The vision of him wouldn’t keep still. Watching him was like trying to keep track of a dragonfly by the river. But he was far enough away from her that she could run to the doors if she wanted to escape.

Now she could see his lips moving but there was no sound. It was impossible to work out what he was saying while he kept moving.

He seemed to be shouting, but not angrily. He looked happy, and as if he just wanted her to be able to hear him.

He stepped towards her. Harper yelled out, ‘Stop!’

His face changed. He seemed shocked and put up his hands, and he stayed exactly where he was.

‘Harper, don’t be scared.’ She could hear his voice at last. She let out a single note of fright at how clear it was. He was unmistakable, but still flickering in and out of focus.

‘I’ve got an idea. Try this.’ He was clearer now. His voice sounded like it had just broken, like her cousin Patrick’s. ‘Hold a finger an inch from your face. Focus on it. Move it slowly away. Keep your focus steady…Good, that’s it. Now, look into the distance in the direction of my voice.’

‘It worked!’ Harper exclaimed.

From his head down to his army boots, he was thin like the smoke from a snuffed candle.

‘G’day then. I’m Will,’ he said, and he smiled, almost shy now that he knew that he could be seen. The school bell rang and for all that time they stared at each other.

When the bell stopped, Harper said, ‘How do you know my name?’

‘I’ve heard people call you that.’

‘Can anyone else see you?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘What…what are you?’

He smiled. ‘A ghost, I guess? Last one standing at Riverlark. There were hundreds of us here a while back.’

‘Hundreds? Why?’

‘Beats me. Place was like an army barracks. One by one everyone disappeared. Now it’s just me.’

‘But…disappeared where?’

‘Not a clue. Sorry.’ He smiled once more. ‘All these questions I don’t know the answers to. Just like me at Riverlark in the old days.’ He made fun of himself with a short laugh.

Harper tried to picture hundreds of ghosts wandering around the school. He’d said they’d all gone, but could she trust him?

‘Have you always been here?’ she asked.

‘Not at all.’

‘How long then?’

He looked towards the big window. ‘Time doesn’t feel the same but all I can tell you is that when I got here it was summer, it’s been autumn and winter and now it looks like spring.’

‘So that’s just one year? Where were you before if you weren’t at Riverlark?’

‘Total blank, to be honest. Others said the same. One minute we were nowhere, the next here. I feel all right so I don’t think it was the bad place, if you know what I mean.’

He had an easygoing way about him. It didn’t fit with anything Harper had read about ghosts in her research. People who believed in ghosts said they were sad or bitter. When they haunted people, it was for revenge, or because they needed something.

She’d have to say she was one of them, now. Someone who believed in ghosts.

There was a banging on the big glass window at the front. Cleo was at the library door, rattling it but it wouldn’t budge. She called through the glass, ‘What are you doing? How did you get in?’

Harper told Will she had to go.

‘But we haven’t even got started. I need your help.’

‘Why me?’

The second bell rang. For the first time in her life Harper ignored it. She’d been haunted by thoughts, night-wakings and things moving when they shouldn’t for months. Here was her chance for answers and she wanted them too much to leave now.

Cleo banged on the glass again. ‘Harper! What’s going on? It’s PE!’

‘Go without me!’ Harper yelled.

Cleo left, looking back once.

‘You asked why you,’ said Will. ‘When I saw you the first time I thought you were someone else. An old friend called Mae. By the time I realised you couldn’t be her, you were wearing those.’ He pointed at her face.

Harper touched the frames of her glasses.

‘Are these yours?’

‘I had some like that—can’t be sure if they’re the exact pair but seeing them on you made me think it was a sign.’

Harper moved the glasses down her nose and looked over the rim. She could still see him, but not as clearly. For now, she decided not to say where the glasses had come from. First she had to know if Will had made the badge fly around, and if he’d ever been at Lolly’s.

‘What else do you know about me?’ she said.

‘Not much. Your name, well, I’ve said that. I know you notice things, I s’pose. I got a good feeling because you reminded me of my friend, like I said. You sit on that bench outside to read. And when you do, you look serious. I was never much for reading.’

‘But you’re here, in the library…’

He blushed. ‘Honestly, when I saw the photo of me there it felt like I should stay. That’s all.’

It didn’t seem like Will knew where Harper lived, or anything about Lolly. He sounded as if he didn’t leave the school grounds, if he was telling her the truth.

‘I need to know something. Did you injure some kids to get me to notice you?’

‘What? I’d never hurt kids,’ he said.

He didn’t look much older than a kid himself, though he was very tall. He’d said the glasses might be his, but the badge had to be his too. World War One, Lolly had said. A cadet badge, and Will was in army uniform.

‘But you wanted my attention. Maybe you hurt people by accident trying to get it?’

‘I swear I didn’t. I had other ways. The leaf. That page of your book.’

She remembered how the page had lifted—she’d known there was something strange about it.

There was almost nothing Will said without a smile. That made it hard to figure out how he really felt about one thing or another. Was he just happy about everything?

‘And one time I met your dog, that was a while ago now. Dunno—time feels different. I thought he liked me at first. He was just like a dog I knew once—another sign, I thought. But then he started barking and ran out, and you didn’t come inside that time.’

Harper noticed Mr Glass walking towards the office and she moved out of his sight. She had to get to PE or someone would come looking for her—Cleo knew where she was.

‘I have to go but I want you to tell me something about yourself. Something I can look up. So I know if you’re really real.’

He frowned. ‘Look up?’

‘On the internet. It’s a thing we have now. It’s got everything on it. Old newspapers and stuff about history and…I can’t describe how much is on there, it’s everything.’

‘Crikey, that sounds all right. What about my mum and dad? Would there be anything about them on there?’

‘Maybe. Tell me where you used to live, too.’

Will gave Harper his parents’ names, the names of his three sisters and the address of the house where they all lived. And then he added a friend who’d joined up at the same time, Vince Lyons.

Harper repeated the information back to him to be sure she had it right. Then she made her way cautiously to the back door, not wanting to get too close to him.

‘Come back when you can. Please? I could use the company. It’s too quiet here.’

‘Can’t you just leave if you want to?’

‘Oh, I can leave. I just don’t have anywhere else to go.’