Ellie swung their hands between them idly, listening, and as the story continued she sidled closer with every step. Soon they were arm in arm instead, with her fingers resting lightly atop his.
"I don't see how your brother could have created a silvery white aura-like thing," she told him, after a moment of thought. "Why shouldn't it have been real?"
Her own smile took on something of a wistfulness as well. It pulled at her heart to hear David talk about Elliot -- something bittersweet, rooted in empathy. Or love.
"You know," Ellie whispered, as the beam of the flashlight hummed and flickered, "my father... Sort of believed in these things. He was a writer. A professor. He wrote... Fiction, mostly, novels -- that sort of thing -- but they were all based in mythology and... The paranormal."
She paused, trying to remember specific plots and titles. Funny how these things seemed to fade -- though for as much as Eloise had looked up to Russell, she'd never been very interested in his craft, and certainly hadn't read all of it. "Ghosts, especially. His first novel was called... Magnolia? I think. He wrote that one about the house he lived in growing up. It was supposed to be really haunted."
Ellie shrugged herself, then. "I was born there, actually. In Ithaca. I lived there for a few years as a child, but... I can't say I remember much. My dad would have told you a lot of stories, though. Lots and lots."