have moving pictures like the ‘computer’ that I have witnessed you using?~
He tried not to grit his teeth at the memory of what the ghost had done with his computer. “Yeah, it does.”
The ghost looked delighted, if such a thing was possible.~Does it have moving pictures of trains? And train stations? I enjoyed watching those.~
Well, I’m glad someone enjoyed them,Ethan thought sourly.Since I’m pretty sure that the CEO of Swynford most emphatically didnotenjoy them.
Still, he supposed that to an old-timey ghost, modern trains were new and exciting. And at least now he had an explanation for why YouTube had been showing him nothing but railway videos the past few weeks. It was going to take forever to get his algorithm sorted back out.
“Well. Should we get going?” Ethan asked, picking up his jacket and ignoring the definite chill coming from the direction of his pegasus.
It was decidedly unthrilled by the prospect of going on a road trip with a ghost, but it seemed to have accepted that this was going to be the quickest way to get the ghost out of their lives.
Mostly accepted, anyway.
The ghost looked surprised.~We can leave now?~
“Sure,” Ethan shrugged.The quicker the better.“No time like the present.”
He started to head toward the door, then paused.
Up until this point, he’d been treating this as a job – purely professional. He hadn’t wanted to get involved any more than absolutely necessary.
But, he supposed, he couldn’t spend however long in the company of the ghost without knowing its name. Presuming that it even remembered it.
“By the way, I’m Ethan,” he said, sticking out his hand automatically. “Do you… have a name? One that you can remember?”
~Oh, my name – yes, thankfully that was one of the first things I recalled. It’s Curtis. Pleasure to make your acquaintance,~the ghost replied, sticking out its hand as well.
Ethan supposed that he shouldn’t have been surprised when Curtis’s hand passed right through his. It was an infinitelyforeseeable issue, but to be fair, his head hadn’t quite been in the game recently.
To Curtis’s credit, he laughed it off, smiling ruefully.~Well, I suppose I should have seen that coming. Pay it no heed.~
Ethan smiled back – and it wasn’t even entirely forced. “Okay. Let’s go find this Girdwood Springs.”
