Ways to See a Ghost

at him.
    “There’s nothing wrong with me and Cally!”
    Philip pulled his face into a sympathetic expression. “We naturally defend our parents, but your file says otherwise. A chaotic and neglectful lifestyle. Cally dragging you all around the countryside on evening performances when you should be at home doing your homework, or in bed. People in the audiences reported it. And then your teachers are worried about how small and underfed you look. Turning up at school without the proper uniform, and no packed lunch. Apparently your concentration is really quite terrible. Of course they blame that on poor parenting, not ghosts.” He pulled Isis towards him a little. “Think how easy it would be for me to get you taken away from your mother. A nudge here and there. Perhaps a few concerned phone calls?”
    Isis’s heart was pattering in panic. Was this true? Could it be?
    It probably wouldn’t take much, now she thought about it. The deputy head already asked Isis questions like, “How’s your mother doing?” and, “How are things at home?” Isis had thought she was just being nice, but maybe she wrote down Isis’s answers and sent them off to a social worker?
    “My dad,” she said. “He’d stop you!”
    Philip’s mild expression flicked into harsh. “And where ishe, then? Oh yes, he left you. Do you really think he cares?”
    The grass felt like rock beneath her. She could hardly breathe, the air stolen from her lungs. “Please,” she begged. “Don’t take me away from my mum.”
    Philip gazed at her. “I don’t want to… I loved my parents too. Even when they called me lazy and stupid, even when they turned me out of the house at fourteen.” His voice was cold, tinged with bitterness. “I ended up in a care home, run by a man who
cared
for us with an old snooker cue. I still have the scars from his beatings.” He squeezed her hand tighter, so her fingers almost felt numb. “I don’t want that to happen to you.”
    “Cally would never let them take me!”
    Philip narrowed his eyes. “Even if she found out the truth? About Angel, and how you’ve been lying to her all this time?”
    He looked up. The sky was a circle of blue, lined by the soft ruffle of the surrounding trees.
    “Do you know why psychics are so rare?” he said quietly. “Because it’s a defect. Like two heads, or a heart on the outside of your body – it’s not supposed to happen. That’s why people with psychic ability suffer so much.” He looked back at Isis. “And you see ghosts very clearly,don’t you? Which is unusual, even for a psychic – they all look quite blurry to me. So you’re at the extreme end of defective, don’t you see? You really need protection, or you’ll be gibbering before you know it.” He smiled. “You’ll get used to having it in your mind, after a while.”
    Isis tried to breathe, tried to think. Mandeville had said the Devourer started as a protection, but now it was out of control. Had it somehow attached itself to Philip, was that what Mandeville meant?
    “I won’t do it,” she whispered, trying to hold out.
    “Well you will,” he said calmly, letting go of her hand at last. Blood prickled back into her fingers.
    Isis stared at him for a second, then she sprang up, grabbing Cally’s shoulders, shaking her out of her trance. “Wake up! Wake UP!”
    “Wha…?” said Cally, bleary, her eyes barely open.
    “We have to go!”
    Cally rubbed her eyes.
    “We have to leave right now!”
    “Isis,”
said Cally, turning to Philip. “I’m sorry, Isis is being so rude today.”
    Philip smiled calmly. “It’s really quite all right. Everything will be sorted out soon.”
    Violet colour fluttered through the trees.
    “No it won’t!” shouted Isis. “Because Cally’s leaving the Welkin Society! We’re never seeing you again!”
    “What are you talking about?” said Cally, standing up, frowning. “I’m not doing any such thing.”
    Isis opened her mouth, but how could she even start to explain?
    “The Welkin Society is… just a big con!” she said. “Philip said you were doing a meditation, but really he was hypnotising you!”
    Philip chuckled, as if Isis were joking, and Cally narrowed her eyes, her voice shivering with contained anger. “Philip is one of the greatest healers in the country,” she said. “I think you should apologise.”
    “Maybe this has been a little overwhelming for Isis?” Philip said to Cally, with what sounded like concern.
    Cally