I first prepared the room by removing all mirrors from the vicinity, in this case it was just one sitting on top of the desk against the wall. Then I went about eliminating any sources of iron, its capacity for magic conductivity made it far too unpredictable to work around. Fortunately that was not an issue in this room, only some half rusted candlesticks had to be moved next door.

  Ordinarily this was when I'd do something about background noise but there was nothing besides the rain outside, not only was I unable to do anything about it, the soft noise may prove beneficial to the ritual.

  The next step was to properly set up my tools on the desk; Purple wax candles, incense and a small silver bell.

  “spark, flame, ignite.” I whispered the chant into my cupped hands and snapped my fingers causing a tiny flame to flicker to life between my fingers.

  Though Ernard likely had no idea, that was a deeply pathetic Feuermagik and one I wouldn't dare use in front of another Magier. As my necromagik prowess advanced, my already limited capacity for wielding the other spheres diminished, that's normal, I've been told.

  I brought the flame to the wicks of the candles and they lit with a cool but pleasant blue glow, the incense on the other hand, smoked with a scent indiscernible to those still alive. I then waved it out with my hand.

  The final step before I began was extinguishing all other sources of light and warmth in the house so that my candles were the only source of illumination.

  There's really no reason this shouldn't go smoothly…

  I took a deep breath, with my left hand I made the sign for calling and with my right picked up the bell.

  “Hear me, oh Pharisa, dearly departed, deeply missed, I call out to you.” I chimed the bell, it had a soft tone but it left a sonorous lingering ring in its wake that cut through all background noise.

  “Daughter of Clarise and Ernard, from beyond the void, I call to you. Come back to us.” I chimed it a second time.

  “Hear my voice, follow the lights, your remains yearn to embrace your spirit once more.” a third chime.

  The air above the shrine shimmered faintly.

  “Child of earth, child of flesh, leased from the maw, I bid you return to this plane once again.” The fourth.

  The air now glistened with faint light which gradually shaped itself into the form of a young woman, her mostly transparent body floating gently in the air above us.

  “h-hello?” she asked softly, her voice muffled slightly, as if emitted from beneath a thin layer of water. Errand's eyes widened with recognition.

  “Ph-pharisa is that-ah!” he called out but I stomped on his foot.

  “Pharisa, can you hear me?” I asked.

  “Y-yes I think so, what happened? where am I?” She asked, examining the room, her shape seemed to flicker, minutely adjusting and readjusting itself, as if it were indecisive over how it was supposed to look.

  Indeed perhaps the spirit truly was unable to clearly recall the memory of its body. They don’t always look how they did when they died. Though from my own observations, this seems to depend on multiple factors.

  “You’re home dear, you were in a bad accident but you’re fine now. Everything is going to be ok.” I confirmed.

  “I see…” Did she believe me?

  “Your father is here to see you, He was worried sick, weren't you Ernard?” I gestured towards him.

  “Oh pharisa, I’m so sorry!” he practically wailed, the tears already forming in his eyes.

  “Father really, I’m fine.” She reassured him.

  “Pharisa! please know that I love you more than anything else, you are my world.” Ernard wept.

  I really don’t care for the bawling they always seem to do, but in these scenarios, it's practically obligatory.

  “Please father, Where is this coming from all of a sudden?” she asked sheepishly.

  “he’s simply so relieved to see you’ve made such a flawless recovery.” I stepped in with a believable excuse for her father's state. “He was afraid you might have suffered some kind of permanent injury, Isn't that right?”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “y-yes I- was so worried.” Ernard agreed.

  “I’m sure he just wants to hear you say you love him back,” I suggested.

  “Oh father, of course I love you too.” she smiled as warmly as a spectre might be able to and this seemed to ease him up a bit..

  Sometimes they don’t say it back, they try to avoid it or even just flat out refuse, now those ones are really uncomfortable.

  “And who are you?” she asked me.

  I prefer involving myself in these conversations as little as possible but it's usually unavoidable that I have to explain myself to some degree. Fortunately, my fabricated backstory is tried and true.

