Ways to See a Ghost

felt a tingle on the back of her neck, her hair lifting at its roots. She could see Cally was entranced.
    “Why he got a stick on his face?” A little voice peeped up to Isis. Angel bobbed up in front of her, trying to get a better view.
    “It’s his microphone,” whispered Isis, peering throughthe foggy blur of Angel’s head. “So we can hear him.”
    “Are you all right?” asked the woman next to her.
    Isis jumped in the dark.
    “I’m fine,” she said quickly, sitting still in her seat. She stared straight at the stage, watching Philip Syndal, ignoring the ghost freezing her lap.
    Philip was really good, once he got going, and everything he said was spot on. No one shook their heads when he said something the spirits had told him about them, no one looked confused, or contradicted him apologetically. He never struggled to draw names from the air, the way Cally sometimes did. They were called out confidently, and hands went up straight away. The people who stood up from their seats gasped and laughed as he told intimate and accurate details about their loved ones, and the messages from beyond were loving and profound. The audience clapped long and loud after every reading.
    Isis sat and watched, becoming more and more astonished.
    How did he do it?
    Because, for all his accuracy, for all the amazement he brought to the theatre, there was one thing missing.
    The ghosts.
    There were none up on stage with him. Isis peered hard, wondering if she just wasn’t looking properly, but she could easily see Angel, who was soundlessly kicking her feet against the chair in front. Isis glanced to the back of the theatre, and she saw three ghostly forms, unnaturally bright against the black painted walls. But none of them had responded to Philip Syndal’s called-out names, none of them had floated for the stage. They were looking around, anxiously, but not at Philip Syndal. As if they knew there was little chance of being noticed.
    But if he wasn’t actually communicating with ghosts, how could he know so much about everyone?
    “Good, isn’t he?”
    Isis startled in surprise. She turned, and the middle-aged woman in the next seat was staring at her, fixing Isis with a piercing blue gaze.
    “Don’t you think he’s good?” she asked again.
    “Um, yes,” Isis answered.
    “It’s especially impressive,” whispered the woman, “given that the spirits are almost absent. How does he hear what isn’t there, I wonder?” Her bright blue eyes dropped; she was looking straight at Angel.
    Angel stopped mid-kick, turned and stared atthe woman. She squeaked and shot down under Isis’s seat, cold-shivering straight through her legs.
    Isis sat still, breathing shallow and fast.
    “Um, I’m not sure what you mean…” she said.
    “Please,” whispered the woman, “there’s no need for evasion with me. Not when we’re already friends.” She smiled, her teeth dangling yellow from her gums, her eyes glinting like backlit sapphires.
    Isis gasped, pulling as far away as she could. The eyes weren’t the woman’s own! Someone else was looking out through her sockets.
    “Surely you’ve heard of possession?” whispered the woman, lifting her hands from the seat. They dangled at her wrists, jerky and puppet-like. “It’s quite fun, once you learn how.”
    “Mandeville?” Isis mouthed the name, not wanting to speak it aloud.
    The woman dipped her head.
    Now, Isis could make out the wrinkled features of an old man, sitting like memory inside the woman’s face. And deeply hidden behind Mandeville’s blue eyes, Isis could just see the woman’s closed eyelids. As if she were sleeping.
    “You shouldn’t do that!” hissed Isis. “Get out of her, right now!”
    “No. She’s my protection.” The ghost sniffed through the woman’s nose. “In any case, I’m not hurting her. She’ll think she fell asleep during the performance; she’ll be disappointed, but that’s all.”
    “Why do you need protection?”
    He didn’t answer, but his expression gave Isis a touch of fear. Mandeville seemed to bring fear with him.
    She watched the performance in silence for a few minutes, then she turned to Mandeville.
    “Why are there so few ghosts here?” she asked. “There were loads at Cally’s performances.”
    The ghost/woman looked back at the few lonely spirits haunting the rear of the theatre. There was something like pity on his/her face.
    “All but the fools know not to,” he said quietly.
    Isis nodded. What