"Are you serious? You could do that?"

  "Yeah... Yeah, ugh..."

  Erin was complaining to Andrew, who... was responding timidly. They were in Andrew's room on the second floor. Those present were Mathias, Erin, Andrew, and the ghost of Mrs. Crowell. Andrew was sitting on his bed; Erin, on the floor; Mat, in the chair at the table in front of the window.

  "Hey, Mat! How come Andrew knew you could see ghosts? Why didn't you tell me? It's not fair!" Erin said. She sounded like a child at the time.

  "You just never asked," Mat replied, smiling nervously.

  "That's right..." replied Erin, and added, "And can you really see ghosts, Andrew?"

  "Well... yes, I think so," he answered shyly.

  Mat and Andrew would occasionally, when they were younger, go ghost "hunting" in some abandoned houses and in the cemetery. Andrew was a little scared to do that, but being with Mat... nothing happened to him practically, because he felt accompanied, calm. Ghosts were afraid of Mat, and it was clear to him, but he didn't know why, although he thought it had something to do with the mark on his left hand.

  One of those times they had gone "hunting," in 1979, Andrew began to... so to speak, be disturbed by a ghost at night. It was like a humanoid shadow with red eyes, vertically long, that had its lower half torn, with its spine showing, bleeding. It also had horns. He didn't tell his grandparents, but he did tell Mat.

  To deal with the situation, they had a sleepover; Erin was also invited.

  During the night, almost at two o'clock in the morning, the ghost appeared and... he was locked in by Mat with a PSI barrier. Erin didn't realize what was happening, because she was fast asleep.

  Due to the pressure that Mat exerted, for some reason, on that ghost, the ghost agreed not to bother Andrew anymore and, moreover, after feeling that those children were not bad people, but that... because that was the first time they were dealing with something like this, he also decided to follow Andrew, in his shadow, just in case, to protect him from anything that could happen to him. He saved him twice.

  "So you can see her?" Erin pointed to her left, where there was nothing.

  "Errr... it's to your right," Andrew replied.

  "Oh, really?" said Erin, and turning to her right, seeing no one, she said, "Sorry, sorry."

  "Don't worry, young lady," said the ghost, but she didn’t listen to him, for obvious reasons.

  "So, Mat, why do you think another spirit is doing this?" asked Andrew in a more serious tone.

  "Yes, Mat, how?" asked Erin.

  "You see... since almost all the ghosts I wanted to talk to were afraid of me, it was hard to get that little bit of information," said Mat. "And so... they told me this, which I think is important, but I don't know anything else."

  What Mat told them was that it "could" be the work of a specter. Humans, and ghosts, are not capable of performing curses of this caliber, according to him, so that was the most likely scenario. Because of the power that curse had, it must have consumed some of the spiritual energy of the one who is using it and who must be in town.

  "Mat, what is spiritual energy?" asked Erin.

  "Yes, Mat, explain it to us," said Andrew.

  "I have no idea," Mat replied. He had heard it before, but he didn’t know what it was, or where he had heard it.

  "...I understand," said Andrew, somewhat disappointed. "But..."

  "It's in town, isn’t it?" said Erin. "...This is a big town, but you had several months to do something, didn’t you? And why not?"

  "I could only get that information, sadly."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Everyone was quiet for a few seconds. At that, someone knocked on the door of the room.

  "Hey, what the hell are you talking about? What's all this about spirits and specters and stuff?"

  A voice was heard outside the room; it was Samantha’s voice. She seemed to have heard the whole conversation, since her room was next door. She hadn’t been called because... I don’t know why, because it was dangerous, maybe?

  Andrew went to open the door.

  "Well, you see..." Andrew said.

  "Wow, you guys talk really loud... Why are you here? We have homework due the day after tomorrow, in case you didn’t know?" said Samantha, a bit angry and at that. "Err... w-why is Mat here?"

  "...Huh?" said Mathias, surprised. "Well, you see..."

  "Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

  "H-hey," said Andrew.

  Samantha had turned to look and saw the ghost. At that, Andrew and Samantha's grandmother came upstairs because she heard her granddaughter's scream.

  "Hey, youngsters," said the grandmother. "What's all this fuss?"

  "Nothing, Grandma!" Andrew replied. "You see, you see... there's a spider."

  Andrew pointed to where Mrs. Crowell’s ghost was. Samantha saw it and screamed again, for there was indeed a spider there. This excuse had been a blessing, so to speak, even if they could have said something else.

