Ways to See a Ghost (4 page)

“They’re ghosts,” said Isis. “Like you!”

“I know. I looked back on my former self and laughed at my foolishness. I’d caught myself in this wretched limbo, thanks to my own false hopes.”

“Why don’t you leave then?” said Isis. “My mum says ghosts should head for a tunnel of light. She says it leads to the next world.”

The old dead man pulled a skeletal look of scorn. “Of course, how stupid of me. And does your mother happen to have a map to help me find this wonderful tunnel?” He sighed. “I sometimes feel as if the best of me has already moved on, and I can’t even remember what it was.” He tilted his mouldy head, peering at Angel, who was hiding behind the roundabout. “May I ask, were you able to see ghosts before her?”

Isis ignored his question.

“Is this
for
anything?” she hissed. “Can’t you go away now?”

The ghost shook his head.

“How can I?” he asked. “Do you know how rare a true psychic is? Especially one so strong, so… sane.”

Isis folded her arms. “Leave me alone.”

The ghost put his hands together in prayer or pleading, his fingernails withered and cracked.

“We need you, Isis Dunbar. We need a saviour.”

Isis stayed still. “What does that mean?”

He put a finger to his mould-speckled lips, then whispered, “We ghosts haunt the darkening plains, my dear. But there are darker places still, into which even the spirits fear to go. The unwary few who drift in and manage to return, they speak of creatures lurking there. Devourers of souls.
Things
. Now one of these has left its dark existence, and is in our very midst.”

Isis came a little closer to him, despite herself. “What’s it doing?”

The elderly ghost’s eyes were lines of blue. “It is feeding, my dear.”

“Who are you talking to?”

She jumped, spinning around. Gray was a few metres away, head tilted. He must’ve seen her. Heard her!

Panic flapped through her mind.

“I… um write poetry,” she said quickly. “I was just… trying it out loud.” She looked straight at Gray, trying to hold her gaze steady.
Poetry?

Gray pulled his hands inside the sleeves of his raincoat.
“Why is it so cold over here?”

Isis shrugged, heart galloping in her chest.

“Goodbye!” said the ghost, waggling his fingers as he dissolved into the tarmac. “When we meet again, you may call me Mandeville.”

Isis didn’t answer.

“Go on, you do it. I can’t.” Cally’s voice was breathless, a whisper. She was standing by the door, eyes wide, hands white-knuckled on the letter.

Isis pressed her finger on the grey plastic circle of the doorbell, and a ding-dong tune played distantly. They waited.

Isis turned to Cally.

“Are you
sure
this is the right place?”

They were in front of a large, squarely built house, one of many on the long street. Each one was planted in a wide plot, surrounded by blank, featureless lawns and reached by red-brick driveways. Only small differences picked the houses apart: a newly planted tree, a rosebush under the window, a different-coloured door. This one had diamond-patterned
windows, which gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight, reflecting away any view of the inside.

Cally scanned the thick cream paper, and nodded. “Definitely. This is twelve Worthington Avenue.”

Isis pressed the doorbell again. The tune tinkled, and this time the handle crunched downwards, the door swinging open. A plump, soft-faced man regarded them from under mousey, thinning hair. He was dressed in pale jeans and a lemon yellow pullover.

“Oh, hello,” stammered Cally. “We’re early I think. I’m Calista, and this is my daughter…”

The man smiled, his face transformed by dimples and wrinkles. Not handsome exactly, but… something.

“Of course!” he said, reaching to shake Cally’s hand. “I’m so pleased you could make it. I’m Philip Syndal.” He opened the door wider. “Please, call me Phil.”

“I’ve been to your performances!” said Cally, smiling and enthusiastic. “And read all your books. But I never dreamed that… I mean, this invitation means so much… I just wanted to thank you. Thank you.”

He smiled at Cally, then turned the beam on Isis, before beckoning them inside.

“You’ve been attracting attention with your work,”
he said, as they walked into his house. “We believe you could be a very useful member of the Welkin Society, especially at this time.” Philip Syndal turned to Isis, examining her from his plain grey eyes. “And your daughter is welcome too.”

He closed the door behind them, shutting off suburbia.

The inside of the house was completely different from its bland exterior. Isis stared at the wide, double-height entrance hall and the dark-wood staircase leading to the upstairs. The walls were painted green above the skirting, the colour blending into sky blue further up and then rich, midnight blue over their heads. Pinprick lights spotted the high, night-sky ceiling, with paintings of wistful, shimmering men and women curling between them. They were packed together; their oversized butterfly wings fluttering awkwardly from their backs, their limbs jumbled and confusing in some places. As if the artist had struggled to fit them all in.

