‘Hey you,’ I said, walking into the coffee shop where Josh worked. It was near closing, so it was pretty quiet. There were only a handful of people sitting at tables, most of whom seemed to be catching up with friends.
Josh had only been to his granddad’s funeral the day before, but he’d insisted on keeping to his normal schedule. He said it was what his granddad would’ve wanted. I couldn’t argue with that, but I wanted to. It was his choice to go to work, though, and I supposed the distraction would probably be good for him.
Josh was behind the counter, cleaning everything down. At the sound of my voice, he turned around. ‘Edie! I didn’t know you were coming in.’
I approached the counter and studied the cake selection. My stomach rumbled. ‘Mum’s in her research bunker, so I thought I’d come annoy you. What time do you finish?’
‘Half an hour,’ he said. ‘Usual?’
‘Please,’ I said, still studying the cake. There was no queue, and Josh was the only one on till, so we could talk while he made my drink.
He turned away from me and started to make my mocha.
‘Does your mum forget to feed you when she’s in her research bunker?’ he asked as my stomach rumbled again.
‘No, she left food out. But I didn’t want more leftover pie. Or to sit at home, doing nothing. Thought we could grab something when you’re done?’
‘You came all the way over here because you didn’t want to eat your mum’s leftovers?’
‘I was bored. So I got on the tram. And the tram happens to have a stop right outside where you work.’ I smirked at him.
‘So you thought you’d come annoy me?’
‘Something like that,’ I said with a grin. ‘So, food after you finish?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ he agreed. The coffee machine whirred to life, drowning out the voices of the other customers hanging out.
Josh put the drink on the counter. He looked at the cake. ‘We, er, have a slice of cheesecake, if you want it. It’s damaged, so we can’t sell it.’ He pointed to a slice of blueberry cheesecake that was missing a tiny chunk from the end of it. Could they really not sell something that was missing a tiny bit?
‘Sure,’ I said, not one to turn down free food.
I waited as he put the cake on a plate, then handed it to me.
As I turned to go sit at a table, the door opened. And in walked Tessa, Laura, and Melanie. Ugh.
Tessa flicked her wavy hair over her shoulder. While I hated her, I was a little jealous of her hair colour. My naturally wiry, ginger hair would never have the same lustre as hers. Even with the vitamin-infused black hair dye I’d used. ‘Josh! Fancy seeing you here.’
Fancy indeed. Transparent, much?
‘Hey Tessa,’ said Josh.
Josh’s boss, Gwen, emerged from the back and walked over to Tessa. ‘What can I get for you?’
‘Oh, it’s fine. We’ll wait for Josh to serve us.’ Gwen looked from Tessa, to Josh, to me, and back again. She shook her head. ‘Teenagers,’ she mumbled, before grabbing a tray and walking around the counter to clean tables.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ I told Josh. ‘I’ve got a book with me.’
‘What book?’
‘I’ll tell you about it later,’ I said. I picked up my coffee and cake, then sat at a table by the window, a few feet away. It meant I could see everyone coming and going. And overhear what Tessa was saying to Josh. Not that I was jealous or anything. I was just curious. Mostly.
‘I didn’t realise you’d be working today,’ said Tessa, when Josh turned to serve her. I had no doubt she’d found out somehow and decided to come in just as an excuse to see him. Not that it was hard to figure out; he worked there most evenings after college.
‘What can I get for you?’ Josh asked.
‘Um, what would you recommend?’
She didn’t even know anything about coffee, but she was in a fancy coffee shop. People like that irritated me. Josh wasn’t a bloody wine waiter.
‘What sort of flavours do you like?’
‘Nothing too bitter. I don’t really like coffee.’
See? Proving my point. Just there for Josh. Seeing him at college a few hours earlier wasn’t enough for her. No, she had to get her fix as often as possible. It didn’t help that she lived about a five-minute walk from where he lived. Thankfully it was five minutes in the opposite direction from my house.
‘What about a hot chocolate?’
