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Nate glanced back at the counter. The ghost was a lump of felt. Nate returned to the cabinets.

Half an inch. Half an inch.

It took most of the morning. The counter was four feet of open country, and he could only cross it while Nate’s back was turned, and Nate turned around constantly, because apparently shooting a video involved a lot of walking back and forth and readjusting the camera and saying the same sentence four times. By the third take the ghost had covered half the distance. By the fourth he was close enough to see the phone’s screen recording.

Nate crouched down to point at the rotted board under the sink cabinet. “This is why we check, folks.”

Now.

The ghost gathered everything he had — the anger, the frustration, the memory of he’s so round — and threw himself at the paint cans.

He scooted furiously forward.

A whole inch.

Too late.

Nate was rising. “So we’ll pull the whole cabinet run, salvage the doors for later, and next up: the ceiling.” The medium reached for the phone.

His hand came down six inches from the seal, plucked the phone off the paint cans, and pocketed it.

Then he stopped.

He looked between the seal and the far end of the counter, where the seal should have been.

The ghost lay perfectly still. He was a lump of felt. He had always been at this end of the counter. There had never been any other end of the counter.

“Huh,” Nate said.

He gathered his tools and walked out, already talking himself through the ceiling plan.

The ghost lay where his campaign had died, one flipper-length from glory, facing a wall of neon-green cabinets.

Nate was editing in the sitting room that evening, back against the wall, laptop balanced on an overturned paint bucket, headphones on. The kitchen-day footage was good. The cabinet reveal would play well, the beadboard ceiling was his thumbnail, and he was skimming take two at double speed when something gray stuttered into the edge of the frame.

What?

Nate paused the video.

At the edge of the shot, on the counter, sat Bartholomew.

The seal hadn’t been there when the take started.

Nate dragged the playhead back and watched again at normal speed. Empty counter. Empty counter. Then, while his on-screen self turned around, the seal slid into view.

An inch. Maybe less.

Then it stopped and sat very still.

On screen, Nate turned again to reposition the phone. The seal did not move. Nate turned back to the cabinets.

The seal slid forward another tiny bit.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nate said to the empty room.

He pulled take one into the timeline and watched the morning from the top. Take one: nothing. Take two: the gray inch arrived and kept coming. Take three: half a stitched face at the frame’s edge, easing forward every time Nate’s back was turned, freezing every time he faced the counter.

Take four: the whole seal. He was in the foreground, smiling at the lens.