Voices in Stone (5 page)

“Now this is meant to be fun,” said Mrs Craven, smiling at everyone. “There are no right or wrong answers. I know you all had a bit of a strange day yesterday, so I thought we’d take it easy today.”

On the other side of the table, Jess sat scowling at Isis. This definitely wasn’t going to be fun.

It was the day after the disastrous school trip, and the class was full of chatter and gossip. Some students weren’t in today and everyone was talking about them, which meant that, for a little while, they weren’t talking about Isis.

Within a few days of the assembly, the entire school seemed to know what Mrs Dewson had announced about
Isis getting struck by lightning and Gray saving her. But the story had been exaggerated as it spread and during break one day a group of Year Eleven girls had come up to Isis, looming over her, and flicking their hair.

“Were you really dead for two days?” one of them asked.

Isis shook her head, wishing she were anywhere else. “Just a few hours, and anyway the doctors said they made a mistake. I was alive the whole time, really.” They’d been wrong of course, but she kept that to herself.

Despite her denial, the girls followed up with the questions everyone was asking her.
What was it like being dead? Did she see heaven?

Isis shook her head again, backing away from them.

“I don’t remember,” she lied. “I don’t remember any of it.”

“Boring,” said one of the girls, and they wandered off. Isis breathed a sigh of relief, but she knew another gang of questioners would be on at her soon enough. Her only defence was sticking to her story, playing it down. Eventually, after a torturous week or so, the interest in her dwindled, leaving only her new nickname: ‘dead girl’.

The one person she wouldn’t have lied to was Gray. Every break and lunchtime she’d tried to find a way of speaking to him, but she never managed to start the conversation she was so desperate for.

“Do you want to talk now?” she’d asked the next time she saw him, but he shook his head. And the times after.

“I’ve got computer club,” or, “I’m meeting Jayden,” or, “I can’t right now.”

A list of excuses.

Had she done something? She couldn’t think what.

Then one lunchtime she’d noticed him spot her and veer away. Gray was avoiding her, and a nasty little voice in her head gave the reason for all his excuses –
He doesn’t want to be seen with the dead girl.

She gave up trying to speak with him after that, even though she still noticed him, wherever he was. Today she had noticed his absence.

Isis looked at Jess. Why had Mrs Craven partnered them together?

“It’s not fair!” Jess had wailed, when Mrs Craven pointed to Isis’s table. “Why do I have to go with
her
?”

“Isis has no one to work with,” said Mrs Craven.

Jess huffed a sigh, grabbing her paper and stamping over to Isis, sitting down opposite her with a thump.

“We all know why you’re on your own,” hissed Jess. She slapped her paper on the table, lifting her pen. “Let’s get this over with.”

Isis looked down at her own sheet. It was printed with a series of questions which, according to Mrs Craven, would help them choose their course options later in the year. Most were obvious variations on ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’

“You go first!” snarled Jess. Isis took a breath, about to read the question aloud when she tasted a taint in the air. Dirty and pungent, like damp and peeling wallpaper. Her stomach clenched, her shoulders stiffened.

Why wouldn’t he leave her
alone
?

Mandeville was everywhere these days. In classrooms and corridors. Standing in shop windows as she walked home. He’d appeared in a corner of the library during a wet lunch break, leaving an entire shelf of history books dog-eared and yellowing afterwards. During a geography lesson, she’d had to focus desperately on the teacher, because he’d been wafting around the class, sending pupil
after pupil into convulsions of sneezing. He was often in the playground, waving a skeletal hand or smiling at her through his snaggle-teeth. The little aeroplane boy had squeaked the first time he saw Mandeville, running straight through a wall and disappearing; Isis hadn’t seen him since.

And now Mandeville was materialising right next to her, dustily congealing onto the plastic school chair. He was much too tall for it, and forced to draw his knees up, his green-grey skin showing through the threads of his trousers.

Isis shifted in her seat, facing away from him as much as she could. If only she could run out of the classroom. Run out of school!

She glued her gaze to the paper.

“Who do you think has the better job?” she read, trying not to cough. “A lawyer or a car mechanic?”