‘Yeah, that sounds nice,’ said Tessa. I was pretty sure she would’ve agreed to anything, she was so desperate to kiss up to him. My stomach churned just listening to her.
I got my book from my bag while Josh made the drink. Tessa tried to talk to him as he did it, but he either didn’t hear her over the coffee machine, or he ignored her. What a shame. Not.
‘Thanks,’ said Tessa when he’d handed her the drink.
He looked at Laura and Melanie. ‘Can I get either of you anything?’
They both declined, further proving my theory.
‘Well, we’ll just be over there if you want us,’ said Tessa, jerking her head in the opposite direction to my table. Thankfully. She and her cronies sat down, leaning towards each other and whispering. No doubt gossiping about how hot Josh was, or how much they hated me. Their favourite topics.
‘You can get off after you’ve cleaned the table in the corner if you want,’ Gwen told Josh. ‘No point you sticking around when it’s this dead.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. He grabbed the cleaning stuff and set to cleaning it as fast as possible. Gwen was a weird one, but I liked her. She was pretty blunt, but I respected that. She looked after Josh and seemed to be a good manager.
Until recently, she’d been followed around by an orange-haired woman who wore a permanent scowl. It had taken me a year to find out she was Gwen’s girlfriend until she’d died in a car accident. I’d helped her to move on after passing on a message to Gwen. Gwen was a believer, but she hadn’t been able to look at me since. I guess it was a hard thing to deal with.
Josh slid into the seat in front of me. ‘You haven’t touched your cheesecake yet.’ He sounded disappointed.
‘I don’t have a fork.’
He smacked his forehead. Leaping out of the chair again, he went behind the counter and picked up two forks.
Tessa’s gaze followed him the whole time, like one of those creepy paintings. Probably imagining what he’d look like naked.
He returned to our table and handed me a fork. His head blocked Tessa’s, but I was pretty sure she was glaring at me. I was sharing a cake with Josh; she’d probably fantasised about it a million times. And he was still oblivious.
We carried on chatting while eating, discussing where we wanted to go to get something more substantial. We settled on a nearby pub.
Tessa stood up from her table and walked past us, to the toilets behind me. A few minutes later, she walked out, her lipstick and eyeliner freshly topped up, and stopped at our table. ‘Hey, Josh, a bunch of us are going to the cinema in a bit if you want to join us?’
‘Thanks, but Edie and I already have plans.’
A pained expression crossed Tessa’s face as she decided what to do. ‘She can come too, if she wants.’ She extended her half-arsed invitation without looking at me.
Josh looked at me, silently asking me what I wanted to do.
‘We’re just going to grab some food and head home,’ I said.
Tessa huffed then walked off.
‘Once a week seems enough if you ask me,’ said Josh. Even if we had skipped our most recent trip because nobody had been in the mood and Harry had been at work.
‘Yeah. I mean, we can see whatever we want, while our parents have to go see kiddie films. It works for me.’
‘Me too.’ He raised his final mouthful of cheesecake in agreement, then shoved it into his mouth. ‘So, ready to go get our main course now that we’ve had dessert?’
‘I hope you know we’ll be having a second dessert.’
‘I had a feeling,’ he said.
I chugged the rest of my mocha, then we left the coffee shop – and a seething Tessa – behind us.
It was a short walk to the pub. Most of the eateries were close together, which made it easy to find places to eat but difficult to decide where to go.
Dusk gave the streets an eerie glow, adding to the atmosphere provided by the cobblestoned paths and old buildings. And yes, ghosts haunted the streets as well. With it being such an old location, there were more than I cared to count.
We turned into the pub we’d settled on, then approached the counter to wait for someone to show us to a table.
I glanced around the room to see if there were any ghosts in there. There were ghosts pretty much everywhere. Sometimes I didn’t mind it, but I didn’t want anything to ruin my time with Josh.
Unfortunately, there was a ghost, and it was someone we knew. And he looked angry. I quickly looked away, focusing my attention on Josh.
‘Table for two, please,’ Josh said as the waiter approached.
