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INT. MYSTIC READS – BACK ROOM – LATE AFTERNOON

Rain taps gently against the small, warped windows. A faint scent of dried lavender and old paper lingers in the air. Lillian sits at a sturdy oak table, thumbing through an annotated copy of British Ghosts and Spectres, while Sylvia arranges a row of small, smoky quartz crystals on the windowsill.

LILLIAN
(reading aloud)
“…and so the grey lady is said to walk the cliffs at night, searching for her lost child, her form vanishing if approached.” Hmph. No mention of whether this story pre-dates the Victorians. Likely another gothic flourish, I’d wager.

SYLVIA
(softly)
But Lillian, surely by now you know—a ghost doesn’t have to be factual to be real.

LILLIAN
(skeptical)
You mean subjectively real. A projection of grief, perhaps. A lingering story passed from lips to ears until it takes on a life of its own. Not the soul of the dead, wandering about untethered.

SYLVIA
(turning, amused)
You think far too little of souls, dear. Folklore tells us ghosts are more than echoes. They’re residues. Not the full person, no—but some essence, some sliver of being that caught on a sharp edge of pain or longing. It’s not about facts—it’s about feeling.

LILLIAN
But surely that’s what memory is for. Why anthropomorphize grief? Call it a ghost and suddenly it’s sentimental and untrustworthy.

SYLVIA
Because memory lives inward. Ghosts come from without. They demand to be seen, heard—sometimes even acknowledged. And folklore understands that. It gives form to what we fear we can’t contain.

LILLIAN
Still, folklore varies. In the Shetlands, a ghost might be called a trow, more a creature than a soul. In Cornwall, it might be a fetch, a sign of death, not the dead themselves. So which is it?

SYLVIA
All of them. And none. Folklore never insists on one truth, Lillian—it circles the fire, telling stories from every angle. One night the ghost warns, the next it mourns. But always, it speaks.

LILLIAN
(sighs, folding the book closed)
So you’re saying the ghost isn’t the question. It’s the answer to a question we can’t quite ask.

SYLVIA
(smiling)
Now you’re starting to sound like me.

They sit in silence for a moment, the room dimming as a cloud rolls over the last rays of sun. Somewhere, a door creaks—not loudly, but enough to make both women glance toward the front of the shop.

LILLIAN
(flatly)
If that’s Edward again, tell him he still owes me an explanation.

SYLVIA
(firmly)
I told him not to bother you until the equinox. He doesn’t always listen.

LILLIAN
(grumbling)
Like most ghosts, then.

SYLVIA
Like most people.

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