Ways to See a Ghost (18 page)

“I don’t want it!” she cried again.

Philip smiled kindly. “It won’t hurt.”

Angel flung herself at him, hitting him with her two small hands. He looked down. “You can’t even make me shiver, little one.”

Isis pulled her arm out of his grasp, staggering away from him. “Leave us alone!”

Philip’s eyes were as black as an ocean. “I can’t, you see?” Above them, the darkening sky was cut by the shape of wings, so blue they could hardly be seen.

Isis stumbled away from him, frightened and panicky. The smell of wheat and dusty grass filled her nose, the smell of mould and musty clothes.

A dirty cloud swirled around them, and the dank figure of Mandeville appeared. A tall, bony ghost between Isis and Philip Syndal.

“Leave her alone!” Mandeville roared, in a voice only they could hear. “I was wrong to bring it to you, but what you’re doing is much worse!”

Philip frowned at the ghost. “You’ve no right to lecture me. You’re just another soul shaving, another nothing, whatever you tell yourself.” He looked over to the edge of the field. “Just another meal.”

Philip held up his hand, signalling, and the night filled with the silent noise of beating wings.

“She can save us! Let me tell her how—” Mandeville cried, but his words were cut off as the wings smothered around him, claws and teeth ripping in. Gouts of mouldy dust burst around Isis as she flung herself away, almost falling. Mandeville’s scream faded into nothing, lost in the
blue-lit, glittering fog. Isis swatted at her arms and legs, as freezing bites nipped her all over. Eyes watched her out of the fog, unattached to anything.

“Angel!” Isis’s scream was flat and quiet in the mist. Soft cold fluttered on her face, snowflakes falling out of the summer air.

As quickly as it descended, the ghost-eater left. Ravelling its wings into tattery swirls, dribbling into the ground, its eyes staring out of the night-blackened grass, then fading.

“Angel!” Isis spotted her little ghost-sister standing hunched by the hedge, faded and fragile as a dried leaf. Isis ran and picked her up into a freezing cuddle.

“You two are so sweet,” said Philip.

Isis turned round. She would have backed away if she wasn’t already at the hedge.

“Where’s Mandeville?”

Philip shrugged. “He’s gone.” He rubbed his arms briskly. “A bit chilly isn’t it? Maybe we should go back to the others, see if we can find you a jumper or something.”

“What happened to him?” asked Isis, shock trembling in her legs.

Philip shrugged. “It took him of course. I always knew it would in the end.”

A dark fog was oozing back out of the ground, washing around Philip’s feet. Tendrils of darkness twirled onto his legs, draining into him like backwards blood. Angel squealed and tried to climb further into Isis’s arms.

“Don’t be frightened,” said Philip, “it won’t take your sister. You made a bargain, remember?”

“I didn’t bargain,” said Isis, staring at the fog pouring into him, trying to kick away the mist rising at her own feet.

You see more clearly than any other. You will help me take hold.

Memory words drifted into her mind.

“You see more clearly than any other,” said Philip. “You will help me take hold.”

Isis looked up, startled. His face was blank and empty.

I am hungry. You will be my feast-giver.

“I am hungry,” said Philip. “You will be my feast-giver.”

Angel squealed and dropped like a breath of ice through Isis’s arms, vanishing off into the night. In the distance, Isis heard a woman shout and a man answer, as everything around them blazed into white, and lights began bursting out of the new night. Isis looked up and saw leaves. Golden-green and softly pointed, drifting into the sky, filling the air with upward leaf-fall.

She watched, transfixed, while the Devourer slid its tendrils across the ground towards her. Wrapping itself around her ankles.

I rang Mum. I mean, what else could I do?

I couldn’t tell her what was happening, so I said Dad had left me on my own while he went off with Cally. Mum went nuclear. In about three minutes, her car screeched up outside the house, with her like a thunderclap inside it. Yelling about Dad the whole time. I didn’t know she could swear like that.

“Where’s he gone?” she snarled, like she wanted to rip his head off. I gave her the bit of paper with the coordinates on, and she punched them into her satnav. We drove so fast, it was only my seat belt that stopped me flying all over the car. The last bit was walking through fields, nearly in the dark, which only got her madder because she was
wearing her best red dress and high heels for her meal out with Brian. She was screaming at Dad before we even got in the field.

“What kind of a father are you? Leaving your son on his own! Going off with some
woman
!”

“Jenice?” Dad was staring at us like he couldn’t believe his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“What am
I
doing?” screeched Mum. “What are
you
? You don’t even have Gray every weekend and you
leave
him? For this?” She pointed into the field, where people were standing weirdly still in the wheat. “For
them
?”

I looked around. “Where’s Isis?”

“So I left him on his own!” Dad shouted back at Mum. “Gray’s not five, he can look after himself! Nothing would’ve happened, I was coming back in the morning.”

