Those Meddling Kids

I. The Kids

"Let's travel this summer, you said. Expand our horizons, you said. Unova will be beautiful this time of year, you said."

Nobody answers. The rain keeps coming down, a million silver fingers drumming on the van roof; Celio keeps driving, hunched over the wheel as he squints desperately out into the dark. In the back, Louhi looks around, but Bill and Lanette seem determinedly absorbed in their reading material.

"I should be back in Johto," they persist, with the grandly aggrieved air of a landlord asked for an extension on this month's rent. "Back in the city. Outside a café with a fancy coffee. Heckling the kids on their coffee dates."

God, Celio hopes someone else will answer. He can't be dealing with this right now, not while he's trying desperately not to let the van careen across the road to a violent end. Why did he even volunteer to drive today? Sure, it's his van, but his heart can't take all this.

"Two rainy days," says Lanette at last, and Celio heaves a silent sigh of relief. "You can't seriously be giving up after two rainy days."

Louhi folds their stubby arms and glares.

"Sure I can," they say. "I can give up whenever I feel like it. The other day I gave up on trying to open a yoghurt after the first pull on the foil. Don't ever doubt my powers of giving up."

Lanette wrinkles her nose.

"Why were you eating yoghurt? I'm sure that's poisonous for clefairy."

"Celio smokes. That's poison for him."

"Yes, and I tell him that, too."

"Please leave me out of it," says Celio nervously, eyes moving restlessly over the road ahead. "It's already stressful enough driving in this."

"And whose fault is that? A grand Unovan road trip in this lemon?"

"It was very affordable."

"It has a wizard spray-painted on the side," says Louhi, witheringly. "Still stinks of hippy patchouli."

"Stop bullying Celio," Lanette warns, and Celio hears her rolling up her magazine in what must be an ominous kind of way. "Bill? Care to take responsibility for your hellish creation?"

In the rear-view mirror, Celio sees him looks up from his book, wide-eyed and innocent.

"Pardon?"

She rolls her eyes, switches the magazine for the map.

"Never mind. Celio?"

"Yeah?"

"Have we passed the turning for Anville yet?"

"Anville?" His fingers tighten on the wheel. "God, I don't know, I'm not – I mean I haven't seen a sign in ages."

"Hm." Lanette climbs into the front and drops into the passenger seat, banishes Milli Vanilli to the ether with a twist of the radio dial, and unfolds the map across the dashboard. "Well, if we passed the turning for Route 209 about two hours ago, that means …"

"Yeah?" asks Celio, turning his head towards her without quite finding the courage to look away from the road.

"It means I don't know where we are," she admits. "I'll sit here. Keep an eye out for signs."

Behind her, Louhi throws both paws skyward.

"And now we're lost," they pronounce, as if delivering a sermon. "Great. Bill, really, I gotta hand it to ya, you know how to show an abomination of science a good time."

"Actually, it's fascinating – you're technically a Class V chimera, which is all the more amazing considering the circumstances of your―"

"Yeah, whatever you say, buddy."

"Give me strength," mutters Lanette, leaning over the dashboard with a rustle of elbows on map. "Oh – hang on, what's that sign?"

She and Celio squint as one. Behind them, a round, pink head rises between the seats, sharp ears cocked.

"The Blue Grebe Hotel," reads Celio. "Ten miles, next left."

They look at one another.

"It's getting late," says Lanette.

"This rain's getting worse," says Celio.

"Anything to get out of this van," says Louhi.

Lanette raises one devastating eyebrow.

"Bill?" she asks, peering over the back of the seat. "Thoughts?"

"Esther Flint," he says, holding up his book, "is an absolute genius. I can't wait to get back to college and talk this one over with Professor Okoro."

"Very illuminating," says Louhi drily. "And does Esther Flint have any opinion on stopping for the night?"

"Oh, no, but you see, she's got some excellent ideas about―"

"Making an executive decision," says Lanette. "Celio, let's go."

---

II. The Hotelier

The Blue Grebe looks to Lanette like it crawled up from the depths of Alfred Hitchcock's dreaming mind and sought out the most miserable spot in Unova to plant its roots: tall and gloomy and somehow indefinably askew.

"Is it me," says Celio, as he pulls the van into the car park, "or is it looking at us?"

Lanette stare out the window, Louhi climbing onto the seat to join her. The Blue Grebe's upper windows glint dully with the reflection of the lightning, dark eyes beneath the heavy brows of its ominous gables.

"No, that's impossible," says Lanette, at exactly the same time as Louhi says:

"Yeah, totally."

There is a long silence, broken only by the rain and the scratching of Bill's pencil in his notebook.

"Well, let's get in out of the rain," says Lanette, taking command again. "Bill! That means you too."

"What? Are we there?"

"In Anville? No. For your purposes? Yes. Now come on, get your stuff."

They're out there for less than a minute, but when they push through the front door into the lobby it's with what feels like a week's worth of rain soaking into their clothes and hair. Louhi trudges in a few seconds later on their short legs, face as grim as a tombstone and all their fur slicked down like a drowned rat.

"Not a word," they mutter warningly, catching Celio and Lanette staring. "Not. One. Word." They give their paws a good shake, sending water droplets everywhere. "Huh. Charming place, ain't it?"

The inside feels very much of a piece with the outside: badly lit, cold, décor that makes uncommonly heavy use of dark wood and dusty fabric.

"It has character," says Lanette, looking up at the tarnished chandelier.

"It's got something," says Louhi darkly. "Either fleas or mould, haven't decided yet."

"May I help you?"

"Moon and stars above!" they yelp, starting so hard they almost slip over in the growing puddle of rainwater. "What in the―?"

There's a man now, though there definitely wasn't a moment ago. He looks tall and despondent and shrink-wrapped onto his own skeleton, like one of those Edgar Allen Poe heroes who let themselves go somewhere around the third act.

"Welcome to the Blue Grebe Hotel," he intones – and it is an intonation, slow and spooky and altogether unwarranted. "May I help you?"

Bill and Lanette share a look. One of those places, it seems.

"Hello," says Bill, burying his uncertainty beneath the crispness of his accent. "Ah, would you happen to have three rooms for the night?"

Louhi's ears prick up.

"Three? What, sharing that teleporter wasn't enough? I have to share a room with you too?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I was under the impression you were an unemployed freeloader along for the ride. Four rooms, then, if Louhi here will pay for theirs."

"All right, all right," grumbles Louhi, waving a paw. "You made your point."

The man watches this all with the impassive gaze of a catacombs skull. If he's surprised to see a talking clefairy, he doesn't show it.

"Three rooms it is," says Bill, flashing him a winsome smile that makes absolutely no impression. "Oh, and if one of those could be a smoking room for my friend here, that would be great."

The man nods. Celio goes bright red, clearly embarrassed that once again Bill has both pre-empted his needs and decided to spare him the anxiety of asking about them himself, but he doesn't say anything, and Lanette doesn't push it.

"That can be arranged," he pronounces, walking stiffly behind the front desk. "We have … several vacancies."

"Do I want to ask what that pause was abou― ow!"

"Excuse me," says Lanette, removing her foot from Louhi's paw. "How clumsy of me."

"Wonderful," says Bill, fumbling with his wallet. "Thank you, – oh, sorry, I don't think I caught your name."

The man's eyes cloud over, as if heavy with the weight of some unutterable secret.

"Rob," he says.

"Rob," repeats Bill. "Wonderful. I'm Bill. This is Lanette, Celio, Louhi."

The lines of Rob's face deepen for a moment.

"Louhi?" he asks. "Is that Hoennic?"

"Get outta here," says Louhi. "What are you talking about, Hoennic? It's a clefairy name."

"We had a Hoennic guest once. A very gifted pianist." Rob shakes his head slowly. "Terrible business."

"Really," says Lanette, in the tone of someone who wants a hot shower, a fluffy towel and a long sleep, in that order, and does not intend to wait for them. "I'm sorry to hear that. Do you think we could―?"

