She was right. She barely made a sound as she walked around the room.
“So what were we hearing downstairs?” Xan asked.
Casually, she said, “I already told you: it was the ghosts. They’re really noisy up here.”
“But that makes no sense. How can we hear their footfalls on a reinforced floor? How can we hear them moving furniture when there’s no furniture in the room?”
“Because,” she said simply. “They’re living in their time, not ours. They’re interacting with the world as it was, not the world as it is.”
“When?” Xan asked. “Who are they? When are they?”
Gracie walked quietly to the window and pressed her forehead against the glass. The moonlight caused her skin to glow a spectral bluish tone. Her hair looked much darker than it had downstairs.
Forlornly, she said, “Most peo
