Ways to See a Ghost (7 page)

“You want me to sort it out for you,” she said, anger clipping her voice.

Mandeville nodded.

“No!” snapped Isis. “Why should I? Why can’t you ghosts sort out your own problems?”

He waved his bony hand, passing it into the wall. “Because we are incorporeal,” he said. “Lacking in substance.”

“Well you didn’t need substance to make this problem,” said Isis, “so fix it yourself! I don’t care about this Devourer thing.”

Mandeville looked at her. “And yet your own sister is a phantom.”

Angel squeaked.

“Shut up! You’re scaring her!”

The old ghost shook his head slowly. “Young people have so little nobility of spirit these days.” Now she could see the wall, the air, quite clearly through his body. “But you cannot avoid attention forever, Isis Dunbar. You’re like a blazing fire, this side of the veil.”

“Attention from who?” she asked. Mandeville put a finger to his lips, and disintegrated into sudden particles, which dropped lazily onto the wooden floor then vanished.

Angel crept out from around Isis.

“He horrid,” she said. “I glad him
goway
.”

It was 7.30 p.m. by the time the meeting finally ended. Outside in the street, the last light was fading. Isis sat in the kitchen, eating her way through the biscuits while thinking furious thoughts about ghosts. She had to watch telly for very young children, because Angel cried out, “Too scary!” if she put on anything but the squeakiest, silliest cartoons.

“You’re a ghost,” muttered Isis, not that it made any difference.

Eventually, the door into the dining room opened and Isis heard the members of the Welkin Society leaving.
Thanking Philip Syndal, saying their goodbyes in the hallway.

Cally came into the kitchen, holding Isis’s coat.

“Come on, darling,” she said, “school tomorrow.”

Philip Syndal followed after, his eyes flicking around the room, as if checking it was all right. His gaze ended on Isis.

“Were you okay in here?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you,” she said.

“Good,” he said, nodding slowly. Then he turned away, walking with Cally back into the hallway, and leaving Isis to follow.

The front door was open, letting the evening in.

“I’m so pleased you’ve joined us,” said Philip, taking Cally’s jacket from the coat stand, handing it to her. She looked awkward, yet pleased, as she put her arm into one of the sleeves. He held onto the coat as she put it on, so they were almost embracing. When he let go, Cally was in full blush.

“I can’t tell you what this means to me,” she said. “I’m so grateful to you for nominating me.”

Philip smiled, the dimples shifting in his face.

“A medium of your ability? How could we not want you?”

Cally beamed and wittered all the way up the street
as they walked back to their car, Angel skipping invisibly in front of them.

“Philip’s so wonderful,” Cally said, “he has such a calming, beautiful presence. And his spirit guide is so powerful, so wise, just how he described it in his autobiography. Did you know, when he was a teenager he wanted to kill himself, but then this wise, ancient spirit came to him and showed him his true purpose in life? And Philip told me his spirit guide had singled me out personally…”

Isis glanced back, and stopped. Philip Syndal was standing in his doorway, a dark silhouette. He lifted his hand, waving at them, and for a moment Isis thought she saw something else.

Flying above his house, a shadow on the sky. Glowing into the furthest blue, shaped like a figure swimming in the night or maybe some strange, giant bird. Circling over the street. Isis blinked, and it was gone.

Cally opened the car door. “What is it? Have you left something behind?”

“No,” Isis said. “Nothing.”

I did tell Isis about them. The other deaths on The Database, I mean. It was on one of Dad and Cally’s dates, when me and Isis had to drag along after.

Actually, you should have seen Dad’s face when Cally turned up at the door with Isis!

“I thought…” said Dad. “Aren’t we going out for the day? A walk on the Downs, just the two of us?”

“I know.” Cally wafted in, that way she does. “But I had to bring Isis. I couldn’t get a babysitter.”

“She’s not actually a baby,” muttered my dad, but not loud enough for Cally to hear. Isis came creeping in then, like she didn’t want to be seen. She had on these really pale jeans and a fluffy pink jumper. Out of school uniform, she looked about eight.

“Isis doesn’t mind coming with us, do you, darling?” said Cally. Isis wobbled her head, sort of shrugging, and Cally smiled at me. “And I’m sure Gray doesn’t want to be left at home, all by himself.”

“I’m fine.”

