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Sure enough, the ghost was standing there placidly, watching him with an unreadable expression on its… well, transparent though it was, it was still a face .

Inside his mind, his pegasus yelped – which he didn’t even know it was capable of doing – and performed the psychic, horse-sized equivalent of cowering beneath the table.

“Do you mind?” he snapped at the ghost. “If you’re going to hang around here ruining my life, the least you could do is warn me before you manifest yourself right in front of me.”

~Sorry,~ the ghost said – and then its spectral eyes widened, its hand going to its mouth as if in shock.

Ethan was pretty sure his own eyes were doing the same thing. “Did you… did you just talk to me?”

Now that his shock had had a moment to wear off, he could feel himself starting to get angry, his eyes narrowing in irritation.

“You’ve been able to talk all along, but you’re only just deciding to actually speak now ? Now, after you ruined my presentation?!”

~I… I’m sorry,~ the ghost said again, moving its jaw carefully.

Its voice was faint and uncertain, and had an airy quality, like a breeze blowing through bare winter trees.

~I did not realize that I could talk. In fact, I believe that I had forgotten how.

But just now, suddenly, I felt it come back to me. ~

Ethan scowled, though he supposed that as far as excuses went, that was a decent one.

On top of that, the ghost’s pants and vest were definitely not from this era.

If Ethan had to guess, he’d say that the ghost had been dead for some time – which, he supposed, was a pretty good reason for forgetting how to talk for a while.

Not that it was going to keep him from being irritated about it.

“Fine then,” he snapped. “Since you can talk now, maybe you can tell me what it is you even want and why you’re here. Or what I can do to… to assist you.”

So that you’ll get the hell out of my life , he managed to stop himself from adding.

~I am not sure,~ the ghost admitted, and Ethan bit back another sigh. ~I felt drawn to your presence, but I cannot say why.~

Inside his head, his pegasus quailed. It is drawn to us! We are doomed!

Oh, calm down, he told it. If the ghost –

The pegasus flinched, and Ethan barely kept from rolling his eyes. Sorry. If the harmless spectral figure wanted to hurt us, don’t you think it would’ve done so by now?

The resulting snort from the pegasus showed what it thought of that idea, but it did seem to calm down ever so slightly.

Ethan tried to rein in his annoyance, but it wasn’t easy. Of all the supernatural things that could be troubling him, why did it have to be the one thing that his pegasus had a petrifying fear of?

The ghost was watching him uncertainly, and Ethan took a moment to try to really think this situation through.

As much as he just wanted the ghost to leave him alone so he could get back to his life, the quick internet search he’d done on ghosts – before he’d felt stupid about what he was doing and closed his laptop – had told him that it was probably here because of some issue that needed to be resolved before it could return to its own plane of existence.

At the time, he’d told himself that even if that were true, he didn’t have time to be helping wayward ghosts, and it’d just have to figure it out on its own.

Now, however, thanks to the ghost, he was on indefinite leave. And it was clear that if he wanted his life – and his father’s approval – back, he’d have to start taking it more seriously.

Also, the sooner the ghost was out of his life, the sooner his pegasus would hopefully calm down and revert to its usual snobbish, holier-than-thou self.

“Well, you’re drawn to my presence, but you don’t know why. That’s not exactly helpful,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “You literally can’t tell me anything other than that?”

He was aware he wasn’t being very friendly, but right now, he just wanted this done. He had a planner full of meetings next week. Hopefully he could get the ghost out of his life by the weekend, and be back in the office by Monday. If he could convince his father he was back on his game.

The ghost looked thoughtful, a diaphanous frown on its face.

~I am not sure,~ it said eventually, and Ethan noticed that its voice was starting to sound stronger. ~All I know is that I was led to you… though I for some reason, now that I really think hard about it… have you ever heard of a place called Girdwood Springs?~

“Girdwood Springs?” Ethan muttered. “No, never.”

He pulled out his phone and tapped in the name of the town.

The results popped up: small mountain town, about ten hours’ drive from here. Nowhere he’d ever been before, but they’d never exactly been an outdoorsy kind of family.

“Do you think that’s where you need to go in order to… to… be at peace?” Ethan asked, gazing suspiciously at the ghost.

He wasn’t sure he should be going to a second location with an apparition.

His pegasus definitely didn’t think so.

You’re just going to give this… this thing what it wants?! it demanded, trembling a little, its wings shivering.

I didn’t say that, Ethan snapped at it. I’m just trying to figure out how to get rid of it! Do you want it gone or not?!

That appeared to calm the pegasus down a little, though it still was clearly not thrilled at the idea of them actually helping this thing.

~I cannot say for certain, ~ the ghost told him with an apologetic frown.

~I cannot even say why I’m here. I fear my memory is not what it was.

I don’t even know why I have returned to this realm.

Though it is… very different from what I knew when I was alive.

It has taken some time for me to get used to it. ~

The ghost sounded sincerely mournful at this, gazing around the room with sad, confused eyes, first at the huge windows, then at Ethan’s computer, then at the wall of ferns growing on one side of his office.

Just for a moment, Ethan felt a twinge of pity. He supposed it would be hard to be… wherever the ghost had been, only to find itself sucked into a strange new world with no idea why it was there or what it was supposed to be doing.

It was just possible, he thought, that the ghost didn’t want to be here any more than he wanted it to be.

