The Memory Game

The Memory Game Sharon Sant

One: The End The sky shows the first pink light of a freezing dawn. I should go somewhere, but I can't seem to leave my corpse alone. It looks so... vulnerable. Stupid, I know - it's just a body now, after all. And where am I supposed to go? In films they tell you there are tunnels of light and other dead people you loved waiting for you. It's not like that. One minute you're alive, lying under the mangled steel of your wrecked bike, the next you're looking down at the mess trying to understand what happened. I take a seat on the roots of a bare tree that overhangs the roadside. I'm not doing anything, of course. Or at least my body isn't. There's something strangely fascinating about it though. I must be cold by now, I suppose. The ground of the ditch is black with my blood and I can smell the metallic tang from here. My head is sort of cocked to one side at a funny angle and my leg is twisted backwards under the buckled wheel of my bike. I suppose it would have hurt pretty bad. I think it did at first, but time seems to be robbing the memory already. I don't want to stop remembering. It feels like the minute I forget the pain I'll be dead for real. I hear a rustling coming from behind the tree. I listen for a moment, the sound intermittent but

coming closer all the time. A fox emerges from the dewed grass and then stands perfectly still as it sniffs at the morning air. It sees the dead me. Then it picks its way over, slowly, nervously through the long grass and down into the ditch and pushes its black-tipped snout to my face. 'Get away from me!' I jump up and shout, trying to scare it away but it just looks startled and stands exactly where it is. After a while, it trots off. I watch it go and then sit again, head in my hands. I couldn't even chase away a fox. I'm nothing, already in the past. I look up and see that the sun is rising, a blinding white disc behind the bare trees. I can't sit here for ever. Perhaps I could try to tell someone where I am. Mum must have done her nut when I didn't go home last night. Roger probably threw a party though, he always hated me. I stand and look up and down the lane. It's still deserted, as it has been all night. 'I have to go somewhere,' say.' I have to get help.' I don't even know why I'm talking as there's no one here but me. My dead self just stares. I wish I could close my dead self s eyes but I tried and my hand is made of nothing. The films got that bit about ghosts right. I wonder how I'm not sinking into the earth beneath my feet. So, where do I go now? I suppose I'd better go home. Mum is pacing up and down with the phone clamped to her ear. Her eyes are all puffy and she has an old cardigan pulled tight around her. 'Yes, David Cottle. He's fifteen... dark brown hair - sort of floppy fringe - brown eyes... um, how tall? Oh my God, I can't remember... I can't even remember how tall he is...' Mum's voice starts to crack. I want to hug her and tell her where I am but she can't hear me. 'Sorry...' she squeaks out a sob and takes a deep breath to stop it. 'I'm fine. He's been missing since teatime yesterday. I thought he was at his friend's house... we had an argument but I thought...' The crying takes her again and she can't speak. Roger comes in from the kitchen. He hands her a mug and takes the phone from her. 'Sorry, officer, it's a difficult time, as you can imagine. Yes, we can sort out a photo... about five-foot-six... What was he wearing? I'm not sure, my wife might be able to tell if she goes to the wardrobe and sees what's missing. Will you send someone round? Ok, thanks.' Roger ends the call and gives Mum her phone back. She sticks it into her cardigan pocket and Roger puts an arm around her. Even though I could smack his big mono-browed face in every time I look at it, I'm glad he's trying to make her feel better. I suppose things are going to get a whole lot worse for her when the police find me in that ditch and she'll need someone to make her cups of tea and stuff because she'll be crying too much. I hope it doesn't take them a long time; that road is pretty out of the way and I might start decomposing before she has to come and identify me - that would be horrible. My mind goes back to the fox. What else is out there that might start eating me? What about bugs and microscopic stuff that no one can see, steadily devouring my body even as I sit here watching my mum and Roger discuss where I am? I shouldn't have even been on that road but I thought it was a clever shortcut. Go me. The thing is, hardly anyone uses that road because of some old story about it being haunted. They say the Black Death came to our village and Yarrow Lane, the road that I was on, was the border where nobody from the village could go beyond until the plague outbreak had ended. But this boy from another village nearby where they had no plague and this girl from ours used to meet there in secret. Eventually she caught the plague, then he caught the plague and gave it to his whole village, then they both died and people say their ghosts hang around on the lane at night. The irony of this story is not lost on me. Although it still amazes me that people are so freaked out about it that, even now, they refuse to use that road. Except for the car that hit me, of course. Oh yeah, he used it alright. Roger pulls her into a hug. 'Don't worry about him, love. He'll turn up; he's probably just sulking somewhere.' 'All night? Where would he have been all night?' Mum turns her swollen face to him. 'I've phoned every one of his friends and nobody has seen him.' 'Someone could be covering for him. I'll bet you his year's pocket money that he's holed up in Matthew Spencer's bedroom without his parents knowing. It wouldn't be the first time.' Tit. What would he know about it? 'I phoned there,' Mum says. 'They hadn't seen David at all.' 'That doesn't mean he's not there. Matthew's mum is so dopey she could have Elton John in concert in her son's room and she wouldn't notice.'

