Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,81

If you don’t leave us alone, I’ll tell them about you. You wouldn’t be able to buy them off, or hypnotise them…

Sit down! You can’t just leave!

I can. Goodbye, Mr Dunbar, or whatever your real name is. I hope I never see you again.

Chapter Thirty-six

Isis

Isis sat on a low wall, staring out through the school gates at the cars passing by on the road. Gray wasn’t around this lunchtime – he was probably at his UFO club. It was really popular since the events at the quarry a few weeks ago. Isis had gone a couple of times, but felt uncomfortable with the level of awe directed at her by some of the more enthusiastic members.

And if Gray wasn’t around, she’d rather spend time by herself. Being asked about the alien wasn’t quite as bad as “What’s it like being dead?” but no one wanted to talk about everyday stuff. No one treated her as normal. Along with Gray, she was one of the survivors of what was now being called the Wycombe Event, and not just by people like Stu.

At least Mr Gerard had let her back from suspension. Mainly because the pupils who’d had the worst of the ‘ghost hysteria’ turned out never to have attended any of Isis’s seances. In fact, there was a much clearer link between the riotous behaviour at school and the pupils from Mr Watkins’s geography class who’d visited the quarry. They’d even been treated by a therapist brought into school especially. Isis had heard one of the teachers saying that whatever the therapist was doing, it was definitely working. The pupils involved seemed to have forgotten why they’d been upset in the first place.

“You’ve never been in any trouble before,” said Mr Gerard, the first day Isis was allowed back. “So I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. But you’re on report for the next month, and if I hear of a single incident…”

He wouldn’t, though. Isis couldn’t do seances now, even if she wanted to, and she kept away from Jess’s gang, just in case. Sometimes she spotted Jess looking in her direction, but Isis always turned her head and walked away.

The air turned cold around her, filling with a damp musty smell as Mandeville appeared on her left. She noticed the twinkle of a sparkly sandal to her right, and Angel appeared, sitting on the wall.

“By yourself again?” asked Mandeville. “You know, it really isn’t conducive to a healthy mental state.”

“She not alone,” said Angel. “She got us.”

“Well, I suppose that is true,” conceded the older ghost.

Isis waited for an argument to brew between the ghosts, but none did. She still wasn’t used to it, the way they were getting on. It was something to do with being mixed together inside the alien’s mind. Perhaps it was easier to accept someone else when you’d shared each other’s thoughts. Isis and Gray now often finished each other’s sentences, much to their parents’ bemusement.

Isis looked from Angel to Mandeville. Her last two ghosts.

Whatever it was she’d felt pulling out of her when the alien left, she’d lost most of her ability to see things other people couldn’t. Now she couldn’t even see regular spirits like the school’s ghosts. Even if she’d wanted to continue with the school seances, she couldn’t have.

“Do you think it’ll come back?” she asked Mandeville.

He turned his bony head towards her. “What are you referring to, my dear?”

“Being psychic. Do you think it’ll come back, like recharging a battery?”

“If I knew what a battery was, I might comment. As to your abilities, I doubt they will return. They may even fade further. Possession of a creature as vast as the one we tackled… it would tax any psychic’s powers, and I was forced to draw strongly on yours, which were already weakened by your encounter with the Devourer.” He paused for a moment, then pointed at the pavement outside the school. “For example, can you see him?”

To Isis it seemed an empty stretch of road. She shook her head.

“Ah, that is a pity,” said Mandeville. “It really is striking, the way he can remove his head.”

“You’re making that up!”

“I take offence at the suggestion. Ask your sister!”

“A ghostie is there,” said Angel, kicking her feet soundlessly against the wall. “Head off, head on. Off, on.” She started giggling. “Again! Do it again!”

“Don’t you mind?” Isis asked Mandeville. “What about all your plans? Me being your psychic, and your message to the world…”

Mandeville was silent. Isis could see