Then I guess we have a common goal.

“Look,” he said, trying to be reasonable. “If – if – I take you to this Girdwood Springs place, do you think that would solve whatever problem you have, and you’d leave me alone?”

~I would hope that is the case,~ the ghost said after a moment’s thought. ~But I cannot say for sure. All I know is that I feel… drawn to that place. But I cannot get there alone. Not while I am bound to you.~

Oh great, bound to me. Sounds promising , Ethan thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

But he supposed that it could be worse. He wasn’t exactly sure what could be worse than a ten-hour road trip with an amnesiac ghost and a petty-minded pegasus, but surely there had to be something .

“I can take you there,” he said, and the ghost looked surprised, before a tentative smile crept over its face.

~Really? It will not be too far? I do not know where Girdwood Springs is in relation to this place… or, in fact, where I am at this moment.~

“It’s about four hundred miles, up in the mountains,” Ethan said offhandedly, and the ghost’s face fell.

~That is quite the journey,~ it said mournfully. ~I cannot in good conscience ask you to trouble yourself in such a manner.~

Confused, Ethan blinked – before he came to a realization. Of course the ghost wouldn’t know anything about modern transportation.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, forcing his face into a smile. “We can go a lot faster than was probably possible in your time. It’s not a problem. Really.”

Not if I want to get rid of you, he added silently.

~Truly?~ The ghost looked hopeful once more, and, despite himself, Ethan couldn’t help but feel at least a little pleased that he could possibly help it out. It really had been looking pretty mournful up until now.

Not that I care, but I need my life and my job back ASAP.

He didn’t really have the faintest idea of how he would be able to help it, but, well, he supposed that he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

Maybe once they got to this Girdwood Springs place it would just evaporate into thin air – though that was probably a little too much to hope for.

It seemed like the ghost was gaining more and more memories and abilities the longer it stayed here, so if it didn’t disappear once they arrived in Girdwood Springs, perhaps it’d at least remember why it was here?

Or, the pegasus added unhelpfully, it’ll gain the ability to take over your car, and drive us over a cliff.

Ethan firmly ignored it. After he’d calmed his stomach down from the clutch of fear it suddenly experienced.

“Truly,” he said.

~What kind of transportation will we take?~ The ghost sounded altogether too eager to know. ~Do you possess a train? You do appear to be quite wealthy.~

“Um. No. No trains,” Ethan said, even as his pegasus seemed intrigued by the idea of acquiring its own personal train.

As unlikely as it was, he knew that if there was a chance that the ghost was just playing dumb before it tried to kill him, he wasn’t about to put a trainload of other people at risk. “We’ll take… my car. It’s, uh, like a really, really small train.”

~Oh, like an automobile?~ the ghost said. ~I think I have heard them spoken of, but have never ridden one myself. I believe that they were not common where I lived.~

“Yeah, an automobile,” Ethan said. He held up his cellphone awkwardly. “This will tell us how to get there.”

~I have never seen a compass like that,~ the ghost said, its brow creasing in puzzlement. ~Or is it some kind of sextant?~

“Uh. Kind of,” Ethan said. “Really, it’s a little hard to explain.”

The ghost drifted closer, peering down at the phone. ~Does it also have moving pictures like the ‘computer’ that I have witnessed you using?~

He tried not to grit his teeth at the memory of what the ghost had done with his computer. “Yeah, it does.”

The ghost looked delighted, if such a thing was possible. ~Does it have moving pictures of trains? And train stations? I enjoyed watching those.~

Well, I’m glad someone enjoyed them, Ethan thought sourly. Since I’m pretty sure that the CEO of Swynford most emphatically did not enjoy them.

Still, he supposed that to an old-timey ghost, modern trains were new and exciting. And at least now he had an explanation for why YouTube had been showing him nothing but railway videos the past few weeks. It was going to take forever to get his algorithm sorted back out.

“Well. Should we get going?” Ethan asked, picking up his jacket and ignoring the definite chill coming from the direction of his pegasus.

It was decidedly unthrilled by the prospect of going on a road trip with a ghost, but it seemed to have accepted that this was going to be the quickest way to get the ghost out of their lives.

Mostly accepted, anyway.

The ghost looked surprised. ~We can leave now?~

“Sure,” Ethan shrugged. The quicker the better. “No time like the present.”

He started to head toward the door, then paused.

Up until this point, he’d been treating this as a job – purely professional. He hadn’t wanted to get involved any more than absolutely necessary.

But, he supposed, he couldn’t spend however long in the company of the ghost without knowing its name. Presuming that it even remembered it.

“By the way, I’m Ethan,” he said, sticking out his hand automatically. “Do you… have a name? One that you can remember?”

~Oh, my name – yes, thankfully that was one of the first things I recalled. It’s Curtis. Pleasure to make your acquaintance,~ the ghost replied, sticking out its hand as well.

Ethan supposed that he shouldn’t have been surprised when Curtis’s hand passed right through his. It was an infinitely foreseeable issue, but to be fair, his head hadn’t quite been in the game recently.

To Curtis’s credit, he laughed it off, smiling ruefully. ~Well, I suppose I should have seen that coming. Pay it no heed.~

Ethan smiled back – and it wasn’t even entirely forced. “Okay. Let’s go find this Girdwood Springs.”