Mum tries to smile. 'I suppose,' she says. He thinks she's agreeing but he doesn't know her like I do. I've seen that look before, a hundred times with my dad - she doesn't think that Roger is right at all, she just doesn't know how to say it. And I don't want her to agree, I want them to come and look for me. In my frustration, I shout at Roger. 'Don't tell her that! Don't you want me to be found?' It's pointless, of course, I worked out pretty quickly that neither of them can hear me, no matter how loud I shout. Mum sniffs and wipes her nose on the tissue Roger has given her. 'I'd better go and see what's missing from his room.' 'A quick check in the wardrobe should be enough,' Roger says, 'You should take it easy, especially now. Maybe I could go and see.' I'll know his clothes better than you, I do iron them after all...' she gives him a tiny, strained smile. 'Besides, I want to see if anything else is missing.' Roger's eyes go wide. 'You think he's run away?' I don't like the way Roger looks as he says this, there's something a bit too close to hope in his expression. Mum shrugs. 'It's possible, I suppose.' 'Do you really think he would, though?' 'I don't know,' she says, 'I don't feel like I know him at all anymore. But I should check because the police will probably ask us that.' 'Want me to come and help?' Roger asks. She shakes her head. 'Wait by the phone. Somebody might call.' Roger looks like he might argue for a moment. Then he gives her a short nod and flops down on the sofa. I swear I just heard a spring bust. I follow Mum upstairs. She's walking in this really wobbly way, gripping the handrail like she can't quite remember what her legs are for. She opens the door to my room. Now that I look at it, I'm a bit ashamed. She spends, like, hours every day telling me to clean it and I ignore her. The curtains are closed but hanging off the rail at one end where I pulled it down and couldn't be bothered to fix it. There's a strange damp, sweaty smell like there are wild animals being kept in there. My Radiohead t-shirt is screwed up on my unmade bed. I nearly put it on when I got in from school last night, but it didn't smell that good when I pulled it from the drawer. Dad bought it for me, the last time he went to see them in concert. I wanted to go with him, but Mum said I was too young. When he gave me the t-shirt, I pretended I didn't like it because I wanted to go and see them so bad. Mum told me I was an ungrateful brat but Dad just smiled; he knew that I did really. It was way too big, of course, when I first got it because they only had adult sizes. Three years on and it fits ok. Mum almost trips on my school shoes as she walks in, but she doesn't say a word, she just moves them out of the way. The rest of my uniform is on the floor and strewn over the bookcase, which does not house books as they're all on the floor in a pile next to my bed. I keep all the ones I'm reading out and I seem to be reading all the ones I own at once. The TV has greasy marks on the screen and there are chocolate wrappers on top of it. Mum doesn't seem to care today though. I suppose she'll care even less when she finds out I'm dead. She goes to the wardrobe and rifles through. Half my clothes are missing, though, mostly stuffed into various crevices around the room, and I can't imagine how she's going to figure out what I'm wearing. Come to think of it, I can't even remember what I'm wearing. I look down at myself. Jeans, blue checked shirt, one of the really soft, fleecy ones, with the sweatshirt underneath to keep me warm that Mum nags me to wear every time I go out to do the papers, and my battered trainers. When I look up again Mum is sitting on the bed with her head in her hands and her shoulders sort of heaving. 'Mum...' I sit down beside her. I never hug her or anything anymore, but right now I really want to. But when I try to put my hand on hers, I can't, it goes straight through, just like it did before. Tm ok, Mum, please don't be upset.' Of course, I'm really not ok, but I suppose this is as good as it's going to get now. 'Oh, David... where the hell are you?' Her breaths are hitching and she can't speak without stammering. I wish I could put my arms around her and tell her I'm still with her. But maybe that would freak her out anyway. It probably would have freaked me out if it had been the other way

