Ways to See a Ghost

stone castle, carrying a sword like she didn’t know how to use it. She smashed it into a massive wooden door, and the door broke open.
    “That’d never happen,” I said. “You’d need a chainsaw or something.”
    The woman rushed into some kind of dungeon and set about freeing a white-bearded old man who was shackled to the wall.
“Merlin!”
she cried, then they went into this stupid long chat where they explained the plot of the film to each other.
    “There was another thing,” Isis said, and her voice sounded weird. Scared. “Philip Syndal came over withCally, afterwards. And the thing came back, out of nowhere, and… poured right into him.”
    I stared at her. “Poured how?”
    “Through the top of his head.”
    “Did he…” I didn’t know what to ask. Did he drown? Ice over? Did his head explode?
    “He didn’t do anything,” said Isis. “He didn’t even notice, I think.”
    “How could he not notice a monster going into his head?”
    Isis took a sip of her drink, the ice clunked inside the cup. “No one else at the shopping centre even knew it was there. It exploded these two people, then put them back together, and no one even blinked.” She put her drink down on the arm of her chair. “Mandeville said Philip was psychic, but he never noticed Angel at his house.”
    “So is it… still inside him?” I asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    We watched the film for a bit then, both thinking hard. Merlin and the woman left the castle and rode through these random bits of countryside, asking the peasants if they’d seen King Arthur. All the peasants were really clean, and they had nice white teeth.
    I turned to Isis. “Do you think it could’ve been an alien, maybe? Like, with advanced technology, so no one could see it? A cloaking device?”
    Isis frowned. “An alien hunting ghosts and possessing people?”
    “Maybe. Aliens do all sorts of things.”
    She shook her head.
    “No,” she said, firmly. “It didn’t have anything to do with aliens, or your dad’s UFO stuff.” The light from the film flickered over her face. “It felt like pure… wanting, or hunger or something. Mandeville said it was from before humans could even speak.”
    She wrapped her arms around herself. “Mandeville said something might happen to Angel, and then next thing the Devourer appeared.”
    “Devourer?”
    “That’s what Mandeville calls it,” she said.
    Now I can see he practically told Isis what was going to happen, especially giving it a name like that.
    Isis looked at me. “He wants me to save the ghosts from the creature, but how can I even do that? I don’t know how to fight it, and I don’t want to see it again, not ever!”
    “Do you think it’s still hunting after Angel?”
    Isis shrugged, looking miserable.
    “It said something about a bargain, that I could keep her. But then it said…” She stopped, and sort of shuddered. “I don’t know what. I didn’t agree to anything though, I’m sure I didn’t.”
    I thought about it, but I couldn’t work it out. Not then, anyway.
    “Where’s Angel now?” I asked.
    Isis sighed. “Hiding inside the sofa. She hasn’t come out for days – I think she’s recovering.”
    “Well that’s good, isn’t it? She’s safe for now.”
    Isis stared at the film, her eyes reflecting the cinema lights. I could see how scared she was.
    “We’ll think of something,” I said. “Angel will be all right.”
    But the thing is, we hadn’t fitted it all together properly. We’d forgotten all the other stuff we were caught up in.
    I wish I’d thought harder. I wish I’d been cleverer.
    Other stuff. Well, there is certainly that. But would knowing about it have helped Isis? I doubt it, Gray.
    That’s why we are here, to deal with the ‘other stuff’.Even your father is only scratching at the surface. And Stuart Bradley may call himself the Keeper, but the only secrets he’ll ever find out about are the ones we want him to.

Cally led the way through the trees, along a narrow path, brown-patterned with last year’s leaves. A little way back they’d passed a wooden footpath sign, faded and green-stained with moss.
    “Are we there yet?” asked Isis.
    “Nearly,”
said Cally.
    Isis rolled her eyes at Cally’s back, trudging on between the trees. What was the point of this?
    There was a flicker of movement just off the path, leaves in the sunshine maybe. Isis half-expected the small, familiar shape of Angel, but she wasn’t there. She