The waiter picked up two menus, then thankfully guided us to a table at the opposite end of the restaurant to where the ghost was located. Since it was a student hangout, it was pretty dark, with red lighting to add to the ambience. It’d be harder for the ghost to see me in that light.
I shuffled farther into the booth, trying to angle myself so that I couldn’t see the ghost. When I knew they were there, it was hard not to look at them, but I knew all it would take was a second of eye contact for them to realise I could see them. Some ghosts were polite and would keep their distance in public so that I didn’t look like a lunatic. Other ghosts – like ones who were shouting in the face of someone they’d known when they were alive – were less considerate.
I tapped my foot on the table leg to try to distract myself, but I found myself still glancing at the man shouting into an oblivious woman’s ear.
‘Remember our year three teacher? Mr McClean?’ I said to Josh. It was the first time I’d been able to talk to him about a ghost when we were out, but it was refreshing. And, since it was someone we knew, it made it more awkward.
‘What about him?’
‘He’s at the other end, shouting at some woman.’
He was one of the clearer ghosts I’d seen, probably because he was so angry about something. Anger was an emotion that could be used as energy to do many things, including making ghosts visible. Every so often, he’d flicker, like a mirage, or when heat rises off a hot car. If he’d been any stronger, he would’ve been as clear to me as the people around me. It was rare for ghosts to be that visible; I was pretty sure only those who’d been magical in real life were that visible as ghosts, but I wasn’t sure. Mr McClean was no floating blob from lack of energy, that was for sure.
‘Didn’t he die, like? A year ago?’
‘I think so, yeah. Cancer. Some ghosts hang around for a long time, depending on what’s holding them back.’
‘Do you think it’s the woman he’s shouting at?’
‘Probably. Least she can’t hear him.’
‘Can you?’
‘Sort of. His voices blends in with everyone else’s, so it sounds like any other conversation. But if he finds out I can see him…’
‘He’ll be in your face, wanting you to help him?’
‘Probably, yeah. I mean, it’s not like I blame them. They have no one else to talk to. But it’s awkward in public.’
I glanced over at exactly the wrong moment. Mr McClean looked around the restaurant and right into my eyes. Frazzle.
He floated over, stopping in the middle of the table so that I couldn’t look away from him. I turned my gaze to Josh, but it was too late.
‘You can see me, can’t you?’
I didn’t answer, keeping my body rigid and my eyes on Josh.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Josh.
‘I know you can see me! Why won’t you look at me?’
I sighed. ‘Some of them don’t understand how awkward it is, when they want your attention but you’re in public.’ I was looking at Josh when I spoke, but hoping the words would get into my old teacher’s head.
‘He came over?’
‘He came over,’ I confirmed.
‘I need you to talk to my wife! She’s on a date! How can she be on a date!’
‘He seems to think it’s unacceptable for his wife to move on when he’s been dead for almost a year,’ I said to Josh.
‘Whatever happened to wanting the people you love to be happy?’ said Josh.
‘Beats me.’
‘Stop talking about me and look at me!’ Mr McClean demanded.
‘If the waiter comes, can you order me a Coke, please? I’ll be back in a minute,’ I said to Josh. I jerked my head in the direction of the toilets, hoping my new ghost friend would follow. He’d always been such a nice teacher. Apparently death changed people.
Thankfully, there were individual toilets for everyone. So I didn’t need to worry about taking up a disabled toilet to talk privately to an invisible person. It always made me feel guilty, but Mum and I had both had people walk in on us when we’d been talking to ghosts before. We had to get creative about how we could hide who – or what – we were talking to. Phones in general – and in particular, handsfree devices, as it made your hands hurt less – were great, but I was so anxious to deal with the ghost I hadn’t thought to pick my phone up.
The toilet was tiny, barely big enough to turn around, so I leaned against the wall, smushed between it and the toilet. Mr McClean floated in a few seconds later.
‘I need you to talk to her!’
‘No, you need to calm down,’ I said.
‘She’s on a date!’
‘She’s allowed to live her life.’
‘Not without me she isn’t!’
