Mum was going to kill me. Out after midnight twice in less than a week. There was a high chance she wouldn’t take research as a legitimate reason. I mean, I thought it was totally valid. I was trying to track down all the ghosts in town. Or all the ones who seemed connected, anyway. We didn’t have much to go on – yet – which made it hard for us to connect any dots.
As the ghosts that had been freed were out for longer, though, they’d get easier to see. The stronger they were, the more visible they were. That was why it was always the super powerful ghosts that people saw. Kind of like in life, I supposed. The physically weak always got overlooked. What a metaphor for life.
Anyway.
I hugged my flask of tea to me as Josh and I stood on the edge of the church grounds. There was a wall that looked out over the car park, so we hid behind there, waiting for the possessed person and their ghost friend to show up. They’d appeared every night for the past three nights. They had to be there again.
‘What are you doing?’ said Thomas.
I jumped so high. I hadn’t known he was there; he’d done the creepy ghost thing of appearing out of nowhere. It was too windy and cold to feel the breeze often triggered by a ghost, and I was too busy concentrating to notice the change in atmosphere. I was getting rusty at seventeen.
‘What? What is it?’ said Josh, standing to alert and looking around.
I laughed, my muscles relaxing. ‘It’s just Thomas. He made me jump as I wasn’t expecting him.’
Thomas lowered his head. ‘Sorry. I’m not used to seeing sober people at this time. Why are you out so late?’
Why hadn’t we thought to ask Thomas about it sooner?
‘Thomas,’ I said, pulling Josh down to sit next to me. He was still looking around for things he’d never be able to see. ‘Have you seen anyone possessed by a ghost walking around lately? In particular with another ghost floating next to them?’
‘Like them, you mean?’ He pointed behind us.
I turned around. Melanie, Tessa’s cronie, was walking across the car park with a ghost close beside her. Intimately close, as if they knew each other.
Josh and I ducked behind the wall so that they couldn’t see us.
‘Where are they going?’ Josh whispered.
‘They come into the graveyard,’ said Thomas.
‘Do they come past this way?’ I said, instantly panicking.
‘No, they go around the back,’ said Thomas.
Phew. That was something. But what were they looking for?
Thomas gestured for us to follow him. We stepped through the churchyard as quietly as possible, knowing there’d be no way to hide that we were following them if they noticed us.
Of course, it was the worst time ever to try to be quiet because every leaf crunched under our feet, and we couldn’t see the ground to know if there were any twigs we were at risk of snapping. It was a lot easier to be quiet when you weren’t corporeal like Thomas. He put his hand out in front of us as we reached the edge of the church. I stopped, replicating the gesture for Josh. He looked at me, confused. I shrugged, watching Thomas. He pointed in front of us.
He was pointing to Melanie and her ghost friend. They were kneeling at a grave. Melanie was crying. The ghost beside her was doing his ghostly version of it, with his hand hovering above her back. I couldn’t tell anything about the ghost inside of her while she was possessed, but based on their body language, I assumed they were a couple.
The ghost with her was fairly translucent, which meant he wasn’t a very powerful ghost. Was that why he hadn’t possessed anyone? He was too weak to fight off the host’s spirit?
He was wearing dirty trousers and looked as if he was covered in mud. His shirtlessness made me wonder if he’d been somewhere hot when he’d died. Where on earth could that be?
Josh’s face was contorted in confusion, but since it was so quiet, I daren’t speak in case Melanie or her ghost friend heard us. There was no way to predict how they’d respond, and Josh and I had stupidly come out unarmed. We had no potions with us, and I didn’t know any spells. Why hadn’t I thought to bring something?
Not that anything Mum used would’ve helped in that kind of situation anyway. Her stuff was more about exorcisms and getting rid of poltergeists. As far as I knew, she didn’t know how to get rid of a ghost that was just there, like the one beside Melanie. It felt cruel to cross over one without the other, somehow. Why hadn’t they found a couple to possess instead?
Melanie stood up, along with the male ghost, and they repeated their path in the opposite direction, back in the direction of Melanie’s house.
Once they were gone, I walked over to the grave they’d been sitting at. ‘Frazzle, I can’t read it!’
‘Why not?’ said Josh. He wiped the dirt from the gravestone with his gloved hand, but it didn’t make much of a difference. ‘Damn. It’s rubbed off too much.’
‘Thomas, do you know whose grave this is?’
Thomas walked over and crouched down next to me. ‘I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.’ He lowered his head, his nostrils flaring. ‘I’m sorry.’
I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s OK. You’ve already helped loads.’
His frown turned into a huge grin. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Thanks.’
‘Any time!’ He skipped around in circles a couple of times.
‘What am I missing?’ said Josh.
Oh. Right. It’d just looked to him like I’d comforted air. I’ll bet that made me look sane. ‘Thomas can’t remember who it belongs to and he apologised for it, but then I said he’d helped loads anyway, so now he’s skipping.’
‘Oh. Fair enough.’
I squeezed Josh’s hand. ‘Thanks for tonight.’
He squeezed it back. Butterflies filled my empty stomach. ‘Thanks for trusting me with this. I know it’s a big deal. I wish you’d have told me sooner.’
I shrugged, conscious that Josh and I were still holding hands. Thomas stood behind Josh making kissy faces. I looked away so that I didn’t laugh, focusing on Josh. ‘It’s not like it would’ve made much difference. Mum wouldn’t let me do anything anyway. At least now we can do fun stuff.’
‘Yeah, I guess. Carrying around a secret like that and only being able to tell your mum and your dog is still crappy, though,’ said Josh.
I let go of his hand and stood up. It made me feel empty, not having his hand in mine. ‘Some things you get used to and you don’t realise how wrong they are until the status quo changes.’
Josh yawned as he stood up. ‘Wow, that’s deep for two o’clock in the morning.’
‘We should get you back to bed.’
‘To sleep?’ he said, a twinkle in his eye implying something else. Oh my god. Was he flirting with me? No. He was just tired. He didn’t flirt with me. He didn’t like me in that way.
‘Just…come on!’ I said, grabbing his sleeve and dragging him to the exit as he laughed. ‘Bye Thomas!’ I called behind me.
‘Bye, kissy faces!’ he called behind us. Thank god Josh couldn’t hear him. I would’ve wanted a grave to open up there and then, and swallow me whole.
I almost made a rude hand gesture behind me, but I stopped myself because he was a kid. Sort of. Technically he was older than me. But he also wasn’t. Ghosts made things so complicated sometimes.