around. So I sit and watch her. I want to cry myself now, I feel so bad for her. I don't think I can stay here after all. If she's like this now, imagine what she'll be like when the police come and tell her that they've found me, imagine what she'll do when she has to go and see me at the place where dead bodies are kept, imagine what the funeral will be like. I'll be like a wreck seeing all that crying. But I don't know where else I can go. I feel like an empty crisp bag on the wind, blown around, useless and unwanted. So I sit next to her on the bed; I listen to her cry quietly and stare at the mess in my room and wonder what is happening to my body now. Your joints go stiff; how long does that take? Do you turn a funny colour? When do you start to smell bad? We saw a film once in biology, a speeded up film of a dead rabbit rotting. I can't stop thinking about that film now, only it's me with all the flies and stuff coming out of me. There's a knock at the front door. I can hear Roger talking to someone in the hallway and then the door clicks shut. 'Lisa...' Roger calls up the stairs. 'The police are here.' She's only just phoned them so I'm guessing this visit can only mean that they've already found me. Mum takes a huge breath and wipes her face. I wonder if she's thinking that too. She stands up, takes a last look at my room, her eyes skimming over me as I sit on the bed, and goes downstairs. 'You might want to sit down, Mrs Smith.' The policeman has a nice voice, gentle, that bad news voice that they have on detective dramas. But I don't like the way he says her name, because her name shouldn't be Smith, it should be Cottle like mine, like it used to be before bucket-faced Roger arrived in our lives. Hearing her called Mrs Smith doesn't stop making me angry, just because I'm dead. She glances at Roger and then sits on the sofa. Roger joins her and takes her hand. 'I haven't figured out what he's wearing yet...' Mum begins. 'But if you give me a few more minutes I should be able to.' The second policeman glances at the first one and then hands her a wallet. 'Is this David's?' Mum takes it from him and turns it over in her hands as though she doesn't quite believe it exists. 'Yes,' she says in small voice. 'I'm sorry, but we found this on a boy matching David's description at the scene of a road traffic accident. He had a bag on him from Village News, we checked with the proprietor and he said David never returned after his round yesterday, although he hadn't been unduly concerned as, apparently, he often goes straight home when he's finished -' 'Oh God, we didn't ring the shop,' Mum says. 'We thought he was sulking at a friend's house he's done it before - we'd had an argument and...' she can't finish and I can tell she feels gutted now that she didn't ring the paper shop when I didn't come home. We did have a massive row and I suppose she thought I was staying out of her way. I was pissed off alright but I wouldn't have done that to her, I wouldn't have given Roger the satisfaction. Maybe she was sulking more than me. The thing is, if she had looked for me straight away I'd probably still be alive; it took me ages to die. I hope the police don't tell her that. 'Is he alright?' mum says in a panicked voice. 'What's happened to him?' The first policeman just looks at her with his most well-trained sympathetic face. 'I'm sorry, Mr and Mrs Smith, but we're going to need a formal identification on the body. We need you to come and confirm whether it is or is not David.' I think Mum might faint - her skin suddenly turns grey and her eyes look like they can't focus. She already knows, I can tell. Roger puts an arm around her. Two: Ingrid Today is sunny. The churchyard in our village is nice, I suppose, if you think things like churchyards can be nice. It has old stone walls that have been there since the plague and oak trees all over the place. People in our village seem really proud of it. There are weatherworn plaques, built into the walls of the church, that tell the stories of soldiers from our village, who fought in