"But you mustn't believe what people say," says Rob, as if she hadn't spoken. "There are no ghosts here at the Blue Grebe."

Lanette opens her mouth – thinks of seven possible responses – closes her mouth again and decides to leave them all unsaid. This isn't the first time a middle-aged man has talked over her, nor even the first time this week, and she just doesn't have the energy for this right now. Especially not when the middle-aged man in question is, for some unfathomable reason, going on about ghosts.

"Yeah, see, now you could've just not mentioned it and it wouldn't even have occurred to us that this place might be―"

"And that's enough, Louhi," says Lanette, stealing a quick glance at Celio. No longer red: now he's pale as milk. Damn it. He's Bill's friend, really – she only has the one class with him – but even she knows him well enough to see that he's possibly the most nervous boy the Sevii Islands have ever produced. "We're not interested in ghosts," she tells Rob. "Is there anywhere round here we can get something to eat?"

He looks at her as if about to accuse her of stealing his mother's ashes.

"The cook will be pleased to accommodate your request," he intones. "Please. Follow me to your rooms."

"Brilliant," says Bill, stooping to pick up his bag and immediately dropping his notebook. "Oh," he says, picking that up and dropping the Flint book. "Ah, just a moment …"

Lanette sighs and scoops up both books at once.

"Come on," she says, tucking them under her arm and swinging her rucksack onto her shoulder. "I was out there for five seconds and I still need to get changed."

"Right this way." Rob creaks out of the lobby like a ghost ship gliding through an isthmus, his shoes near-silent on the scuffed tiles. Lanette lingers for just a moment, to (a) glare at Louhi, (b) look pleadingly at Bill, and (c) smile reassuringly at Celio, and then follows.


III. The Paranaturalist

Louhi refuses to share with Bill, and Lanette refuses to share with Louhi, and Celio would rather everyone not fight, so now Louhi's sharing with him. Bill does feel a little bad about that; Louhi hates smoking and Celio uses it to blunt the edge of his anxiety. But everyone agrees that Louhi and Lanette in a room together would probably result in another ghost to walk the halls of this definitely-not-haunted hotel, so there doesn't seem to be any helping it.

Besides, right now, Louhi's still up there ruining all the towels in their pursuit of dry fur, and Celio is down here with Bill in what Rob referred to cryptically as the parlour. Bill was under the impression that parlours went extinct several decades ago, but then again, the Blue Grebe doesn't yet seem to have realised it's 1989. In fact, he's not sure it's entirely made it out of the thirties.

"Charming sort of place, isn't it?" he says, as they enter. "It looks like Grand Hotel by way of the Bates Motel."

Strained smile.

"Sure," says Celio, patting down his pockets for a light. "I've, um, only heard of the second one."

"Oh, it's Edmund Goulding. Pre-Code, absolutely marvellous. We should rent it sometime."

The parlour is a dim, cavernous sort of room, lit by several struggling wall lights and an equally feeble chandelier. There are more guests at the tables than Bill expected, which is to say there are two: a po-faced white man in a charcoal-coloured suit, hammering away at a travel typewriter, and a youngish South Asian man with wild black hair and wilder eyes who seems to be holding an urgent conversation with a Dictaphone.

"… cross-referencing the data from the past three nights suggests the source is higher than we've checked yet, so we'll need to try and set the equipment up on the third floor, if we can get past the manager …"

"Hope the food doesn't take too long," says Celio, but Bill is barely listening. Data? Technical equipment? A Galish accent? This is an opportunity not to be passed up.

"Hello," he says, approaching his table. "I hope you don't mind my joining you. I couldn't help but overhear, and―"

"So you're hunting for ghosts as well?" asks the man, clicking off the Dictaphone. "Brill. I'm not territorial or anything. There's too much in-fighting in this community." He holds out a hand. "Rani Mehta. I write for Paranaturalist magazine."

"Rani?" queries Bill, before he can stop himself. "Oh. Ah" (say something normal, say something normal) "that's a nice name."

Rani smiles a smile sharp enough to draw blood at a touch.

"It is," she says – she, not he. "That's why I chose it."

"Right." Presumably this is how Celio feels all the time. How perfectly awful. "Sorry."

"Course you are. But! Did you say you were here for ghosts?"

"Well, not exactly, but―"

"Close enough." Rani cracks open her Dictaphone and snaps in a new tape. "Here. Listen to this."

She presses play. The machine spits out static, crackling and hissing – and then, very faintly:

"Leave."

"What," begins Bill, but Rani shushes him so violently that he has no choice but to comply.

"Help," says the Dictaphone. Whose voice is that? It's so quiet, so deep, so … warped. Playing out softly over distant music. "Leave. Need. Go."

Rani shuts off the tape and gives him a significant look.

"Three nights," she says. "Three tapes, set up in three different locations around the hotel. Voice activated. The impression is stronger the higher up I put the recorder."

Bill stares. Ponders for a moment.

"Now," he says, "is there an Ellman circuit in there somewhere? I've never heard of anyone getting that kind of clarity on a psionic recording with your standard van Tartwijk, but they say good things about Ellmans."

Rani's eyes light up, and all at once Bill realises what Lanette means when she says you've got that look in your eye again.

"So you're familiar with the field!" she cries. "Brill. Well, it's my own design, but it's based on an Ellman. Had to muck around with it a bit to get it to work with my own telepathy. I'm a strong receiver, but signals that powerful are hard to interpret. The recorder sorts that out."

"Now that is interesting." Bill strokes his chin pensively. He's not sure he believes in ghosts, exactly, but that's not to say Rani's device isn't picking up ghost-types, or perhaps dreams. Besides, any excuse to investigate new hardware. "And you say you've actually been getting readings? Rob did mention ghosts, though only to say―"

"'There are no ghosts at the Blue Grebe?' Tch. He would say that. I've seen the paperwork. This place has been losing business since the first ghost sightings in '75."

"It has not."

Bill and Rani jump, and the parlour rushes back in to fill the space around them, bringing with it the startling memory that there's a world out there – friends with vans, men with typewriters, lonely, storm-lashed hotels in the depths of upstate Unova. Rob is standing by the table, bearing a plate and somehow contriving to look even more funereal than before.

"We have never had a ghost complaint at the Blue Grebe, Miss Mehta," says Rob, pale with anger. "I must insist you stop bothering the other guests with your … baseless concerns."

Rani raises an eyebrow.

"Are you bothered, uh – sorry, what was your name?"

"Bill. Bill McKenzie. And no, I'm not bothered."

"See?" She shrugs expressively. "All good. You know, you'd get more custom if you advertised the ghosts, anyway. Lots of people want an authentically spooky experience."

"They won't find it here," says Rob. "Please, Miss Mehta. Keep your … ghost talk to yourself."

He places Bill's chicken salad sandwich before him, sweeps his glare across the pair of them like a lighthouse beam, and stalks off with an air of wounded majesty.

Rani watches him go, a wry smile curving the edge of her mouth.

"Poor sod," she says. "I suppose I can understand, in theory. Difficult to make that transition from a standard clientele to the paranaturalist crowd." Her eyes shift back to Bill's. "Ey, why are you here, then? If not for the ghosts."

"We're travelling Unova over the summer break," he replies. "But I think we missed the turning for Anville, so we decided to stop for the night. Not that I mind. Tell me, have you published anything about your Ellman adaptation?"

"Published?" She lets out a short bark of absolutely hideous laughter; across the room, the guy with the typewriter casts the two of them a dirty look. "Dunno who you think I am. I write features, not academic articles. Extremely self-taught."

"Oh, but anyone can do it," Bill says eagerly, mind alight with the pleasant possibility of helping someone further the cause of science and, as a happy corollary, make massive waves in the psychic community. "You know, I have a correspondence with one of the editors for Psionics Quarterly, I could―"

"I am gonna stop you right there," says Rani, eyes bright with unvoiced laughter. "You do realise this bodge won't work for anyone else, right? Made it specifically for my telereception."