I mean, Dad’s been leaving me home alone for years. Not that I tell Mum, cos she’d be just the same as Cally. Like, Mum’s
always
at home when I am, always gets me to places on time, always has food in. When she got together with Brian, I didn’t even meet him for the first three months, because she said she wanted to wait until she was sure about him. They’ve been going out for years now; he’s probably going to be my stepdad.

Anyway, Cally was doing her Mum thing.
I
knew she wasn’t going to walk out the door and leave Isis, but Dad tried it on anyway. Gave her his pleading look.

“Couldn’t Isis stay here with Gray?” he asked. “They’d be all right for a couple of hours.”

Cally looked like he’d suggested killing us and stuffing us in the bin.

“We can’t leave the children by themselves!” she cried. She took his hand. “After… what happened,” she said quietly, “I thought you understood how I feel.”

Then Dad went red, which he never does.

“Yes, of course,” he mumbled.

Actually, it wasn’t so bad, because I like the Downs. They’re these hills, about ten miles away. Not mountains or anything, but everywhere else around here is really low down, so there’s not many places you get a view. And the wind rushes in your ears, the way it does on high-up places, and sheep
baa
in the distance, making everything sound lonely. Along the top of the Downs is the Ridgeway, which is a track that’s been used since the Stone Age, so you’re walking where mammoth hunters used to, or King Arthur, or whoever.

Normally I like it up on there, especially in spring, and we used to go loads, me and Dad. But there’s no way
anyone
could’ve enjoyed the walk that day. I mean, trailing after Dad and Cally while they held hands and face-sucked each other.

It was disgusting.

Dad wasn’t happy either. He kept checking back on me and Isis, like he was hoping we’d disappear. And Isis was her usual chatty self, meaning she said about two words the whole time. I don’t think she got outside much, because she walked round every puddle, like she was worried about getting her shoes muddy.

Anyway, when we reached Hinner Wood, Dad had his brilliant idea. It’s only a little wood, and mostly beech trees. You know, with straight grey trunks, and bright green leaves above. But when you get in, it doesn’t matter it’s small. The trees all lift their branches way up, and the light flickers down through them. Every step is a crunch on last year’s leaves, and there’s something really… well just
something
about the trees. It makes you happy to be there.

Dad and Cally were waiting at the edge of the woodland for me and Isis to catch up. He had his hand around Cally’s waist, her head was on his shoulder. She was gazing up at the trees, and going on.

“You can really sense the natural spirits in places like this,” she gushed. “They’re more powerful where the land is untouched by humans.”

“Actually,” I said, “people come and look after these woods.” There’s this conservation group, they come here loads. Tidy up rubbish, clear bracken or chop down trees they think are dangerous. I even joined a couple of years back, but they wouldn’t let me hold anything with a sharp edge ‘in case I hurt myself’, so I only went once.

Of course, Cally ignored me.

“The Native Americans understand,” she said, “and other
tribal peoples. The spirits of plants and animals, of places even, are very powerful and wise. But we’ve lost touch with them in our modern, artificial world.”

“I’m in touch with
my
nature,” said Dad in his smoochy voice, and she giggled and blushed. He turned to me. “And Gray is too. He’s a bird expert, aren’t you?”

“No,” I said, because I knew what he was planning.

“Yes, he is,” said Dad. “He’s got his own binoculars and he’s always reading birdwatching magazines. We used to come up here all the time. What was that bird you always wanted to see, but never could?”

“I can’t remember.”

I wasn’t going to help him out, and I wasn’t very happy about him saying all that anyway. Only a couple of my friends know I’m into wildlife, and I don’t want it getting out at school. Fast track to loser-land.

Dad looked right at me.

“I bet you could tell Isis all about these woods, while Cally and me sit on that bench over there.”

Cally pulled away from him a bit, opened her mouth to speak. But he shook his head to stop her.

“Don’t worry, Cal, if they stay in the fenced area they won’t ever be more than a few hundred metres from us.”
He smiled at her. “I can get to them in a minute flat, whatever happens.”

Cally soppy-smiled at him, then turned to Isis.

“Would you like that, Isis?” she said. “Go and look at nature with Gray, while Gil and I…”

Snog. Grope each other.

Isis looked at her mum, then at me.

“I’m going,” I said to Dad. “If I have to watch you two much longer, I’ll be sick.”

