Ways to See a Ghost (11 page)

“Rather childish behaviour, I must say.”

“She
is
a child,” said Isis.

Mandeville turned his blue gaze back to Isis.

“No, she is a phantom. And she can be devoured, like the rest of us.”

He dropped the words like pieces of ice. Isis forgot there might be people watching, and spun on the bench to face him.

“Is that a threat?” she hissed.

“I am only pointing out what could happen, if you do nothing.”

Isis felt a shiver at her back, like something was already watching, and she wanted to rush over to Angel, grab her into safety. But she didn’t move. “I can’t help you,” she whispered.

“Won’t, you mean,” said Mandeville. “I know you
could
help, if you chose to. Your power is so strong, your mind so clean and open.”

Isis turned away, and the ghost stood up from the bench, sending a plume of murky dust into the air.

“Please,” whispered Mandeville. “By saving us, you would be saving yourself.”

“You caused the problem, not me.” she whispered back. Mandeville sighed, and then he funnelled down into the tiles, leaving only a fading stain.

Isis sat motionless, her heart thrumming. For some reason she kept glancing up at the glass ceiling.

“Hello, Isis.” A voice from behind her. She spun round,
knocking her book from the bench onto the floor. Gray was standing a metre away, holding a carrier bag with a shoebox inside it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. Isis blinked, trying to bring herself back to normal, but before she could answer, Gray noticed Cally over by her tent, and the sign saying F
ORTUNE
-T
ELLER.

“Oh…” His face was sympathetic.

Isis hunched a little. “She made me come along…”

“Because she couldn’t get a babysitter?” Gray finished the sentence for her.

Isis smiled. “That’s right.”

She looked past Gray. “Are you here with your friends?” She tried to ask it normally, even as her stomach twisted at the thought. If anyone from school saw her, if they saw Cally…

Gray shook his head.

“I’m here with Mum. She said I had to get new school shoes.” He pointed with his bag, and Isis saw a slim black woman near the shoe shop, talking into her mobile. It was instantly obvious she was Gray’s mum – her features joined up all the parts of Gray’s face that didn’t look like his dad. She was wearing a blue patterned shirt and linen
trousers, and her straightened hair was cut into a bob. She looked fashionable, respectable, the kind of mum who just brought you out to buy shoes.

Isis was filled with a sudden urge to rush over and ask if she could move in.

“She looks really nice,” she said.

“Suppose so,” said Gray, not even looking back. “Is Cally telling people’s fortunes then?”

Isis nodded, wanting to crawl underneath the bench.

“I didn’t know she could do that,” said Gray, sounding impressed.

“I don’t think she can,” said Isis. “But I don’t think she can do spirit readings either, so what difference does it make?”

Gray laughed, swinging the carrier bag against his legs.

“You’re so lucky,” said Isis, staring enviously at Gray’s mum. “I have to drag after Cally all the time, doing this stuff.”

“It’s the same with my dad and his UFOs,” said Gray.

“No it’s not!” said Isis. “No one sees you, your dad doesn’t make you sell tickets!” She was nearly shouting, shocking herself.

Gray’s carrier bag came to a stop. “Are you all right?” he asked, narrowing his eyes a little. “Is this girl stuff or something?”

“No!” She took in a breath.

“It’s since we went out to the field—” she started, but a crash echoed across the mall, cutting off her words. The chat and shuffle of the shoppers stilled for a moment, as people paused their shopping and looked around.

In front of the fortune-teller’s tent, Cally was picking up her knocked-over chair, the cause of the clatter. She was staring, red-faced, towards the entrance. The neat figure of a man was walking confidently towards her. Philip Syndal.

What did he want?

“Hang on a minute,” Isis said to Gray, and set off towards Cally, her pace getting quicker. He was a liar, a fraud – he’d proved that at the theatre.

Cally didn’t notice Isis, instead she smiled brightly at Philip, walking a few steps to meet him.

“Phil. How wonderful.” But it wasn’t quite convincing.

“I heard from another member of the society that you’d be here,” said Philip. “So I thought I’d come along, see you at work.”

Cally’s smile wavered. She fiddled with her dress and her newly bought shawl.

“Of course,” she said. “Um, they led me to expect something slightly more… professional when I agreed
to the booking.” She gestured at the shoppers, the tacky little tent.

Philip lightly touched her arm.

“It’s always this way when you start out,” he said kindly. “I worked the nightclubs. At least everyone here is sober.” He turned his head, spotting Isis. “I see you’ve brought your lovely daughter along.”

“She always comes to my performances,” said Cally, throwing a ‘behave yourself!’ look at Isis.

“Even on school nights?” smiled Philip.

Cally gave a slightly ashamed laugh. “Well she can do her homework in a corner. And if we get back really late I always let her sleep in. I just tell her teachers she isn’t feeling well.”