"I think you still have a valuable contribution to make to the scientific community."

"Persistent, huh. You trying to pull or something?"

"What? Ah, no, I mean – I genuinely think it's an amazing―"

"I'm sure you do." She shakes her head. "Tell you what, if you really are interested, come set up with me. I could use someone to keep a lookout and run distraction. Lurch over there really isn't keen on my work."

She jerks a thumb over her shoulder at Rob, who is currently delivering Celio his meal in the corner. How on earth did she know he was there? She really is psychic, it seems.

"All right," he says. "If I get a look at your Dictaphone. Not to steal your idea or anything, but, well, I'm something of a tinkerer myself, and I'd love to see how it works."

"Steal it if you want. Don't give a monkey's. But yeah, you can come review the data with me tomorrow morning. Have a look at the circuitry then."

"Data and a novel psychic mic circuit? It's a deal."

"Cracking." Rani slots a new tape into her Dictaphone and stands up. "Right. I'm offski. Meet me at ten thirty by the third-floor lift."

"All right. I'll be there."

"Brill. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to call my editor. Assuming Rob lets me use his phone." She makes a face. "I swear the 'out of order' sticker on the payphone looks like it dates from the late sixties. Later!"

And she's gone, muttering obscurely into her Dictaphone again. Bill sits there for a minute, staring after her and wondering if this is how other people feel when he runs out of the room saying he's had a fantastic new idea, then – effortfully – shakes himself out of the moment and looks around. Louhi's come down now; Celio's quiet corner isn't so quiet any more.

---

IV. The Debate

This is vile. And that's coming from someone who spent the first eight years of their existence living in a hole in the ground.

"Goddamn crappy hotel towels," mutters Louhi, throwing the fourth and final towel onto the pile in the corner of the bathroom. "My poor fur! Like I've been held hostage by Elvira's hairdresser."

Celio's comb isn't in his bag, an insult for which Louhi vows to exact a terrible revenge; they root around the drawers of the mismatched furniture, but there's nothing that even a very optimistic clefairy could use to tame their fur.

"Forsaken by friends, foes and full moon alike," they mutter, glaring out at the rain pounding the night-black glass. "Storm like this on the Strawberry Moon? Slap in the face from the Pale Lady." They heave a sigh and snatch the room key off the bedspread. "Nothing for it. But if anyone says anything, they're getting kneecapped."

They go out into the hall, which has the immediate effect of making them feel disagreeably tiny. Massive space. Ancient black and white tiles on the floor, heavy red curtains concealing the far end. Louhi peeks behind them and sees the dull sheen of a mirror, presumably sealed away to avoid scaring the life out of people going for a piss in the small hours.

"Good grief," says someone. Louhi turns to see Lanette, damp-haired and dry-clothed. "You look like one of Joan Jett's discarded hairstyles."

Louhi glares.

"I miss being a dumb animal," they say, through gritted teeth. "Didn't have a conscience to keep me from moonblasting people."

"Charming. Do you want to get something to eat?"

They sigh.

"Yeah, whatever."

The hotel shifts around them, creaks and groans sounding out above the low rumble of the thunder. It's all Louhi can do to keep their ears from flattening across their skull; all this is making them feel a lot more like a wild animal than a Classic Flavour chimera. Or whatever it is Bill says they are.

"So what do you think Rob's deal is?" they ask, trying to take their mind off it. "He didn't seem surprised by me."

"He didn't strike me as the kind of person who's surprised by very much," Lanette replies, pressing the button for the elevator.

"Mm. Fair." The elevator doesn't seem to be coming; after what feels like a couple of years, the two of them move with an unspoken accord towards the stairs. "Looking forward to getting haunted tonight?"

"There's no such thing as ghosts."

"This is maybe the most moronic sentiment it's possible to hold in a world where ghosts have literally been proven to exist."

"But they haven't. Ghostly pokémon, yes – even ghost-types formed from the spirits of deceased humans. But ghost ghosts? Shades of the dead who still walk the earth? There's no evidence for that."

Louhi snorts.

"Scientists," they say, spitting it out with all the derision their little frame can muster. "What have scientists ever done for us?"

"I don't think I really need to dignify that with an answer."

Back in the lobby, Lanette rings the bell, which summons Rob with unnerving speed. How does he do that? Louhi should have smelled or heard him long before he arrived. It's the one advantage they have over humans and their sun-cursed thumbs.

"You … rang?" he asks.

"Yes," she says. "Have our friends already eaten?"

"They have requested sandwiches," Rob intones, as if sandwiches are creatures out of myth. "The cook is preparing them now."

How tedious. Louhi tunes the two of them out, fussing idly with their fur – only to be interrupted a moment later.

"Louhi? What do you want?"

"Huh. Oh. Eh, I dunno – whatever raw meat you have lying around. The cooked stuff does something ungodly to my guts."

"That can be arranged." Rob bows his head slightly. "If you'll excuse me."

"Actually, wait a minute." Louhi flutters their wings, the moon magic in their bones sending them floating up to plant their elbows on the desk. "Maybe you can settle a debate me and my friend here were having," they say, leaning forward confidentially. "Now, I'm aware of your stance on whether there are any ghosts here―"

"There are no ghosts―"

"―at the Blue Grebe, yeah, yeah, sweetheart, I got it." Louhi shoots Lanette a can you believe this guy look over their shoulder, gets a death glare in response. "But what I wanna know is, in your opinion, do ghosts exist?"

Rob's face crinkles into an expression of extreme distaste.

"I wouldn't know," he says. "I have never encountered one."

"No, but like, do you think―"

"And that's enough, Louhi," says Lanette, grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and yanking them away from the desk. "Sorry, Rob. They don't mean to be rude. It's a clefairy thing. Cultural."

"What the hell are you talking aboummmph!"

Lanette clamps a hand over their mouth, her smile as bright and fake as a toothpaste advert.

"Anyway, uh, we'll be going," she says, tightening her grip against Louhi's wriggling. "Do you know where our friends are?"

"They have retired to the parlour," replies Rob, without apparently registering the two-foot fluffball raging in her hands.

"Thanks. We'll, uh, we'll be in there."

"Of course."

Lanette marches swiftly out into the hall, where she lets go and Louhi pops free with a sharp gasp of breath.

"Have you gone insane?" they snap, floating down to the floor. "What was all that?"

"How can you talk to people like that?" she retorts. "Rob must have the patience of a saint."

"A saint?" Louhi bristles, whiskers standing out straight from their face. "Show me a saint who looks like that. One, just one. You can't." They click their tongue. "What's he doing with that 'no ghosts at the Blue Grebe' nonsense, anyway? The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

They stand there for a moment, glaring at each other. Then Lanette sighs and shoves her hair back out of her eyes.

"Whatever," she says. "You are absolutely insufferable, do you know that?"

"Know it? Tch. I stake my name on it."

"Good grief." Lanette shakes her head. "Sometimes I really do see far too much of your psyche for comfort."

"Not exactly a picnic hanging out with you either," grumbles Louhi. "Can we go now?"

V. The Company Man

Louhi is vile. And that's coming from someone who's suffering through a compsci degree as one of only three women in her year. But there are four other people here in the parlour, so hopefully Lanette will get a chance to talk to someone else now. She scans the room: Bill, deep in conversation with a woman who looks every bit his mad-science equal; Celio in the corner, flipping through one of his comic books; a suit with a typewriter. Honestly, none of them look very promising. After this long stuck in a van with them, Lanette could use a break from the boys, and the other guy is clearly busy.

An opportunity to decompress, then. Assuming she can get rid of Louhi.

"I think I'll call Astrid," she says, spying a payphone on the far wall. "Why don't you … well, do whatever it is you do when you're not making an ass of yourself."

"No idea what you're talking about."

She leaves them to their grumbling and heads over to the phone – only to be brought up short by a curt, clipped voice:

"It's out of order."

Ah. Typewriter man, casting a cold grey eye over from his table.

