Voices in Stone (13 page)

“So, are any of you going to explain?”

Isis’s cheeks were burning hot, and her stomach and heart seemed to have swapped places. She was standing in front of Mr Gerard’s desk with Jess, Chloe, Hayley and Nafira.

“I hope you understand how serious this is,” Mr Gerard said into the silence. “You may have thought you were engaged in some kind of game, or a bit of fun, but you’ve brought serious disruption to the whole school.” He leaned forwards in his chair. “I have children claiming to see ghosts and hysteria in the corridors. I have teachers who can’t
teach
, because they are so busy calming everyone down. The welfare officers are already overwhelmed with students: thirteen pupils had to be sent home because
they’d made themselves ill with distress. You can imagine how pleased I was to have to phone so many parents, and how pleased
they
were to take time off work to pick up their children.”

Isis’s brow ached from frowning. Why was everything going crazy today? Mandeville’s disastrous seance had been over a week ago, so it couldn’t be that. It was hard to understand what was happening, especially as her thoughts kept drifting back to the standing stone, and the detached, otherworldly feelings it had left her with. She blinked, trying to concentrate.

Mr Gerard glared along the row. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t try to pretend this is nothing to do with you, because a number of Year Seven pupils have identified you as the group at the centre of it all.”

“But it can’t be us!” said Nafira, saying out loud what Isis had been thinking. “We haven’t done anything today!”

Mr Gerard leaned forwards. “So you haven’t been holding seances and pretending you can see ghosts?”

“No!” said Jess. “The Year Sevens must be telling each other stories.” Mr Gerard scrutinised her, then read aloud from his notes.

“‘They summoned this ghost to haunt up the girls’ toilets.’” He looked at Jess. “‘Jessica Manning invites people to seances, mostly from the upper years.’” His glare turned to Isis. “‘Isis Dunbar said everyone in school is going to die.’”

“I didn’t… I mean, that isn’t what he meant to say,” Isis blurted. “It came out wrong.”

Mr Gerard raised an eyebrow. “He?”

She had no saliva, it had all evaporated.

“Isis is the one who started it!” said Chloe suddenly. “She says she can see ghosts and she does this old man voice to make it sound creepy.” She stepped away from the others. “No one likes her cos she’s so weird. She must be doing this to get her own back or something.”

“No, I…”

Mr Gerard turned to look at Isis. He waited, and she tried to think how to explain, but her mind couldn’t piece together anything sensible.

I just wanted people to like me.

It wasn’t my fault – a hundred-year-old ghost made me do it.

“Does anyone else want to speak?” asked Mr Gerard.

“I only went along with stuff,” said Nafira, “because Jess was so into it.”

“That’s a lie!” said Jess, turning on her. “No one made you!”

Mr Gerard returned to Jess. “Did you invite people to take part in seances?”

Jess shrugged.

He looked at Isis. “Did you pretend to see ghosts, and put on voices to scare the younger students?”

“I…”
didn’t pretend
. For the first time in her life, Isis had actually told the truth about her ability. She had opened herself up and stopped hiding.

“You do realise how serious this is?” said Mr Gerard. “But you can reduce the severity of your punishment by accepting your responsibility and admitting to your role in this business. If you explain that you made up these stories, it may help calm the situation.”

“But everyone will hate us!” squeaked Hayley.

Isis tried to think through the thudding of her heart. The other girls were all popular, they’d probably survive, but her reputation would be destroyed, especially with the way the others were already blaming it on her. She’d
be the butt of every joke again, worse probably.
No one
would be friends with her after this.

“You can’t make us,” said Jess, defiantly tipping her head back.

Mr Gerard tapped his pen on the notebook. “Let me spell this out. You can admit that this was all a game, a joke, or whatever it was, accept your punishment and face the other pupils. Or I will be forced to exclude you.”

All the girls gasped.

I’ve never been in any trouble before,
Isis wanted to say.
How can I go from nothing to exclusion?

The group broke into pieces.

“
Isis
started it!”

“Jess was sucking up to the Year Elevens, that’s why it happened!”

“It’s not fair punishing me,
I
didn’t pretend I can see ghosts!”

Illusions of friendship swiftly dropped away. Jess didn’t join in the accusations, but she didn’t stick up for Isis either, and she took a small step to the side so that Isis was by herself. The others were back in their original group, with Isis outside it, her heart beating fast in her throat.

