Pan’s dragon dispelled with ease. The thing had known a losing fight when it saw one and let Pan send it to the beyond, or wherever things like the familiar waited.

She was spent. Aches and tingles ran up and down her left side, and Pan thought she would sleep before she cast a healing circle. It was not to be.

Soon, she would have a ghost for a guest, and she would need to entertain it. Pan agreed to speak to the ghost before she slept because she knew it would be an easy circle. She also feared, with ghosts on the brain, she would perform the circle in her dreams and wake to a nasty surprise.

So, Pan waited alone in her cargo bay. Well, she wasn’t alone. Five Volanter bodies lay on tarps in the center of her training space.

She sat on the floor, crossed her legs, propped her elbows on her knees, and put her chin in her hands. Pan busied herself by counting the stripes on the nearest tentacle.

One. Two. Three…Ten. There were upwards of fifteen. Pan couldn’t say for sure. She lost count.

Pan’s left arm tingled. She mistook it for neuropathy but soon realized the flavor of the tingling announced a loss of circulation. Pan shook out her left arm. Her legs began to tingle too. Pan sighed and got up on all fours. She didn’t want to stand, and she didn’t want to lay out straight like the bodies, till feeling returned to her limbs. So, she stretched her legs before her. Her toes, if pointed, could just tap the nearest body.

Little bits of frost still clung to dried flesh. The eyes and mouths had become mere slits, not that they were much to look at before. Head tentacles shriveled and curled close to skulls, and leg tentacles drooped, hunks of meat, without animation.

Two bodies had a base color of black, with greying white stripes. Neither color remained vibrant. Two other bodies had a base of white, with black stripes. Those colors faded too. One body had a grey base with dark grey stripes, and Pan knew it had to be a genetic variation and not some strange form of decay. The grey stripes blended, looking not so stark.

Finally, Pan studied the torsos and faces, and it was in those parts that she saw the persons these Volanter used to be: men and women who worked magic.

Pan crossed her arms and looked at the ceiling. “Where are they?”

“Knock knock,” Alban called from the open door. He strode in.

Rooks followed. She paused in the entrance and observed the sturdy pairing of thick sliding panels and heavy hinged doors. Next, Rooks’ eyes traveled over the walls and ceiling. No doubt she noticed the hull panels. Pan saw the exact moment that Rooks recognized the plating, meant to be a ship’s exterior shell. Rooks’ narrowed eyes flicked to the observation zone, shielded with glass fit for a windshield. She studied the peculiar state of Pan’s bay.

“Welcome to…” Pan paused and strained to hear.

Animated voices and laughter flowed from the hall. A moment later, Kat and Chara entered the cargo bay. They spared it only a glance as they already knew what had been done to contain Pan. They probably got the reports when they were back on cozy Scaldigir. Pan bet they even debated if it would be enough.

“Do you need a chair?” Alban towered at Pan’s side.

Pan pushed to her feet. The last of the tingles faded from her left foot. “No. I can stand.” Pan pointed across the bodies. “You should wait on the other side, by the door. Just in case they don’t like us as much as the living ones do.”

“Alright.” Alban strolled back, rounded the line of corpses, and rejoined the others.

Pan faced them all: bodies and audience.

The door lurched, and a mechanical sound announced its closure. The hinged portion swung closed and the lock spun, and the sliding version hissed shut, out of view.

Without the light from the hall, the bay dimmed.

Pan folded her hands and stared at her guests. “It really isn’t necessary to be in the bay, as I know every ghost related circle in my heart of hearts.” Pan gestured to the walls. “But, if this is where you want to be, it’s fine by me. Just have someone clean up after we’re done.” Pan glanced at the bodies.

“Are they too old for you to get a spirit?” Chara crossed her arms.

“Of course, they’re too old,” Pan said. “At least, they’re too old for a spirit to be attached to the body – tethered if you prefer. But, I just happen to know a bunch of new ghost circles. We’ll try the spirit caller.”

Rooks put a hand to her chin. Her fingers drifted close to her mouth, as if she might nibble the nail or the skin around it.

“Afraid of ghosts?” Pan asked.

Rooks startled and smiled. “I wouldn’t say that exactly. I’m just skeptical.” Rooks stared at the bodies and said no more.

“Think you’ve seen one?”

Rooks shook her head. “I never saw anything, but when my uncle died, the lights wouldn’t work right in our house for a few days. My parents insisted it was nothing. I believed them then. Now, I’m not so sure.”

Alban looked to Rooks and caught her eyes. “When we first got Pan aboard, my crew took turns asking her whether their respective experiences had been ghost sightings.” Alban gave Rooks a rueful smile. “Mine was just electrical problems.”

Chara laughed.

Kat remained towards the back of the group. She set her eyes on the bodies and didn’t look away. “This will be my third time seeing ghosts. The first was in that haunted play place. Remember when you tricked me into leaving? I was supposed to watch you and be a mentor.”