"Thanks," she says, replacing the handset, and picks up a paper from the rack instead. Yesterday's, but she hasn't actually seen the news in a couple of days, so―

"The name's Jacob," says typewriter man.

Hm. Interesting. Lanette casts a critical eye over him, does not immediately see anything that sets off warning signs. Why not? This is part of the trip, after all. Get around, meet some people. Three weeks' reprieve from another hot, depressing summer working retail back home in Slateport.

Also, Louhi's watching her, and frankly Lanette would rather put her head directly through the windowpane than give them a chance to start another argument.

"Lanette," she says, approaching Jacob's table. "Hello."

"Charmed." He gives her what he probably thinks of as a Clark Gable smile, and which is, in truth, more of a Billy Gilbert number. "What brings you out here?"

"We're on a bit of a road trip. Me and my friends." She gestures at Celio and Bill. "But we missed the turning for Anville and it's dark and stormy, so we thought we'd best stop for the night."

"Ah, I see. What's in Anville?"

"Nothing, really. Just one more stop on the road north. But I suppose my friend Celio will want to see the historic railyard."

"I have a cousin out there," says Jacob. "He raves about this place – I don't remember the name, but it's right across from the railyard. Best tamales in Unova, apparently."

Well, that's nice of him. He must be pretty starved for company out here.

"Thanks for the tip," she replies. "We'll be sure to check it out. But what is it you're doing out here?"

"Oh, it's all very boring," he says airily. "I'm a lawyer. The company I work for is interested in acquiring some land in the area for a new industrial development; I'm in negotiations with the locals."

"I see," says Lanette, hoping desperately that she isn't talking to some evil corporate lackey trying to drive people off their land. "Do many people live out here? It all seems a bit desolate."

"There's a small town further along the way – Tilucent, you might have seen it on your maps. A few holders out there own a lot of this land and aren't using it." He shrugs. "The town council is pretty keen on the development, so I don't expect any issues. Jobs are in short supply around here."

"Right." She raises an eyebrow. "Nice pitch."

Jacob laughs.

"Yeah," he says. "Sorry. I'm going to be honest with you, I haven't had a conversation that wasn't about this deal or what I want for breakfast in, oh, maybe a week at this point."

"We must be a godsend for you, then. Four new people to talk to."

"Four? I saw your two friends over there; who's the fourth?"

"Ah," says Lanette, remembering too late that some people, bafflingly, don't yet know and hate Louhi. "Well, there are four of us. I suppose Louhi isn't, er, here yet."

Jacob's forehead crinkles slightly.

"Louhi," he says. "Is that Hoennic?"

"Apparently not," says Lanette blandly. "I don't know the details. You'd have to ask them."

"I see," he replies, in the tone of one who does not. "Are you students?"

"Three of us are. Louhi, is, er … something of a hanger-on. But yes, we're all taking the opportunity to put off going home for the summer a little longer. Although we were hoping for slightly more sunshine."

"Yes, it's been pretty dreary. Rotten luck for road trippers. Still―"

"Excuse me. Your … sandwich."

For a second, Lanette has a startlingly vivid picture of what it was like for her great-uncle when he had the heart attack; Rob just seems to coalesce from thin air. Even the sandwich in his hand isn't mundane enough to blunt the sense that she's being haunted.

"Oh," she says, concentrating on keeping her heart rate under control. "Er, thanks."

She moves to take the plate from him, at the same time as he tries to put it down on the table; their arms collide, and though Rob just about manages to avoid dropping the plate on the floor, the two of them end up sweeping half of Jacob's papers off the table.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" cries Lanette, bending to help gather them up. "Here, let me help―"

"No, it's fine," says Jacob quickly, jumping out of his seat. "Thank you, but it's fine, really."

"It's no bother," Lanette insists. "It was my fault."

She picks up another page, catches a brief glimpse of something about convincing an old man to sell up before Jacob snatches it out of her hand, looking rather pale.

"Thanks," he says, shoving it firmly face down on the stack. "I'll, er – you know, I think I left something in my room. Goodnight!"

He folds the lid over his typewriter and hurries off before Lanette can say another word.

"Well, that was odd," she says, looking at Rob. "Er, thanks for the sandwich."

Rob inclines his head, like an ageing medieval king receiving an offering from a trusted knight.

"If you need anything else, please ring."

"Sure. Thanks."

Off he goes. Lanette watches his retreating back, feeling like there's a pattern here but also like she's too tired to see it right now, then shrugs and opens the paper. These aren't her problems, anyway. Admittedly, nor is the Sudanese coup on page three, but at least that's a few thousand miles away.

VI. The Setup

"Pass anyone on your way up?"

"No," admits Bill. "Does Rob really patrol the hotel trying to stop you?"

"Yes," says Rani bluntly. "Hold this, please."

She passes him something that started out life as a microphone, but which has since undergone a great deal of dubious experimentation.

"What are these solenoids?" asks Bill, turning it over in his hands.

"Amps," she says, without looking up from the tripod she's erecting in the corner of the hall. "The mic needs all the help it can get if I'm not physically present."

"And this aerial?"

"My partner pokémon uses it to tap in and enhance the signal."

"And these coloured diodes?"

"Just for fun," she says, standing up and taking it from him. "I took a picture for the magazine once and I wanted it to look impressive."

"Oh." Bill contemplates this mindset for a moment, but it eludes him. He's made inventions smaller in the past, or more portable, or more efficient, but he's never really been an aesthetics kind of man. "I … see.."

"You don't have to pretend for my sake," says Rani. "Would you keep an eye on the lift and the stairs, please? This is about the point where Lurch pitches up and demands to know what I think I'm doing."

"Right." He goes back down the hall and listens, but hears nothing except the storm and the house creaking beneath its assault. No footsteps, though of course that doesn't mean anything, not with Rob. The man makes jumping out at you into an art form. "All clear!" he calls.

"Keep your voice down!" hisses Rani. "We're conducting clandestine research here, not putting on a bloody Christmas panto."

"Right, right." Chastened, he turns back to the stairwell. Still empty. "What happens if Rob finds the equipment here later?"

"I get thrown out, probably. Don't worry about it. I've been thrown out of a lot of places."

"Ah, I know the feeling," says Bill, thinking of being ejected from Goldenrod Zoo for broadcasting a radio frequency that made the gorillas cry. Or when his prototype long-range teleporter beamed him into the CEO's office at Silph while the man was meeting his mistress. Or that one summer job during his teens, when he decided to streamline things by automating the food prep and the resulting machine got into a fistfight with the fry cook.

"Yeah, you got that look about you," says Rani. "Sort of a Victor Frankenstein aura. Passed your weird talking clefairy in the hall and figured that was probably your doing."

"Mm. There was … a bit of an accident."

"An accident?" Bill's still watching the stairs, but he can hear the incredulity in her voice. "See, that's what I mean. When I have an accident, I jam my typewriter or dial the wrong number. When someone like you has an accident, you give wild animals the power of speech."

Bill has to laugh.

"You sound just like my friend Lanette," he says. "I think I exasperate her, too."

"Wouldn't say I'm exasperated. Takes all sorts, as my ex used to say. Some of us are born to chase ghosts, others use science to commit crimes against God."

"I can't help but feel you're paraphrasing."

"Only a little bit." Sound of movement behind him. "Right, that's it – all done. Meet you at breakfast tomorrow to hear the playback. You can check my recorder out then."

She steps into his field of view, eyes locked on the stairwell.

"Nice and easy tonight," she says. "Maybe Rob thought I was going to set up where I did last night. He doesn't know I've been triangulating." She claps him on the shoulder with one broad, cracked hand. Not a journalist's hand, but then, she's not a normal journalist. "Cheers, Bill. See you anon."

"Goodnight," he says – to thin air; she's already gone, leaving only the echo of her footsteps up the stairs. Bill would say he's surprised she can ever sit still long enough to write an article, but that feels a little mean, so he just thinks it guiltily instead.

