That night, I dream of being trapped in the guts of the sand dunes, and electricity caused by touching fingers, and murder weapons, and speeches where I’m standing there naked, in front of all the politicians in town.

‘Lark!’

The sound escapes me in that ghost space between sleeping and waking, but only the frogs call back. I lie there awake, with the night pushing heavily on top of me, when I hear a crash inside the house.

Shit.

I pad cautiously down the hallway to see the bathroom light on, and I stand in the doorway to see Mum, in her filthy pyj­amas and fairy-floss hair, sitting on the bathtub and scrubbing at the ring finger of her left hand. It’s bleeding, but she’s still scrubbing. A gin bottle lies empty and shattered at her feet – the culprit of the crashing sound.

‘Mum!’

I race over to her, doing my best to avoid the glass, and I try to pry the scrubbing brush out of her hand, but she hits me away.

‘What are you doing?’ I scream at her. But I know what she’s doing. There’s no sign of Lark in the house anymore – she’s binned all the photos, and all the make-up she’d bought from Desiree was flung and melted into the front yard. The only thing that proves Lark was ever here is the untanned skin where her wedding ring sat. She’s scrubbing that skin right from her hand.

‘You have to stop this!’ I scream. I make a grab for the scrubbing brush again, and I snatch it this time, and I throw it down the hallway. She’s stunned into silence. I jump into the bathtub and run the cold water, and I take her left hand, which is smaller than mine, and I run it under the tap to wash the blood away. She winces. I don’t soothe her, I just grip her so tightly that my knuckles turn white. She loses balance and slides down into the tub with me, blocking the drain, and we sit there, getting wetter, as the water rises and her bloody hand stares angrily back at us.

I can’t do this anymore.

I’ve never visited Boogie at night. Mum is passed out; I wrapped her hand in a bandage and watched the blood bloom like roses through the white gauze. She was asleep by the time I’d finished patching her up, slumped on the toilet seat where I’d perched her, head lolling back. The only sign of life was a small whistle, not quite a snore. I had to bite my fingernails, because I wanted to take her nose between my thumb and forefinger and squeeze that whistle right from her nostrils. She was too drunk, still, to be roused by the click of the front door closing behind me.

I race down the street, night cloaking the town. Even the sounds are muffled – the night birds, and frogs, and the sounds of creatures you never see because they skulk in the dark. I hold my breath when I pass the Bakers’ wire fence, but the dog stays sleeping, dreaming of tennis balls, and possums, and the taste of the slack-jawed child who taunts him with a stick. I reach the park, and the only light now is a half moon, staring sleepily down through its shadowed eyelid. I’ve always liked the moon best. Everyone else in this town worships the sun, offering themselves on the beach every day with a devotion that would rival the ancient Egyptians. With the moon, it’s more subtle, and it reminds me of myself, the way part of the moon is almost always hidden. It takes time for the moon to show herself.

My hair snags on branches as I feel my way through the bush track. I’m glad the trees here are pathetic things, so that the stars still wink every now and again through the salt-bitten canopy, and the moon still keeps me company. Finally, I reach the booth. I pick up the receiver.

‘Kirra?’

My eyes swim with tears as I loop the cord around my fingers. This is the second task I’ve failed. I really should scrap being an assistant to the undead from my list of possible future career choices, I’m obviously pretty unsuited to it. I imagine telling that to the careers counsellor the next time I see her – as though she didn’t think I was weird enough as it is. I think of the three things I’ve asked Boogie to help me with, and wonder whether he’ll help me anymore, seeing as though I really haven’t lived up to my end of the bargain. I realise that I don’t really care about number one anymore. If being popular means that I have to become like Cassie, and being unpopular means laughing so hard with Willow that I get the hiccups, I think I’ll stick with being unpopular. But number two matters.

It really matters.

I want my parents back together with such a heaviness that my soul sinks outside of myself, down to my feet, and scrapes along the ground with my shadow. Mum’s always been a drunk, but not like this.

Not like this.

A girl’s pretty desperate when her only hope is a dead boy who lurks in a telephone box.

In a torrent of words, I tell Boogie about how Mum is a drowning beetle, and how she hurled her make-up off our front patio with the neighbours watching on. I tell him about the school social, and how she tossed eggs at Lark in the grocery store, and I tell him of bleeding fingers, and how I can only stand there and watch most of the time, all po-faced and silent as the bottles crowd the liquor cabinet. I tell him about her haunted eyes, and how the world doesn’t dangle in front of her nose anymore, and how I wonder where it all went wrong.

Boogie cuts me off, his voice breaking in that pubescent way of his which is completely unsuitable for a ghost.

‘You have to stop her harming herself!’

I laugh, a broken kind of laugh that sounds more like a cough.

‘Really? I was about to hand her a scalpel and blast depressing music on repeat.’

‘No, don’t do that!’

‘No shit, Sherlock. Why do you think I’m here, risking the fangs of red-bellied black snakes at two o’clock in the morning? You have to give advice better than that!’

‘Stop her from drinking . . . get her help.’

‘Oh gosh, why didn’t I think of that? Should I just ask her nicely over a cup of tea and some biscuits?’

My soul is dragging even heavier now, pinioned under my feet and stomped against the urine-stained floor of the booth. Boogie isn’t helping. He’s useless and I’ve never felt as alone as I do right now.

‘Can’t you tell an adult?’

‘Again. Such sage advice. I’m so glad I made a pact with the undead to hear those pearls of wisdom, because I’d never have thought of that myself. Oh wait. I did. Lark doesn’t want to hear about it, and I’m pretty sure the rest of the town is all too aware. Remember the egg incident? Besides which, as much as foster care sounds like a treat, no one else actually seems to give a damn! Just forget about it.’

I bang the receiver against the wall three times in frustration. Returning it to my ear, I hiss at him, ‘And just to let you know, I tried to dig in the dune today, and it almost collapsed on me. I can’t help you there, so it looks like we’re both pretty useless.’

Boogie’s voice sounds caked in desperation now. ‘Drag her to get help. Chain her up. Scream at her.’

I start to laugh, a manic sort of laugh that wakes the birds and makes them jump up from the canopy. I’m glad that what clawed itself out of my throat was laughter, because I wasn’t quite sure what was going to come out, and I half feared it would be something like a scream.

‘You’re making me risk my life for you in return for advice like that? Jesus, I don’t even know anything about you! You say that McGinty killed you . . . Why the hell should I believe you? Who even are you?’

‘I told you, it’s hard to talk about . . .’

‘Oh, is your ghost post-traumatic stress disorder so bad that you can’t even give me a clue as to why I’m risking my bloody life for you?’

There’s silence on the line, and I think he’s hung up on me. Just before I give up and drag my slumped soul back towards home, I feel a jolt course through me; that cold jelly feeling slips in and settles around my bones. Memories flash before my eyes, mingled with Boogie’s thoughts.

Boogie shows me everything. Who he was.

Who he is.