Isis blushed. Cally made it sound way worse than it was. She’d only lied to the teachers twice.

Philip didn’t answer, looking at Cally intently for a moment. Then he turned away.

“You know,” he said, “they do a very good cappuccino in the coffee bar here.”

But now people had started noticing him. Two middle-aged women were pointing. Another woman, carrying four shopping bags, pushed in front of Isis, then waved some
more people over. A little crowd started to form around Philip and Cally, mostly made up of women. The noise level was rising, the same excitement as had filled the theatre. Isis was getting pushed away from her mum.

Gray tapped her arm. He was behind her.

“Who’s your mum talking to?” he whispered.

Isis looked at him in surprise. “Don’t you know who Philip Syndal is?”

“Is he famous or something?”

“He’s a psychic. He’s been on telly!”

Gray shrugged. “I’ve never seen him.”

A woman pushed in front of them, then another, driving them back to the edges of the crowd. Philip was transforming himself for the growing audience, smiling and looking oddly handsome in the sunshine. He’d separated, ever so slightly, from Cally.

“He looks taller than just now,” said Gray, staring. “How’s he done that?”

“It’s called stage presence,” said Isis. “Cally says all the best stage psychics have it. It’s like an act, sort of.”

On the other side of the crowd, a red-haired woman wearing a stripy dress pushed her way towards Philip, holding out a scrap of paper and a pen.

“Can I have your autograph?”

And with that, the crowd was unleashed. Closing in on Philip, surrounding him with a solid wall of backs and jostling elbows. People jumped up and down to get a better look, holding up their phones to take pictures, their excited cries echoing back from the shop windows.

Gray tried to peer through, but there wasn’t even a crack in the scrum.

“Wow,” he said. “Look at them going for him!”

“Is Cally all right in there?” said Isis.

“Wouldn’t it be cool,” said Gray, “if your mum got to be a celebrity like him.” He stood on tiptoes. “You’d have loads of money.”

Around them people were stopping to watch the scramble for Philip, pausing the flow of shoppers around the mall, adding to the people-jam.

“Who is it? Who’s in there?” said a woman with blonde hair and a long summer dress, trying to shove her way through.

Gray jumped a few more times, then gave up.

“He must be really good at seeing ghosts,” he said.

Isis shook her head. “Me and Mum went to one of his shows. He couldn’t see them at all.”

Gray looked at her. “Then why…?”

Isis glared into the crowd. “What he’s really good at is fooling everyone.”

Gray didn’t question how she knew. Since the night in the field, the balance between them had shifted.

“Mandeville says he pretends the spirits tell him things, when really it’s stuff people have told him before the show.”

“Who’s Mandeville?” asked Gray.

Isis startled, her face reddening.

“Um… he’s a ghost,” she mumbled. “I met him at one of Cally’s seances, and a couple of times since.”

Gray widened his eyes. “You have the weirdest friends.”

“Mandeville isn’t my friend!” said Isis. “He’s really old, and mouldy too.”

Gray laughed. “Sometimes you sound crazy, you know?”

Isis folded her arms. “Why don’t you go back to your mum then?”

“Crazy is good!” said Gray, smiling. “Like seeing UFOs. Or your sister!”

“Angel!” Isis spun around, suddenly worried, scanning between the shoppers for a sight of the little ghost. “She’ll get frightened by all these people.”

“
She’ll
be frightened?”

“Of course!” said Isis. “She’s only little.”

She pushed through the still-spreading crowd, heading for the escalators where she’d last seen Angel. But there was no sign of her. She scanned the nearby shops. Bright red banners shouted S
UMMER
S
ALE
! and
30%
O
FF
!,
but there was no little ghost. Isis looked up the escalator to the upper floor, most of which was a large coffee shop. A group of older teenagers were lurking around the top of the stairs, peering down and laughing at the commotion below. Slouchy boys in low-slung trousers, and spiky girls wearing bright make-up and too-tight jeans.

Squeezed between two of them was a small faded figure.

“Can you see her?” asked Gray, looking in completely the wrong direction.

“There,” said Isis, nodding up at the teenagers. One of the girls was rubbing her arms against the cold, and looking confused.

“Are you going to get her?”

Isis looked at Gray. “Oh yes. I’ll just pop up there and say, ‘I’m here for my little sister. Don’t worry if you can’t see her, she’s a ghost.’”

“
Okay.
I was only asking,” said Gray

“If I wait, she’ll come down…” started Isis, but her attention was caught by a gleam of blue on the clear curve of the glass roof. Too dark to be the sky, and too close.

The gleam moved. Pouring itself along the white steel frames that held the glass, flowing like water. It oozed towards one of the roof supports, collecting into an impossible puddle.

