Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,15

whenever I saw her, all I could think was: Are you still Isis? Or are you just some thing, using her body?

So no, I didn’t want to spend time with her. The truth is, she scared me.

Chapter Six

Isis

“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,