‘Why not?’
He hesitated, staring around the tiny cubicle.
‘I’m sorry that your life was taken away tragically. But clinging on to the living world, when you could have a happy afterlife…it isn’t healthy.’
‘How do you know what’s on the other side?’
‘I don’t,’ I admitted, ‘but most things are going to be better than following your wife around, watching her go on dates, and not being able to talk to anyone.’
‘I can talk to you!’
‘For now, but I doubt you’ll be able to leave your wife’s presence to annoy me too often. And it’s not like you can convince her to come to me.’
He stamped his foot. Well, he tried to. It didn’t really work when he wasn’t corporeal, but the sentiment was there.
‘I need to her to see that—that—’
‘That you’re selfish and controlling?’
He opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off.
‘Didn’t think so. Let her remember you in the way that she does, and stop trying to interfere with her life now. It’s hers to live, not yours.’
‘But I need her!’
‘She doesn’t need you.’
His nostrils flared and he floated into my face, inches away. ‘How dare you talk to me like that! I’m your superior!’
‘This isn’t school. Respect is earned, not automatic. And you’ve done nothing to show you deserve any. You’ve been rude to me, and rude to your wife. I’m just glad she can’t see or hear you, because I doubt she’d be so fond of you anymore.’
Most people, to get away from a ghost, would simply walk through them. I couldn’t do that, since, to me, ghosts felt like they had a corporeal form. I’d always been able to touch ghosts but never told anyone about it, since it wasn’t a conversation that came easily. Telling Mum would’ve just given her more reason to worry as it wasn’t something she could do.
So I pushed Mr McClean out of my way. He didn’t weigh of anything, so that, at least, was easy. I lef the cubicle without looking back and returned to Josh. Two Cokes – no ice – were sitting in front of him.
‘You remembered,’ I said with a smile as I sat back down.
‘Course I did. You do the same rant every time someone gives you a drink with ice in,’ he said, chuckling.
‘Ice ruins drinks! I mean, if you’re in a super hot country, fair enough. England is not hot enough to justify ice in a drink. Especially not in September.’
‘I agree,’ said Josh. He picked up his drink and took a sip through the stripy paper straw.
‘Not to mention it waters down the flavour, which is the last thing you want when it’s something as glorious as Coke,’ I added.
‘Not that you’re addicted or anything,’ he teased.
‘Me? Never. I just have at least a couple of cans a day, that’s all.’
‘You’re frying your insides, you know that?’
I pointed to the glass that was still in his hands. ‘And who’s following my example?’
‘I don’t drink as much as you. This is just because we’re out.’
‘And you usually have one when you come to ours, too.’
‘You offer. It’d be rude to say no,’ he said with a chuckle.
‘We have other things to drink too, you know.’
‘I don’t do tea or coffee, you know that.’
‘We have hot chocolate. Or milk. Or even goat milk.’
‘Did you just offer me what you give to your dog?’
I laughed, Coke almost coming out of my nose. Gross. ‘Technically, yes, she has goat milk. But it’s not like we let her lick the bottle.’
‘Pretty sure I’ve seen her playing with something that has a goat’s face on before.’
‘That was a yoghurt pot. We let her finish it off when it’s almost empty. Saves having to clean it for the recycling.’
‘Until you can’t get it off her and have to chase her around the house because she won’t give it back.’
I shrugged. ‘Mum’s problem, not mine.’
Josh looked around the room, as if searching for someone. ‘Is he still here?’
‘Did you just look around to see if you can see a ghost?’
He lowered his head and laughed. ‘When you put it like that, it sounds dumb.’
‘No, it’s cute.’ I glanced over at the table where our old teacher’s wife had been sitting. She and her date had gone. I had no way of knowing if what I’d said had gotten through to our teacher or not, but I hoped so. He really needed to move on. It wasn’t healthy to cling onto the past like that. ‘His wife has gone, so he has, too.’
‘Does he have to follow her?’
‘Yeah. Ghosts cling to people or places. He’s attached to her. Depends how they die, where they die, and what’s going on with them when they die.’
