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“It was terrible.”

Nate nodded again, and then he proceeded to drink his coffee and eat his glue bar.

After his breakfast, he inexplicably propped his phone against a stack of paint cans at the end of the counter, stepped back, and started talking to it.

“Alright. It’s kitchen day. Today we’re finding out what’s under the world’s greenest cabinets, and whether this beadboard ceiling is⁠—“

“Who are you talking to?”

Nate stopped. He reached over and tapped the phone’s screen once. “Nobody. It’s recording. I talk now and people watch it later.”

“What people?”

“Whoever watches the channel.”

“Channel?”

“My YouTube channel.”

“What’s a YouTube?”

Nate lowered his coffee mug, and the ghost watched him take a moment to consider. “It’s a website. On the internet.” A pause. “People put videos on it. Anyone can.”

The ghost worked through this. Videos, he understood. But what was the internet? As much as he wanted to know, he didn’t want to reveal another gap in his knowledge to the medium, so he went for the most reasonable conclusion. “So it’s free for all television.”

“Sort of.” Nate thought about it. “My channel is small. It’s just about the houses. I film the work, and people watch it.”

“Why?”

“They like renovations. Old house, before and after. It does well.”

“It does well?” What did that mean? The ghost grew suspicious.

“It makes money.” Nate tipped his mug toward the room in general. “It’s part of how I’m paying for this place.”

So that was the reason this medium was here.

If the ghost could have manipulated the seal’s expression, he would have narrowed its eyes.

“Show me,” he demanded.

“Show you what?”

“The video. I want to see what the strangers see.”

Nate shrugged, picked up the phone, did something to the screen, and held it out. On it, impossibly small, was the kitchen. The green cabinets. The seal sat out of the shot. Was Nate worried the ghost might mess with his videos?

“Are we done?” Nate asked. “Can I work?”

“By all means,” the ghost said. “Work.”

Nate gave him a look. It was a long look, and the ghost met it with the stitched-on serenity of a toy that had never had a thought in its life. Then Nate tapped the screen and picked up where he’d left off.

The first take was cabinet hardware. Nate pried a door off its one hinge, narrating about water damage, back turned, attention on the wall.

The ghost rocked, tipped, and scooted.

Half an inch.