“Whatever,” answered Jess. “A lawyer, because they earn loads of money.” She gave a sudden shiver, rubbing her arms. “Why is it so cold in here?”

“Is this girl one of your friends?” asked Mandeville, surveying Jess with his ice-blue eyes.

Isis ignored him. “A mechanic makes people happy
though,” she said to Jess, “when they fix people’s cars. My mum thinks her mechanic is great. She says he keeps her on the road.”

Jess answered Isis without looking at her. “Your car must be a heap of rubbish, then. A lawyer can just buy a new car, so they don’t need mechanics.” She wrote ‘lawyer’ on her sheet of paper, next to the question.

“What a charming girl,” said Mandeville.

“Go away!” Isis mouthed at him, not making a sound.

Mandeville tilted his head. “All I want to do is help you.”

Jess ran her finger along the next question on the sheet. “What kind of job would you like?” she read. “This is so lame!” Her eyes flicked up to Isis. “Go on then, what job do you want to do? Something that makes people
happy
?” Mandeville tutted and Jess coughed, scowling a little deeper. “I think you’re making me ill.”

“Isn’t she delightful?” said Mandeville. “She reminds me of my descendants, and why I never visit them.”

Go away!
Isis wanted to shout, except she couldn’t even admit he was there.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Isis said to Jess. It was hard to imagine doing any normal job, with Angel and
Mandeville around. “Maybe… something where you can be by yourself?”

She instantly regretted her words, because Jess laughed and said, “You’ve got that already! Is that why you’re so creepy, so you can be alone all the time?”

“I’m not creepy,” said Isis, but Jess only laughed again.

“
Unique
is the word I would use to describe you,” said Mandeville. “No one else here has your talents, my dear.”

“
I
know!” said Jess, pointing her pen at Isis. “You could work for the council, emptying dog poo bins! You’d
definitely
be by yourself, and you wouldn’t stink much worse than you do now!”

“I’m not doing that!” said Isis, fighting back tears. She wasn’t going to cry, not here.

“Dog poo dead girl,” said Jess, smiling nastily.

“What
do
you want to do, then?” asked Isis. “You couldn’t be a lawyer, you have to be clever for that.”

Jess’s smile vanished. “Write what you want,” she said, “you’ll still end up doing something pathetic.
I’m
going to be rich, and live in a big house and have loads of designer clothes.”

“But what
job
will you do?”

Jess shrugged. “I’ll probably win
The X Factor
or something.” She wrote ‘earn lots of money’ as her answer.

Mandeville reached out a long arm and tapped Jess’s pen with a bony finger. The nib seemed to disintegrate, the plastic becoming aged and brittle. Ink smeared across the paper and over Jess’s hand.

“Hey!” she cried.

“She used to be such a sweet, caring girl,” said Mandeville. “How sad the way she has changed.”

Isis turned and glared, trying to show with a flick of her eyes that he should get lost.

“Doubtless you don’t believe me,” said Mandeville, “but we need only ask her family.”

He turned and cupped his hands to his mouth. Isis could see his mouth move, as if he were calling out, but there was no sound. A shape began to form behind him, a new smell filling the air, oddly mixed of wet clay and roses. The ghost of a tall woman was materialising in the classroom, her presence wavering and uncertain. Isis could see her short grey hair, pale eyes, and the long scarf draped around her shoulders. As the woman turned her head, looking at Jess, a warm smile spread over her face. The woman’s
mouth moved, but Isis couldn’t hear what she was saying.

“What are you
doing?
” Isis hissed at Mandeville.

Jess looked up, unaware of the ghosts. “I’m doing this stupid exercise. What are
you
doing?”

“Allow me to introduce Jess’s grandmother,” said Mandeville. “A lady named Marie. Jess used to call her Gran Marie.”

“Gran Marie?”
said Isis, too surprised to be silent.

“What?” asked Jess.

Mandeville leaned in close to Isis. “She wants to pass on a message to your little friend.”

Isis could see the other ghost speaking, but she couldn’t hear what the woman was saying. There was a sense of enormous distance between her and Jess’s grandmother, very different from the ghosts Isis normally saw. As if the woman was speaking from somewhere else. As if she was thousands of miles away.