I didn’t do any bird spotting. Not because I didn’t have my binoculars, but because it isn’t worth it in those woods. Thing is, there’s all these birds in the books, but you hardly see any of them normally. Around where we live they’ve all disappeared because of farmers using chemicals and getting rid of hedges and stuff. You have to go to nature reserves or other places like that to see anything decent. There was a big article about it in
Young Birdwatcher.

Anyway, me and Isis were just walking. Mooching about, kicking leaves and waiting for Dad and Cally to finish.

That’s when I told Isis. About Dad thinking Norman Welkin had been murdered. I thought I might as well, seeing as she was the one who found him. I told her how
Stu and Dad thought his death was strange, and had looked for other cases where people had got frozen in weird ways.

She stood as still as a statue, listening.

“How many did they find?” she asked.

“Thousands of people who died of cold or heart attacks, but they got it down to seventeen where they thought it could’ve been the same. I’m not sure though, none of them seemed exactly like him.”

“How did your dad find out about these other people?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you,” I said. “Confidential sources, you know?”

Isis nodded, thoughtful, and didn’t even ask what I meant.

“So does your dad know what killed Mr Welkin?”

I paused, then shook my head. Thing is, Dad had loads of ideas, and so did Stu. They even came up with a name for what happened to him: spontaneous refrigeration.

“Like spontaneous combustion,” said Stu, all excited, “but the other way round!”

They spent half the night in the bathroom, going through The Database and coming up with theories.

“We narrowed it to eight possibilities,” Dad said the
next day. But if you’ve got eight possibilities, it really means you haven’t got a clue.

“Maybe… aliens.” I said to Isis, because that was what Dad went on about most. He always went on about aliens.

“Aliens?” said Isis, eyes going wide, and she started laughing. “Why does your dad think it was
aliens?
”

“Why does your mum think ghosts talk to her?” I snapped.

She stopped laughing, and her face went all closed up. I felt a bit bad, but it was her own fault.

“I’m just telling you what he found out,” I said. “Think what you want.”

Like I said, we didn’t get on very well, back then.

“Cally!” pleaded Isis. “Don’t.”

But Cally wasn’t listening. Instead she was pushing past the queue of people waiting to get their tickets, causing a tutting wave of annoyance. When she reached the theatre’s box office, she barged past the man at the front of the queue and said, “Excuse me, I’m on the guest list.”

Isis shuffled backwards, getting further away from her.

The woman behind the counter sighed, and pulled out a sheet of paper from under her till.

“Name?”

“Calista Dunbar. I’m a professional colleague of Philip Syndal.” Cally went on to loudly tell the woman how well she knew Philip, and about her own psychic performances.

Isis turned round, staring at the revolving door at the entrance, trying to pretend she was waiting for someone. As people circled into the theatre, Isis glimpsed purple reflections in the glass; Cally was wearing the same shimmering dress she’d worn on her seance tour. It had looked exotic then, but now, among the summer blouses, T-shirts and jeans of the people waiting in the foyer, she looked like she’d got lost on her way to a nightclub.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit much?” Isis had asked, back at their flat. Cally had carried on blow-drying her hair.

“If I want to get on,” she’d shouted, pulling a brush through, “I need to make an impression. An invitation to one of Phil’s performances is an opportunity to do that.”

“But we’ll only be in the audience, watching him like everyone else.”

Cally switched off the hairdryer.

“The people around us could be
my
audience soon,” she said. “I need them to notice me.”

And they definitely had.

Isis caught a flash of blonde and pink. She turned round to see Angel, slipping through the crowd towards her.

“He got hair now!” cried the little ghost, waving her short, transparent arms. “He coming.”

“Who is?” whispered Isis, barely moving her lips.

Cries of excitement rang through the foyer.

“Philip! Philip!”

“It’s him, he’s over there!”

“Please! Can I have your autograph?”

Philip Syndal charmed his way into the crowd. His hair had been styled to hide his baldness, and the yellow pullover swapped for a sleek black suit with a deep blue shirt. He looked sophisticated, if not exactly handsome.

A worried-looking usher was standing behind him, holding open a small door near the theatre’s grand staircase. The usher kept glancing at his watch, but Philip ignored the time, moving slowly through his fans, speaking to everyone and signing autographs for anyone who asked. From her place near the door, Isis could see he was working through the crowd with a direction. He was heading towards Cally.

She was waiting for him by the box office. Hands together, head tilted, her dark hair flowing down her back. The purple dress shimmered. Silver bracelets cut graceful lines across her bare arms. She was the eye in the storm of clamouring, pushing fans.

