Voices in Stone (7 page)

She turned around. “At break time,” she whispered. “I’ll try.”

Raindrops pattered and slid down the classroom window. Outside, the playing field was darkened by mud and the line of birch trees at the end of the field were drooping under the rain, their leaves in murky greens and yellows, waiting to fall.

Isis turned away from the drab outdoors. The classroom was warm and bright with artificial light, cosy compared to the beginnings of autumn outside. Normally Isis hated wet break times, but normally she had to sit on her own, or at a table with the other outcasts.

Isis smiled.

“That’s so rubbish! Pink and sparkles are for little girls. I saw a purple one that had these black flowers on.” Jess
was arguing with Hayley about phone covers. Both of them wanted new ones, even though as far as Isis could see there was nothing wrong with what they’d got.

“What do you think, Isis?” asked Jess. “Isn’t pink for babies?”

Isis was sitting with Jess and her gang. On their table. She’d been included for nearly two weeks now, and not because a teacher had made them, but because they’d asked her to. Well, Jess had, and the others did what Jess wanted.

“My mum buys me pink stuff,” said Isis.

“See!” cried Jess. “
Isis
agrees with me. You definitely should not get a pink one.”

“She didn’t say that!” said Hayley.

“If your
mum
chooses pink, you definitely shouldn’t!” said Jess. She laughed, and after a moment Hayley laughed too.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

“You can’t let your mum choose anything!” said Jess.

“Or you get jumpers with fluffy bobbles on,” agreed Chloe.

“Frilly dresses,” said Nafira, rolling her eyes.

“My mum does that too,” said Isis, although she’d never really cared what her mum bought. It had always been the least of her worries, and Cally hardly ever had the money to go shopping. But Isis didn’t say that; it felt much nicer going along with things.

Last night, she’d asked her mum if she could go round to Jess’s at the weekend.

“Jess?” asked Cally. “I haven’t met her, have I?”

“She’s my new friend.” The words had felt luscious. She’d wanted to keep on saying them.

Isis looked at the girls on the table. Jess, Hayley, Chloe, Nafira. They were all popular and Isis was spending lunchtime with them, instead of watching from across the room. It was like a hug, sitting here. Like warmth after years of cold.

The conversation wound away from phone cases on to shoes, then to a song Hayley liked. Isis didn’t say much, she mostly listened, learning this new language of girls together. Basking.

An older girl came into the room, looking around. Isis didn’t recognise her; she was probably on an errand or searching out a younger brother or sister. Then she spotted Jess, waved, and walked towards them. Jess waved back.

“Hi, Summer.”

“Hi,” Summer said to Jess. Everyone at their table stopped talking. Summer’s eyes glanced across them with narrowed interest. “Which one is her?”

Jess pointed at Isis.

“Hi,” Summer said to Isis. Only to Isis.

“Hello,” said Isis quietly. What was going on?

“You’re the girl who was dead? The one who sees ghosts?”

Isis felt sick, her throat tightening. She stared at Jess, who only smiled.

“Yes, she is!” squealed Hayley, hands flapping. “She is
amazing
! She sees ghosts
all the time
, and she gave Jess a message from her gran, who’s been dead for two whole years!”

“
And
she knew loads about my uncle,” said Nafira, “and he died
ten
years ago!”

“She knew
everything
about him,” agreed Chloe.

Jess nodded, proud of Isis.

Summer ignored all of them, focusing on Isis. “I want you to do the ghost thing for me,” she said.

Isis pulled into her chair, hands gripping tight to the
seat. She searched around the room but there was no hint of Mandeville. And even if he’d been here…

“I can’t,” she said, “not in front of everyone.”

Jess stood up. “We can go into the toilets.” Her hand was on Isis’s arm, tugging her to standing.

“But I…”
don’t want to. Don’t even know her.

“Come on, Isis,” said Jess, smiling. “Summer’s in Year
Eleven
.”

The older girl nodded. “You can hang out with us after, if you want.” Although the way she said it was flat, like a lie.

Jess’s smile only shifted a little, but Hayley, Chloe and Nafira all jumped up, talking at once.

“Oh
wow
!”

“Can you get us in the Senior Common Room?”

“It might not work,” said Isis, pulling back on Jess’s grip.

Jess laughed artificially, looking at the older girl. “Isis always says that, but it works every time. She’s amazing!”

