Ways to See a Ghost

in on Philip, surrounding him with a solid wall of backs and jostling elbows. People jumped up and down to get a better look, holding up their phones to take pictures, their excited cries echoing back from the shop windows.
    Gray tried to peer through, but there wasn’t even a crack in the scrum.
    “Wow,” he said. “Look at them going for him!”
    “Is Cally all right in there?” said Isis.
    “Wouldn’t it be cool,” said Gray, “if your mum got to be a celebrity like him.” He stood on tiptoes. “You’d have loads of money.”
    Around them people were stopping to watch the scramble for Philip, pausing the flow of shoppers around the mall, adding to the people-jam.
    “Who is it? Who’s in there?” said a woman with blonde hair and a long summer dress, trying to shove her way through.
    Gray jumped a few more times, then gave up.
    “He must be really good at seeing ghosts,” he said.
    Isis shook her head. “Me and Mum went to one of his shows. He couldn’t see them at all.”
    Gray looked at her. “Then why…?”
    Isis glared into the crowd. “What he’s really good at is fooling everyone.”
    Gray didn’t question how she knew. Since the night in the field, the balance between them had shifted.
    “Mandeville says he pretends the spirits tell him things, when really it’s stuff people have told him before the show.”
    “Who’s Mandeville?” asked Gray.
    Isis startled, her face reddening.
    “Um… he’s a ghost,” she mumbled. “I met him at one of Cally’s seances, and a couple of times since.”
    Gray widened his eyes. “You have the weirdest friends.”
    “Mandeville isn’t my friend!” said Isis. “He’s really old, and mouldy too.”
    Gray laughed. “Sometimes you sound crazy, you know?”
    Isis folded her arms. “Why don’t you go back to your mum then?”
    “Crazy is good!” said Gray, smiling. “Like seeing UFOs. Or your sister!”
    “Angel!” Isis spun around, suddenly worried, scanning between the shoppers for a sight of the little ghost. “She’ll get frightened by all these people.”
    “
She’ll
be frightened?”
    “Of course!” said Isis. “She’s only little.”
    She pushed through the still-spreading crowd, heading for the escalators where she’d last seen Angel. But there was no sign of her. She scanned the nearby shops. Bright red banners shouted S UMMER S ALE ! and
30%
O FF !,
but there was no little ghost. Isis looked up the escalator to the upper floor, most of which was a large coffee shop. A group of older teenagers were lurking around the top of the stairs, peering down and laughing at the commotion below. Slouchy boys in low-slung trousers, and spiky girls wearing bright make-up and too-tight jeans.
    Squeezed between two of them was a small faded figure.
    “Can you see her?” asked Gray, looking in completely the wrong direction.
    “There,” said Isis, nodding up at the teenagers. One of the girls was rubbing her arms against the cold, and looking confused.
    “Are you going to get her?”
    Isis looked at Gray. “Oh yes. I’ll just pop up there and say, ‘I’m here for my little sister. Don’t worry if you can’t see her, she’s a ghost.’”
    “
Okay.
I was only asking,” said Gray
    “If I wait, she’ll come down…” started Isis, but her attention was caught by a gleam of blue on the clear curve of the glass roof. Too dark to be the sky, and too close.
    The gleam moved. Pouring itself along the white steel frames that held the glass, flowing like water. It oozed towards one of the roof supports, collecting into an impossible puddle.
    It spread its wings across the windows. The sun shone through them without touching. Something like a head turned and looked down.
    Straight at Angel.

“What’s
up there?”
    Isis could see Gray was struggling to understand. She tried again.
    “I’ve seen it before at the theatre. It sort of dropped onto Philip Syndal and grabbed away this ghost he’d called up to the stage.”
    “Hang on, I thought you said Philip was a fake?”
    “He…” Isis faltered, trying to think. “Mandeville said he was using tricks, but he’s psychic too.” She wavered. If Philip Syndal had any talent, why hadn’t he spotted Angel in his own home?
    “Mandeville the ghost?” asked Gray, looking more confused.
    Isis nodded. “He was at the theatre too. Inside a woman.”
    Gray opened his mouth and shut it again. He squinted up at the glass roof. “And now this… ghost grabber is in the shopping