‘Sounds complicated.’
‘It is. I don’t fully understand it, but Mum says I will one day. I guess it’s an experience thing.’
‘How far can they travel from what they’re attached to?’
‘I’m not sure. Depends how powerful they are. Some ghosts are more powerful than others, depending on how strong their desire is to stick around. And how angry they are. Anger is a big one.’
‘Why anger?’
‘Cause it messes with you, I guess. Have you ever felt so angry you forget everything around you? Like you just…black out, almost?’
‘No,’ he said.
Lucky guy.
I shifted in my seat, looking away. ‘Um, me neither. But that’s what Mum says it’s like. They’re so angry they can’t think about anything else. So they obsess over whatever is keeping them here. That’s how you get poltergeists.’
‘Poltergeists are just angry ghosts?’
‘Most of the time. Not all. Sometimes they were pranksters in real life and just want to keep being annoying.’
‘Have you ever seen a poltergeist?’
‘Not yet. Mum says it’s inevitable, so she’s trying to keep them from me for as long as possible.’
‘What, hoping you’ll only face the sunshine and rainbows ghosts?’
‘In a roundabout way, yeah. She said I’ve got my whole life to deal with bad ghosts. I should enjoy my naivety while I can.’
‘But if you’re going to inevitably run into one, why shelter you from them?’
I shrugged. ‘Why indeed?’
*
‘So is your mum, like, an exorcist or something?’ asked Josh.
I suppressed a laugh.
We were on the tram on the way home, and I was anxious of people eavesdropping. It was quiet, except for the sound of someone blasting their music through their headphones a few feet away. It was close to nine o’clock, too, so there wasn’t really anyone on the tram.
I shifted closer to Josh – if he asked, I’d just say I was worried about eavesdroppers – and replied. ‘She prefers the term ghost hunter. It sounds more badass and has fewer religious connotations.’
He tilted his head towards me to respond. No complaints. ‘How powerful is she, exactly?’
‘Nervous?’ I teased.
‘Me? Never.’ He was such a liar.
‘Not that powerful. She can see ghosts and cast spells. That’s about it.’
‘She can cast spells? I thought only witches could do that?’
I shrugged. ‘It’s not like she explains to me how this stuff works. She prefers to keep me in the dark so that I’m not tempted to do anything.’
‘That’s unfair,’ said Josh. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to badmouth your mum. I’m sure she has her reasons.’ Comments like those were why I loved him.
‘What reasons? It’s my birthright. I deserve to know how this stuff works, don’t I?’
*
We cut through the graveyard on the way home from the tram, since it was the fastest route back to our estate. It was always pretty quiet – in terms of humans and ghosts – which made it a relaxing place to walk through.
‘Do you get many ghosts in graveyards?’ asked Josh, pulling his coat tighter around him and folding his arms. Was he scared and trying to act all cool? So cute!
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I mean, ghosts are drawn to the living. Most of the living avoid graveyards. So why would ghosts want to stay here, on their own, when they could be hanging out with people living their lives, doing things they feel like they missed out on?’
His shoulders relaxed, and he stuffed his hands into his coat pocket. ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’
‘Edie!’
I turned around to see Thomas standing a few feet away, by the church doors. He was faint, but clear enough for me to make out his off-white shirt, black trousers with braces, and flatcap. The poor kid had died from heart problems on his way to church, back in Victorian times. Something had kept him here, and he’d been haunting the graveyard ever since.
He kicked his football to me. I caught it and threw it back to him.
‘What are you doing?’ Josh asked.
Right. Of course. To Josh, it’d looked like I was throwing air.
‘Look at this,’ I said, gesturing for Josh to come closer. He did, placing his face inches from mine. No complaints from me. I opened an app on my phone and held it up so that Josh could see the screen.
Josh looked from the phone screen, to me, then back again. ‘What am I looking at?’
‘Thermal imaging. It’s one of the ways you can see ghosts. When, you know, you can’t actually see them.’ I spun my phone to point at Thomas. A black, boy-shaped figure appeared on screen.