“Where’s Isis?” I asked, louder. There was no sign of her, or Philip Syndal.

“I do everything for Gray!” yelled Mum. “And you can’t even look after him for
one
night? Is this the first time you’ve left him?” Mum swung round at me. “Gray, tell me if this is the first time.”

Dad glared at me, Mum glared at me.

“Well, is it?” growled Dad, daring me to tell.

They were like zombies, the way they looked in the light from the computer screens. Sort of grey, with just their eyes and teeth showing up. Then, in a flash, they changed. I could see every line on Dad’s face, every strand of Mum’s hair. A light blazed from the sky right above us, a hanging spotlight. Then another, and another.

“Oh my God!” cried Mum. “What’s happening?”

“It’s starting!” shouted Dad.

“Where’s
Isis
?” I yelled at Dad. “Where is she?”

“Huh?” said Dad. He wasn’t even looking at Mum and me – his eyes were on his monitors and gear. “Oh, she went for a pee. That way.” He pointed along the hedge line. “About twenty minutes ago.”

I turned round, trying to see into the newly lit field.

“Twenty minutes ago!” said Mum. “What child pees for twenty minutes?”

“It’s only a field, there’s nothing out there.”

“She could’ve fallen!” yelled Mum. “She could be lying with a broken leg!”

“Don’t start!” Dad shouted. “Isis has got her own mum!”

I heard Cally call out, further off. “What is it? What about Isis?” But I didn’t listen to the rest, because I was running along the grass beside the field, the thorny stems
of the hedge whipping at my face. I ran, stopped to look for Isis, ran on again.

“Isis!” I shouted. “Isis!” I stopped again, peering into the field. The lights were pinging out all over the sky now, and everything was either blinding bright or
pitch-black
. Crazy, random shadows criss-crossed everywhere. I could hardly see a thing.

“Isis!” I ran out into the rustling crop, a hundred shadows dancing around me. “Isis!”

I was so scared for what might be happening to her. Shivering and cold with it. My left hand was the worst, like it was in a bucket of ice or something. Then it went back to normal. Then it started freezing again. I stared at my hand, my fingers looking strange in that strobing light. My hand was warm, then freezing again, like something cold was wrapping around it. Something about the size of a tiny hand.

“Angel?” I whispered. “Is that you?” The cold seemed to tug at my hand.

“Do you know where she is?” The cold pulled my hand, leading me.

It was really weird, getting led by a ghost. We went out of the crop, back to the grass and along the edge of
the field. I wondered if I was imagining it, but I was going in a straight line, through all the flashing light and patches of black.

I couldn’t see them at first, what with all the lights and shadows everywhere, but then… Philip Syndal had got hold of Isis. He was tipping her head back, trying to break her neck or something.

“Get away from her!” I screamed, running straight at them, still holding Angel’s cold-nothing hand. I smacked right into Philip, but neither of them even noticed me, like they were stunned or something. I grabbed Isis’s arm, to pull her away from him.

And that’s when I saw.

Because Angel had grabbed hold of Isis too, connecting us up. I could see what Isis could.

The lights in the sky weren’t just lights any more, they were these glowing leaves. Millions of them. You know the kind of green that leaves are in spring, when the sun’s shining through them? Well those leaves in the sky were like that. But they were other colours too: golds and reds, like spring and autumn happening at the same time. The leaves fluttered upwards, swirling in patterns, and behind them the faint shapes of trees filled the night,
speckled with stars. A ghost-forest glimmering in the sky.

It was so beautiful, like nothing you’ve ever seen. I wanted to look at it for the rest of my life, I wanted to fly up with the leaves.

But that wasn’t why I started screaming.
“Isis! Isis!”

Because it wasn’t just her and Philip Syndal, staring up at the silver trees and leaves of golden light. Darkness was wrapped around the two of them. Oily slugs pulsed from the ground into their bodies, wriggling tentacles oozed back out again. Philip Syndal was sicking out this river of blue-black slime. And Isis… had ribbons of blue-dark pouring out of her eyes.

The ghost-eater was stretching itself out of their bodies. Gurgling and bubbling into the sky, wrapping itself around the golden leaves and swallowing every light it could reach. Turning them into nothing…

My head hurts. Why does my head hurt?

She was deep and warm. Cradled between grains of soil, water seeping through her. She put out a single root, creeping down, searching for more water and the tang of the earth. Anchoring herself. Then, up. Pushing with her leaves, seeking the bright face of the sun.

A feast.

The sparkling touch of light fed her, giving her the strength to go further. She unfurled her leaves and burst from the soil, the sunshine tasting of honey as she tracked it through the sky. Light and dark took turns, and in the cold times she pulled herself into the earth, hiding inside her roots. Waiting for the sun’s return and the tingling taste of spring.