They’d
made
her admit she was psychic, and now they were calling her a liar!

She lifted her head up, and spoke into the hubbub. “I didn’t make anything up. I
can
see ghosts.”

“I told you!” cried Nafira.

“That’s what she’s like all the time!” said Chloe.

Mr Gerard held up his hand, bringing silence. He looked at Isis. “So, you
have
been telling other students you can communicate with ghosts?”

Isis nodded.
No more lying.
“Because I can.”

“And you did tell a large group of students they were all going to die?”

Isis opened her mouth to deny it, but what was the point? He’d obviously rounded up and interrogated the younger children from the alleyway.

She nodded. “Mandeville didn’t mean it as a threat. He only meant that everyone gets old and dies in the end.”

Mr Gerard was tapping his pen again. “Do you genuinely believe this, or are you just an extremely good liar?”

“It’s true, that’s all.”

She smiled, even though it was probably the worst thing to do, because it felt so good telling the truth. As if she
were standing straighter, her head closer to the sky. She’d been carrying silence so long, she’d forgotten how heavy it was.

“There’s quite a few ghosts in school, actually.” She watched Mr Gerard’s eyebrows get higher. “There’s two Victorian girls in the playground who play a skipping game, and this shouty teacher with a moustache who’s always in the main hall. The ghost in the girls’ loos was Summer Bailey’s great aunt, but she went back to the other realm and anyway she wouldn’t hurt a fly, mostly she talked about knitting.”

“See?” cried Chloe. “She’s the one, not us!”

Isis didn’t even look at Chloe.

“I’m sorry if people got scared, Mr Gerard. But if anyone else says they’re seeing ghosts, they’re just…” Making it up? She couldn’t bring herself to say it, not facing the same accusation. She focused on the deputy head, hoping he’d somehow understand. “Psychics are really rare, there
can’t
be loads in school.”

Mr Gerard was silent, then he said “Are you admitting to holding a seance in the girls’ toilet?”

Isis opened her mouth, about to answer with a bold
yes, when she saw the other girls’ faces. They were desperate, frightened of what she’d say next, that she’d drag them all down with her. Well, they’d wanted her to be psychic.

“I’m not lying,” she said, hearing the shake in her own voice. “But none of them are able to see ghosts.” She nodded towards the other girls.

Mr Gerard tightened his jaw, the muscles of his face shifting.

“All right.” He pointed at Jess, Chloe, Hayley and Nafira. “You will each have lunchtime detention for five days and be on report for two weeks. If I hear one word from any of your teachers, then the consequences will be far more severe.” He turned his gaze to Isis. “As ringleader, and for showing no remorse at all for what you’ve done, I have no choice but to remove you from school until this can be sorted out. You will leave immediately.”

Cally crunched through the gears, muttering under her breath as she stopped and started through the traffic. Isis sat silently next to her, listening to the rise and fall of the engine, the sounds of other cars. And the singing.

Isis had been marched by Cally from the school to their car, and Angel had been waiting inside it, her head poking out through the shut window, waving happily. Now she was dancing on the back seat, singing the little song she seemed hooked on at the moment.

“The little fish, the little fish, he swimming round and round. He swimming up and down and up with Mummy.”

“I’m sorry,” Isis said, at last.

Cally didn’t answer.

She’s too angry to speak to me.
That was Cally’s way.

“I don’t know why I did it,” Isis said, although she did, she knew exactly why.

Still Cally didn’t answer.

Isis fiddled with the thick fabric of her seat belt. “I just wanted Jess to be friends with me,” she said.

It sounded so pathetic. And Jess hadn’t even been her friend, that was clear now.

Cally didn’t speak; her mouth was set in a line. Only when they’d reached their street and Cally had parked the car in front of the flats did she finally say anything. Not looking at Isis, staring through the front windscreen.

“I just don’t understand why you’d do this,” she said. “It’s like you wanted to make fun of me in front of everyone at your school.”

Isis turned in her seat. It had never even occurred to her Cally might view things that way. “No. That wasn’t it.”

“Then why hold seances?” asked Cally.

Isis started to think of an explanation, but she stopped herself. She’d decided to tell the truth in school. She had to keep to it.

