The moment the lights in the depot faded, Lou reached for my hand as if to offer me support. I swallowed a giggle and pressed his clammy fingers. If someone needed support here, it certainly wasn't me.

The ghost's presence resonated through every fibre of my existence. I glanced at my companions, their strained features now lit only by the blue glow of Matt's screen. Vic and Lou seemed shaken, but Matt had no time to be shocked. He zoomed in on the red blob glowing on his screen, a picture of concentrated efficiency, before a grin split his face. "Only one ghost, but with quite a powerful signal. The White Lady has a remarkable aura."

I had already gathered as much, but to have my gut feelings confirmed helped me focus. "She's approaching now. Lou, Vic, move over into the kitchen corner, please. I bet the ghost is drawn by the lamp, and trust me, you don't want to stand between her and the object of her desire." Neither did I, but this was the wrong moment to discuss the finer details of ghost contacts with my friends.

At least Matt was experienced enough to fear direct contact. He picked up his laptop, leaving the screen open to give us a minimum of illumination, and ushered the others to the kitchenette. I followed them, walking backwards and scanning the room.

A sudden chill in the air told me the ghost was near. I crossed my arms to keep my body heat together and bumped into a kitchen chair, overthrowing it. Vic's terrified gasp drowned in the clatter.

"Shh." I stooped to straighten the chair, afraid I'd frightened our visitor away, clenching my teeth and concentrating on my sixth sense. My wrist felt like the favourite playground of hundreds of ants. The ghost was still close by, but I couldn't locate her.

"San." Lou's voice was a mere whisper, and his pointing finger trembled. Then I saw it, too. In front of the desktop with the lamp, a fine tendril of smoke gathered, swirled, and grew in an expanding spiral. I held my breath while it extended and reached upward, new silky strands of the translucent matter twirling around each other, condensing and contracting into the rough form of a person floating in front of the desk.

In the blue sheen of Matt's screen, I could still see the tiny lamp sitting on Vic's workplace through the figure. Yet the ghost became more solid by the moment, the moving, twirling strands of ectoplasm now weaving themselves into the illusion of a long, flowing dress. The loose garment swished over the floor, and the figure pulled a sheer scarf around her narrow shoulders.

Without a glance in our direction, the ghostly woman reached for the lamp, pulling the scarf over her dark, braided hair with the other hand.

The moment she touched the lamp, the spectre solidified, a few curly locks spilling from the scarf and reflecting the light of Matt's screen while the folds of the lucid dress fell in a distinct pattern of moving light and shadow.

She was beautiful and terrifying, young, perhaps not even in her twenties. I gulped down air, aware it was up to me to act. If we wanted to learn something about the motivation of this visitation, I needed to make contact—now. I cleared my throat.

The ghost woman whirled around, her eyes dark wells in a face pale as death. Her gaze found mine as she hovered unmoving in front of the table, full lips pressed tight, and a frown marring her forehead.

"Greeting, my lady. Please, may we offer our help?" I tried to articulate well while keeping my voice level and friendly.

At the sound of my words, the ghost shrank back, passing through the table, her hand closing around the lamp. My eyes were fixed on the object now. Could she touch it? Or did her fingers pass through it like Sir Guillaume's through the cookie? I couldn't tell for sure yet.

"This is a beautiful lamp—is it yours? Should we try to light its wick?" I was aware there wasn't a wick in the artefact, of course, but I hoped my words would gain the woman's attention without frightening her away.

She seemed to listen, but didn't acknowledge or answer my questions. Her lips parted but formed no sound, and after a long, silent moment, she closed her mouth again.

This wasn't working. Sir Guillaume had no problem interacting with me, so I did something wrong here. In my attempt to gain the ghost's trust, I reached out my hands with open palms and, when she didn't react, made a slow step forward. The White Lady didn't move.

"Don't be afraid. I'll—"

The cheery melody of a phone interrupted me, the sharp sound tearing through the unnatural stillness of the depot like the blade of a knife.

With a deep moan, the ghost turned to the lamp and caressed the object with slender fingers before she faded away like smoke in a breeze, leaving behind a faint smell I couldn't place.

The overhead lighting came back on, bathing us in its bright artificial glare and blinding me. My muttered curse was swallowed by the aggressive noise of the ringing phone. Vic searched her pockets for the offensive gadget and stared at its screen before she sent me a questioning glance.

