Mira had first heard the stories from one of the old guards. She was with several of the other children, clustered around an old palace guard who was off duty, and he'd told them tales of wandering spirits and dead monarchs who still inhabited their favourite rooms in the palace.
Some of the children had scoffed, but Mira was fascinated, and asked her father about these ghosts when she returned to her room.
"What nonsense, Mira," he'd snorted. "There are no such things as ghosts. Where'd you get such a ridiculous idea?"
However, when her mother was tucking her into bed that night, Mira questioned her on the subject as well, and received a very different reply.
"There are a lot of mysteries in the world, dear," her mother had said. "Many things we can't explain. Why couldn't ghosts be one of those things? I wouldn't dismiss the idea out of hand. Maybe they do exist."
Sometimes, when she visited certain rooms, Mira was almost certain she could sense a presence, and she'd look around to see if there was someone else present, but the room would be empty. There were several rooms in particular where these experiences were common, and where many had reported sensing something strange and "otherworldly".
The library was one such room. It had been part of the palace since the floating city's construction, and had seen hundreds of people come and go through its walls. It was the favourite room of many, and the long-dead Queen Merius was said to have spent all her free time there. Once, when Mira was looking for a book of poetry she needed for school, she could have sworn she'd seen a reflection of a strange woman in one of the windows. But it was early morning, and the library was empty, so she decided she'd imagined it. However, some time later, she'd seen a painting in one of the halls of a woman who looked exactly like the reflection. When she asked her father who the painting was of, he'd told her it was Queen Merius.
When Mira left Tangea and began visiting other worlds, she discovered that many other cultures had similar stories of spectres and phantasms, and to her this confirmed the truth of her mother's words. Maybe ghosts did indeed exist. Why not, after all? As a Space Ranger, she witnessed many things she couldn't explain, and ghosts were just one more thing to add to that list.
What settled the matter for her, though, was the way she felt every time she visited her mother's room on Tangea and touched some of her mother's old things. When she was there, she could suddenly feel again that gentle, comforting aura she remembered so well from her childhood. Her mother had been dead for many years, but a part of her remained in that room, as if it had been infused into the walls and furniture.
Mira didn't know how, but in some small way, ghosts did exist.
A/N: This was written at the request of blueglows, and the idea is entirely hers. She suggested that since the Tangeans have mental powers, perhaps some of the energy from these powers remains behind in rooms they frequented, and can be sensed by other Tangeans.