Ways to See a Ghost

staggered, falling to her hands and knees, her breath coming in gasps. The whirlpool circled faster, and she screwed her eyes shut, trying to force her thoughts away from Angel. She focused again on the night in the field, reliving every moment, every strange detail of the lights swirling into a strange sun, of the flock of ghostly, doomed birds.
    When she reached the end of the memory, her mind was still.
    She opened her eyes.
    A swirl of blue, curling around the shopping centre, softly undulating. Gentle as a coil of smoke, covered in slow smiles.
    Your bargain is good. You can keep your sister.
    Isis stared at it, shaky with disbelief. She’d beaten it! She’d kept it from Gray, from Angel; they were safe and away, running down normal, sunlit streets. She laughed,almost hysterical, and pushed herself to standing. An elderly couple glanced at her, then looked quickly away. She put her hand to her mouth, tears trickling down onto her fingers.
    Then, you will feed me. You will be my feast-giver.
    The words froze into her mind, spoken by everyone she’d ever known.
    A weightless wind blew through the shopping centre, and the creature oozed into the air. It rippled through the main hall, rising above the heads of the shuffling shoppers, shooting straight up and crashing out through the glass roof, splintering the windows into a million shards of crystal.
    Leaving them perfectly whole, and undamaged.
    The sound of footsteps brought Isis back into the noise and chatter of the mall. The middle-aged man in the white T-shirt and jeans was leading Cally towards her. Behind them was a security guard, and trailing after was Philip Syndal.
    Cally rushed for Isis, grabbing hold of her.
    “What happened to you? What’s the matter?”
    Isis stared at her, a blank in her mind where words ought to be.
    “Uh… I was here…” she managed. Her voice sounded strange, as if she were speaking a foreign language.
    “A fit,” said the man in the T-shirt. “She was definitely having a fit or something. Talking to herself, shaking, eyes rolled back in her head.”
    “Oh God!” Cally pulled Isis into a tight hug.
    “I wasn’t…” Isis said into Cally’s shoulder, but she wasn’t listening.
    “She’s ill! I have to take her home!” said Cally. She turned to Philip. “Please, could you explain to the centre manager for me? I really can’t continue the readings after this.”
    “Of course,” said Philip. He turned to Isis with genuine concern on his face. “I hope you feel better soon.”
    And the world darkened around them, the sun overhead hazing and cooling. In dread, Isis looked up and saw an arrow of darkness, a swarm heading straight for them out of the sky. It plummeted downwards: a falling fountain of deep blue water, filled with eyes and laughing, biting mouths. She was frozen by fear; it was too fast to avoid. The cloud was a dagger, heading right for her. A scream opened her mouth, but came out as a gasp. The dark swarm, the many eyes and hands, they funnelled neatly into the top ofPhilip’s head, as if there were an open hole in his skull.
    He continued to talk with Cally as the raging swirl rushed into him. When it had finished, he shut his mouth, and Isis saw him swallow.
    “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll sort everything out.”

When I got back to the shopping centre, it was Mum I ran into first. Of course, then I was in loads of trouble. She yelled at me twenty minutes straight for not telling her where I’d gone. She wouldn’t listen to a word I said, just marched us both out of there, which meant I never got to look for Isis or find out if she was okay.
    Later on, Mum tried to get Dad into being cross with me, but luckily he didn’t care.
    “I always hated going shopping with you, as well,” he said. “All that hanging around while you tried stuff on.”
    “You never
came
shopping with me,” said Mum, “and I wasn’t shopping for myself today. I took your son to buy new shoes, which he needs. Not that you think about thatkind of thing!” And then they were into a whole new round of fighting, so I sneaked off.
    Normally I hate it when they go for each other, but this time I was glad because it meant they never asked me why I’d run out of the shopping centre in the first place. I mean, I couldn’t exactly tell them I’d been saving Isis’s dead sister from a ghost-eating monster.
    Not that I actually knew if I had. Without Isis, I couldn’t even see Angel, so when I was running