It spread its wings across the windows. The sun shone through them without touching. Something like a head turned and looked down.

Straight at Angel.

“What’s
up there?”

Isis could see Gray was struggling to understand. She tried again.

“I’ve seen it before at the theatre. It sort of dropped onto Philip Syndal and grabbed away this ghost he’d called up to the stage.”

“Hang on, I thought you said Philip was a fake?”

“He…” Isis faltered, trying to think. “Mandeville said he was using tricks, but he’s psychic too.” She wavered. If Philip Syndal had any talent, why hadn’t he spotted Angel in his own home?

“Mandeville the ghost?” asked Gray, looking more confused.

Isis nodded. “He was at the theatre too. Inside a woman.”

Gray opened his mouth and shut it again. He squinted up at the glass roof. “And now this… ghost grabber is in the shopping centre?”

“It’s at the top of that pole,” said Isis, “by the glass.”

“Up there?” Gray pointed.

“Don’t!” hissed Isis, slapping his arm down. “It might see you!”

“Are you winding me up?” said Gray.

“No! That thing is stalking Angel. Mandeville called it a Devourer. He said it eats ghosts or something.”

Gray paused, then turned to look up at the escalators. “And is Angel still up there?” he asked.

Isis nodded. The teenagers were bunched together at the entrance to the coffee shop, getting told off by a security guard. “Legitimate shoppers feel intimidated with you here…” he was saying loudly.

“We’re legitimate shoppers,” said one of the boys, waving a drinks can. “I bought this.”

Angel, the pale sprite, was still playing amongst them, unnoticed by everyone. Except for the blue-wash creature above, watching her with its many eyes, and gathering itself to strike.

Isis stood still at the bottom of the escalators, hesitating.

“Go on then,” said Gray.

The ridged metal steps trundled up with a constant rumble. At the top of the escalators, the teenagers moved just enough to placate the security guard. Angel went with them, and the slime of blue slipped along the ceiling, keeping track.

Isis turned to Gray.

“I can’t get to her without them noticing,” she said.

He shrugged. “So?”

So they’d see her talking to the air. Then they’d see her arguing with the air, grabbing hold of it and dragging it away. Her stomach tightened at the thought. The insults and laughter, the sly punch to put her in her place. She faced it every day at school – she didn’t want to face it here as well.

“They’ll think I’m a freak,” she said quietly, hating herself for being afraid.

But the overhead blue was spreading now, getting deeper, as if the whole shopping mall were a submarine descending into water. What the teenagers might say didn’t matter, nothing mattered but Angel.

Isis took a breath. “You stay here,” she said to Gray.

“Why?” he said, his heavy eyebrows shadowing his eyes.
And he stepped onto the escalator, rising smoothly away from her, his hand on the moving rail.

Isis stared, then jumped on after.

“They’ll think you’re a freak too,” she said.

Gray shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“What shall we do?”

He shrugged again. “I don’t know. Something.”

They were carried upwards, the air thickening and flickering into a blue only Isis could see. As if she were really, dizzily, diving down into the sea. The sky was obscured by the vast, spreading bulk of the creature. It filled the top of the mall, its multiple shifting eyes focused on Angel.

If it took her away, like it took the ghost at the theatre…

“We have to hurry!” cried Isis, one fear overcoming another. She pushed past Gray, running straight off the escalator towards the teenage gang. They were chatting together, drinking from their cans and eating crisps. All of them ignored Isis, except for one of the girls; arms crossed under her crop top, one hip pushed out. She glared at Isis from under scraped-back hair.

“You want something?”

Angel’s head poked out through the girl’s jeans, as if her legs weren’t there. Isis wanted to grab the little ghost, but
she couldn’t imagine what would happen if she stuck her hand between the girl’s legs.

“Isis! I here!” Angel called, before vanishing again.

The girl rubbed at her goosebumpy bare arms.

“What’s wrong with this place?” she snapped. “Why can’t they sort the temperature out?” She glared at Isis again. “And what’s up with you? You got something wrong with your eyes, or is it your brain?”

Isis realised she was squinting, trying to see through the gloopy depths created by the blue-wash creature. She shook her head, opening her eyes.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” she managed.

Gray caught up, and the girl flicked a scornful glance over him.

“Hello,” he said, very loud and bright. “My name’s Gray. Who are you?”

The others turned challenging stares on him. Four boys and three girls, spreading out into a loose semicircle around Gray and Isis.

One lad was slim and good looking, holding himself like he owned the place. He pointed his can at Gray’s carrier bag.

“You come up here to give me a present? What is it?”

The others laughed.

“It’s his shoes,” Isis said. “They wouldn’t fit you.”

The air darkened a little more. The creature was wrapping itself around the mall like silk.

“Then why is he giving them to me?” said the
good-looking
lad, making a grab for the bag.