  "Hahahaha," laughed Grandma. "Sam, are you still afraid of spiders?"

  "Y-yes..."

  "Well, that's okay. I'll leave you to get on with your business," Grandma said and left.

  Everyone calmed down except Samantha, who was still scared of the ghost. Mathias took the spider out of the room with his PSI Creations.

  "H-hey, you don’t-?"

  "It’s Mrs. Crowell, although you don’t know her," Erin replied, almost instantly. She was crossing her arms.

  "Yeah, well..." Andrew said, and thought, "She’s obviously going to believe what we say, since she’s seeing her." "We were thinking about how to remove the curse from her husband, who is still alive."

  "Yes, yes, that," Mathias said, raising his index finger in a... I don’t know how to describe it, in an affirmative way?

  "...What? B-but... what on earth are you talking about? This is..."

  "I know, Sam, believe me, this is really weird," Erin tried to say, but...

  "Wonderful!"

  "What?" they all said in unison, even Andrew's shadow ghost.

  They all looked at her funny.

  "H-hey, sis," said Andrew, who seemed to be taken aback in a bad way by Sam's expression. "There’s a person in danger, why that reaction?"

  "S-sorry..."

  "It’s okay, Andrew," said Erin. "She’s just excited because this isn’t a normal thing, isn’t she, Sam?"

  Erin had become closer to Sam and, because of this, knew more about Sam’s likes and dislikes. As you may already know, Sam loved to read. Her favorite genres were fantasy and science fiction.

  "Y-yes..." she was embarrassed.

  "Don’t be like that," Erin told her, stood up, and patted her on the back, which hurt a little. "Well, since you’re here... you could help us."

  "Hey, don’t just bring people into this out of the blue," said Andrew. "Besides, this is going to be dangerous, or at least I think it’s going to be."

  "That’s true," said Mat. "As it is, only Andrew and I can do anything if we’re attacked or something happens."

  "Andrew?" asked Erin. "Why can he too?"

  "Yes, Mat, why?" also asked Sam, who seemed more curious than Erin at the moment.

  "Because..."

  "Look," Andrew said out of nowhere, and a ghost came out of his shadow. "This is... a spirit that has been following me for years. It's supposed to protect me."

  "Is it really?" Samantha said, excited and a little scared about it.

  "...What? That thing is... horrible," said Erin, who approached Mat again and grabbed his arm, which made Sam uncomfortable. "Is it really protecting you? It looks to me like it cursed you or something."

  "I can’t curse," said the shadow ghost, in a squeaky voice, and went back into Andrew's shadow.

  "You heard him," Mat said.

  "This... makes me want to participate more, you know?" said Sam.

  "Agh, I know," Andrew replied. "All right, come if you want to. If something happens to you, it's not my fault."

  "Okay!" said Sam, excited, but realizing her enthusiasm was out of place. "...I'm sorry."

  "Well then... what do we do?" asked Erin. "Mat, you're the leader, say something."

  "Ok, listen up."

  Mat began to explain the plan he had just come up with (but not before explaining in more detail to Sam what was happening). It involved going into town and looking for spirits, asking if anything strange had occurred after an accident involving a living person. Even if most spirits refused to cooperate, they would keep asking. Moreover, they would also inquire with living people, those who had a black flame on their bodies.

  Additionally, Mat explained that while he couldn't exorcise spirits, he could harm them. He clarified the difference between exorcising and what he could do.

  According to him, exorcising was about freeing spirits from their ties to this world, while what he did was more akin to making them disappear—killing them, per se. He also explained the distinction between ghosts and specters, as he understood it.

  "Ghosts," he said, "are the souls of a single mortal and retain memories, though only partially. They can be seen by a few people, talk to the living, and use simple telekinesis—like moving objects."

  "Specters," he continued, "are groups of souls. They don't retain the memories or personalities of the individuals; they're new beings. They can be seen by an even smaller number of people, and they don’t communicate in a normal way. They are the poltergeists. They can curse."

  Mat divided them into two groups: one consisting of him and Erin, and the other of Sam and Andrew. He made this decision because Erin could only see ghosts when she held onto Mat’s left arm, and because Sam and Andrew, being siblings, both had high spiritual sensitivity.

  And so, the four of them set off to search for information. Mrs. Crowell returned home, to... accompany her husband.