I shrugged. "Take it, she's gone."

She mouthed 'sorry,' and accepted the call. "Paul? Yes, it's me, of course. I bet you dialled my number, so don't play surprised."

A frown formed on her forehead and she placed an index over her lips to tell us to keep quiet. "No, I didn't steal your lamp. First, it was never yours to begin with and second, it's not called stealing when I placed a note on your desk telling you I had to check something and would bring it back first thing in the morning. What are you doing in the office at this hour anyway, sleepwalking?"

The grimace on her face raised my pity. She listened to a flurry of loud words, holding the phone a hand's breadth away from her ear. "No, Paul, not tonight. I'm about to fall asleep, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow."

A few seconds later, she cut the call, making a face as if she'd have to bite into a rotten apple. "We should leave. He might drop by to check if the lamp is here."

I reached for the artefact, waiting for another electric shock. It didn't come, so I picked it up to study it. As soon as I touched the cold clay, the ants crawling over my wrist were back. "It's obvious the ghost is tied to this thing, or, more accurately, to the piece you added tonight. Can we remove the fragment again? I wouldn't want Paul to get his hands on the reassembled lamp and, with it, the ghost."

"You think the ghost woman would follow the lamp when I bring it back to his office like this?"

"Yes, and who knows what kind of power she has—now the lamp is whole again." I tried to insert a fingernail into the crack between the pieces.

"Wait." Vic snatched the artefact from me, her eyes wide in horror. "Don't break it. Paul would kill me." She inverted the lamp and gently knocked it against her palm. The triangular fragment fell out, and Vic smiled. "There, it's a matter of using the adequate technique. I guess we best put this back into the right box." She dropped the shard in its little bag.

I walked to the back of the depot with her but couldn't feel any trace of the ghost. "Seems the White Lady is gone for the moment. Such a pity. I wished I could have talked to her, asked her why she's hanging out here two thousand years after her death."

Back in the office part, Matt had closed his laptop and was about to stow it in his bag. "Did you get anything of her at all? Nonverbal communication or a telepathic contact?"

"Nothing—and I think Sir Guillaume was right. This ghost is afraid of the living." With a fingertip, I touched the lamp, the lion on its face now missing a paw again. It was just cold clay now.

Vic wrapped the artefact in the tissue with professional ease. "I'll make sure I get an official assignment to study the piece and make a stylistic age determination. Then Paul can't keep it from me. Our boss may be at a congress, but she'll check her emails."

"You want to repeat the experiment?" Lou leaned his butt against the table next to me, his arms crossed. "I can't help wondering if the ghost even understood you. I mean, didn't the Romans speak Latin?"

I felt my mouth drop. "Of course. How stupid of me. We will have to change our angle on this. Does one of you speak Latin?"

Lou shook his head, and Matt shrugged. "Just the few phrases I picked up while reading Asterix."

I sighed. "Me too, as probably everyone else in Western Europe. But Lou is right. What about you, Vic? I bet you had to learn the classic languages as part of your studies."

"Wish I had, but it wasn't a mandatory subject anymore when I was at uni. I think asking for knowledge of Latin and Greek made archaeology unattractive for the students, so the board dropped it. To be honest, aside from a few grave markers or coins we hand over to the epigraphists and numismatists, we hardly come across written evidence. I know my way around the most common abbreviations and expressions used in grave inscriptions, but that's about it. Besides, written and spoken language might differ a lot. I guess we will need a true linguist to help us out."

"Right, and where do we find one? Please don't tell me we have to ask Paul." Matt's statement made me smile, but I nodded in agreement.

Vic rubbed her chin. "Don't worry. He's a conservator, so his Latin will be worse than mine."

The solution came from an unexpected corner. "I know who speaks Latin." A smug smile tugged at a corner of Lou's mouth.

It took only seconds for my penny to drop. "Of course. It was the lingua franca in the Middle Ages, and our friend Sir Guillaume should feel right at home with it." My enthusiasm was short-lived, though. "But Sir Guillaume is tied to the Castle of Corbières. This means language lessons are in order."

I already could see myself sweating to get a basic gist of Latin while the medieval knight had the time of his afterlife.