Life, Death, and Time - A Books Of Beginning Collection

Oneshot: Ghostbusters

Background: Rafe is alive and with Kate. Michael and Wilamena never broke up. Gabriel is alive because someone besides Kate has to be responsible.

Content: Humor. Adventure. Shenanigans. Some Spookiness. Emma and Michael get the awful idea to go ghost hunting after watching paranormal activity tv shows. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

"I have an idea."

"Never good words coming from you," Rafe commented idly, flipping the page in his book, some paranormal murder story that Kate and Michael had found at the library. Kate had read it and thought he would like it, so he was reading it and rather enjoying the story, at least until Emma interrupted. 

Emma rolled her eyes, "says Mr. Dark And Terrible."

"I never agreed to that nickname," Rafe said. 

"Hugo Algernon did," Emma argued. 

Rafe raised an eyebrow, "are you really agreeing with the man who taught at college for years and talks about school with your brother?"

Emma huffed, "I hate it when you have a point."

"No wonder you're so angry all the time," Rafe teased, "now, what's your idea?"

Emma rubbed her hands together eagerly, "we should all go ghost hunting! Me, Michael, Wil, you, Kate, all of us!"

Rafe frowned, "that's a terrible idea."

"Actually, for once, I don't think it is," Michael interrupted, turning off the television, "Emma and I have been really interested in television shows that explore paranormal activity lately. While a lot of it is fake, some is genuinely impossible for humans to explain. But those humans don't have knowledge of magic like us. I bet we could genuinely solve some mysteries."

"And I can scare people by showing them any haunted houses we discover!" Emma exclaimed eagerly.

"You two do know that there are no records of ghosts existing in the magical worlds, and usually other magical creatures or magicians performing spells are what's mistaken for them. Or coincidence and natural phenomena that humans read too much into," Rafe explained.

"Yes, but no one ever really knows what's out there until they investigate," Michael argued, "I think this is a fantastic research opportunity. I'm going to go write Wilamena about it immediately."

Rafe heaved a heavy sigh, "there is no way that this can go well."

*******

Wilamena had, unfortunately for the sanity of those capable of rational thought, eagerly agreed with Emma and Michael that ghost hunting was a fantastic group activity. Despite the protests of Rafe, she said that if the fold was possible, so was the existence of ghosts and mini-folds and all of that. Michael had been particularly impressed with her reasoning. So, the three of them had badgered a reluctant Rafe to join them as their dark magic consultant. He had agreed, on the one condition that they found someone who was not him (or Kate, who already put up with far too much to have to handle this too) to be responsible for them on the trip. Kate, though not the adult in charge for once, was coming too, mostly because someone needed to be the backup with common sense, just in case something happened that the chaperone could not handle.

Richard and Clare had both refused to chaperone, Richard because he hated all things that seemed to be out of a horror movie, Clare because she found the whole idea ridiculous and improbable. So, Emma had contacted her honorary third parent and mentor, who had not been enthusiastic about the idea, but had responded to Emma's threat to ask her old friend Dena if he didn't agree. Gabriel didn't want to come ghost hunting, but he also didn't want Emma and Dena's chaotic power to cause calamity when mixed with potential ghosts.