"What?" Andre asked. "You want Sylvie to do something? It's not something that I, or Elaine can do?"

"Sorry Andre, yer ain't got any magical talent, and neither does Elaine. Speaking of..." He grimaced a little. "Yer got any idea why that pirate bitch would possess her in the first place? Is it revenge, or just to live again? I just realized something. Yer might wanna keep Spider away from the kid, just in case she is able to bodyjump and ain't stuck in Spider. Just in case, would be hell to wake up one morning with an evil baby."

"She wouldn't exactly be able to do anything if she were possessing the baby," Andre pointed out. "All right. I'll keep her away from the baby, but...what is this, about Elaine? She can make balls of water float in the air...she...you know. She almost boiled you."

"Yes, and she would be great if yer was planning a party and needed to boil up a lot of shrimp or something. But she can't do this for the same reason that Judes can't do it, she's a sea-witch in training, and has nothing to do with spirits now, right? If... if I can't get there, and things start going out of hand, the only other option I could think of would be Curr. But that could end up badly as hell for both the kid and Spider, he's got the gifts, but he ain't got the training. He might get as lost in there as Spider is."

"Do you need someone to go in her brain?" Andre asked. "Like the time you took Elaine into Judith's?" There was an accusatory tone in his voice.

"Possibly. Depends on how deeply the ghost has settled." Jochy was rather immune from accusations about the idiot things he'd done in the past, at least as long as they had ended well. "Yer can do it two ways, either draw the ghost out, or go in and push it out. First one's safer, the second one more efficient."

Andre was quiet for a moment. "What's the risk, if we let things be until you can get back here?" he asked.

"Hard to say. Worst case, the ghost replaces Spider for good, destroying her personality." He had done that. "Not quite as bad, they coexist for so long Spider goes a little crazy. Madness is a strange thing, it can sometimes be as good a defense as anything, some people do go mad instead of being destroyed. It's hard to hurt somebody crazy. That can take a long time to recover from. Best case, she manages to keep sane and hopeful, and eventually the ghost might even start losing its grip and go away on its own. Like any disease."

He sighed a little. "Biggest shirt term danger though is her doing something bad in the real world. That's instant, brain damage takes a while, but to drop a baby, or stab someone in the back just takes a second. Hell, even things like turning Spider's friends against her or ruining her reputation is easy. If she gets pissed with you she might start to tell you bad things about Spider, secrets she kept from you, things the ghost says she really feels and so on. Don't trust a word it says, even when it tells you what you most fear to hear. It's gonna want to turn you two against each other."

Andre hesitated. "So the ghost can see into Spider's mind?" he asked. "What about...Ah. Can it see what we say when Spider's with me?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Chances are it's just gonna lie to you and make shit up. And it depends on how much integration the ghost has with Spider. Impossible to say from here. Maybe. If... okay, I have no idea if this is true or not. Depending on how long it has been, I'd guess that the ghost and spider are completely separate yet. Like a medium and her spirits. One goes in, the other goes away. But keep in mind that it might not be so, keep an ear open to see if things you've said to Spider are used by the ghost and so on. yer the only one hat can figure that out."