Ghosts, Alma learned once upon a time, was the idea of a person lingering in the real world after their death, in places where they had liked to be or together with objects that meant a lot to them.
Sometimes, Alma is convinced that these stories are real, and that there are ghosts lingering in her house.
The only difference between normal ghost and the ghosts in her house is that most of the people who come to Alma and who make her think ghosts are real, are still alive, while normal ghosts are mostly dead.
One time, she's baking a chocolate cake for her children to have as dessert, and as she mixing the batter, she can hear her friend laughing at her.
"All your children is going to get diabetes from staying with you!" Amelia laugh, green eyes shimmering like emeralds as she try to run her hand through her thick red hair, only to get her fingers painfully stuck, smile turning into scowl when she try to free them.
Alma hasn't seen Amelia Gannett since the day she left Miss Avocet's academy, and the last time either of them had sent a letter to the other, had been when Amelia announced she had established a permanent loop on Ireland, where she'd come from originally. It had felt so dreadfully far away, and somehow Alma had realised that though she didn't want to, they were at the end of their road.
They'd been the best of friends, but now all Alma had left was the ghost of the girl she used to know, repeating a conversation they'd had a life time since.
When she pull the chocolate cake out of the oven, she can hear Myrin over her shoulder, begging for a slice of cake she would never refuse him.
Myron Bertram had been banished to a punishment loop for his involvement in the immortality project, a faith which he had blamed solely upon Alma and promised to crave revenge for.
The ghost in Alma's kitchen is the Myron who still loves her, not yet poisoned and manipulated by her brother's twisted ideas and fantasise that he so persistently made their other brother believe to be real.
Alma is just about to cross the hallway to the dining room, chocolate cake in hand, when she is forced to a sudden stop, almost tripping on something, or more like someone, who shouldn't be there but most certainly is.
She can see the little brown haired girl of seven running past her, chasing a bright red ball as it continued rolling down the hallway. A joyful laughter fill the air as she catch up with the toy, catching it and holding in her little hands for a moment before throwing it again, chasing it once more as it rounded the corner and disappeared.
Charlotte had been seven, in reality 85, when Miss Peregrine temporarily left the loop to pay a visit to one of her sister Ymbrynes. She hadn't thought something would happen when she left, but in the less than twenty-four hours she'd been gone, the little girl had escaped the loop and once in town got herself caught by police and shipped to the mainland.
Alma had done all she could, but by the time she gotten her back from the police the girl had already started aging forward physically, reaching the age of thirty five before she could stop it, and in the end there had been no other alternative but to give her away to Miss Nightjar, who promised to take care of the unfortunate girl.
The little child running past her was a ghost of what could have been, had she not left for something as selfish as visiting her sisters.
When Miss Peregrine put down the cake on the table, the children look at her and it with amazement and admiration.
As Alma tell them what's in the cake, Emma easily lean into Jake's shoulder, a peaceful smile on her lips. Behind them, Alma can see the ghosts of another Emma and another black haired nyo, sitting by the dinner table in the same position.
Abe had detested the idea of a loop, and the idea of not doing anything to help the war effort, to help defeat the monsters that had ruined his and many others lives. His departure had been more of a departure than anything, and Alma had expected him to come back.
Abe never come back, because if he had, it wouldn't be Jake's shoulder that Emma was currently relaxing against.
As soon as she's nodded, the kids start filling their plates with chocolate, and Alma's eyes drifted to the brown haired little girl at the other end of the table. She is happily munching away on a generous slice of the cake, and even though Alma tell herself that she doesn't want to see him tonight, that she doesn't want him to appear before her eyes, she can soon see a brown haired boy sitting beside the brown haired girl, eating as well.
If any of the persons, the ghosts, that Alma saw in the house was real, it would most certainly be Victor, the boy whose dead body resting in his room upstairs proved that the real him was indeed dead.
It hardly went a day without Miss Peregrine seeing him somewhere.
Yet to this day Alma wasn't sure how he could have escaped the loop, but the fact was that he had, and thirty-two steps after he left the loop entrance behind.
Bronwyn and Hugh had been spying on him, the later getting help and the former trying to protect him as the monster attacked, but it had all been for nothing.
He had died years, decades ago, and still he was sitting there by the table like everyone else that Alma ever left down or abandoned.
Myron, Amelia, Abe, Charlotte and Victor
Brother, friend, and children. Her flesh and blood, her most trusted companion, and the boys and girls she couldn't imagine living without.
Reflections of mistakes once made, constantly reminding her not to repeat them.
Ghosts,whether such things were real or not, hunting Alma all the same.