‘Whoa.’
Thomas waved, jumping up and down and grinning. The figure on my phone did the same.
I giggled along with Thomas. Josh looked somewhere between amazed and terrified.
Josh’s eyes went so big I thought they were going to jump out of their sockets. ‘So, that’s, uh, one of your ghost friends?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘He’s called Thomas.’
‘What are you looking at?’ asked Thomas.
I gestured him over, crouching down and flipping my phone on to selfie mode. I had no idea if the app would still work that way, but it was the only way I could think of to show Thomas how it worked. Luckily, it did.
Josh crouched down beside me, the camera showing the red and orange of our human forms. A black figure appeared on my left. Josh’s eyes grew wide. ‘Is that—?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Wow! How does it know I’m here?’ asked Thomas.
‘It picks up the heat that something gives off,’ I told him. ‘And since ghosts are cold…’
‘We’re black!’ he finished.
‘Exactly,’ I said.
Josh looked around the room. ‘What? What’d he say?’
‘He finished my sentence. Said that ghosts are black since they’re cold,’ I said.
‘So creepy,’ said Josh.
Thomas’s head fell.
‘He didn’t mean it,’ I said, nudging Josh and warning him with my eyes not to be mean. I hoped my expression would be enough. Just because Thomas was a ghost, that didn’t mean he didn’t still have feelings.
‘Sorry,’ said Josh. ‘It’s just…a lot to take in.’
‘It’s the first time he’s sort-of seen a ghost. Probably the closest he’ll ever get,’ I said to Thomas.
‘Oh. I get why he thinks it’s creepy. I would, too. If I wasn’t a ghost, I mean,’ said Thomas.
‘Have you seen any other ghosts around lately?’ I asked him as I walked over to the bench nearby. Josh sat down beside me.
Thomas stood in front of us, fiddling with the edge of his dress shirt. He shook his head so hard the force knocked his hat on to the grass. He picked it up. ‘No, not really. Not since they were all in the sky.’
‘You saw that?’
‘Yeah. Didn’t everyone?’ he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
‘No. Only people who can see ghosts saw that,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ said Thomas. ‘So that’s five.’
‘Five? How’d you get to five?’
‘You, me, that lady that looks like you but with red hair, the man who works at the library, and the boy who comes to talk to me sometimes.’
‘My mum was here?’
‘Your mum was here?’ Josh echoed, sounding as shocked as I was.
‘I’ve never talked to her, but I know she can see me,’ said Thomas.
Mum hadn’t talked to him but she’d seen him? Rude. Then again, I’d never known her willingly acknowledge a ghost, and Thomas was too polite to demand her attention. If she ignored him, he’d ignore her. Poor kid. Being invisible to most people was one thing; being ignored by one of the few people who could see you was downright unfair. My mum could be so selfish sometimes.
‘The man from the library waves at me sometimes,’ said Thomas, interrupting my thoughts. What guy from the library? Would he have answers for me?
‘What about the one who talks to you sometimes? Who’s he?’ I asked, curious to know who was closer to my age and able to see him.
‘I don’t know his name. But he has really dark hair and eyes. We used to play football together sometimes.’
‘Is he a ghost?’
‘No, silly! He’s human.’
‘Why do you look really confused?’ said Josh. Him asking that was pretty funny given how confused he looked.
‘Three other people who can knowingly see ghosts in one town? That’s a lot.’
‘Maybe you’re all related or something,’ suggested Josh.
‘Maybe.’ But I wasn’t convinced. I mean, it wasn’t inconceivable for someone else to be able to see ghosts, just really unusual for them to realise they could see ghosts – and to bother trying to engage with them.
‘You could use your camera to see who I mean,’ suggested Thomas.
‘What do you mean?’
‘To see who’s here and who the others who can see me are.’
‘Thomas thinks we could use a camera to find out who else can see him,’ I informed Josh.
‘Or,’ he said, ‘we could use it to track the ghosts themselves.’