wars years ago and died in far-off lands. Sometimes, when I was younger, I used to walk around the church, reading them all and wondering what sort of men they were. If you look at the dates, you can work out that some of them were teenagers. I think a lot of their families still live here. In the shadows of the trees and the church it's cold, but when you stand in the sun you can feel its heat on you, or, I suppose, the others can. I can see it in the way it bounces from Ingrid Stephenson's hair, in the way Matt and Paulie squint when they look across at my coffin being carried up the path and, for once, neither of them sniggers or takes the piss. Mum and Roger follow and Mum looks like she's in such a daze she can barely walk. I really don't want to file in behind all the other kids when they go to hear the service, but there's a bit of me that can't resist it, like that bit of you that wants to look at the gash in your leg that you know will make you throw up the minute you do. I watch them all go in first: Mum, Roger, aunts and uncles from Dad's family that I haven't seen since he died, Nana and Granddad, teachers, my best mates, Matt and Paulie, Ingrid and a bunch of her girl-worshippers (all crying, which is weird because they hated me), loads of kids from my year and even some from different years and neighbouring villages. It's not that I was popular; I suppose it's just that a kid dying is a big deal, especially when you're a kid yourself. When everyone is inside, I stand right back by the doors and peer in. Nobody can see me, I know, I could stand right next to the vicar and whisper crap in his ear and nobody would know. But even though it's only me they're burying, it still feels like a really solemn occasion and I feel like I should show some respect. Maybe that's for my mum, though, because when I look across at her, she seems like she can hardly breathe for crying. Roger rubs her back and strokes her hair and pulls her into a hug but she fights her way out of his arms and drags a deep breath like she will stop herself from crying, but then the vicar says my name and she starts again. Some people are even staring at her, like she should shut up or something. Everyone looks freezing in here, huddling in their coats; outside the air was golden, but in here it's grey and cold. Everyone stands up and sings a hymn, The Lord's My Shepherd. I don't even know why they're singing that, I hate it. I watch them all, their mouths moving slowly and out of time, not one of them making an effort to sing the actual words from the sheet, apart from the vicar, who's belting it out like he's on the main stage at Glasto or something. Me and Matt always said we'd go there as soon as we were sixteen. The idea suddenly makes me sadder than anything else I've seen so far today. The song feels like it goes on forever but then they finish and everyone sits down. The vicar says some stuff about me: what I was like, jokes that I'd played on people, how popular I was at school (yeah, right) how I was the family rock when my dad died (Roger doesn't like that bit, I can tell by the way his jaw clenches). I don't know how the vicar knows so much about me, apart from when Dad died, we never went to church. The vicar knew who I was, because everyone sort of knows everyone around here, but he didn't really know me. I suppose Mum must have told him a lot of things. He says some stuff about forgiveness (I wonder how forgiving he would feel if someone ran over him in their pimped up shitheap and left him for dead) and then they all sing another hymn. Before they carry my coffin back outside, the sound system kicks in and plays Lucky by Radiohead. Which is kind of ironic, when you think about it. I'm surprised that mum chose it; she used to go mad when I played it over and over. Once, she threatened to throw my ipod dock out of the window. Radiohead was dad's favourite band and that was his favourite song. Some of the kids smile in approval but most of the adults look like someone just hurled a hand grenade in through the church window. When the song ends and the vicar says that people can go, they can't get out quick enough. 'It's just so weird, knowing he's in that box,' Ingrid says to one of her cronies as they carry my coffin past her, out on the sunny path. If I'd known dying would get her that interested in me, I'd have faked it months ago. It couldn't have been any less successful than my other attempts to get a date with her. She still looks amazing, even though she's crying. Her blonde hair is loose today, long and sleek down her back; she's wearing black from head to toe, like everyone is, but somehow she doesn't look like someone at a funeral, she just looks hot as hell. She's a bitch, though, and I don't know why she's crying. If anything, it's her fault there's a funeral for me at all.

