Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,39
his eyes shut. When he spoke, it was like he was talking in his sleep.
“You should try it. It’s tingly.”
The day just kept getting weirder. Plus Dad and Cally were probably having fifty fits wondering where we were.
I turned to Isis. “So we’re here. Can we go back now?” She was at the edge of the trees, staring with this blank kind of expression.
Merlin opened his eyes. “I haven’t even done my chant yet.”
“Knock yourself out,” I said. “We’ll go back, I know the way.” Not that I really did.
Merlin looked like a kid who’s been told he has to leave the zoo. “At least hug the stone, or there’s no point even coming.”
I shook my head. “No thanks.” I glanced at Isis, but she hadn’t moved. She was staring like she was seeing something no one else could. What worried me was that this was probably true.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said vaguely, like she was concentrating on something else.
“You’ll feel the energy,” Merlin wheedled at me. “Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not scared. This is just rubbish.”
“The stone’s an energy channel, that’s probably why you’re feeling jittery and snappish.”
“I’m not either of those,” I snapped. “Because there’s no energy, and no ley lines! It’s just a rock.” I really wanted that Mars Bar.
“A rock carved by ancient hands and put in this place, thousands of years ago,” said Merlin, settling back into his hug, “soaking up the vibrations like a sponge.”
My life is full of freaks, all of them banging on about their own stupid stuff. Like my dad, like Merlin. Even Isis was being a bit of one then.
“So what if it’s been here thousands of years?” I shouted. “The rock it’s made out of must be millions of years old! Millions of years of being just an ordinary bit of our planet. A few thousand years as a standing stone is nothing compared to that – if I spend a minute in the shower, it doesn’t make me a dolphin!”
I reached over the fence to slap the stone, make my point.
“There’s nothing special…” But even as my fingers brushed its surface, I saw them.
Pale colourless figures, surrounding me in a circle. All different heights and none with a proper face. As I stared, hardly able to breathe, one of the shapes began to shimmer and solidify, turning from a wraith into a human. A black man, with wide eyes and a worn-in kind of frown. He put a hand out towards me and it looked real, even to the bitten fingernails, but his clothes were just smears of colour. A bit of red, a bit of blue.
Meeeeeee, he said.
Another of the figures shimmered into human. An older black guy, his hair going grey, his face wrinkled.
Meeeeeee, he said.
One of the shorter figures shook itself into being a boy. About ten years old, with hair cropped short and sticky-out ears. I took in a shaky-sharp breath. It was me, when I was younger.
Pleeeeeeeezzzzz, he said.
I stared at them, heart battering inside me. More of the shapes shivered and shuddered faces onto themselves and all of the smaller ones had mine.
They began closing in, their hands reaching, all moaning the same words.
Meeeeeeee. Pleeeeezzzz. Meeeeeeee. Meeeeeeee. Pleeeeeezzz.
One of them ruffled into nothing as Merlin moved straight through it. He was frowning at me.
“You okay, man?”
Meeeeeeee. Pleeeeezzzz. Meeeeeeee. Meeeeeeee. Pleeeeeezzz.
“Are you feeling ill or anything?”
What I really noticed was their eyes. Not the colour, but the emptiness. The only thing in them was the deepness of space, and I thought, This is it. This is where the ghosts kill me, or suck out my brains or whatever.
“Isis.” I tried to shout, and it came out a squeak.
I could hear Isis’s feet on the grass, heading into the clearing, and I knew I had to make a run for it. Dodge between the zombie-ghost things before they closed in completely.
My heart was beating so hard I thought I was going to be sick. I counted down to make myself do it.
Three…
Meeeeee…
Isis walked straight past me, up to the standing stone.
Two…
Pleeeeeezzzzzz.
She touched it with her hand.
One…
The circle of ghosts vanished.
Chapter Fifteen
Isis
It felt inevitable somehow, being here with the standing stone. A piece of rock, and yet it had already twisted the direction of her life before now. When she’d been here with Cally and Philip Syndal, the Devourer had been stalking her through the clouds. The time before, when she’d been only seven, they’d been making their way towards here when Angel was