Jess glared at Isis. “Why did you say ‘Gran Marie’?”

Isis could feel herself blushing. “No reason… I mean, the words just popped into my head.”

“Gran… my grandmother died two years ago,” said Jess. “Don’t you dare talk about her!”

Mandeville poked Isis, delivering a frost-cold shot into her shoulder. “You should give Jess her grandmother’s message,” he whispered. “It might help Jessica remember the sweet child she was, instead of the bully she has become. You could steer her in a whole new direction. With just a few words, you could change her life.”

Isis looked into his eyes, gleaming only a few centimetres from her own. They were distant blue stars, and he was as cold as space.

“She was an artist,” Mandeville whispered.

Isis looked at Jess, and her lips formed the words. “She was an artist.”

Jess’s mouth opened.

Mandeville whispered in Isis’s ear. “Whenever Jessica visited, her grandmother would take her into her studio. Marie would work on her paintings, and young Jessica would play with bits of paint, and do her own childish drawings. They made one particular piece together. A collage of flowers.”

“You made a picture of flowers with her,” said Isis, following his lead. But this wasn’t like the Devourer; Mandeville wasn’t making her speak. She simply wanted
to wipe away that look of scorn that Jess turned on her every day. “You both signed the picture, you and your grandmother. She had it framed and you were going to hang it on your bedroom wall, but your dad never got around to it. Now it’s under your bed.”

Jess’s pen fell flat on the paper.

“Your grandmother always thought you were very talented,” Isis went on. “She said you could be an artist yourself when you grew up.”

Jess was staring at her. “How do you know that?” she said, her voice not much more than a squeak. “Who told you?”

“She doesn’t want you to waste your talent,” said Isis. The words were kind, but there was no kindness to her voice.

“You see?” whispered Mandeville. “It’s not so hard, is it?”

Jess’s hand was over her mouth; her eyes were round and white-rimmed.

“You
died
!” she said through her fingers. “Something happened to you when you died, didn’t it?”

The blood drained from Isis’s face and her mind was suddenly clear again.

“Oh my God!” squeaked Jess. “You can speak to the dead, can’t you?”

Isis couldn’t talk. Shock tingled through her.

What had she done?

Behind Mandeville, the figure of the woman was fading, melting into the air. Her mouth opened and she said something.

“Thank you,” said Mandeville, repeating her words.

Jess stood up, her chair scraping back loudly. “I want to move!” she shouted. “I’m not sitting with
her
!”

Of course, Mum took me to the hospital.

“I don’t care what the paramedic said, I want you properly checked over.”

We had to drive to A & E, and since I didn’t even look ill we had to wait for everyone else to get seen first, which took hours.

“It’s probably an inner ear infection,” said the A & E doctor, after he’d finally checked me over. “Your ears contain your balance system as well as your hearing, so a viral infection can make everything go a bit haywire. It’s not very pleasant, but you’ll be fine in a few days.”

My mum folded her arms, and gave him one of her looks.

“Did his whole class have an inner ear infection?” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I told you already, my son was on a field trip when his whole class was affected by rocks or dust or something. All the children were throwing up afterwards. That’s why I brought him here, not for you to tell me he’s got a virus!”

“Well, I don’t have any information about that,” said the doctor, “and his symptoms are consistent…”

“Has he been poisoned by gas?” snapped Mum.

“It wasn’t gas,” I reminded her. “It was dust, I told you.”

Mum turned to the doctor. “Has he been poisoned by dust?”

The doctor was looking a bit frazzled. “This really seems like a viral infection,” he said.

“Then I want a second opinion,” said Mum.

“I can’t find anything wrong with your son,” said the doctor, really patronisingly. “His temperature and blood pressure are normal; he has no lumps, bumps or unusual spots. He said he felt dizzy and sick earlier without any vomiting, which is consistent with an inner ear infection.”

They glared at each other and I was worried Mum really would make us wait to see another doctor, which would have meant being here hours longer.

“I’m fine now, Mum,” I said. “Can we just go home?”