Isis tipped her head back, staring.

“I see you’ve noticed my guardians,” said Philip, standing close beside her.

“Are they… fairies?” she asked.

“Spirits, or angels perhaps.” He gazed at the figures. “The artist was recommended by Norman.” There was the
tiniest pause before he said the dead man’s name, his grief clear but restrained. “The artist says she paints what she sees. These are portraits of the beings she saw circling this house, acting for my protection.”

“Oh,” said Isis. She hadn’t seen anything circling his red-tiled roof, except for a couple of squawking jackdaws.

“How wonderful to have them watching over you,” said Cally. “So many people only think of spirits as being frightening, when there are also these messengers of goodness.”

“The angels are always with us,” said Philip.

“Oh I’ve read it!” cried Cally. “It’s wonderful.” It was the title of one of his books; they were all lined up neatly on a shelf back at their flat.

Philip smiled, modestly accepting her praise.

“
I
Angel,” said a small voice.

Isis went still.

“I Angel,” said the voice again. Isis turned her head, as casually as she could, and saw Angel standing by the door. She was wearing a pink dress, and the flowery sandals. The little girl-ghost spoke again.

“I here. I Angel.”

Isis glared at her.

Go away!
She didn’t even dare whisper it, not here. She glanced back at Philip and Cally, now deep in conversation.

“Of course,” Philip was saying, “this is a very difficult time for the society. Our founder was so dedicated, I hardly feel worthy to continue his work.”

“Oh yes, Norman Welkin was a very great man.” Cally said his name awkwardly, with an undertone of embarrassment.

“You were there, I understand?” said Philip. “When he was…” He stopped, looking up as if to hold back tears. Cally blushed and nodded.

“Sondra… called me to try and find him.” She almost whispered the words, and Isis held herself still, hoping Philip wouldn’t ask anything else. Like, whether Cally had a screaming match with Norman Welkin’s girlfriend, just before he turned up as a body.

But Philip only wiped his eyes, his soft face settling into a mournful expression. “I still don’t know why she didn’t call me. I would have done anything for him, anything.”

Cally shrugged, looking even more awkward. “I… don’t think there’s anything you could have done,” she said. “He had already passed.”

Philip nodded. “Which makes me even more grateful
for my powers. Because I can still gain from his wisdom, when he speaks to me from the spirit world.”

“Oh yes, of course. I’m sure he has so much to tell you!”

Behind their backs, Isis flapped her hands at Angel.

“Go home!” she mouthed, making a ‘get lost’ face at the little ghost.

Any moment, Philip Syndal would look round and see Angel. Cally said he was one of the best clairvoyants in the country, so surely he’d spot a ghost right inside his house? She was always talking about his sell-out tours, and quoting from his books. She’d recorded a chat show he’d been on, watching it over and over afterwards, so many times that Isis knew the ten-minute snippet by heart. The host’s mocking scepticism at the start, then her increasing astonishment as Philip Syndal revealed a string of startling facts about her, as told to him by the spirits. By the end, the woman was on the edge of tears, and the audience applauding wildly.

It was why Isis had told Angel to stay at home.

“The Welkin Society is for psychics,” she’d whispered, last night in bed with Angel resting cross-legged on her pillow. “They’ll see you.”

Angel had nodded her little head in the dark. “I do it.”

But she always forgot her promises.

Any moment now Philip would notice the little ghost-girl, and he’d ask Cally about her. The old double-dread swept through Isis. Of Cally being exposed as talentless, and at the same time discovering she wasn’t even able to sense the spirit of her own daughter.

“It boring at home,” said Angel from by the door. “I not like it on my own.”

“Go
away
!” mouthed Isis. She sidled towards the door. If she could get in front of Angel, maybe Philip wouldn’t see her.

“I’m so excited to be meeting everyone,” Cally continued, pushing her hair back from her face and smoothing it down with her hand. The way she always did when she was nervous.

Philip Syndal smiled, his face transforming once more from bland into charming.

“Well, our meeting may be a little more sombre than usual, but having you here is the boost we need in this difficult time.”

Isis took another sideways step, and the movement caught Philip’s eye. His eyes fixed on Isis, then flickered
past her. Towards the door, towards Angel.

Isis held a breath in her throat.

But there was no frown on Philip’s face, no puzzlement at the small, mop-top ghost by his front door.

“Would you like, um, something to drink?” he asked Isis. “I’ve got some orange squash. And some biscuits. You can wait in the kitchen while the meeting’s going on. There’s a TV in there.”

Isis breathed out.

