“Yes.” Dash shrugged. “I’m weird that way. They have very different auras, and I can pretty much tell where they are in the house. Sometimes I get the floor wrong, but generally I get the distance right.”
Slate needed to ask his father if he’d heard of any mediums with that talent before. “It’s not weird at all. It’s a helpful skill. I’m guessing it only works on ghosts you’ve been around a while.”
“Exactly. I doubt I could find Gary in a crowd.” Dash led them into the music room.
The moment they stepped into the room, Slate sensed two spirits. He couldn’t tell them apart, or even that they were distinct from each other.
“... so rowdy that they are ruining the festival,” Oliver said. “Didn’t their parents teach them any manners?”
Slate didn’t need a program to know who they were talking about. It also wasn’t a good sign Oliver didn’t like them already.
“They’re mostly harmless,” Thomas replied. “I can keep the more energetic ones away if you’d like.”
“Let me guess, discussing our newest guests in town?” Dash asked.
“Yes.” Oliver frowned. “They act like savages. You’d think the entire town belonged to them.”
His description nailed how the hippie ghosts acted. “We actually came here to speak to you about them,” Slate said. “We were hoping you could help us deal with them.”
“Gary or his friends?” Thomas’s expression shifted, and there was a hint of skepticism in his eyes.
“Both,” Dash said.
Slate sat on the loveseat while Dash stood beside him, playing with the strings of his hood. “We need help. As Oliver suggested, they’re rambunctious, and they’re not being careful. People are talking about weird activity in town.”
“I take it that’s bad?” Thomas asked.
“Bad enough that Slate’s parents showed up at dawn with emergency breakfast and a list of incidents around town,” Dash said. “They’re causing minor disturbances, projecting sounds the living can hear, and bumping into things and people.”
“Is that dangerous?” Oliver asked, straightening his waistcoat. “I mean, if people notice.”
Slate had second thoughts. The way Oliver asked, it sounded like he was worried about more than whether people noticed. “It could bring a lot of unwanted attention to Oriskany Falls. Ghost hunters, mediums who try to banish any spirit they find, the media, and others who want to see ‘the haunted town’ will flock here. Apart from the disruption to the town, it could cause spirits to avoid the town. We have the only stable portal we know about. If ghosts don’t feel safe here, they won’t use it.”
He left off how it would ruin his grandmother’s legacy, not to mention Ezra Reeves’s sacrifice.
“Most of these ghosts died in the sixties,” Thomas said. “Many died in the Vietnam War and never had a chance to enjoy being young. They’re making up for what they lost.”
Given that Thomas already knew more about the ghosts than he and Dash, asking him was the right move. “We understand they’re just having fun themselves, but we can’t let them disrupt our town.”
“What do you want us to do?” Thomas asked.
“Help us manage the chaos,” Slate said. “You can communicate with them in ways we can’t. Maybe you can explain the situation to them and get them to contain the more enthusiastic manifestations.”
“Think of it as spiritual crowd control,” Dash said.
Thomas looked at Oliver, and they stared at each other in a way that suggested they were silently communicating. After a few seconds, Thomas nodded, confirming Slate’s speculation.
“Can you give us some time to talk about this alone before we answer?”
The desire to get started on the problem warred with the reasonableness of the request. If they had doubts, they might talk themselves out of helping.
“That’s totally fine,” Dash said. “Take as much time as you need.”
Slate was too surprised to speak, so he nodded. A second later, Thomas and Oliver were gone.
“Sorry, but you looked conflicted,” Dash said. “Pushing them, specifically Oliver, to agree would be wrong. Thomas won’t be able to concentrate on what we need him to do unless he’s sure Oliver is okay with this.”
He was right, but it didn’t ease Slate’s concern that they didn’t have time to waste. “I know, but it feels like we need to do something or else we’ll lose everything.”