  “I’m the assistant of the Traveling Healer Doctor Walten. He’s the one who saw to your injuries, He’s out for the moment but he will be back with us later.”

  Claiming to be the ‘great healer’ myself only got me bombarded with annoying medical questions, i knew enough of the subject to give believable answers but a close call with one who actually knew what they were talking about made me rethink my scenario.

  Now at least I can simply defer all questions to the good non-existent doctor.

  “Well then I thank you very much.” She bowed her head slightly.

  “The doctor and I appreciate your gratitude.” I used to say something humble like ‘Oh it was nothing’ or ‘Oh I’m only a mere assistant’ but that frequently led to an obnoxious back and forth of insisting and deferring thanks.

  “Now Ernard, was there anything else you wanted to ask her?” I gestured towards the spectre, cuing him in to say whatever it was he had to say.

  “Pharisa, Pharisa what happened to you?”

  What?

  I gave him a kick to the leg but he ignored it.

  “I’m not sure I…” she started.

  “On the cliff, what happened to you?”

  I stomped on his foot, hard.

  “the cliff…?” she paused.

  “Now, Now, there's no need to discuss such things.” I cut in. “it’s much better to focus on how glad you should be to-“

  “-please, I need to know what happened?” he spoke over me.

  “I remember falling… falling for so long how… How did I-?”

  “-Enough!” I made the signs of cession and held them up to her face.

  There was a flash of light and her spectral form dissipated.

  “Pharisa-!” he cried out but I struck him across the face.

  “What the crux do you think you're doing?! Did you listen to anything I told you!” I shouted.“The purpose of this ritual is for you to say farewell, not for you to reopen dead wounds.”

  “I know but-! But I have to know what really happened!”

  “You know exactly what happened! She died! She fell off a cliff and splattered her organs on the ground.”

  “no.” he spoke silently, but adamantly.

  “no?”

  “She’s been up that cliff hundreds of times! There's no way she just fell!”

  “Yeah and I’m saying you know why that is as well.”

  “What are you saying?!”

  “Exactly what we both already know, she jumped.”

  He shot me a briefly furious glare but swallowed it down.

  “N-no, never, I know my little girl.”

  “Clearly not as well as you think.”

  “And what the crux would you know?! You’re a damn corpsewik! What have you ever loved?” he demanded.

  “I know the truth and the testimony of countless souls who preferred the companionship of the void to the ‘love’ of their present company.”

  He made no reply.

  “I’m finished here.” I began to pack my tools.

  “Wait! Please! I have to know!” he cried, throwing his arms out over my equipment to impede me.

  “You broke the rules, it's over.” I yanked him off by the collar of his shirt.

  “I’ll pay you extra, I still have-“

  “-It’s not about the pay you oaf! It’s about the risk, and I'm not taking it.” I snapped.

  “Please I beg you, I’ll give you anything you want! This last piece of closure is the only thing I have left!

  I stopped.

  “…You really think this will bring you closure?”

  “Yes, I know it will, I just-“ he began.

  “-Then you don’t know anything, what will you do once you learn? When she tells you she just got fed up with being alive?”

  He opened his mouth but stopped himself before speaking, clearly undecided about what to say.

  “I’ve done this ritual dozens of times and you know why I demand payment upfront?”

  He remained silent.

  “The ‘dream state’ these specters exist within makes them easy to deceive but it also makes them more candid and more inclined to slip things they’d ordinarily keep to themselves. All too often you end up hearing things you didn’t want to hear, learning things you can never unlearn. Even if they already made the agreement, no one likes paying for that.”

  Ernard seemed to consider my words, he took a moment before he spoke.

  “And what's the alternative? To be left eternally wondering? to live the rest of my life forever consumed by the unknown?”

  Hmmm…

  “Tell yourself a comfortable lie, tell it to yourself every day and every night, you’ll start to believe It eventually.” I shrugged. That seems to be how most people do it.

  “My daughter, my only child is dead, no lie could ever bring me such comfort. No, I want the truth, even if it hurts.”

  I sighed.

  “you’ll eat those words, just you wait…”