“Do you remember out in the field, with Gil and Gray? The time we saw the UFO?”

Cally shuddered. “How can I forget?”

Isis shook her head. “No, not when I…” Died. “I mean before. When I said I saw something, and you said I must be psychic like you.” Isis looked at her mum. “Do you remember?”

Cally nodded, slow and reluctant. “But I was very… enthusiastic about the spirits then. I’ve thought a lot about it since, what with everything that happened, and you getting so badly hurt, and Philip Syndal turning out to be… not quite normal. I think perhaps I went too far.”

“I can see ghosts,” said Isis.

Cally held still, before suddenly turning around and taking hold of Isis’s hands, gripping too tightly.

“This isn’t something to play with, Isis.” Cally leaned forwards a little. “I know it must have seemed glamorous, seeing Philip at the theatre with all his fans. I’m sure it looked like fun, but look at what’s already happened in your school. It’s so easy to make terrible mistakes, even if you’re only pretending to contact the other realm. And
you don’t have to pretend to be psychic, Isis, you’re special in so many ways.”

Isis pulled her hands out of Cally’s.

“Why don’t you ever listen to me?” she said, louder than she meant to. “I’m not
pretending
. I can see ghosts!” She found herself shouting, needing Cally to hear. “I can see the old teacher in the main hall at school, and the woman who plants potatoes in the shopping centre, and I could see Philip Syndal’s spirit guide…” Her mum’s astonished face only made her angrier. “I can see Angel!”

Angel stopped singing, stopped dancing. Poked her head between the seats.

“You saw her too,” Isis continued, unable to stop herself now. “Down in the mortuary, after they revived me. I know you did, because
I
showed her to you!”

The car was silent but for the sound of Cally’s breathing.

“Mummy seed me,” said Angel.

“Oh… God,” gasped Cally, and she began to cry. Choking, gulping sobs that drew up from inside, shaking her shoulders and bending her double, hands over her face.

Isis’s heart pounded on, her fury congealing into some
thing less fiery as Cally sagged against her seat, leaning her head back as her sobs subsided into small gasps. She took a deep breath, and turned her head, looking sideways at Isis.

“You used to sit on my lap together when you were little,” Cally said quietly. “Do you remember?”

Isis nodded.

“I ’member!” cried Angel delightedly.

“I can still feel the both of you,” Cally continued, “even now. The way you held yourself so neatly, while Angel kicked and wriggled. My two arms around my two girls, both so beautiful and so different.” She sighed. “Angel wasn’t much past being a baby. She hadn’t even learned to talk properly.”

Cally turned her head back to straight, and Isis watched a tear dawdle its way down her cheek.

“She was so solid,” Cally whispered. “She stomped around. She shouted and had tantrums. She was proud when she used the toilet by herself.”

Something turned over inside Isis and she looked at her now ghost-sister.

“I did poos,” said Angel, nodding wisely.

“I loved her with every particle of myself,” said Cally,
“just the way I love you.” She sat up and wiped her hand across her cheek. “But that wasn’t enough.”

Isis clicked and unclicked her seat belt. She couldn’t go back, now that she’d started. “You did see her though, didn’t you? In the mortuary?”

Cally took in another deep breath, then said, “Yes.”

“I tol’ you!” cried Angel.

Isis smiled. At her mum, at her ghost-sister.

“Don’t you see? Angel’s still with us! I’m sorry I never told you before, but I…”
was frightened of how you’d react, when being psychic was all you had.
No, she couldn’t say that. “I didn’t think you’d believe me. But now you do, because you’ve seen her yourself! And that means we’re still a family, all together. You, me, Angel. I know Dad’s not here, but we’re all right, aren’t we?”

Cally didn’t answer Isis’s smile.

“I wasn’t surprised Angel was there in the mortuary,” she said quietly, “after all that had just happened to you. I expect she came back, to watch over you and make sure you were all right. But seeing her…” Cally fell silent again.

“Weren’t you happy?” Isis asked, trying to puzzle her mum’s strange reaction.

Cally laughed, and it was almost another sob.

