Ways to See a Ghost

non-existent sound of chainsaws and smelled the wood smoke.
    “They kept on killing the trees,” whispered Isis.
    “Until there were none left,” answered Gray.
    “Look!” shouted Angel, bringing them back.
    Beneath the lights filling up the night was the dark sprawl of the ghost-eater. Still curled through and around Philip, it oozed out of his eyes and mouth, slobbering around him in the sightless colours of the deepest ocean. Its eyes stared upwards, its hands and tentacles reached up to the ghost-trees in the sky, trying to catch their glowingforms in twilight coils and pull them down into one of its champing mouths. It missed more than it caught, but each time it fed it swelled, flopping and sagging out across the field. A vast ooze, tethered to the distant figure of Philip Syndal.
    Isis groaned. “The bargain.”
    Gray looked at her.
    “In the shopping centre, I was trying to think of anything except where you’d gone with Angel. I thought about going out UFO hunting, with you and your dad. I thought about what I’d seen in the sky.”
    She could see Gray starting to understand. “The ghost-birds ?”
    She nodded miserably.
    “You showed it the ghost of a whole species,” said Gray. “That’s what they are, I worked it out.” He gasped. “The Devourer must have known what they were straight away. That’s why Philip Syndal wanted to go UFO hunting so much!”
    “It’s always hungry,” Isis whispered, remembering Philip’s words. “Never satisfied.”
    And it was still in her mind too. Swallowing and muttering an incessant, maddening murmur.
    feast a feast a feastfeast a feastafeastafeast afeastfeastfeast a feast a feast
    She looked at Gray, her stomach twisting inside. “I don’t know how to fight it.”
    Her fear was reflected in his face. “Can’t you do anything?”
    She wiped at tears she couldn’t stop from falling. “It knows my mind,” she said. “It’s already in me. It’s going to take me over, and I’ll be just like him.”
    They stared at Philip Syndal, barely visible, sunk inside the monster.
    “You bite it!” said Angel.
    “How? How can I?”
    “What are we going to do?” asked Gray, but none of them had an answer.
    And there was a sound of feet, running up behind them. They jumped, getting ready to run, but it was only Cally. Wild-eyed, her hair messy around her face.
    “Isis! Why are you still out here? Gil said you went to the toilet half an hour ago! I thought you’d got lost or something.”
    “I’m fine,” Isis lied, willing her to leave. Cally blinked at the strained tone of Isis’s voice, then glared at Gray.
    “What are
you
doing here? I thought you were at home?”
    “I was looking for Isis too,” he said.
    Now Cally saw Philip, further into the field.
    “Philip?” she called. He didn’t respond. “Phil, what’s going on?”
    “He had hold of Isis!” Gray shouted, getting Cally’s attention. “He was going to—” Isis thumped him. He looked at her, surprised, and she gave a tiny shake of her head.
    “Don’t!” she mouthed.
    “Don’t what?” asked Cally, glaring between them. “What was Philip going to do?
Tell
me!”
    “Shouldn’t you be in the meditation?” asked Isis, trying to sound bright, as if everything were fine. Why hadn’t Cally stayed hypnotised, safely out of it?
    Cally shook her head. “It’s been such an odd evening, what with Jenice turning up. And those things everyone said before we started. I couldn’t relax, couldn’t concentrate.” She put her hand out to Isis, not quite touching her. “I don’t scream at you, do I? Do you think I should restrain myself more?”
    Isis smiled at her mum, and was about to say no, when a voice said, “She won’t answer you honestly, she’s too afraid of you.”
    Philip Syndal was walking towards them out of the dazzling night. Calmly, as if nothing unusual were happening. Through Gray’s eyes, Isis could see he looked quite normal, perhaps a little sweaty. But through her own…
    A dark strand led out of his head, trailing behind him into the bloated mass of the ghost-eater, which was still trying to rip golden shapes of light from the sky and shovel them into its deep-night body.
    Unfit mother.
    The words echoed in her memory.
    “Unfit mother,” said Philip, smiling at Cally. “You’re an unfit mother, and you should keep away from Isis.”
    “What?” Cally sounded a little stunned. “If that’s a joke, Philip, it’s not funny.”
    “Face it,