Ways to See a Ghost

they’d hit the country roads. Hands tight on the steering wheel, eyes narrowed, she stiffened every time they came to a tight bend. They were nowhere near where it had happened, but the hedges looked just the same, the way they stopped you from seeing what was coming around the corner. Isis winced at a shot of pain all down one side. It wasn’t really there, only her body remembering the sudden shock of metal.
    It was years ago, she wanted to say to Cally.
    The car’s indicator ticked as they turned off the road, pulling up in front of iron gates set between tall, black-green hedges. Through the gates Isis caught a glimpse of mellow brick and glinting windows.
    “Wow,” she breathed, “it’s huge.”
    Cally came back from her thoughts, and smiled at Isis.
    “What did I tell you?”
    They had to buzz to get in, and the gates slowly swung open. Cally’s rust-patch of a car crunched up the gravel drive, past the green swathes of lawn and tumbling shrubs. When they reached the semicircle steps in front of the house, Cally parked the car in front of them. Then she sighed, settling her shoulders back.
    “I’m listening,” she said quietly, but not to Isis.
    Sondra Borwan was already out on the steps, anxiously clasping her silver-ringed hands. She started forwards before they were even out of the car.
    “At last! I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come!” And she burst into tears.
    Cally hurried up the steps, putting her arm around the woman’s shoulder as if they were friends. “How long has Norman been missing?” she asked quietly.
    Sondra let out a sob. “Four and a half hours. He went for his morning walk at about eleven, and he hasn’t come back. I was in my meditations until two o’clock, so I didn’t realise at first, but then…” She gasped a breath, clearly trying to get control of herself. Fanning her face with her hands, bangles jingling.
    “Would he normally come back?” asked Cally.
    Sondra nodded, unable to speak.
    “And have you called the police?”
    Sondra nodded again, and let out a wail. “They said he wasn’t missing if he’d only been gone a few hours, he could’ve just gone to the shops. But they don’t understand, I know he’s not all right! He wouldn’t just go off, not when we had yoga planned.” She lowered her voice. “I knew a psychic was my only hope.”
    Cally nodded. “I’ll do my best to find him.”
    Sondra fluttered her hands. “Of course, I know the country’s best psychics personally, but I can’t ask
any
of them. Norman would never forgive me, not after what’s happened recently. Then I remembered my cleaner telling me that she’d seen you in Aylesbury, last autumn.”
    Cally gave a stiff smile. “Oh,” she said. “Well, you did the right thing. The spirits will tell me where your husband is, and what he’s doing.”
    Sondra nodded, calmer now, caught by Cally’s soothing tone. “I was desperate, I had to ring
someone
.”
    “The spirits will help us,” said Cally. Isis could see she was offended, but trying not to show it.
    Sondra’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s what Norman always says.”
    And the two women went into the house, leaving Isis standing there.
    She held back, not following them inside. Instead, she carefully checked every window. Although the house looked modern, that didn’t mean anything. New houses are built where old ones used to be, and people die all the time. But there were no faces at the glass, no figures on the rooftop. Isis turned, glancing casually at the garden, as if she were admiring it. There was nothing there either, just a gardener driving a ride-on lawn mower, and he was definitely alive.
    Which only left their car. Isis watched two short legs misting out through the shut door, feet flapping, trying to reach the ground. The legs wriggled, and the bottom half of a little girl’s dress flickered out through the side of the car, up to the waist. The legs kicked, and toes hit gravel.
    She was wearing the sandals again.
    White strapped, with a stitched design of pink and yellow flowers. The day they’d gone to the shoe shop Angel had refused to try on anything else, and after Cally bought them, Angel had worn her new sandals all the time, even to bed.
    Isis shuddered. One of the sandals had been rippedfrom Angel’s foot, that last day. There’d been mud smeared across the flowers.
    She shut her eyes, opened them again. It was only another memory.
    Angel pulled the rest of herself out of the