Pan nodded. “I remember. Your father was sick. He sent you a message on your personal com, and I said you could go. I really just wanted to do some slides on my own. You weren’t going to let me. Too tired from a long day. I was locked in and safe – well, mostly.”

A moment of silence passed.

Kat wore a sad smile, and Pan wished she hadn’t brought up the slides. It was a memory in which Kat let her down. Pan had little moments like that with every mentor. With Brynn, there had been so many.

But, it was all past. They could hash it out in the afterlife if they wanted, though Pan knew it wouldn’t matter then. It hardly mattered in the present.

“Alright. Let me see if I can get any of these guys to talk to us.” Pan pointed at the first Volanter, a man. “I’ll start with him, and we’ll go one at a time.”

Pan’s little audience fell silent.

No sound entered the bay except for the tinks of pipes in the walls and the grind of other far-off machinery.

Pan cast the ghost sight circle first. She needed to see the spirits before she called them. Should they wander out of the summoning circle, she wanted to know.

The ghost sight circle took no effort for Pan to cast. The ring appeared, like an old friend, and disappeared in an instant. The rune light faded, and the afterimage lasted seconds.

Pan cast the circle only on herself. If she was the only one who could see the ghosts, she was the only one they could hurt.

Pan cast the calling circle. It ringed the Volanter man’s body and hummed into being. It rippled in whatever magical winds impacted the powers that she wielded. She straightened the runes. The light grew strong and sent up clear sparks, like bubbles.

No one came.

Pan looked up at Alban and shook her head.

“Would we be able to see them too?” Chara asked.

“If they’re inside the circle, yes. But, I’m sure you don’t want to see them if they should happen to wander outside.”

Chara’s eyes widened, and she gave a slow nod. Kat nodded along too.

“We wouldn’t want to see them fiddling with the lights. How many ghosts does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Alban asked of Rooks.

She smiled, in spite of her efforts to remain serious.

“I’m guessing a lot since they never seem to get it done,” Kat added.

Alban barked a laugh.

Pan waited. She dispelled her first calling circle and let it fade.

Rooks caught Pan’s eyes. “Sorry about the jokes. I realize we should have respect for the dead.”

Pan gestured to the bodies. “They don’t care. They’re not even here.” She raised her hand. “By the way, which was the one that Mr. Martin dragged around by the penis? I want to be prepared in case that comes up.”

Rooks pointed. “The one farthest from you. He should be the last you try. If we get someone sooner, there should be no need to discuss what has happened to his penis in death.”

Pan smirked. “Good, good.” She performed the second calling circle. This time she ringed a woman.

Nothing.

Alban shifted and crossed his arms.

The three women waited with some form of dying expectation on their faces. Pan thought it was good they were getting used to the disappointment. Conjuring ghosts was not some parlor trick that Pan could perform at will. Though, she was getting close.

Pan sighed. She set her gaze on the third body, another man.

She studied his face. His eyes squinted, and his mouth showed a hint of tension. While the first two faces were frozen without expression, mouths slightly agape, his face looked more pained. He was a good candidate for ghost hood.

Pan cast the calling circle. Runes ringed his body, and light streamed up. Still, nothing happened.

Pan exhaled and raised her hand to sweep the circle aside.

“Oh wait,” Chara gestured to the body. “Look.”

Pan saw it too. Smoke flowed out of the mouth and collected above the body.

A spirit materialized in the center of the circle. Tentacles blossomed, followed by the man’s torso, shoulders, and head. It was a Volanter spirit, terrifying by definition. He came with every tentacle, every finger, both his eyes, and a suggestion of clothes. He even came with the subtle disappointment of death, painted over his mask of a face. He lacked nothing.

Here came the part where Pan wished her audience would get gone: the questions.

Pan rounded the bodies and came to stand at the head of the Volanter man.

The ghost stared down and, in turn, examined each of his companions. Pan, stiff and straight, waited. The ghost didn’t look her way.

She opened her mouth and drew a deep breath.

“So, they did it then.” His eyes continued to move over his companions. Then, he saw himself. “And, there I am.”

Pan renewed her breath. “Who’s they? And, what did they do?”

The ghost’s eyes grew light. He raised his head and saw Pan. “They? They are us. Volanters.”

Pan frowned. She touched her chest. “I’m Scaldin, not Volanter.”

“Fine you can be Scaldin, but you’re a child of the Volanter. Not a partner of the Volanter, and certainly not an enemy. You’re one of us.” Pinpricks of white in the Volanter’s slitted eyes moved up and down, like pupils.

Pan gave him the barest shake of her head. “Listen. We aren’t going to have that discussion. Who are you talking about when you say – they did it? Who specifically?”

“Our people, of course.” The ghost’s wispy hand moved between them. He gestured to Pan and himself. “The Volanter.”

“Fine. What did they do?”