He starts back downstairs, an appointment with bed and the Esther Flint book in his future. On the landing, something catches his eye: a white ribbon dangling over the top step. Definitely wasn't there on his way up. Did Rani drop it?

"Hm," says Bill, picking it up. Soft, vaguely tingly to the touch. Something about this feels familiar, but he can't put his finger on what. "Well, I can ask her tomorrow," he reasons, tucking it into his pocket. "Time for bed, I think."

Down the stairs, then, the house groaning and shifting around him. Almost sounds like it's talking. Long, drawn-out syllables. Like―

Biiiiiiill, creak the floorboards, and for a split second he could swear his heart stops – but no, he's imagining things. Houses don't talk. No matter what sort of readings Rani's getting.

---

VII. The Witching Hour

Splitting a room with Louhi is far from ideal. But, well, Celio's been stuck in the van with them for days now, so he's hoping he can stick it out regardless. Even though they've ruined all the towels. And – ugh – left clumps of fur glued to the soap in the shower.

They snore, too. Though Celio would probably still be lying here awake if they didn't, tossing and turning and trying not to hear ghosts behind the plaster on the walls. Why did Rob have to put the idea in his head? And why did Bill have to go on and on about that ghost hunter? It's enough to give anyone nightmares. Assuming they could actually get to sleep in the first place, which Celio can't, because if he closes his eyes that's just asking for a ghost to strangle him in his sleep―

"C'mon, Ceel," he mutters. "Get a grip."

He tries to lie still, opening himself up to sleep, but it's a losing battle; his nerves are far too tightly strung.

"Ugh." He reaches for the pack of Kool on the nightstand – wonders if the smell might wake Louhi – decides to take it outside. Jacket, room key, ready to go. "Okay," he murmurs, slipping out and closing the door on Louhi, still curled up in the corner. "Okay."

In the darkness, the hall feels gigantic, threatening. Celio plants his back firmly against the wall, just in case anything sneaks up on him, and pats down his pockets for the matchbook he picked up at the front desk. Because apparently this place hasn't revised its stocking procedures since 1973.

He strikes the match. Lifts it to his mouth. Hears … music?

Celio cocks his head on one side, drawing in a lungful of mentholated smoke. Sounds like bad jazz, coming from somewhere impossibly far off, beyond the walls and the rain still lashing at them.

Weird. But it's a pretty weird hotel, with some pretty weird guests. Celio wouldn't put it past Rob to stay up late listening to dad music. Something about it is comforting, though. Nobody's getting haunted to a soundtrack like this.

He takes another drag, knocks ash into the standing tray by the door. Calmer already, he tells himself, and is surprised to realise that it's true.

"Ghost stories," he says, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, right."

Right on cue: cold blue light, snapping on out of nowhere to fill the corridor with a hazy glow that obscures as much as it illuminates.

Celio breathes in once, very deep and fast, and holds it, his cigarette trembling between tight-clenched fingers. He's afraid to look, but he has to, and after a second or two he manages to turn his head a little.

To the left: the corridor is suddenly twice as long as it used to be, the rows of doors stretching out far beyond where the wall was. To the right: someone approaching from the direction of the stairs.

Someone who does not appear to have a face.

"Ghost stories," mutters Celio, in a faint, strangled voice. "Yeah, r-right …"

The faceless person has a very steady walk and a very old jacket, cut along lines from a decade long past. Their head looks like it's been scribbled out by some cosmic pen, a great mass of thick black lines writhing around it like a cheap animation, and each click of their shoes on the tiles brings the dad music drifting a little closer.

"Leave," they say, in a voice like an ancient recording, rewound and replayed until the tape's worn thin as moths' breath. "Go. Need. Leave."


Who on earth is playing music at this hour? Lanette looks at her watch: 12:02, much too late to be blasting Dorothy Donegan or whatever this is. She rolls over and pulls the pillow over her head, but the piano keeps worming its way into her ears all the same.

God. Middle of nowhere and she still can't get a decent night's sleep. Who's doing this, anyway? Can't be Rob – the man seems congenitally incapable of merriment – and she doesn't see Jacob as the sort to be so irresponsible, either. It must be that ghost hunter whose recorder Bill was raving about. Rani or whatever her name was. Do ghosts like stride piano? It's not a stereotype Lanette's heard before, but she wouldn't put anything past these weird paranormal investigator types.

Mind over matter, that's the ticket. She's done this before, stuck in the cheap seats between the children and the loud snorer on the red-eye to Lilycove. She just needs to block it out and calm down, let sleep sneak up on her from behind. Simple as that.

She lies there for a few seconds more. Then she throws back the covers and pulls on her skirt.

"Right," she snaps, marching to the door. "Whoever you are, I'm going to …"

Something's not right. Blue light, as if the world is frozen in the moment a lightning flash starts to fade. The tiles swarm madly across the floor like living creatures, scuttling down a corridor that seems to have doubled or tripled in length in the hours since Lanette came up to bed.

She feels a chilly finger trace a long line down her back. For a second, she thinks of Rob and Louhi – but no, there's no such thing as ghosts. This is a dream, or some eldritch pokémon messing her around.

"All right," she says, looking around. "Whoever you are, I'm really not impressed. So you can just call off the theatrics and come out now, then maybe we can both just get … some … sleep …"

Her voice quietly packs up and abandons her. What she's seeing right now, admittedly, does look a lot like a ghost. Living people normally wear clothes from this decade. And typically have faces.

"Go," says the faceless person, advancing down the hall. "Leave."

An illusion, thinks Lanette, staring into the scribbled mass blotting out her face. Some sort of pyschic-type, maybe, messing with her spatial awareness and putting a hallucination between her and whoever it is who's really walking at her. The weird faint voice could be a tape recording; the music, just a damaged record player on another floor. Simple. Someone wants to scare her, nothing more. Someone who's trying to prove Rob wrong and put the ghost in the Blue Grebe after all.

She tells herself this. It's just that her amygdala has other ideas, and now her breath is sticking in her throat, and the faceless figure is still coming, still telling her to leave, and before she knows it she's turned around and―

―collided with Bill, fiddling around with an eviscerated old radio.

"Oh, Lanette!" he says, looking up briefly. "Didn't expect to run into you out here."

"Bill, what are you―?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I started fiddling around with some bits and pieces, you know, seeing if I could maybe pick up some readings here myself. Why should Rani have all the fun, you know?"

"Bill―"

"And, well, this is only a very basic Ellman – I happened across a bit of psychic ephemera earlier tonight, thankfully, so I was able to do that much – but I'm really getting some extraordinary readings."

"Bill, I really think―"

"Not sensitive enough to work out what's happening, but I thought if I traced the signal to its source, I might find something interestin―"

"Bill!"

He looks up from the radio, startled.

"What?"

Lanette motions wordlessly over her shoulder. She doesn't need to look back; everything is visible in the way his face goes slack and his eyes widen.

"Oh," he manages, after a couple of seconds of silent mouthing. "Do you know, I think I've found the source of the signal."

"Yeah," she spits, the word coming out like a spurt of battery acid. "I think so."

"Are we―"


Louhi twitches awake with a sudden start, wondering if this time the rhydon is going to get them – but it's just a dream, has been ever since they were thrust rudely into sentience, and the sound isn't an apex predator bearing down on them but some moron making a racket out in the corridor.

"The hell is that?" they mutter, pawing sleep from their eyes. "Typical humans. I spend three years learning to be diurnal for them and then they go stomping around after midnight like a herd of insomniac donphan."

They scurry over to the door and crack it open.

"Would you," they begin, and then trail off immediately; there's nobody out here. On another floor, maybe? The crashing sounds distant now. They lean out further, peering down the hall – and hear an ominous click behind them.

"Aw, great," they mutter, turning around and tugging on the handle of a now extremely locked door. "You kidding me? Worst full moon ever, I swear to the Pale Lady." Another tug: definitely locked. They sigh, grit their teeth, and call: "Er … Celio? Celiooooo? I've, er, locked myself out."

No immediate answer.