“Angel was going to follow you into primary school,” Cally said, but it was hard to tell if she was talking to Isis, or reciting something she’d said to herself many times before. “That’s what I was expecting. And I was going to buy her a pink scooter for her next birthday.” Angel clapped her hands, while Cally continued without hearing her. “I told people she’d be a handful as a teenager, but I knew in my heart she’d calm down after and get a nice boyfriend. I wanted her to go to college and get a good job.” She looked directly at Isis. “That’s what I was expecting for her, but she’ll never have any of it.”

“So it was a comfort then?” asked Isis hopefully. “Seeing her ghost, knowing she isn’t gone forever?”

“The ghost of my dead baby girl,” said Cally quietly. “Looking just how I remembered. Exactly the same.” She put a hand out to Isis’s cheek, as if trying to trace something in her face. “Not grown, or lost her baby teeth, or gone to school. Right there beside me, but with no life in front of her. All her wonderful potential ended in a full stop.” Cally drew back her hand, and paused for another long moment. “I’m glad she was there in the mortuary,
looking after you. Because seeing her that way, it hurt so much, and yet I finally… understood. I’d been marking every milestone she’d missed – vaccinations, birthdays, the day she should have started school. But she’s not doing any of those things, not anywhere, and I realised that…” A tear wound its way from her eye. “I have to let her go. I have to accept that three precious years was all I got.”

Isis sat motionless, fast heartbeats whirling blood and thoughts around her head. All this time she’d thought that Cally seeing Angel would heal their family, bring them back together again, but in a few sentences Cally had set that on its head. And her mum was right, in a way Isis couldn’t quite face, because Angel was stuck, a perpetual three-year-old. Isis had a sudden vision of herself as an old woman, with a ghost-baby Angel still drifting around.

Angel herself seemed unconcerned however. She climbed in between the front seats, and placed a small, invisible hand on her mother’s face. Cally shivered, but didn’t move, and Angel leaned to whisper into Cally’s ear, something Isis couldn’t hear. Then Angel clambered back again, the gear stick passing straight through her body.

Isis stared questioningly at her, but Angel only looked smug. “Mummy got a little fish,” she said, sitting in the back seat.

Cally smiled to herself, lost in thoughts Isis couldn’t reach. Then she shook her head a little, and turned to Isis.

“Promise me, no more trying to impress people with seances?”

“I wasn’t—” She stopped. What had any of them been doing, if not trying to impress? Isis, Jess, Mandeville; all of them, for their own different reasons.

“Promise?” asked Cally. Isis could see the pain etched on her mum’s face, and yet she still couldn’t bring herself to nod. Cally folded her arms, and set her face to the front. “We’ll wait then. We aren’t leaving the car until you do.”

Isis glanced at Angel while they sat in their stand-off. Cally was right. Angel was exactly as she had been the day she died. She’d never get older or grow up, never do any of the things Cally had wanted for her.

So why was she still here? Mandeville had hinted once that Angel had stayed to protect Isis…

Angel grinned. “Look, I can do a roly-poly!” She curled herself into a crab shape and tumbled along the back seat.

A strange protector.

“Mummy got a little fish,” repeated Angel, sitting up in her crab position. “He see me any time I want. He do roly-polies too.” Angel rolled back along the seat.

What was she talking about? Isis frowned, but Angel only put her finger to her lips. “It Mummy’s secret,” and she began her song about fishes again. “Little fishy swimming round…”

“I’m waiting,” said Cally, arms folded, not looking at Isis. “Do you promise?”

Isis pressed her hands against her eyes. There wasn’t a way out. When she told the truth, people wouldn’t or couldn’t believe. But if she said she’d made everything up, she seemed like the worst kind of attention-seeker. Why had she let Jess drag her further and further into doing seances? Why had she listened to Mandeville’s threats and wheedling?

“I know seeing Angel in the hospital must have been a shock for you,” said Cally.

“It wasn’t a shock.”

“But I don’t want you getting involved with things you don’t understand Isis. Even just pretending. And we have other things to focus on now.” She twisted in her seat. “Do you remember I was very tired in the summer?”

Isis shook her head. Behind them Angel carried on with her song. “Mummy’s little fishy, swimming up and down…”

“I thought at first it was just stress,” said Cally, “but then I realised that I’d… And, well, then that night happened before I got a chance to say, and afterwards I wasn’t even speaking to Gil so I didn’t know how to—”

“Just
tell
me!”

Cally looked at her. “I’m pregnant.”

“… and down and up, inside Mummy’s tummy.”