“I suggest he gets rest and plenty of fluids,” said the doctor, “and go to your GP in a week if it hasn’t cleared up by itself.”

Mum glared at me like it was my fault, and we left. All the way home she muttered stuff about stupid doctors…

Doctors.

Hang on, you’re the doctor, aren’t you? The one from the hospital where Isis died. You asked me loads of questions then as well.

I was expecting this; you are beginning to remember events from your previous hypnotic state. Yes, I was in the hospital.

I forgot all about talking to you in the hospital. Why did I forget?

For the same reason you will forget this conversation when
it is ended. You will only remember coming to this office, and having a rather dull session with a rather dull therapist.

Now I’d like you to get back to telling your story. That’s right, look at me, don’t fight it…

I woke up the next day feeling fine. But Mum must have been worried because I got the day off school and she didn’t even hassle me to get up. Normally she’s on at me from the crack of dawn, but that day I didn’t even get dressed until lunchtime. I guess by then she’d held off for as long as she could manage.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, putting her head round the living room door.

“Fine,” I said, because I wasn’t thinking.

“Well then, maybe you should do something?”

I looked round at her. “I’m watching telly.”

“I mean actual activity. Why don’t you go outside for a bit?”

Sometimes I think Mum hasn’t got over me not being eight any more. She still wants me to rush out into the garden and play football, like that’ll solve everything.

“There’s nothing to do in the garden.”

“There’s fresh air,” she said, “and moving around.”

“The doctor said I should rest.”

Mum made a pretty rude comment about doctors, and started on about how fresh air is the best medicine. I don’t know where she even gets that from, but she nagged on so much that I couldn’t listen to the telly. In the end I got up.

“All right then. But only for ten minutes.”

“Half an hour.”

“Don’t blame me if I have a relapse.”

“I’ll call an ambulance if you do.”

Mum’s always that way, you know? It’s like she has some internal timer which flips her over from caring to sarcastic.

So I went outside. There really isn’t anything to Mum’s garden. It’s just about big enough for a washing line, a few scraggly plants, an apple tree that’s never really grown and a rockery that Brian made her for one birthday. It was quite good when he did it, with big lumps of stone and little plants growing through. I wonder if he was trying to make a point, seeing how Dad’s a landscape gardener. Anyway, none of us has ever weeded it, and now it’s just a pile of rocks and dandelions.

I went and sat on one of the rocks. If I had even slightly normal parents, I could’ve been out there for ages – playing games on my phone, texting my mates, stuff like that. But since my dad’s a conspiracy-theory nut who freaks out if anyone even mentions me getting a phone, all I could do was, well, nothing. Not even as much as when I was in the living room, because now I wasn’t watching telly. Just looking at the air and thinking, you know?

I was so still, after a few minutes the birds forgot I was there and started hopping back out of the undergrowth. There’s nothing special in our garden, just blackbirds and sparrows. The blackbirds must’ve had a late brood, because there was a fledgling hopping around near the fence. It had most of its proper feathers, but still a few tufty ones poking through, and it was sitting in the grass cheeping, while its mum and dad flew in and out of the garden with caterpillars in their beaks. I got into watching, and that’s why I didn’t notice anyone coming up behind me.

Yooooo
…

I stopped breathing.

Yooooo
…

I turned around, my heart beating like mad. On a stone
right behind me was a pale figure, drifting up from the ground. It was the colour of scratched glass and smaller than me by a metre. The things at the quarry hadn’t really had a shape, but this one did have something like a face. Two dark smudges and another below: eyes and a mouth.

Yoooo… Yoooo…

“What do you want?” I whispered, but it didn’t answer, only turned a bit of itself into an arm and reached out with it.

I ran as fast as I ever have, flat-out full speed for the house. I lurched at the back door, flinging myself inside and slamming it shut behind me. The Yale lock clicked and I leaned against it, breathing in gasps.

Then I thought,
Don’t stay by the door!
I mean, if you’ve ever seen any films, you know that’s the worst place to be. I jumped away, ran into the kitchen and looked for something I could use to defend myself. Except I had no idea what would even work.