The greatest feast.

Sap flowed, and she put out a thousand new leaves, her bark thickening, her branches reaching for the sky and the wind blowing through them…

You are my feast-giver.

“ISIS!”

She gasped, her heart pounding.

“ISIS!” Gray was shaking her by the arm. “Wake up!”

She tried to look at him, but there was something over her eyes, blurring everything into a dim murk. She could feel him slapping at her, brushing things off.

Ignore him!
She remembered the command.
Look up. Take me back to them.

“Isis!” Angel was calling her now.

She rubbed her eyes and the blur faded.

“Ugh!” An oily ooze was running down her arm, dripping and coiling onto the ground. Angel stamped on the blue-black coils with her sandals, grinding them into the earth.

“Come on.” Gray was pulling at Isis. “We’ve got most of it off, but you have to get out of here.”

Angel caught hold of her other hand, both of them trying to drag her somewhere.

What was happening?

Plants brushed against her arms and she tripped on their thick stems. A field? But why was it so bright? Why would there be lights over a field?

Look back up, lead me to them
.

She started to tilt her head.

“No! Don’t!” yelled Gray, pushing her head down. She saw something on the ground, a dribble of oily water trickling towards her feet. It climbed up over her shoe, heading for the flesh of her ankle.

Stop.

A breath of emptiness blew into her mind, filling her with hunger.

There is a feast.

“There is a feast.” Isis heard her own mouth whisper the words.

“You have to fight it!” cried Gray.

“Pease, Isis! Pease!” whispered Angel.

Gray was dragging her. Her foot took a step, but her legs felt pinned, super-heavy.

“Come
on
!” he shouted, kicking and stamping at the tendril holding her.

It was like pulling her foot from a cold fire. She cried out
with the effort of freeing herself, but the tendril lost its grip.

“It bited you,” said Angel, pulling her along with cold, invisible fingers. “You got to go.”

They led her away, one of her hands in Gray’s warm grip, the other in Angel’s freezing one. As she ran, she started to remember. Flashes of what she’d just seen and heard.

“It took Mandeville,” she gasped, seeing again the ghost being ripped into pieces. She started running properly, through dazzling patches of golden-white light and sudden, dizzying shadows. But her legs wouldn’t work the way she wanted them to, it felt like they ought to be burrowing down, holding her to the ground. And her feet seemed so flimsy, so… movable. She kept tripping and stumbling.

“When the Devourer touched me,” she panted, “it just moved in.”

“You have to keep fighting!” Gray answered, picking up his pace.

And now she understood what had happened at the shopping centre. She hadn’t fought off the Devourer, it had let her go. After playing with her like a cat plays with a mouse. It had never wanted Angel, it had only been testing her; plotting the paths of her mind and opening doorways for itself.

“It’s so strong,” she said to Gray. “Philip said it keeps getting bigger, it never stops being hungry.”

He looked back at her without speaking, but his wide eyes showed his understanding.

They ran on. In the sky, almost over their heads, light was swirling together into a blinding, whirling tower. It was impossible not to look up. Gray and Isis together, with Angel binding their sight.

This time, Isis only saw the blazing column without being pulled into a vision. Gray’s view was her anchor, holding her down. And sharing Isis’s eyes, he saw the golden leaves and silver trees of the ghost-forest, stretching to the edges of the sky. Together they heard the non-existent sound of chainsaws and smelled the wood smoke.

“They kept on killing the trees,” whispered Isis.

“Until there were none left,” answered Gray.

“Look!” shouted Angel, bringing them back.

Beneath the lights filling up the night was the dark sprawl of the ghost-eater. Still curled through and around Philip, it oozed out of his eyes and mouth, slobbering around him in the sightless colours of the deepest ocean. Its eyes stared upwards, its hands and tentacles reached up to the ghost-trees in the sky, trying to catch their glowing
forms in twilight coils and pull them down into one of its champing mouths. It missed more than it caught, but each time it fed it swelled, flopping and sagging out across the field. A vast ooze, tethered to the distant figure of Philip Syndal.

Isis groaned. “The bargain.”

Gray looked at her.

“In the shopping centre, I was trying to think of anything except where you’d gone with Angel. I thought about going out UFO hunting, with you and your dad. I thought about what I’d seen in the sky.”

She could see Gray starting to understand. “The
ghost-birds
?”

She nodded miserably.

“You showed it the ghost of a whole species,” said Gray. “That’s what they are, I worked it out.” He gasped. “The Devourer must have known what they were straight away. That’s why Philip Syndal wanted to go UFO hunting so much!”

“It’s always hungry,” Isis whispered, remembering Philip’s words. “Never satisfied.”