She was in her stage pose.

Isis saw people glance at Cally, then fall back and form a pathway between her and Philip.

“Mummy beautiful,” said Angel. And she was right, Cally had transformed herself, just the way Philip was able to. She didn’t look ridiculous now, she looked…

“Like a princess,” Isis whispered.

“Calista,” called Philip. She smiled, still waiting.

Whispered questions and answers scurried through the crowd.

“Who’s that?”

“Calista Dunbar, she’s a new psychic.”

“She any good?”

“Must be.”

Cally held her place until Philip reached her. But he was different too. Glamorous, surrounded by the adulation of his fans.

“I’m so glad you could make it, Calista,” said Philip, taking hold of one of Cally’s hands, lifting it to his mouth. Sighs rose from the crowd, like they were watching a fairy tale. Philip held his gaze steady as he gently let go of Cally’s hand. A flush rose at her throat, and her poise shattered.

“It was so kind of you to invite us,” she said, too quickly,
her voice squeaking. “I can’t tell you how excited I am.”

Her own glamour was broken, crushed by Philip’s. No longer a princess, just another of his fans. An overdressed one.

Philip held his arms out to the crowd.

“I’d like to introduce you to Calista Dunbar, a new talent who shows potential to become a true psychic, in the future.” He smiled at the people surrounding them. “She’s here to see how it’s done.”

There was a ripple of laughter, and the crowd stared at Cally, inspecting her.

Isis kept her place by the wall, hot with borrowed shame. He’d made Cally sound like she wasn’t any good, but she didn’t seem to have noticed.

“Have you got your tickets?” Philip asked her, and she nodded enthusiastically.

“Thank you.” Cally held up two grey ticket stubs. “It’s so kind of you.”

Philip smiled, and turned to sign an autograph.

The tickets turned out to be for seats almost at the back of the theatre. As they walked to their row, the stage looked tiny and far away.

“It was still very generous of him to give us free seats,” said Cally, her disappointment only just hidden by her bright tone. She peered and fidgeted, trying to get a better view, and when she saw an empty place five rows forwards, she hurried down to find out if it was free. Cally’s excitement was plain as she headed back.

“One of their friends has a stomach bug and couldn’t make it. No one’s going to be sitting in that seat…”

Isis sighed, knowing what was coming.

“You go and sit there,” she said to her mum.

“Are you sure?” asked Cally, worrying now. “Will you be all right back here?”

Isis nodded.

Cally turned to the middle-aged woman sitting next to Isis. Plump and pale, dressed in a white blouse and black skirt, like she’d come straight from work.

“Would you keep an eye on my daughter?”

“I’ll be
fine
!” hissed Isis.

The woman smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Don’t you worry.”

As Cally squeezed her way past people to get to her new seat, the theatre lights went down. A flute played a lilting, eerie tune into the red-glowing darkness. Dry ice
hissed onto the stage, as coloured lights flame-flickered over the auditorium. There was a scatter of exclamations in the audience, and Isis realised Philip Syndal was on stage. From nowhere, as if by magic. He stood with his head lowered until the flute spiralled to the end of its lament, then a single spot brought him into bright, white light, and every other stage light went out.

Philip lifted his head.

“Welcome,” he said, “to an evening of wonder. Tonight, I will take you to the border between this world and the next.” The single light dimmed, fading into dull yellow. Philip was candlelit, a small flame against the dark. “Together, we will cross the border, we will go beyond… And those who have gone before us will turn back, and speak.”

He opened his arms, walking to the front of the stage. The light followed him, brightening again.

“Spirits and friends, I am here. Speak. I am listening.”

Isis felt a tingle on the back of her neck, her hair lifting at its roots. She could see Cally was entranced.

“Why he got a stick on his face?” A little voice peeped up to Isis. Angel bobbed up in front of her, trying to get a better view.

“It’s his microphone,” whispered Isis, peering through
the foggy blur of Angel’s head. “So we can hear him.”

“Are you all right?” asked the woman next to her.

Isis jumped in the dark.

“I’m fine,” she said quickly, sitting still in her seat. She stared straight at the stage, watching Philip Syndal, ignoring the ghost freezing her lap.