Isis wanted to shake her head, she wanted to refuse. But over at the back of the classroom was the table where she used to sit, often alone. For a moment she had a double view: herself now, here with Jess and her
friends; herself sitting back there, watching from a distance.

She took a breath, and nodded.

“And where are you all going?” asked the teaching assistant as they headed for the door.

“They’re trying out for drama club. I came to get them,” lied Summer, looking straight at the woman.

“Oh, okay then.” She went back to her marking, uninterested.

They hurried Isis down the corridor. Summer was silent, the others were giggling. When they reached the girls’ toilet they all crammed through the door. High frosted windows lit the room and the five empty cubicles. White tiles covered the walls from floor to ceiling, sharpening every sound. Isis caught their reflections in the mirrors: some laughing, some serious.

“So what happens now?” asked Summer, scowling. “Are we supposed to sit in a circle or something? Cos I’m not sitting on the floor in
here
.”

“Isis doesn’t need tricks like that, do you?” Jess smiled.

Isis shook her head. In the mirror, her reflection was pale, her eyes dark with anxiety.

“I’ve never done this for a stranger before,” she whispered to Jess, but her words bounced back from the walls.

Summer studied her. “Is this just a load of rubbish? Are you all playing some stupid game?”

“No!” said Chloe.

“It’s not rubbish!” snapped Jess, looking fiercely at the older girl.

Hayley flapped her hands. “Honestly, Isis is
amazing
!”

Isis felt the warmth of them. Her friends, standing up for her. She had to prove she was worth it, she couldn’t go back – but there was a problem.

Mandeville.

Where was he? He’d been following her around almost constantly, and now when she needed him…

Summer’s frown hadn’t softened, and the others were all looking at Isis expectantly.

“Don’t worry,” said Jess encouragingly, “you’ll be
great
!”

Isis lifted a little with the praise, but it didn’t help. There was no sign of Mandeville, or any other ghost.

“I’ve… seen ghosts in the playground,” she said to Summer, “and in the old hall there’s the ghost of a teacher. He’s always shouting.”

Summer folded her arms. “Is that it? Stories?
I
can make stuff up.”

Jess shook her head. “No! She can tell you things!” She glared at Isis. “Go
on
.”

But without Mandeville she didn’t know anything about Summer. He was the one able to call the ghosts of relatives from whatever faraway realm they were in, and even then it didn’t always work. Isis had asked why and Mandeville told her that not every spirit heard when he called out to them. Only the ones still interested in the living would come through.

“The others are too far away,” he said, refusing to explain further and looking shifty.

They’d struck lucky twice, with Jess and Nafira, but even if Summer had any ghostly relations who were willing to talk, Isis didn’t have a clue how to reach them without Mandeville.

She tried to think.

“I just have to…” She pushed open one of the toilet doors and flung herself into the cubicle, bolting it quickly behind her.

“What’s she doing now?” Summer snapped.

“I don’t know,” said Jess. She knocked on the door. “Isis?”

Isis leaned against it.

“Mandeville,” she whispered silently. “Mandeville!”

Nothing.

“Forget it,” said Summer, her footsteps heading for the door.

“No, honestly, she really can see ghosts!”

“What are you doing?” Jess hissed through the door.

“I’ll be ready in a sec,” called Isis.

“She’s a bit nervous,” Jess said, and Isis heard Summer’s footsteps returning, accompanied by a sigh.

“Mandeville,” Isis whispered again, “
please
.”

“Isis, are you ready?” Jess would never forgive Isis if she mucked things up now.

A drip fell into the toilet bowl from the ceiling. It plinked loudly, clouding the water. Isis glanced up. The drop had fallen from one of the stains in the ceiling; moisture glistened across the dull white paint, bubbling through the plaster. One drop became another, then another. Water plinked into the toilet bowl, quicker and quicker, the stain growing wetter, the plaster bulging and sagging above her
head. Something must be overflowing in the room above this one.

Before she could move, a soggy crack ripped across the ceiling, a rush of putrid smelling water pouring through. Instinctively she ducked, hands over her head, eyes screwed shut. Freezing, sewage-stinking water smashed over her, getting into her ears and mouth. Isis shut her mouth, desperately trying not to swallow any.

In moments the rush of water faded to a last few drips. Isis lifted up her head, opening her eyes.

