Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,34

cheeks would stay the same icy pale as Cally’s.

Gray continued peering at the air, trying to spot Mandeville. “I thought Angel was your… main ghost.”

“I ARE!” shouted Angel.

Isis smiled down at Angel. “Mandeville’s just helping me.”

“Helping?” said Mandeville, raising one dusty eyebrow. “I hope my contribution is seen as greater than that.”

Gray looked at Isis thoughtfully. “So is Mandeville how you’re doing all the seances at school?”

“How do you know about them?”

“Everyone knows.”

“We’re not hurting anyone,” Isis said hotly.

Gray didn’t answer, which she couldn’t help taking as an accusation.

“So what if I’m making friends? At least they haven’t been ignoring me for weeks!” The words hit home, and she felt pleased for about a second.

“I did already say sorry,” he said. “But, you know, everything that happened in the summer holidays… it might be normal for you, but it wasn’t for me.”

“It wasn’t normal for me either!”

“Normaller, then.”

She could feel an argument hovering. Why couldn’t their friendship go back to the way it had been?

Mandeville drifted closer, bringing with him a strong stench of mouldy fabric. “Why don’t we do a seance for the boy,” he whispered. “Isn’t that how you win your friendships?”

“I can’t do one here,” said Isis.

“And I already do’d it!” Angel said to Mandeville. “He seen me!”

“How edifying for him. A little urchin who would benefit from a good thrashing if she weren’t already dead!”

Angel put her fists on her hips. “An’ you… you… STINK!” she shouted, before vanishing.

Mandeville stalked away as well, fading as he did so. “Well don’t say I never try to help you!”

“What’s going on?” asked Gray.

“They had a fight,” said Isis. “Mandeville and Angel don’t like each other much.”

Further ahead, Cally and Gil had stopped on the path and were waiting for them.

“Come on!” shouted Gil. “What are you two doing?”

“Listening to ghosts argue,” replied Isis, too quietly for their parents to hear.

“Do you want to tell them?” Gray asked, with a smile. “Or shall I?”

Isis laughed, and he joined in. She wondered if maybe the tension between them and the weeks of not talking didn’t matter, after all. Gray was the one who understood Isis, more than anyone else, more than Jess even. Jess and the others had been terrified just by hearing Mandeville’s voice, whereas Gray took seeing the ghost in his stride. He knew all about Angel too, while Isis hadn’t yet dared to mention having a ghost-sister to her new friends. In the end, she had no other friend like Gray.

“I think we should go that way,” said Gil, pointing. They’d been walking for an hour or so, having left the footpath at Gil’s insistence and followed a little trail that had now dwindled into nothing at the top of a slope.

Isis looked, but she couldn’t see any sign of the quarry. Just the hills rolling in waves, dipping into hidden, wooded valleys. The sun was so bright she had to squint. It was warm enough to be summer again.

Gil peered at a map, turning it around in his hands.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “The main path should be around here somewhere.”

Cally stood motionless, hands outstretched and her eyes half-closed. “We’ll just have to feel our way,” she said dreamily. “Constance said the ley lines have been disrupted, but I’m sure I can find my way through them.”

“The quarry’s probably here,” said Gil, his finger on the map. “So if we take this path…”

“Not the quarry!” said Gray. “You promised.”

“We’ll keep a safe distance,” said Gil, “but we need to get a bit closer, enough to see inside it.”

Gray shook his head. “No way.”

The grassy slope stretched down from where they’d stopped. Isis could see the snaking line of a path disappearing into the trees that covered the valley floor.

“We could try down there,” she said, pointing.

Gil shook his head. “We’ll never get to it if we take any old path that we see. I doubt that goes anywhere near the quarry.”

“Right then,” said Gray, and he ran off, hurtling down the slope towards the path Isis had pointed at.

“Come back!” shouted Gil. But Gray carried on running. “Oh for… Why is he being so awkward?” Gil started to stamp down the slope, but Cally caught his arm.

“Maybe he’s scared?”

Gil grunted. “I’m scared of things, but I still do them.”

“And when you were his age?”

Gil grunted again, and stared after Gray, who was nearly at the bottom of the hill. “Maybe he is worried; he has been going on a bit about the quarry.” He