“They let their desperation get the better of them.” The ghost laughed, and a bit of red colored his eyes.

“Desperate to reproduce?” Rooks asked.

Pan bristled but said nothing.

The ghost laughed again. “No. Not really.”

Pan forced a sigh. “How did you die?”

The ghost’s head twisted back to regard Pan. His neck wisped and smoked, his face just a mask atop it, but not an emotionless one. “I can’t tell you how I died. There was a distortion in space, and it interrupted our flight.” The ghost’s eyes flicked to Alban, Rooks, and Pan’s old mentors. His eyes narrowed, more expressive in death than they ever were in life. The color inside glowed blue.

Pan crossed her arms. “Look. I’ll be honest with you. We already know that someone covered up the graveyard of ships, including yours. That was deliberate, even if you did run into the distortion by accident. Later, you were a sacrifice to lure new children to the cause.”

“If you knew, you might have said. There were no other ships when I was left. I suppose there are many now. We were told to run into the distortion. I knew we would do it. Me and the rest of the skeleton crew. I didn’t know if they would catch people like you or think better of it.” The ghost interlaced his fingers, one at a time. Each digit bent independent of the others. The spirit looked at Alban, Kat, and Chara. Then, he looked to Pan. “I saw you, and I knew.”

Pan let her arms fall. “So, the Volanter were desperate. They wanted to catch ships. Not to help them reproduce.” As Pan thought aloud, she frowned. “Was it to help them with a part of magic they couldn’t understand?”

“You don’t know, do you?” The ghost laughed. “I don’t think I’ll tell.”

“What will you tell me?” Pan asked.

“I will tell you of our clan home.” The Volanter smiled, and his mouth curled up, exaggerating the emotion. “It’s a place without time. A place where we can be free to live and break from the rigors of circles and magics. We rest there. We fall in love there, and we raise our families there or nearby.” The ghost gestured to the open space around him. “We spend so little time in this. And so, from your point of view, the experiment will be eternal. The contract will be eternal, and you will always have Volanter to remind you of who you are.”

Pan knew her mouth fell open. She left it agape.

Like all ghosts, their Volanter specimen got off track. It was as if he inhabited one conversation, and she another.

“Are you telling me that you live very long? Or that you cheat death by hiding in this clan home – a place without time?”

“Yes. Tell me the names of the Volanter you’ve encountered, and I’ll tell you how many generations it’s been. I’m of the second. The second generation to journey the stars that is.” The ghost put a wispy hand to his chest, and the fingers solidified.

Pan’s heart beat harder. “Carex. Ranunculus. Ipomea and Dicentra.”

“I know of Ranunculus. He’s from my generation, only a bit younger. Carex is from the generation above mine. He is one of the first to journey the stars. Ipomea and Dicentra I admit are new. But, it cannot have been long. Volanter live only three-hundred years.”

Pan rolled her eyes. “Only three-hundred.”

“How many cycles of three-hundred would it take to get from the time your ancestors first encountered the Volanter to now?” The ghost’s eyes glowed in yellow.

Pan frowned. In fact, she felt she pouted, but pouting was for less serious situations. Her vision glazed as she did the math.

It would take about two cycles of three-hundred to get the Scaldin, just two generations. On the other hand, the Iruedians hadn’t seen Volanter for thousands of years. Several generations could fit in that time, and the ghost told her that he thought only three generations had passed. Pan believed him because the calling circle asked for truth of its victims, more so than the circle of sight.

The Volanter clan home sounded like a powerful place. The kind of place where Volanter could hide away, popping out to plague Pan and her people at all the wrong moments.

Chara cleared her throat. “If time stands still in the clan home, how do your children grow there? How do you raise families?” She crossed her arms and waited.

Red flared in the ghost’s eyes. “We take them out for short periods, or we grow them with magic.”

“That seems like a lot of effort,” Kat grumbled. “They’ll grow up on their own if you don’t stick them in a time bubble.”

A wispy leg tentacle snapped over the calling circle.

Pan stepped back. Cold radiated from the spirit, more than usual.

“You mock us. You say you aren’t of the Volanter. I can’t imagine why they insisted we find you. What good are you for us?” Several more leg tentacles snapped over the calling circle.

Pan cast the ghost trap circle. The ghost surged over it, and only a few tentacles caught in the trap. His eyes went red, and his body blurred into a dark shadow. Suddenly, he was like the spirit from the mine.

The runes of Pan’s trap circle flickered, losing some of their light in starts and flashes.

Pan’s heart beat hard, and the lights in the bay flickered. One hummed its protest and got dim.

Pan dispelled her calling circle. She hoped it would work, but she didn’t know a ghost that would leave after you called it. Just before it dispelled, the runes glowed and hummed. Light stretched from the circle and twisted to the side. The light caught up his tentacles. In a final flash, the cargo bay dimmed to shadow, and the ghost was gone.

Normal light returned.