Gray whipped it out of reach. “I’m not,” he said.

“Go back to your shopping,” said one of the girls. “Buy yourselves some dollies or whatever.”

Gray ignored her, and pointed down the escalator, to the floor below where the crowd was still milling about. To Philip and Cally, caught in the middle of it.

“Do you know who they are?” he asked.

“Do I look like I care?” answered the girl.

“Are they famous?” asked one of the boys.

Gray nodded. “Famous ghost hunters. That’s what they’re doing here, looking for ghosts.”

The boy rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, right.”

But the others were already peering past Gray and Isis.

“You serious?” asked the girl with the scraped-back hair. “Like, really ghost hunters? Like on TV?”

Gray nodded, then pointed at Isis. “And she’s one too.”

Isis jumped, staring at Gray in panic.

The good-looking boy laughed.

“I see dead people,”
he said, mockingly.

Overhead, many eyes were focused on Angel. The deep blue shifted into an eye-aching violet.

“She really is psychic!” said Gray. Isis glared at him, but he took no notice. “One of the best there is.”

“If she’s the best, why is everyone mobbing that bald man down there?” asked the scraped-back-hair girl. Gray ignored her, carrying on.

“Do you know why she’s up here? It’s because there’s a ghost with you lot. Right now.” He turned to Isis. “Isn’t that right?”

Isis couldn’t speak. He’d just told total strangers something she’d only ever spoken of once in her whole life!

“Go on,”
he whispered, like they had a plan or something.

Angel put her head out through the one of the boys, who shuddered.

“How Gray know I here?” she squeaked, before disappearing again.

Well she’d have to carry it on now, whatever Gray was planning.

“Have any of you been feeling cold?” she asked, her voice squeaking a bit.

The gang looked at each other, and one boy nodded.

“Yeah. It’s like, really warm today, but there’s these patches of cold, even in the sunshine.”

“Oh my God!” squealed one of the girls. “That is
exactly
what I’ve been feeling.”

Next thing, they were all loudly agreeing with each other, describing their own shivers and goosebumps.

“We’re being haunted!” shrieked one of the girls. She looked at Isis. “Oh my God, is it a zombie or something?”

“Zombies aren’t ghosts. Don’t you know nothing?” said one of the boys.

Angel popped out again. “I not stombie!” she cried. “I Angel!”

Isis glanced up. Above them, claws let go of the column, wings folded back.

“Angel,
” she whispered, focusing on her hand. She whipped her arm forwards and grabbed the little ghost, right from next to one of the teenagers.

“Hey!” shouted the girl. “What you doing? Don’t you even try and touch me!”

Isis pulled Angel towards her, trying to shield her from
the creature gathering above. The air fizzed into a whining, crackling blue, like it was electrically charged.

“Have you got Angel?” asked Gray.

“Angels?” said the good-looking boy. “You said it was ghosts!”

Isis put her arms around Angel. Everyone was turning into shadows, lost in the ink-washed gloom.

Angel let out a high scream.

“It’s here!” cried Isis, trying to run. But the air had turned to glue, she was wading through it. Teeth filled the dark, biting at her from strange angles. Clawlike hands took freezing hold of her shoulders, shaking her.

“Isis!” wailed Angel.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, “I’ve got you.” Trying to keep her mind focused, trying to keep her arms around Angel’s nothing-form.

“What’s she
doing?”
laughed one of the teenagers.

“She’s not a ghost hunter, she’s just mental!”

More hands poured out of the creature, out of nowhere. They gripped Isis, trying to force her arms open. Angel screamed and was lifted off the floor, numberless hands pulling at her feet, gripping her ankles, tugging at her clothes and her hair.

Isis willed every thought into her hands, focusing on holding Angel, gripping as tight as she could. But the little ghost was being pulled away from her – she could feel her hold slipping. Endless fingers pinched particles of light out of Angel, carrying them back to a thousand hungry mouths. Angel’s screams grew frantic.

Somewhere, distantly, Isis could hear the shrieks and laughter of the teenagers, still in their otherworld of bright sunshine and shops. The creature roared in a breath through many mouths, like a storm bending a forest. Angel jerked almost out of Isis’s grasp, and she gripped harder, feeling her nails bite into her palms. But Angel’s substance was falling away, Isis was losing even the shape of her. All she had left were their tight-held hands as they desperately clung to each other.

“Isis!” Angel’s thin wail fell upwards. “Mummy!”

“Angel!” Isis’s tears turned to ice on her cheeks. Angel was unravelling into spider silk, her scream a breathless whine.

“I can’t hold her!” Isis cried out, but no one came to help. No one could even see what was happening. The only reply was mocking laughter, from somewhere beyond the flickering ocean of blue.

Isis felt her fingers get warmer, as Angel slipped through them.