their fear of death. Words of comfort. That’s my mission!”
“Is he still here?” Jess whispered, her voice little more than a quaver. “Your… guide?”
Isis nodded. “He is.”
She could see how scared the other girl was, and yet Jess managed a trembling breath before saying, “What is it that’s going to kill us all? Is it a bomb?”
Mandeville turned to look at Jess, and Isis watched the realisation dawning on him.
“Ah,” he said, “I see how my words could be misinterpreted.”
Chapter Eleven
Gray
It was because of Isis that I kept quiet about seeing that little boy. I mean, I knew what people were calling her, all that dead girl stuff. And then she started her seances, and even when everyone was desperately trying to get in on one, at the same time they were still saying things, you know? More and more people were calling her ‘dead girl’, just not to her face. And they went on about how creepy she was, that she could make you ill by looking at you the wrong way. All that.
If I’d mentioned anything about seeing little boys who weren’t there, I’d have been sucked right into the craze, and all of the stuff being said about Isis would’ve turned on to me as well, especially after what Mrs Dewson had told everyone in assembly.
So you left Isis to be the butt of school gossip? You did nothing to defend her?
I know I should have said something – I mean I’m not proud of how I behaved then…
I am not judging you. I admire your sense of self-preservation.
But people didn’t know the half of what I did about her, and I kept quiet about all of it, didn’t I? And I still wasn’t sure she was even really her. Maybe she was still the Devourer? It would explain why she was behaving so differently to before. I mean, when she told me about being able to see ghosts in the summer, she said no one else knew. But there she was, giving seances to all the giggly girls in our year and any boys they fancied. She’d changed, for definite.
I just kept out of it, that’s all. And there wasn’t anyone else I could talk to about the little boy in my garden. My mum would’ve flipped out, Dad would’ve… really enjoyed it, probably. Come up with loads of theories, written a blog about it for his UFO-freak friends. I did try to talk to other people who’d been on the school trip, but it was like they didn’t know what I was on about.
“Did you see anything… odd that day?”
“No. I don’t know what you’re on about.”
Even Jayden, who’d been screaming at the quarry, just said, “I never screamed.” Like that, a flat-out lie.
I didn’t know if they were playing it down, so they wouldn’t seem weird like Isis, or if I was only one who’d seen the ghostly stuff.
I kept thinking about what had happened the night in August – the Devourer surrounding me, seeing all those ghosts. Had it changed my brain, warped it or something? I was really worried, but I kept my mouth shut.
Fear of madness, such a useful characteristic. Despite depictions on film, we hardly ever need to use memory-wipe devices on witnesses to unusual happenings. Most keep quiet, all by themselves. It isn’t only children who are afraid of being made fun of, believe me. It makes our clean-up operations so much easier.
I thought you’re a therapist.
Look at my eyes, Gray, that’s right. Now listen: I am not a doctor or a therapist. I am just a man you’ll soon forget about, and you are answering my questions.
Oh, yes. Just a man.
Please carry on.
So I… was… back at school and after a while the stuff about the school trip quietened down. I started to feel normal again. Every now and then I’d catch something out of the corner of my eye, like a figure of someone, but when I turned around, there was never anything there. I decided I was probably just jumpy. All in my head.
A good thing was that Mum patched things up with Dad, because she had to admit he obviously was concerned about my welfare, seeing as he turned up to the school trip only a few minutes after she did. That was the best thing to happen in weeks, because it’d been horrible not seeing him for so long. They agreed Dad could take me out for the day the next Saturday, and I