I went back to the door, put myself a couple of metres away from it and held up the frying pan.

Nothing.

I waited.

Still nothing.

Mum came out of the living room. “What are you doing?”

I lowered the pan.

“Um, you know.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t. What are you up to?”

“Honestly, nothing.”

Mum narrowed her eyes and looked at the back door. She walked towards it.

“No, don’t!”

Mum completely ignored me, which she always does when she thinks she’s on to something I’ve done wrong. She put her hand on the lock, turned it back.

“No! Mum, there’s a…”

She looked me, properly challenging. “A what, Gray?”

“A rat,” I said, desperate. “I saw a rat in the garden.”

Mum pulled her lips tight, and for a moment I thought I’d convinced her. Then she flipped the lock and whipped the back door open.

A square of daylight, the straggly greens of our garden. Mum peered out.

I took a careful step towards the door, hardly daring to breathe.

“If I find out you are up to something…” said Mum, and then she walked out of the back door, right into the garden.

I stood frozen. Then I realised, in films that’s the bit where she gets eaten, and I couldn’t just say inside and watch it happen, could I? I rushed out after her, frying pan up and ready.

“I can’t see any sign of a rat,” said Mum. I ran the length of the garden, looking for the strange ghostly shape. “Mind you, with all the bins out in the alley, I wouldn’t be surprised. Mrs Jenkins’ dog is always at the bags, breaking them open, no matter what she says about it being foxes…”

I even clambered onto the rockery and looked in the nettley gap behind it. Nothing, just our wobbly fence and the apple tree. And a little boy standing next to me.

I held my breath, staring at him.

Mum poked her foot at an ancient Frisbee that was lying in the grass. “You need to tidy up a bit out here,” she said. Not, “Who’s that little boy?”

He looked about… I don’t know, five? Hair cropped really short, sticky-out ears. He was wearing jeans and a Power Rangers T-shirt, and he was staring up at me, his
eyes really big and round, that way little children can. He looked scared, but also… familiar. Like I’d met him before or something.

Huuuurrr
, he said, like a groan,
tinggg
.

Mum didn’t even react, just carried on about how I ought to start looking after the garden.

“After all, you’re the one who uses it most, and you’re old enough to use a lawnmower.”

I lowered the frying pan; I mean, you can’t whack a little kid, can you?

“How about you start today?” said Mum. “Since you’re feeling better.”

She couldn’t see the little boy at all. Only I could.

He stretched out his hand.
Huuuuuurrrr
, he groaned,
tinng
.

I took a step back, but the little boy didn’t move. He was motionless, like a freeze-frame.

“Mum,” I said, trying to sound normal, “can we go back inside?”

She peered at me. “There are no rats out here, so don’t think you can just slob in front of the telly. If you’re well enough to run around, you can help me with some chores.”

“Fine,” I said, not taking my eyes off the little boy. “Whatever.”

Mum gave me a really suspicious look, but she still walked back inside. I took another slow step away from the little boy, and then I couldn’t stay calm any more and I ran straight for the house. As I reached the door I glanced back, and the little boy had vanished.

“You can start by dusting the living room,” said Mum, and for once in my life I was happy to, you know? As long as I was in the house, where everything was normal.

Mum’s living room is really different to Dad’s. The sofa’s comfy and there are cushions everywhere. She has loads of little things on the shelves as well, like candles, vases with coloured twigs in, and photos. Ones of Gran and Granddad, my aunt and cousins, Mum and Brian on the beach, a dog Mum had when she was little, all that. There are photos of me too, about ten of them, starting when I was a baby. I’ve seen them so often I don’t even notice them any more, they’re just part of the background of the room. But as I wiped the shelf, my mind still on what had just happened, one of the photos made me stop completely still. It was in a silver frame, of me standing
proudly in my school uniform, the day I started primary school.

Everything went a bit dark around me and all I could hear was my own breathing.

The little boy in the back garden, he looked exactly like me. Me when I was five. Even down to the haircut, even down to the sticky-out ears.

I picked up the photo and stared at it.

Exactly. Definitely.

Just like me.