"Celio? C'mon, it's me, your old pal Louhi. I sure would love to be let in about now. Celio?"

Still nothing, but Louhi keeps trying, keeps knocking and calling out in their best polite voice, with the agonised persistence of someone attempting to pass a kidney stone.

"Celio. Come on, Celio. Just let me in. You can smoke a whole pack of cigarettes right in my face, just – ugh, Celio! Celio! What is this, psychological warfare? Well, I won't crack, you can be sure of that! You're going up against the big boys here, son, and if you think―" Is someone behind them? They feel like someone's behind them. "What?" they snap, turning around and staring up at the terrifying faceless figure looming over them. "Look, pal, I got my own problems over here!"

The terrifying faceless figure looks down at them. Maybe. Kind of difficult to tell without a face.

"Ahem," says Louhi, brain catching up with the situation and parsing the 'terrifying', 'faceless' and 'looming over them' parts all in quick succession. "Yeah, er, so you here on holiday, or …?"

They trail off. The terrifying faceless figure extends their hand.

"Leave," they moan. "Need. Go."

Louhi holds up one stubby finger.


Celio is lost on the top floor of a thirty-room hotel, and right now he's too afraid to even be embarrassed about it. The corridor goes on so much longer than it did before he went to bed, lined with doors that have weird glyphs instead of numbers; eventually, he tried one in the hope there might be a way out, but he just came through another door in the same corridor, the ghost still on his trail.

That was what felt like half an hour ago. He's gone through more doors than a clock cuckoo; one time, he could've sworn he saw his own back going through the door across from him. The ghost isn't even the main issue any more; half the time, when he comes out a door, he can't actually see them anywhere. He just wants to get back to his room and lock the deadbolt.

"Leaving first thing tomorrow," he murmurs, pushing through another door. "I don't care if it's still raining. Just get in the van and go."

The doors in this part of the impossible corridor have numbers. That seems promising. Five, seven – hell, there's nine! That's his, right there! Celio lunges across the hall, trips over a standing ashtray and smacks hard into the scuffed tiles.

"Leave," he hears, through the pain haze. He rolls over, wrenching his shoulder with the effort, and tries to get up―

―but they're already here, backing him right up against the wall. Their writhing non-face inches from his.

Celio does his best to breathe. His best isn't much, honestly, but it's worth a try.

"Go," says the ghost. "Need. Leave."

"I'm d-doing my best," stammers Celio. "Uh, I could leave right now if you just – if you just let me go …"

The scribbles pulse fiercely in a way that makes Celio's heart wobble.

"Need. Leave."

"And I will, I promise, as soon as you―"

"Help," says the ghost. "Help. Leave."

They lean in, reaching out toward him with one crooked hand. They smell of old, old things. Dust and wax and – and more than that Celio can't say, because everything's going dim and dark, and then it's gone altogether and he folds up like a dropped puppet in a dead faint.

---

VIII. The Detectives

In the clear light of day, the lobby of the Blue Grebe looks even more tired; every nick, every scratch and stain, shows up like a bead of blood in the bright summer sun. Not that anyone's paying attention. All eyes are on Rob, who by daylight looks less spooky and more just old.

"Good morning," he says, as the gang troop up to the front desk. "I trust you slept well."

There's a long, long moment of silence, during which everyone looks at more or less everyone else.

"Well," says Bill, reluctantly taking the lead, "we might have had one or two small issues."

Louhi lets out a sharp bark of derisive laughter.

"'Small issues'? I'll give you small issues, you―"

"Louhi? I'm dealing with it. Sorry, Rob." Bill forces a smile. "We, ah … well, I know this will probably come as a source of some distress, but―"

"We got haunted," says Louhi. "By a ghost."

Rob's eyes flash.

"There are no," he begins, but Lanette cuts him off.

"I agree," she says. "I don't think this was a ghost, Rob. I think it was someone staying at this hotel, messing with us for their own purposes. And frankly, I'm not inclined to let that slide, especially after they chased our friend till he fainted."

Out of the corner of his eye, Bill catches Celio looking away, red-faced. There were definitely better ways to handle this; Celio's barely said a word since they found him passed out in the corridor after the so-called ghost vanished. But Lanette's really got her blood up now, and Bill has definitely not had enough sleep to get in her way.

"Why would someone want to do that?" asks Rob, scowling mightily. "Miss Hamilton, you have no connection to any of our other guests. If it weren't for the storm, you wouldn't even have stopped here."

Lanette grins triumphantly.

"Let's get everyone around and talk about it," she says. "Because I think I've solved this mystery."

---

IX. The Culprit

This is easily the most awkward hotel breakfast Louhi's ever encountered. Admittedly, as a clefairy, they don't have that much relevant experience, but they're pretty sure most of them never even come close to this level of strained weirdness.

They're into it, though. The idea that this might be an exciting criminal scheme instead of a terrifying haunting is pretty enticing; Lanette's two a.m. detective spiel definitely won them over. You can kneecap a con artist. You can't an actual literal ghost.

Of course, Lanette's got the wrong person, but hey. That's where Louhi comes in. Though they plan on watching her fail first, naturally.

"Thank you all for coming," says Lanette, standing up at her table so her face catches the wan light from the parlour window. Somehow it's still dark in here, despite the bright sun outside.

"It's breakfast," points out the ghost reporter lady whose name Louhi can't remember, chewing a crust of toast. "We were here anyway."

Nice. Louhi fires their best evil grin across the table at Celio, but he doesn't answer, just takes another sip of his coffee.

"Right. Er, well, thanks anyway." Lanette leans on her table, staring hard at the reporter and the guy in the suit. Whose name Louhi also can't remember. "I'll get right down to it. Last night, my friends and I on the second floor were chased around the hotel by a ghost."

"Were you, now." The reporter sits up, fingers closing around the voice recorder by her plate. "Care for an interview?"

"Just a moment. I think you'll want to hear what I have to say next."

"A ghost?" asks the suit guy. Near the door with his arms folded, looking like someone who has better places to be and plans to be there very soon indeed. "Seriously? You got us here to tell us a ghost story?"

"Well, quite." Lanette clasps her hands. "I don't believe in ghosts. But I do believe in people who might want to drive people away from this hotel. Let me lay out the facts for you. We each exited our rooms at around midnight."

"Very spooky time of night," says the reporter. Louhi can't actually tell if she's joking or not.

"Yes. Thanks. Er, we found the corridor lit by a strange blue light, and also much longer than it should have been. We heard a distorted voice and music in the distance, and saw a figure in old-fashioned clothes whose face seemed to have been blotted out."

"Delicious," says the reporter. "And you're sure this wasn't real?"

Lanette looks embarrassed there, which Louhi will admit is kind of amazing. They weren't actually sure she had it in her.

"I had my suspicions that this was a fraud at the time, but it was late, and I was a bit shaken up, so I did, er, run away."

"We all did," adds Bill quickly, evidently sensing that backup is required. "It was quite alarming. Whoever set this up did a very good job."

"And it was a set-up," says Lanette, laying her hand on the tabletop, palm down. "Here's what I think happened. Our so-called ghost prepared the scene by setting up the blue lights and drawing back the curtains over the mirror at the end of the hall. In the low light, it made the space look twice as long as it really was."

"Very clever," says the suit guy, who is starting to look interested; that forkful of egg has been hovering en route to his mouth for some time now. "I assume the voice was a recording?"

"Correct. The voice was a personal tape player, while the music sounded like a damaged record – I'm assuming a hi-fi somewhere on another floor, maybe one of those briefcase players."

"The audacity," seethes Rob. "In the Blue Grebe, no less!"

"Quite." Lanette folds her arms. "The rest was costuming. Old-fashioned jacket, a psychic pokémon generating a localised hallucination to block out the face. Bill informs me that with the right psionic recording equipment, it could even have been recorded to cassette in advance and played back on the night."

"Hey," says the reporter suspiciously. "Where are you going with―?"