Philip was really good, once he got going, and everything he said was spot on. No one shook their heads when he said something the spirits had told him about them, no one looked confused, or contradicted him apologetically. He never struggled to draw names from the air, the way Cally sometimes did. They were called out confidently, and hands went up straight away. The people who stood up from their seats gasped and laughed as he told intimate and accurate details about their loved ones, and the messages from beyond were loving and profound. The audience clapped long and loud after every reading.

Isis sat and watched, becoming more and more astonished.

How did he do it?

Because, for all his accuracy, for all the amazement he brought to the theatre, there was one thing missing.

The ghosts.

There were none up on stage with him. Isis peered hard, wondering if she just wasn’t looking properly, but she could easily see Angel, who was soundlessly kicking her feet against the chair in front. Isis glanced to the back of the theatre, and she saw three ghostly forms, unnaturally bright against the black painted walls. But none of them had responded to Philip Syndal’s called-out names, none of them had floated for the stage. They were looking around, anxiously, but not at Philip Syndal. As if they knew there was little chance of being noticed.

But if he wasn’t actually communicating with ghosts, how could he know so much about everyone?

“Good, isn’t he?”

Isis startled in surprise. She turned, and the middle-aged woman in the next seat was staring at her, fixing Isis with a piercing blue gaze.

“Don’t you think he’s good?” she asked again.

“Um, yes,” Isis answered.

“It’s especially impressive,” whispered the woman, “given that the spirits are almost absent. How does he hear what isn’t there, I wonder?” Her bright blue eyes dropped; she was looking straight at Angel.

Angel stopped mid-kick, turned and stared at
the woman. She squeaked and shot down under Isis’s seat, cold-shivering straight through her legs.

Isis sat still, breathing shallow and fast.

“Um, I’m not sure what you mean…” she said.

“Please,” whispered the woman, “there’s no need for evasion with me. Not when we’re already friends.” She smiled, her teeth dangling yellow from her gums, her eyes glinting like backlit sapphires.

Isis gasped, pulling as far away as she could. The eyes weren’t the woman’s own! Someone else was looking out through her sockets.

“Surely you’ve heard of possession?” whispered the woman, lifting her hands from the seat. They dangled at her wrists, jerky and puppet-like. “It’s quite fun, once you learn how.”

“Mandeville?” Isis mouthed the name, not wanting to speak it aloud.

The woman dipped her head.

Now, Isis could make out the wrinkled features of an old man, sitting like memory inside the woman’s face. And deeply hidden behind Mandeville’s blue eyes, Isis could just see the woman’s closed eyelids. As if she were sleeping.

“You shouldn’t do that!” hissed Isis. “Get out of her, right now!”

“No. She’s my protection.” The ghost sniffed through the woman’s nose. “In any case, I’m not hurting her. She’ll think she fell asleep during the performance; she’ll be disappointed, but that’s all.”

“Why do you need protection?”

He didn’t answer, but his expression gave Isis a touch of fear. Mandeville seemed to bring fear with him.

She watched the performance in silence for a few minutes, then she turned to Mandeville.

“Why are there so few ghosts here?” she asked. “There were loads at Cally’s performances.”

The ghost/woman looked back at the few lonely spirits haunting the rear of the theatre. There was something like pity on his/her face.

“All but the fools know not to,” he said quietly.

Isis nodded. What would be the point, if Philip Syndal was known to be a phoney? Cally’s tour had been her first – maybe all those ghosts had been checking her out?

“But how does he do it?” she asked. “How does he get all this stuff right, when there aren’t any ghosts telling him?”

The middle-aged woman regarded her with centuries-old eyes, and Mandeville’s next words were loud enough for everyone around them to hear. “A lot of it is done using the techniques of magicians and illusionists; essentially he has learned how to guess well. The really precise, accurate titbits are garnered from letters.” The woman lifted a plump, wedding-ringed finger to her nose. “Someone writes to him, telling him all about their dear departed, who they’re desperate to contact. And he writes back saying he’s too busy to do individual readings, ‘but here’s a free ticket to one of my forthcoming shows, do come along’.” Mandeville sighed from inside the woman. “The poor supplicant is so grateful, and once they’re here, they quite forget they’ve already told him everything he needs to know.”

“Shut up will you?” said a man in the row behind, leaning forwards. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

The ghost twisted the woman’s head, fixing the man with frightening eyes.

“Oh but I do.” The possessed woman’s hand landed heavily on Isis’s shoulder. “And so does she.”