Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,60
stupid bit of nothing, who’s never done anything but bring bad things and make my life worse!”
Mandeville was almost translucent. “Is that really how you see me?” His voice was hardly more than a whisper in the air.
She nodded fiercely, adrenalin and fury fizzing in her blood.
“I shall go then. I will not burden you with my presence again.”
“Go on!” But she was shouting at nothing, because Mandeville had already faded, not even leaving a damp smell in the air.
“Good!” said Angel, her face embedded in the sofa arm. “He horrid!”
“Oh…” Isis slammed her hands on the fabric. “You’re as bad as each other!”
Angel vanished, leaving Isis alone. For a few minutes anger pumped through her, justifying what she’d said and done. But as it faded, she began to see her actions in a less flattering light.
“Mandeville?” she whispered. “Angel?”
But there was no reply. She was alone, sitting on the sofa, her legs pulled up and her arms around her knees.
*
She was lying on the sofa, half worn-out from crying, when the downstairs buzzer rang.
Maybe it was Cally?
Isis got up slowly and went to the front door. Cally had probably forgotten something for work, and her keys too.
She pressed on the intercom button.
“What?”
“Let me in! You’ve got to let me in!” Gray’s voice shouted through the little speaker.
“What are you doing here?” Isis said in surprise. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“Just open the door, please!”
She pressed the second button, releasing the lock for the main entrance downstairs.
After a brief pause, the intercom buzzed again. Gray was almost screaming now. “Open it, please!”
“I’ll come down,” she said. “It doesn’t always work.”
She opened the door and ran out into the hallway, skittering down the stairs to the foyer. Through the wire-reinforced glass of the front door she could see Gray pressed against it, punching with balled fists.
She turned the latch and Gray fell through the door, his face pale and slick with sweat, breathing heavily.
“You took your time!” he gasped.
“What’s the matter? What’s going on?”
He looked ill, frightened.
“Things have got worse. Way worse,” he said. “It was bad when I left school, but now they’re everywhere. Following me, shouting stuff. Loads of them, seems like hundreds.”
“Who’s following you?” asked Isis, confused. “Is it a gang or something?”
“Not a gang!” He gave her a look, like she was being an idiot. “And it’s not just me. Jayden and Gav too, people in our year. School’s gone crazy. People are losing it all over, running around screaming.”
A cold slick feeling spread over her. “Because of what I did, because of the seances?”
Gray shook his head. “No! I mean, actually, I don’t know about Year Sevens seeing ghosts in the loos – maybe that is you? But I’m seeing me. Hundreds of me. Old, young, and the worst are the ones… I mean, they look like mirrors. I don’t know what they want, but they don’t give up, they just keep coming.”
She looked out of the door. “I can’t see anything.”
He stayed back. “You can only see them when you go outside.”
She looked at the road and the houses lined up along it. There was nothing out of place. “But ghosts aren’t like that,” she said. “Half of them haunt buildings.”
“I didn’t say they were ghosts!” snapped Gray.
“Then what are they?”
“Go and see for yourself,” His words were sharp, but his face was desperate and pleading. “Gav and Jayden think it’s poison; Stu has a load of crazy theories. I thought you might be able to see something we can’t?”
She put her foot over the threshold, anxiety trembling up her leg. Mobs of ghosts had sometimes chased her after Cally’s seances, frantic to be heard.
“Please,” Gray said. “I’ll hold the door so you can get back in quick.”
A man with his hood pulled up was walking along the road, but there was no one else.
She took another step, and now she was out on the pavement. A flash of colour on the ground caught her eye: a flicker, like a rainbow sparkling away from her foot. Then it was gone.
The man gave her a short wave, as if he knew her, but his face was shadowed by the hood of his anorak.
Was he one of them? One of the things Gray was talking about?
He was coming straight for her, his gait furtive, as if he didn’t want to be noticed. As he got closer, she saw there was nothing about him that looked like Gray, and then there was the strand of long grey hair