And it was still in her mind too. Swallowing and muttering an incessant, maddening murmur.

feast a feast a feastfeast a feastafeastafeast afeastfeastfeast a feast a feast

She looked at Gray, her stomach twisting inside. “I don’t know how to fight it.”

Her fear was reflected in his face. “Can’t you do anything?”

She wiped at tears she couldn’t stop from falling. “It knows my mind,” she said. “It’s already in me. It’s going to take me over, and I’ll be just like him.”

They stared at Philip Syndal, barely visible, sunk inside the monster.

“You bite it!” said Angel.

“How? How can I?”

“What are we going to do?” asked Gray, but none of them had an answer.

And there was a sound of feet, running up behind them. They jumped, getting ready to run, but it was only Cally. Wild-eyed, her hair messy around her face.

“Isis! Why are you still out here? Gil said you went to the toilet half an hour ago! I thought you’d got lost or something.”

“I’m fine,” Isis lied, willing her to leave. Cally blinked at the strained tone of Isis’s voice, then glared at Gray.

“What are
you
doing here? I thought you were at home?”

“I was looking for Isis too,” he said.

Now Cally saw Philip, further into the field.

“Philip?” she called. He didn’t respond. “Phil, what’s going on?”

“He had hold of Isis!” Gray shouted, getting Cally’s attention. “He was going to—” Isis thumped him. He looked at her, surprised, and she gave a tiny shake of her head.

“Don’t!” she mouthed.

“Don’t what?” asked Cally, glaring between them. “What was Philip going to do?
Tell
me!”

“Shouldn’t you be in the meditation?” asked Isis, trying to sound bright, as if everything were fine. Why hadn’t Cally stayed hypnotised, safely out of it?

Cally shook her head. “It’s been such an odd evening, what with Jenice turning up. And those things everyone said before we started. I couldn’t relax, couldn’t concentrate.” She put her hand out to Isis, not quite touching her. “I don’t scream at you, do I? Do you think I should restrain myself more?”

Isis smiled at her mum, and was about to say no, when a voice said, “She won’t answer you honestly, she’s too afraid of you.”

Philip Syndal was walking towards them out of the dazzling night. Calmly, as if nothing unusual were happening. Through Gray’s eyes, Isis could see he looked quite normal, perhaps a little sweaty. But through her own…

A dark strand led out of his head, trailing behind him into the bloated mass of the ghost-eater, which was still trying to rip golden shapes of light from the sky and shovel them into its deep-night body.

Unfit mother.

The words echoed in her memory.

“Unfit mother,” said Philip, smiling at Cally. “You’re an unfit mother, and you should keep away from Isis.”

“What?” Cally sounded a little stunned. “If that’s a joke, Philip, it’s not funny.”

“Face it, Calista,” he said, his smile odd and stiff. “You’re a disaster as a parent. It’s amazing Isis is still with you.”

Gray turned to Isis.

“What’s going on?” he whispered.

In a strange kind of answer, Philip staggered a step, his legs bending as he nearly fell. He managed to stop himself, but his head was bowed and his arms shook as if he were carrying some enormous weight. “It’s too big,” he grunted.

Now Isis remembered. Wearing shoes that were too
small, squeezing her toes. Putting on a jumper she’d grown out of, squashing herself into a box during a game of
hide-and
-seek. The Devourer flicked through her memories.

He is old and small inside. You see much better. I need you, Isis.

Philip mumbled along with the words, only becoming clear as he said, “I need you, Isis.”

“What?” snapped Cally, moving in front of Isis. “You’re not coming near my daughter!”

Philip took a step, jerky and awkward. “I’m so tired of it, and you’re a terrible mother.” He took another step. “I’ve seen Isis’s social services file. She’ll be taken into care, and then she’ll be all alone. Except for—”

“No!” cried Isis.

“What are you talking about?” said Cally. “Isis isn’t going into care! And how did you even see her file? Unless…” She flung her hand out, slapping Philip across his cheek. “Are you in one of those
rings
?”

“Mummy do it!” cried Angel, jumping up and down excitedly.

“Leave my daughter alone,” snarled Cally. She turned to Gray and Isis. “We’re going back to the others now. And then we’re going home.”

Behind them, Philip turned his head, blinking and dazed. “Calista?” he croaked.

Cally glanced back, and his hand was a blur as he punched her. Her head flew backwards, and she fell into the wheat without a murmur.

“Mummy!” screamed Angel.

“Come on!” shouted Gray, pulling Isis, trying to get her moving.

Isis.

She remembered the word, even as Philip Syndal spoke.

“Isis,” he said.

There wasn’t time to run. The long, oily dark tentacle pulled out of Philip’s skull, wavering in the air and seeming to sniff, then it shot over to Isis and plunged down into her head. Pouring in its darkness, washing all her thoughts away