Ways to See a Ghost

the world! His tours are always sold out.” She read aloud from the letter. “
I have
heard extremely exciting reports from your seances, and the committee has agreed to consider you for membership.
” Cally stood up, feet still in the folds of her duvet. “Isis! This is it!” She was dancing with the letter, bouncy and happy on the bed. Isis got on too, jumping about on the squeaky mattress, laughing and holding her mum’s hand.
    Then Cally cried, “I have to ring Gil!”
    And Isis stopped bouncing.
    “He must have spoken to Sondra, he must have sorted everything out!”
    Isis got down off the bed and walked out of Cally’s bedroom, even as her mum was tapping into her mobile phone. From the living room, she could still hear Cally’s excited voice.
    “I just had to thank you for sorting things with Sondra, for getting me invited into the Welkin Society… oh, didn’t you? Well you’ll never guess, a letter arrived from them this morning!”
    They were going to be over at his place in a couple of hours, but Cally couldn’t wait that long.

    “Let’s all go to the park!” Cally said when they’d got to Gil and Gray’s house. Like Isis and Gray were five.
    “The weather’s really horrible,” said Isis.
    “It’s only a bit damp.” Cally was smiling at Gil like she couldn’t stop.
    “We could go to the cinema,” suggested Gray, “then you two can snog in the back row.”
    “Gray!” snapped Gil. “When you start paying, you can choose where we go.”
    “I can pay,” muttered Gray. “Mum gave me some money.”
    Which hadn’t helped, not at all, and now they were here in the drizzle. Just about the only people in the whole park.
    Isis spun round again. Gray had already given up on the playground. He’d found some bits of biscuit in his coat pocket, and he was busy throwing crumbs to some eager, soggy pigeons.
    “This is so cringeworthy,” he’d said, as they walked behind their giggling, hand-holding parents. “Dad could’ve waited. Next weekend I’m at Mum’s anyway.” He glared at their backs. “I don’t know why we couldn’t just stay at home and let them go off in the rain.”
    “Cally would never leave me,” said Isis. She blushed – she’d made herself sound like a baby.
    “What about when you go to your dad’s?” asked Gray.
    Isis shook her head. “I don’t.”
    Gray looked at her. “You don’t see him at all?”
    Isis shook her head again. “He left after…” She paused. Did Gray know what had happened to Angel? Had Cally told Gil? “He travels a lot. But I do get presents from him, at Christmas and my birthday. And he sends me letters, he always knows exactly what I’m up to.”
    Her dad. His absence was like a heavy coat, one she couldn’t take off. She’d never really stopped wishing for him to be there when she got home from school, or to remember he also had a daughter who was alive. After he’d left, she’d wished for him every night, two years solid. Every birthday she made the same wish, blowing out the candles on her cake. It hadn’t done any good. She and Cally had moved to a flat, and their old house went up for sale.
    “What does he do?” asked Gray.
    Isis looked at her shoes, water-darkened. “He works on cruise ships,” she mumbled. “He does shows for the passengers.” She looked up, glaring. “Not rubbish or anything. He does proper magic, and hypnotism and stuff. He’s really good.” She held herself rigid, daring him to make fun.
    Gray didn’t, only nodding. Then he tilted his head a little. She was learning to read him, and a tilt meant a question. She jumped in with her own, blocking.
    “Why are you called Gray? Is it short for something?”
    Gray rolled his eyes. “I wish it was, cos then I could call myself something else.” He nodded at Gil, holding hands with Cally. “It was Dad’s choice. That’s what Mum says anyway. It’s cos he’s such a UFO freak.”
    Isis looked at him.
    “What’ve UFOs got to do with it?”
    Gray sighed. “The greys. They’re a type of alien. They go on about them all the time at his conferences. Anyway, he thinks aliens are super intelligent and all that, so he wanted to name me after them.”
    Isis felt a laugh, but managed to swallow it.
    “Why didn’t your mum stop him?”
    Gray shrugged. “He has this effect on women, you know? He can make them do what he wants. Not Mum any more, not since she left him, but with all the rest…” He stopped. “I mean, he’s different