"Which brings us to motive," Lanette continues, a quelling look in her eye. "And there's someone in this room with a powerful desire to see the Blue Grebe out of business, because – and I quote – he needs the old man to sell up."

Clatter of fork on plate: suit guy's on his feet, red-faced and furious.

"This is outrageous!" he cries. "The idea that I would go to such absurd lengths to get hold of – we don't even need this land! This place is down in our notes as somewhere executives could stay if they needed to visit our factory!"

"Then why were you so defensive when you dropped your papers?" counters Lanette. "You had something to hide – i.e., that you wanted the Blue Grebe out of business and out of the way."

"Mr Simms." Rob, lurching out of his corner like an evil automaton. Face all twisted with anguish. "Is this true?"

"Of course it isn't," Simms retorts, unsnapping his briefcase and pulling out a huge folded sheet of paper. "Look, I can show you our plans for the factory. It's being built five miles away. Provided Ray Homerton will sell up."

"Ray Homerton," repeats Rob. "He is quite old. And owns rather a lot of land around here."

Oh, the look on Lanette's face. Exactly as satisfying as Louhi thought it would be.

"Ah," she says, slowly. "So … you're quite sure you don't need this land?"

"Of course." Simms brandishes the paper. "Here, see for yourself. This place is much too far away from Tilucent, anyway."

Lanette takes the paper in the same way one might take a bullet for the team.

"Ah," she says, reading it. "Yes, that all seems to, ah, be in order." She gives Simms a sheepish smile. "Sorry about that. I really thought I'd got it."

"Yeah, well." He snatches the paper back. "Can't believe this," he mutters, just loud enough for Louhi's sharp ears to pick up. "Come here to rejuvenate a fading town and this is the thanks I get …"

Now's the time. Louhi stands up on their chair, clapping slowly, and luxuriates in the eyes gathering upon them.

"Well, well, that's all very entertaining, sweetheart," they say, fluttering their wings and floating up onto the table. "Now, if you don't mind, why don't you let me tell you how it really―"

"Oh my God." Simms has gone white as the moon, papers spilling from his hands. "A talking clefairy? How – how is this even―"

"Oh, right." Louhi rolls their eyes. "Did you see The Fly last year? With Jeff Goldblum?"

"What are you?"

"Well, that. With me and the nerd over there." They point at Bill. "Got ourselves untangled again afterwards, but I guess I got enough human neurons stuck in me to keep talking. Anyway, I'm Louhi, and―"

The reporter snaps her fingers.

"Louhi," she says. "Traditional clefairy name, right?"

"Thank you," moans Louhi, lifting their paws skyward. "Someone cultured, at last."

"Mm. Dunno about 'cultured'. Go on, though. I'd like to hear what you think happened."

"This should be good," says Lanette, glaring. Louhi ignores her and clears their throat.

"Most of what you said was all right," they say magnanimously. "But you missed the most obvious thing. Who had the wherewithal to set up record players and tape recorders? Who was the one who brought up ghosts in the first place, and kept bringing them up at every opportunity?"

"Me?" asks the reporter, eyebrows making a beeline for her hair.

"What? No." Louhi raises a damning finger and brings it crashing down towards Rob. "J'accuse, Rob! J'accuse!"

"I beg your pardon!" cries Rob, jumping so hard he looks like he might fall out of his shoes. "Why would I want to destroy my own business?"

"On the contrary!" Louhi wags their finger. "That's what the whole spooky act is all about. You're trying to attract more customers – people into ghosts, like, uh, that broad over there."

"Wow," says the reporter, utterly unimpressed. "It's Rani, by the way."

"Whatever. Fess up, Rob! It was you whodunnit!"

There is a long silence. On the other side of Louhi's table, Celio sinks down like he's trying to hide.

"I'm so sorry about Louhi," says Bill, eventually, stepping forward and pushing them neatly back into their seat. "They're, ah, somewhat excitable."

"What? Traitor! Bill, you gotta believe me―"

"Louhi," he says gently. "Louhi, you need to listen to me. What you've just said is certifiably insane."

"How dare you―?"

"Business has been declining ever since the ghost sightings started," says Rani dryly. "I find it hard to believe that's what Rob wants."

"Ah." Louhi scowls. "Well, why didn't anyone tell me that?"

"Probably because you didn't bother asking," says Lanette. "Not that it matters. If it wasn't Jacob and it wasn't Rob, who on earth was it?"

Everyone looks at Rani.

"Could've been real," she says, unruffled. "Just putting that out there."

"That's what you wanted everyone to think, I'm sure." Bill looks almost apologetic. "Er – Rani, you do have a psionic recorder that could have played back a hallucination. And a tape recording that exactly matches what the ghost said to us."

"You haven't left the subject alone since you got here," says Rob, the wheels almost visibly turning inside his head. "Desperate for this story, aren't you?"

"And I found the gothitelle ribbon that you dropped last night," Bill adds. "So I know you have a pokémon capable of warping space and getting us turned around last night."

Moon and stars above. Is this it? The final answer? Louhi's still miffed they were wrong, but they won't turn down a good witch hunt.

And also they really, really don't want that ghost to have been real.

"Gothitelle?" Rani frowns. "No, I don't think so." She clears her throat. "Yaksha? Would you kindly materialise for us, mate?"

Louhi's teeth tingle painfully for a second – and then the air ripples, bulges and splits open to reveal a huge, hulking black cyclops, floating leglessly in midair at Rani's back. More than that Louhi can't say, because the instant the thing appears they dive under the table and stay there. Pokémon know strength when they see it, and this thing is the kind of strong that sends you permanently to the top of the food chain.

"Good God―"

The cyclops cracks open along the middle, spitting out an ear-bleeding mess of static and garbled mechanical noise.

"Yeah, so this is Yaksha," says Rani, as if introducing a boyfriend and not a horrific monstrosity that's currently activating Louhi's animal fight-or-flight instinct something fierce. "As you can see, he's a dusknoir and not a gothitelle."

"But … the ribbon," says Bill weakly. "I definitely found―

"―part of my amp, yeah. I keep that knotted around a clamperl pearl. Best psy amp you can make under two hundred quid, or at least it is if you don't mind your components lightly stolen. D'you have it with you, by the way? I'd like it back."

"I, er, built into an Ellman circuit. Sorry."

"Well, go and unbuild it, then. I need it to make bar staff think I've already paid my tab. And kind of also for work."

She's so calm. Either she really didn't do it or she just knows that nobody messes with the woman with a seven-foot cyclopean ghost hovering behind her.

"Er, well, yes, I can – could certainly see my way toward doing that." Bill sounds embarrassed, though Louhi can't see his face from down here. "But look, if it wasn't you, or Jacob, or Rob, then who was it?"

Silence. Louhi crawls out from beneath the table, just far enough to see the looks being passed around: Simms to Lanette, Lanette to Bill, Bill to Rani, Rani to Rob. (Yaksha, they are disquieted to notice, appears to be looking directly at them.)

"Um, I have an idea."

Celio. Louhi had almost forgotten he was there.

"Yes?" asks Rob, urgently. "What is it?"

"I was just thinking," Celio continues, all diffident and halting. "You, er, you know, we've all been talking about how it was done, and nobody, er – well, nobody mentioned what the ghost actually said."

"I didn't think it worth mentioning," says Lanette stiffly. "Standard ghost story nonsense. 'Leave', all that stuff."

"Actually, sorry, no. I've been thinking it over, right, and I'm sure what it was actually saying was … 'help leave'."

The penny drops, so hard that Louhi can almost hear it rattling through the inside of their skulls. A hotel ghost. A guest to whom something terrible happened. A request to leave.

By the Pale Lady. Is Celio seriously the smartest person in the room?

What a horrifying thought.

"Rob," says Celio. "What happened to the Hoennic pianist?"

---

X. The Prestige

This is maybe the worst possible outcome: a real ghost, and somehow Celio is the one who has to deal with it. It's times like this that make him feel like he needs to start thinking seriously about carrying a cyanide capsule in his fake tooth.

