Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,28

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?”

Jess nodded, then turned to the crowd with a threatening posture. “We’re nearly done, so you better not tell about any of this. If you do, then the ghosts…” she glared at a boy in the front who looked too young for secondary school, “will come to GET YOU!”

He jumped, white-faced.

Jess’s glare turned back into a smile. “Any last questions?”

“No!” said Mandeville. “No more questions!”

Isis began to shake her head, knowing what