“That’s so kind, isn’t it, Isis?” Cally said. She turned back to Philip. “I couldn’t get a babysitter, you see. And of course I couldn’t leave her home alone.”

Philip nodded. “Of course.”

He hadn’t noticed Angel!

Or, he was even better at keeping secrets than Isis.

The kitchen door wasn’t quite shut. Through the crack, if she stood in the right place, Isis could see into the hallway. Philip was welcoming a large, middle-aged woman, dressed in a vast red-velvet dress, her hair a bowl shape of short, dark curls. So far there’d been three men and four women, and Philip had led them all into one of the rooms off the hall. A room Isis hadn’t been allowed to see.

Behind her, on the breakfast bar, a glass of orange squash sat untouched and a plate of chocolate biscuits uneaten. A fast-paced cartoon was battering out of the TV on the wall. Isis had turned the sound up a little too loud, to convince the adults she was busy, and as a result Philip was apologising to the curly haired woman.

“That racket will disturb the harmony of the spirits,” she was saying, her voice crisp.

“The spirits are fond of children, Andrea,” Philip said soothingly. “And we won’t be able to hear in the other room.”

The woman didn’t look convinced, but headed through the door. As he followed her, Philip turned his head towards the kitchen, and winked at Isis. She jumped a little, then smiled.

There was a hint of tugging at her jumper.

“What you doing? I want to see!” Angel pushed her way to the gap in the door, desperately trying to squeeze her head through.

“There’s nothing,” whispered Isis. “They’ve all gone in.”

“What Mummy doing?” Angel wriggled a bit further. “I want to see Mummy.”

“No!” Isis put her hand in front of her little ghost-sister,
holding her back. Angel was a nothing-cool kiss on her skin. “Mummy’s in an important meeting.”

And it was important. Cally had been jittering about it for the last three weeks. No, it was ever since she’d decided to become a clairvoyant. Isis remembered Cally’s handwritten career plan, the one she’d come up with in the bad old black days.

It was their grief counsellor who’d suggested the list, and Isis hadn’t known if he was trying to encourage Cally or put her off. He’d passed Cally a pen and paper, saying, “Writing things down can help you to focus.”

Then he’d turned to Isis.

“You’re very quiet. How do you feel about your mother’s idea?”

She’d been struck dumb for a moment, panicking he’d somehow found her out. It didn’t help that a see-through Angel was jumping up and down on the sofa, right next to him.

Maybe Isis was really the one who’d lost it, maybe she should’ve been writing lists.

“Whatever Cally wants,” she’d said at last. “I don’t mind.”

Whatever it took to get her mum back, instead of the shell-woman who’d taken her place after Angel died and Dad left. The shell-woman stayed in her room, curtains shut, while Isis got herself ready for school. She was sitting on the sofa, staring, when Isis got home. The shell-woman let their house drift into dirty chaos, and their meals transform from healthy, to oven-ready, to random. Worst of all, the shell-woman had nothing behind her eyes, like she’d left as well. Isis stopped calling her ‘Mum’ around then, but the shell-woman hadn’t noticed.

The funny thing was, the grief counsellor was right: working at being a psychic had given Cally focus. Isis’s mum had returned. Slowly, and in bits and pieces, but Isis had hoarded up those precious flashes, hoping. Even the seances and the tours were a little less humiliating, when she thought about those moments. And now here they were: number four on Cally’s list. At Philip Syndal’s house, joining the Welkin Society.

“We in kitchen,” said Angel, as if she’d only just realised. “Can we make cakes?”

Isis laughed. Being dead hadn’t dampened Angel’s enthusiasm for baking. As a living toddler, she’d been able to shove an entire cupcake in her mouth in one go. Now, she floated on the sweet steam as they came out of the oven, the way birds ride updrafts in the wind.

“I don’t think Philip would like me cooking.” Isis could just imagine his face. “You’ll have to watch the cartoons.”

“I want cake.” Angel hurtled headlong for the oven, straight in through its door. Her head came back out of the glass window. “It not even hot,” she said. “He
won’t
mind.”

“I think he will.” Isis knelt down, next to Angel’s head. “You can’t just make food in someone’s house, not without asking them.”

Angel’s tongue peeped out of her mouth as she thought. Her face brightened.

“I ask him then!” she said.

“No!” Isis leaped to grab at the little spirit, but Angel was a wisp in the air, then gone.

“Ange
l
!” Isis whisper-shouted, slamming open the kitchen door, running into the hall.

Angel was at the far wall, her small hands splayed against the greeny-blue, her head and shoulders already faded
into it. Isis threw herself after, fingernails scraping wallpaper, but she couldn’t catch her ghost-sister.