"The Hoennic pianist," repeats Rob. "Yes, that was … a terrible business."

He doesn't seem to want to say much more. Celio looks around, but nobody else seems like they're going to push him.

"What happened?" he asks, as gently as he can. "Because, um, I think it's pretty clear that there is a ghost at the Blue Grebe, Rob."

For a second, Celio thinks he's going to argue again – but then his shoulders sink, his mouth closes, and he gives a slow, sorrowful shake of his head.

"Maybe," he admits quietly. "She died. Brought a man back to her room one night; the next day, he was gone and she was dead. Blood everywhere." He sighs. "The ghost sightings started next month. I tried my best to insist that there are no ghosts here, but Miss Mehta is correct. Business has been declining ever since."

"You can't be serious," says Jacob. "A real ghost?"

Rob bristles.

"I have never knowingly not been serious," he retorts, which honestly Celio can believe. "I fear that all other explanations have been exhausted."

"She could still have done it," suggests Jacob, casting a dirty look at Rani, but it bounces off her without effect.

"Nah," she says. "I think you're onto something here, actually. This woman – did she have a name, by the way? Seems insulting not to use it."

"Lenya."

"Lenya, then – she's clearly trying to move on. 'Help leave' and all that." Rani leans forward in her seat. "Happens a lot in hotels, where people die here and find themselves unable to leave; we call 'em Hotel California Events."

"What?"

"They check in and have real difficulty getting out again." Rani looks thoughtful. "Did Lenya ever check out, by the way?"

"Well, no," says Rob. "She died."

Rani looks at Celio.

"You met her," she says. "What do you think?"

Celio considers it. Sees, in his mind's eye, that hand reaching out to him again: not murderous, as he thought, but supplicating.

"It's worth a try," he says. "Rob?"

He nods solemnly. Like a man ready to face the gallows.


And so they're all back where they started, in the lobby. Years' worth of old guest ledgers heaped up on the desk, as Rob flips through the yellowing pages.

"1975," he says, after a few minutes. "Here. Lenya Koskeyne, March 5th." He looks up. "What now?"

Rani's eyes glitter.

"Celio," she says. "Catch."

She tosses him her Dictaphone; Celio jumps – fumbles – just about catches it.

"W-what do you want me to do?" he asks.

"Our lass has taken a shine to you," she says. "Call her in. Tell her it's time to check out."

"Into the Dictaphone?"

"Off-brand. But yeah. Trust me."

Celio weighs the not-a-Dictaphone in his hand, heart firing blanks in his chest. Looks at everyone else, standing there waiting: Bill, eyes alight with scientific interest; Lanette, grudgingly curious; Louhi, wild-eyed with animal unease; Rob, grave as a royal funeral; Jacob, arms folded, sceptical.

Rani, waiting. Dull red glow of Yaksha's eye in the air above her, the only part of him currently visible on this plane of existence.

"Okay," he says, and lifts the recorder to his mouth. "Er … Lenya? Lenya, it's, er, it's checking-out time."

"Nice." Rani holds out her hand for the recorder. "Now you just let me and Yaksha do our thing."

She hits a button that doesn't look like it was put there by the manufacturer.

"Miiyyt tow niikech," burbles the recorder, Celio's voice sputtering out in reverse. "Tsiih rweh tsiih ainell …"

Yaksha's eye flickers and vanishes. A long, low groan echoes down the hall, like old pipes and older boards.

"There's absolutely a rational explanation," murmurs Lanette.

"I think the rational explanation might be ghosts," Bill replies.

Blue light. One moment it's a sunny morning; the next, it's midnight again, the chandelier dead and the lobby flooded with the flat alien flash of a lightning strike. Jazz piano chiming out from somewhere far beyond the limits of Celio's little dreams.

Everyone looks. And there she is, pushing open the doors from the stairwell.

"Time," she says, her voice much closer now. "Already?"

"Yeah," mumbles Celio, doing his best not to cut and run. "It's, er, time to go."

"Right." Her voice sounds almost normal. Celio can hear an accent in it – can see, in fact, the scribbles growing thinner over her face, showing fragments of jet-black hair and dark skin. "Rob?"

Celio would say that Rob looks like he's seen a ghost, but maybe that's too on the nose. He looks like someone who's been running from a wild arcanine for a long time, and has finally turned to take the teeth and flame with dignity.

"Miss Koskeyne," he says, the faintest hint of a tremor to his voice. "Your room key, if you would."

"Sure."

She lays it on the counter – and the last of the scribbles evaporate, revealing a woman a good ten years older than Celio expected, broad-nosed and dark-eyed and almost as intimidating as she was when she was a faceless spectre.

"Hey," she says, catching sight of Celio. "Sorry, you seem familiar. Have we met?"

"Oh," he says, tongue flopping about uselessly. "I, um … we met in the hall last night."

Lenya gasps.

"No way," she says. "That was a dream, wasn't it? Oh my God, did we have the same dream? Spooky, man."

A car horn blares outside.

"Oh, shoot." Lenya pulls a face at the doorway. "That'll be the driver. I gotta go. Playing in Accumula tonight." She turns to Rob. "Is that everything?"

"Yes."

"Great. Well, thanks, man. See ya."

"Goodbye," he says, voice cracking slightly. "Travel safely."

"Always have done so far," she says cheerfully. "See you, dream guy."

"Er." God. Someone should stick Celio on the Two Island cape and use him as a lighthouse; his cheeks feel like they're kicking out about a thousand watts. "Bye."

She flashes Celio a grin, shoulders a bag she absolutely did not have a moment ago, and walks out, growing more transparent with every step she takes. By the time she reaches the door, there's nothing of her – and then the light shifts back to morning and Lenya is, finally, gone.

It takes a long time for anyone to break the silence. When they do, it is – predictably – Lanette.

"I'm willing to admit that I may need to reconsider my opinions on ghosts."

Rani laughs.

"Well, lads," she says. "Looks like we got another one."

"Don't."

"Ah, well. Can't say I didn't try." She waggles her recorder. "Got that all on tape, too, so I'm about to make my editor's decade."

"I'm very glad to hear it," says Bill. "Er – do I still get to have a look at your recorder?"

She rolls her eyes.

"Deal's a deal, innit?"

"Excellent." Bill clasps his hands. "And, er, how are you doing, Rob?"

"I'm not quite sure." Celio is, though; Rob's gripping the edge of the desk much too tight. "I think …" He sighs, releases the desk. When he straightens up, his shoulders seem a little squarer than before, a little less slumped. "I think I may be … free."

"I hope so," says Lanette. "Celio? You all right?"

"Yeah," he replies, realising gladly that it's true. "I'm just relieved it's all over. And that Lenya's finally moved on."

Lanette looks surprised.

"Oh. Yes, there is that, too." The lines of her face soften. "I can't imagine what it must be like. Trapped in a bad dream for fourteen years."

"I think I might have an idea," mutters Jacob. "I've had enough of this. Not a sane person in this entire hotel."

He walks out. Rani watches him go, then shrugs.

"His loss," she says. "Right. My tea's getting cold. You kids had breakfast yet?"

"God, no," says Lanette. "I could absolutely murder a coffee."

Rob, uncharacteristically, brightens up.

"That can be arranged," he says. "If you'd like to return to your tables, I will take your orders."

"Brilliant," Bill replies. "All right, gang."

They go back down the corridor to the parlour, Bill already pestering Rani with engineering questions. As so often, Celio hangs back to bring up the rear, wanting a little space – and that's why, a few moments later, he sees it.

"Louhi," he says, keeping his voice low, "are you crying?"

"No," answers Louhi, thickly. "Of course not."

Celio sucks his lip for a moment, nodding.

"It's pretty touching, really," he ventures.

Louhi sighs.

"Maybe," they admit. "But if you ever tell anyone I said that, I'm gonna make you eat your own glasses."

"Yeah," says Celio, feeling the first taut intimations of a smile trembling through his face. "That seems fair."