Ways to See a Ghost

without binoculars because they like to stay hidden, but I went looking anyway, staring up at the tree. It’s why I didn’t see her at first. Isis, I mean. She was sat against the tree trunk, on this bench that goes all the way round. Still as anything, feet together, hands in her lap. Like a statue or something, like she’d just appeared out of nowhere.
    I thought she was a ghost for a minute.
    “What are you
doing?
” I said.
    She didn’t move a muscle. “Sitting.”
    Little and thin, she was. She looked loads youngerthan me, even though it turned out there’s only two months between us.
    “Who are
you
?” she asked, like she owned the place. Except I knew there was no way she was anything to do with old Norman or Sondra. For a start, she was wearing the same uniform as me, and rich kids don’t go to our school.
    “My name’s Gray,” I said. “My dad’s the gardener here.” I looked at her uniform, so it’d be obvious what I was thinking. “Who are you?”
    She kept her same blank face, shivered a bit.
    “Cally… my mum’s in there.” Her mouth pressed tight and she shut up, like she’d said too much or something.
    “She a friend of Sondra?” I asked.
    Isis wobbled her head a bit; not yes, not no.
    Going out with Dad on his rounds, he’d told me how the rich types work. One time he turned up to do a garden and the husband had just run off with someone else. Other times, my dad has seen ‘goings on’. That’s what he calls it.
    “Is your mum a private investigator?” I asked. We met one once – he was keeping watch on one of Dad’s customers.
    She didn’t answer.
    “Is Norman having an affair with your mum?” She could’ve been in there, having it out with Sondra. Which would’ve been pretty cool, actually.
    “No!” Isis pulled back on the bench, like I’d spat at her or something.
    “So what then?”
    But Isis only shut her mouth up and glared. Wouldn’t say another word.
    The screaming started not long after that.
    And what did you think of Isis, when you first met her?
    I didn’t want her to die, if that’s what you’re asking.

Cally got the call from Sondra Borwan while Isis was walking home from school. When Isis opened the door of their flat, Cally was waiting for her. Coat on, car keys in hand.
    “We’re going out, I’ve got a job.”
    “Job?” For a hoping moment, Isis thought Cally had finally gone through with her promise to Grandma Janet.
Real work, bringing in regular wages, even if it’s just at the supermarket.
She flash-dreamed that other life: Cally being awake at the same time as Isis; Cally making new friends, and being happy; no more dark days, no more seances. Back to how they used to be. Back to normal.
    Angel’s head drifted out from inside the sofa.
    “A lady,” she lisped. “She want Mummy to listen.”
    Isis tried not to blink as her dream ran into nothing.
    “It’s a reading,” said Cally, blushing slightly, chin up.
    “You said I wouldn’t have to go to any more!” said Isis, challenging back. What had been the point of all their fights during the seance tour, if she still had to do this?
    Cally jingled the keys in her hand.
    “Don’t be silly, Isis, I can’t leave you here by yourself, can I?”
    Isis dropped her school bag onto the floor.
    “I don’t want to go.”
    Cally picked up Isis’s bag, and put it on the table. “Isis, this could be really important for me. The client’s rich, I could tell from her address. She wants someone who can get there right away, and she called
me
! If I do well, and she recommends me, this could be my breakthrough!”
    “I won’t!” said Isis, even though she knew she would, that she’d already lost the argument. And going to individual readings was almost as bad as working the village halls. Cringing in the corner of someone’s living room, while Cally told them what the spirits were saying. Worse still when the spirits were there too, angrily contradicting.

    It took about twenty-five minutes to drive through thetraffic-clogged roads of Wycombe, and out the other side to the wealthy, tree-lined lanes. Sondra Borwan lived in one of those villages where the cottages all had hanging baskets and pretty gardens, and the pub on the green did expensive Sunday lunches. Isis huffed a circle of mist on her window as they drove, drawing an angry face in it. Then she wiped it off with her sleeve.
    Cally, who’d been chatty and excited about her new client, had fallen into silence when