She wasn’t wet.

Overhead, the ceiling was whole and unblemished, the floor wasn’t even damp. Standing out of the toilet, like a tall bony heron, was Mandeville.

“Not the most salubrious location for a seance,” said the ghost. “Yet I am grateful for any progress.” He stepped out of the toilet.

“You finished now?” Jess called.

“Our audience awaits,” said Mandeville, smiling. “I’d open the door for you, but I am no poltergeist.”

Isis unbolted the door. She dropped her shoulders, lengthening her neck, trying to copy the way Cally stood
on stage. Then she pulled open the cubicle door, staring directly at Summer as she spoke the strange, familiar words she’d heard Cally say so many times.

“The spirits are listening. Is there anyone you want to speak with?”

Isis was with Jess and the other girls, queuing for lunch in the canteen. They shuffled in the line, in their own little group, self-contained and talking among themselves. Isis knew the eyes of other students were on them, more today than yesterday, more yesterday than the day before, and the week before that.

Interest in their group had been growing ever since her seance for Summer. Jess had organised other seances in the toilets and the more hidden corners of the playground, and Summer had made good on her promise to let them hang out with the older girls. Isis smiled to herself, still not quite able to believe the way Jess had changed things around, so that what been a curse was now a blessing.

The girls sat down and Isis ate quickly, which was the complete opposite of all the lunches she’d had before joining Jess’s group. In the past, the food on her plate had given her something to do. The canteen had been safer from bullies than hanging about the edges of the playground, and less lonely than reading a book by herself in the library.

It was so different now, as she hurried to eat. Lunch break was their busiest time.

“Are you finished yet?” Jess asked, when Isis was only halfway through her potato.

Mandeville materialised next to Nafira, starting as a smudge in the air and a smell of damp.

“Ugh,” Nafira said, spitting out a mouthful of apple. “This is all rotten inside.”

Mandeville waggled his fingers at Isis in greeting. “Are we ready?” he asked.

Isis shoved in a last mouthful of baked beans, then nodded at Jess, who was rubbing her arms without noticing.

“Come on,” Jess said. “I told them to meet us in the gap between the old hall and the science building. No one ever goes there.”

Chloe pulled a face. “It’s always wet down there, even in summer.”

Hayley didn’t look happy either. “Tommo said he saw a rat run across…”

“Your friend has such charming choices of venue,” muttered Mandeville.

“It’s perfect,” said Jess, looking smug. “It’ll set the atmosphere.” She smiled at Isis. “Won’t it?”

“Well…” But Jess was already leading the way from the canteen.

Isis picked up her bag and headed after her, with Hayley, Chloe and Nafira following. Heads turned to watch them leave and talk rippled, but not like before, when she’d run the gauntlet of jokes and sniggering. Now they were being
discussed
, like celebrities.

A Year Seven boy asked, “Where are you going?”

“Invite only,” said Jess, not even bothering to look at him.

Isis smiled, relieved, as they walked out.

The girls headed away from the newer buildings of the school, towards the old brick ones built a hundred and fifty years ago, when classrooms were intended to be high and imposing. Always cold and echoing, there were half a dozen
tales of ghosts in them. None were right, of course; only Isis knew the truth about the ghosts that haunted there.

She glanced at Mandeville, drifting alongside her. His mouth was drawn into a peevish line, and his complaining began as soon as he saw Isis looking.

“Why do we have to lurk in a dingy corner, like petty criminals?” He pointed a bony finger at Jess. “And why does
she
determine where we go?”

Isis didn’t answer. The other girls might be impressed by the seances, but she wasn’t sure they’d react well if she started talking to ghosts when they were just walking through school.

Mandeville whinged into her silence.

“We need to start building your following, and I fail to comprehend how that can take place in toilets and alleyways. You should be taking charge, not allowing yourself to be managed by that girl. Her choices of location are highly unsuitable, and I have little doubt this is all being done in pursuit of her own aggrandisement.”

Initially Mandeville had been delighted by Jess’s efforts, but he was increasingly dissatisfied, and nothing seemed to be enough. Isis hefted her bag from one shoulder to
the other, swinging it by the handle straight through Mandeville. He drifted and reformed, like oil on water.

“Do you mind?” he snapped.

“Sorry,” said Isis. Hayley, walking behind her, looked puzzled and Isis smiled. “I thought I hit you with my bag.”

