Ways to See a Ghost

with sunburn, then Philip, lying in the middle of all the smashed-down crop circles, his clothes shrivelled off and burned.
    Then he found Isis.
    Cally started sobbing and screaming. Mum wouldn’t let me go near. She held me back, squeezing really tight and patting a hanky at the blood on my face.
    “Oh my God, Gray,” she said, loads of times.
    Dad came running back, grabbed his mobile phone and jabbed in three numbers.
    “Ambulance!” he shouted. “We’ve got a man with major burns, and a girl with…” He looked at me then, and he was crying. “She’s been frozen, I think. She’s not breathing.”
    It seemed like hours until the ambulances turned up, and the police after. There was even a helicopter, not that it made any difference. Mum shouted at people until they got me in one of the ambulances and brought us to this hospital, and then you came and said I needed some tests, and you took me away from the treatment room…

    What happened then? Where am I anyway?
    It’s all right, Gray, just relax.
    Thank you for telling me. I had to know. I never stopped caring, even though I left.
    I’m cold. It’s really cold in here.

    You’re probably a little tired, that’s all. I’ve unlocked the door, and in a moment I’m going to count down from ten, bringing you out of your hypnotic trance. By the time I get to one, you will be wide awake and feeling fine.
    My hand’s freezing.
    Your mother and father are waiting for you downstairs, rather worried at your absence, I’d imagine. When you find them, you’ll tell them you got lost. You’ll have a vivid memory of wandering the corridors of the hospital, and not being able to find your way back after a blood sample was taken from you by one of the nurses. You’ll remember nothing about me, or this little conversation we’ve had.
    I’m going to start counting now. Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five…
    Angel?
    Four… Three… Two… One…
    Angel!
    Gray! Stop! Where are you running off to?

She was a ghost, travelling with ghosts. One ghost, formed of numberless smaller ones. A golden chain of lives, unravelling behind them.
    My life was a million years, it said.
    Breathe
.
    The atmosphere rushed past, thinning and weakening, gravity losing its grip.
    You got to breathe.
    They passed beep-whispering satellites, drifting out above the blue curve of the world.
    Isis, pease stay.
    Clinging to the ghost’s tail, she saw the others. A delicate, thin-beaked bird, silently flying past, bigger than a jumbo jet.A butterfly flapping slowly, covering the sun like an eclipse. A long-legged cat made of the purest light, running across the top of the sky. The more she looked, the more she saw them: the ghosts of extinct species. Animals and birds, insects and plants, fish and strangely shaped sea creatures. Circling the planet, haunting humankind…
    Don’t go with them.
    “Am I cold?” she asked. “Should I be this cold?”
    She gasped. A wrenching, painful, pulling-in of air. Hearing her own strangled gargle as the air rushed down her raw, sore throat, and into her lungs. The breath turned into a cough, which hurt even more. She breathed in again, having to think about it.
    Somewhere nearby, out beyond her eyelids, a man cried out. Something metal tinkled onto the floor.
    She tried to move her hand, but it felt leaden and numb. Cold. Her arms, her legs, her body, all cold. She was lying on something hard, as cool as stone.
    There were clankings, and the man shouted, “I need a crash team in the mortuary, right now!”
    A blanket was laid over her, not nearly thick enough to make her warm.
    “We’re going to get sued for this one!” he muttered.
    She thought for a long time, until she remembered how to open her eyes.
    She was lying flat, on a table. Strip lights lined the ceiling, and a brown-eyed man in green overalls was frowning down at her.
    “Do you know where you are?” he asked.
    No, she wanted to say. But she couldn’t speak, her mouth didn’t seem to have any spit in it. She tried to shake her head, managing to tip it on one side.
    And she saw a little girl next to the table, holding onto her hand with plump little fingers. She had curly hair in a short bob, and she was wearing a pink dress with flounces. Her dimples showed as she smiled at Isis, the shelves on the wall behind clearly visible through her.
    “I do it!” said Angel proudly. “You tried to go with them, but I maked you stay.”
    Isis tried to remember how to