“No,” said Hayley, shaking her head.

“You did that
deliberately
!” said Mandeville, and Isis turned her smile on him, with a little nod.

“I’m so glad I’m friends with you all,” said Isis blandly. She kept her eyes on Mandeville.

The other girls sparked into happy agreement, while Mandeville stayed close to Isis. They turned the corner of the sports hall, and a cool breeze fluttered their hair and coats. Mandeville shimmered with it, his form spreading out and thinning.

“Your loyalty to these girls is touching, my dear, but remember from whom you really gain your popularity. You should ask yourself, how true are these friends of yours? Would they be with you if
I
wasn’t? Would they eat lunch with you then?”

At this threat Isis stopped walking.

“Don’t,” she said, the word too quiet to be heard.

Mandeville was almost transparent now. “Why
should
I stay, when you treat me with so little respect? When you are merely using me to impress your friends!”

Jess and the others walked on a few paces, then Nafira turned around.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I…” Isis thought desperately, then bent down. “I’ve got something in my shoe.”

Nafira nodded, and carried on walking.

Isis whispered at the ground. “I’m not using you.”

Mandeville’s features grew among the cracks and discolouration of the cement. The dark stain from someone’s spilled drink became his face, one of his blue fire eyes glowed through a blob of chewing gum.

“You are wasting your talents and mine. We have a great cause – that is why I fought for you against Philip Syndal and the Devourer. You and I together, we could do so much!” The grey cement appeared to shudder. “Yet here we are, bringing forth dead pets. Hamsters and cats don’t even understand the meaning of names such as ‘Fluffy’ and ‘Timkins’, whatever their owners believe, which means I have the greatest of difficulty in calling them…”
Mandeville paused, his crumbly dirt features going still for a moment. “Philip Syndal had only a finger’s worth of your talent, yet he spoke to packed theatres.”

Isis drew back. “I’m nothing like Philip Syndal.”

“No, you’re not! You’re a thousand times greater! A thousand, thousand times greater.” The ground sighed a little puff of dust. “I want you to shine, Isis. I want to bring us to the world’s stage and give hope to the frightened masses of humanity.”

Isis glanced up, and saw the other girls had stopped. They were watching her, waiting. She took off her shoe and shook it out.

“I don’t want to do what Cally did,” she whispered, standing up slowly while still keeping her head bent. All the nights she’d travelled with her mum to village halls and community centres, watching Cally perform to fifty, thirty or just a handful of people. When she’d asked her mum if it was really all worth it, Cally had told her that every great stage psychic started this way.

“You won’t have to!” cried Mandeville, following Isis by oozing out of the ground. “You can go straight to the grandest theatres, even to your television.” He said
the last word awkwardly, as if it were a foreign language.

“How? Do you mean going on YouTube?”

Mandeville frowned. “I have no idea what you are talking about. What I
mean
, child, is that you must introduce
me
.”

“How will that help?”

Mandeville’s body poured upwards into the air, so they were facing each other. Through him she could see her friends waiting. Jess looked impatient.

“Allow
me
to speak,” said Mandeville, “rather than passing on pointless messages from the unwashed dead. Then you will see the difference.”

Isis turned around to pick up her bag and, while her back was to the others, said, “You want me to tell them what you say?”

But Mandeville, who was still facing her even though she had moved, shook his head.

“We must be great, my dear. For that, Chinese whispers will not do.”

Isis felt herself go cold. “No,” she whispered.

“Did the woman in the theatre come to any harm?” Mandeville smiled and his teeth seemed longer than ever, hanging from his withered gums. Isis shivered, remembering
Philip Syndal’s performance that she’d gone to see with Cally, and how Mandeville had possessed a woman sitting next to Isis, creeping inside and taking control of her body. The woman had slept through the whole performance, while Mandeville muttered comments through her mouth and waved her hands with jerky movements.

She shook her head. “I’m not letting you possess me.”

“I will rest inside you as lightly as a feather.”

Behind her, Isis could hear footsteps returning.

“Are you all right?” called Jess.

Isis turned around, her smile false and bright.

Mandeville leaned close, a confidential swirl of damp and mould.

“Let us compromise. I can say what I need to with just your mouth. No other part of your body, and certainly not your mind. Let me try, only for a few minutes, and the rest of the time I will play tricks for these children.”

Still Isis didn’t answer, shuddering inside at the thought of it.

“Do you want me to leave you alone to face your audience?” Mandeville threatened.

Isis kept her eyes on Jess, but her words were for him.

“Okay then.”

She didn’t want to, but a miserable, calculating part of her mind knew that she didn’t have a choice. Mandeville was absolutely right: without him, she’d be sitting alone in the canteen right now.

The group carried on, turning another corner, and now Isis saw the people already waiting for them. A mix of boys and girls, ranging from Year Nine up, hanging around in twos and threes, as if they’d just gathered by coincidence. A passing teacher might wonder why they were all around here, but no one was doing anything against the rules. Not yet, anyway.

There were so many, though! Isis began counting the students. When she got past twenty she put her hand on Jess’s arm.

“How many people did you invite?”

“Only six,” Jess replied, not even slowing down. “I guess they asked their friends too.” She let out a little squeal. “There’s Justin Geds!” She pointed at a Year Ten boy.

Hayley huddled in. “And he’s got Harry Lyons with him!”

“They are so hot!”

Jess straightened a little, flicking her hair back. “Come on.” She walked confidently towards the older students,
as if she owned the place, as if she was the star of the show. Isis walked a pace or two behind, her throat tight.

“They don’t look hot to me,” remarked Mandeville, studying the older boys, “but I find differences in temperature harder to detect than I did when living.”

The twos and threes began to gather into a single mass as the girls walked towards them. Isis heard giggles from behind, and looking back she saw a group of Year Sevens following them around the corner of the science block. They looked both furtive and excited.

Chloe turned as well. “What are
they
doing here?”

“I
told
them it was invite only,” said Jess.

Hayley shrugged. “We’ll just get rid, that’s all.”

Nafira shook her head slowly. “We can’t, there’s Jenna Kay – she’s just the type to go running to a teacher if she doesn’t get her way.”

Jess sighed. “All right, we let them join in.” She glanced at Isis. “Okay?”

Not that Isis was really part of the discussion.

In the end, Isis’s audience was larger than many of those her mum had performed to. All squashed into the narrow
gap between the old Victorian building and the far newer science block. The height of the buildings allowed only a little light to reach the ground between them and so moss bloomed across the crumbling tarmac and up the lower parts of the walls. It was dank, dim and definitely creepy, but the main reason for choosing this spot was that it wasn’t overlooked. The side of the science block had no windows, only vents and a locked fire exit, and all the windows of the Victorian building were glazed with frosted glass, since their only view was a wall.

The audience was a jumble of tall and short students. Faces peered between shoulders, the younger ones scuffled their way to the front. The kids from upper years had their arms crossed, standing like they weren’t bothered. The Year Sevens jiggled and chatted, always moving.

“Your little friend has acquired a reasonable crowd,” Mandeville commented.

Isis took a breath, smelling the moss and wet brick. Jess was introducing the seance now. Setting out the rules and herself as ringmaster. Nafira, Chloe and Hayley had taken their places flanking Isis, their attitudes somewhere
between the glower of bodyguards and the basking smugness of a pop star’s parents.

When it was time, Isis said the words she was already getting used to. “The spirits are listening…”

Jess had a queue of questions lined up, with the Year Ten boys right at the front of it. The first questions were obviously tests, clearly devised with the idea of catching Isis out. People asked what the name of a grandparent or distant uncle was. Mandeville tutted and sighed next to her, but he seemed to be getting more and more adept at drawing ghostly relatives from whatever distant realm he called them. She could see them from the corners of her eyes, a spectral crowd mirroring the living one.

These spirits had a different quality to the ones who’d gathered hopelessly at her mother’s seances, waiting for chances that never came. Many of the spirits Mandeville summoned now seemed to waver, as if unwilling or only half present, and instead of yearning, they seemed impatient and uncomfortable, desperate only to leave.

Maybe it was the stupid questions people were asking? Only a girl who asked to speak to her recently dead aunt seemed to be here for any reason other than curiosity.
The conversation relayed through Mandeville to Isis was full of new grief, and as the tears dribbled down the girl’s face, even the youngest children became silent and respectful. When she was finished, Isis felt the girl’s aunt leave in an exhaling sigh. Isis sighed too, feeling exhausted and a little bit shaky. She asked Jess, “Can we stop in a minute?”