When I'm in the ground, before they fill the hole, everyone takes turns chucking dirt down on the coffin. Mum goes first and Roger's practically holding her up now as she's crying so much. Then Roger takes a handful and throws it down. Some of the kids and teachers line up to have a go, but some of them slink away in groups to talk quietly and Ingrid's gang does that. I don't know why people throw dirt on coffins. We had to do it when we buried Dad. I never asked Mum why, maybe I should have done. It doesn't seem like a kind deed here though, it feels sort of symbolic, like this is what everyone thinks of me. It doesn't seem right to throw dirt at you when you're dead, even if it is just on your coffin. The vicar says some more stuff about eternal rest and how we all return to the earth. One part of me will, but I wonder what he'd say if he knew that I was watching him right now. I wonder if he'd be calm or if he'd freak out. I'd go for the second option. If Matt and Paulie could talk to me now, we'd be betting on it. Some people ask Roger if there'll be a wake. I'm glad when he says no. We had one for Dad, it was horrible. People came round our house and ate a load of sandwiches like there was nothing wrong at all, while my dad was lying in a box, dead. I don't want people eating sandwiches while I lie in a box dead. Not today. As I didn't go straight away, I thought, maybe, after the funeral I would have gone wherever it is that dead people finally go. I'm not sure how long it's been since the funeral, it's really hard to keep track of time when each day melts into the next, but I think it's been maybe two or three weeks. Two or three weeks and I'm still hanging around. Which leaves me wondering when, exactly, you do go. Or if you even go at all? Is there a test or something that you have to pass, a spell or rhyme you have to say, some unfinished business that needs to be sorted? Am I like the plague kids, did I do something really wrong that I have to be punished for, will I be doomed to wander the village for the next gazillion years? Then again, part of me doesn't like the not knowing what's waiting for me if I do go. The other day, I tried to ask this woman in the village about it. She's named Raven. It's a weird name, but I don't think that's her real one. I never spoke to her once while I was alive but I saw her lots of times. Most of the kids thought she was pretty freaky and kept out of her way. Come to think of it, a lot of the adults did too. She advertises in the paper shop window that she's a medium but when I went to her the other day she couldn't hear a thing I said, which leads me to believe that she is making a ton of money for stuff she can't actually do. People pay this woman to find out about people they've lost and she tells them stuff, like if they're happy or if they have messages to send back from wherever it is that dead people go to, but if it's not true then she's a complete hag. If she ever takes a penny from my mum I swear I'll haunt her forever and I'll make sure she can bloody well hear me then. Today I'm actually sitting in assembly at school. What a freak show. But I'm bored and it's horrible watching Mum cry while she gets rid of my stuff, and I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. Mr Patel is waffling on about some end of term crap and everyone looks as though they're falling asleep. I'm falling asleep and I'm dead, I don't need to sleep. I get up and stand in front of Ingrid. I could totally pull my trousers down and show her everything I've got, right in her face, and she wouldn't be able to do a thing. But she just looks through me, the same as she did when I was alive, and suddenly it doesn't seem such a funny idea. I look across the line. Mart's sniggering at something Paulie's just said. It didn't take that git long to forget me. I thought he would have been sad for a bit longer than a couple of weeks but every time I see him now, he's having a right laugh, like I never even existed. In films dead people can make stuff fly at people who annoy them but I can't even do that. So I just glare at him. But that seems pretty pointless too. No one ever glared someone to death. I go and stand behind Mr Patel and shout, 'Patel just farted!' and I pretend to faint from the smell. Nobody looks at me. I start doing star jumps behind him and pull my face. I do monkey noises, pretend to be a ninja, bomb around the hall screaming my head off. But all that is soon boring too and it drives me mad that nobody knows I'm here. I'm like a shadow; not even that, at least shadows can be seen when the sun is out. I end up sitting down on the steps of the stage and watch the rows of kids staring through me. That's even more depressing. It's just as I decide to leave that I notice something. Bethany Willis seems to be looking at me. Not just looking, but open mouthed, concentrating

on me. I look behind but there's only me on the steps. Perhaps she's just having a weird moment. She does that. I've never really talked to her, apart from getting her to shift out of the way in the canteen, but I know she's weird. Always wearing her shirt buttoned up tight and her tie knotted as high as she can. Sometimes she wears a polo-necked jumper under her shirt. You're not supposed to wear anything that's not school uniform but nobody ever tells her to take it off. And sleeves, always long sleeves, even on the hottest days of summer. She wears her fringe really long and some days her hair is stuck to the side of her face like she gelled it there on purpose. She's the quietest, most unnoticeable person in the school. Almost as unnoticeable as me. She carries on gawping at me so I flip her the finger. Her eyes narrow. So I start to walk towards her and then her frown fades and she starts to look terrified as I get closer. I can see her chest rise and fall in a tiny, rapid movement, like she can't get enough air, and she looks straight at me while I approach, her eyes getting wider and her breaths getting shorter. Then I stop and bend down to put my face right to hers. I'm so close I can smell the mint from her toothpaste. Her eyes flicker up and seem to meet mine, just for a moment, then she tries to look straight ahead, as if she's watching the stage, but I can tell from her look that she isn't really watching the stage. Is that because she can't see it? Is it because something, or someone, is blocking her view? Forgive me for not being excited at this point, but Bethany Willis? If I have to wander around forever and only Bethany Willis can see me, I know there's definitely a god and he's punishing me big time for something I did when I was alive. I don't know why I do it, but I speak to her quietly. 'Bethany... Bethany Willis... I've come to haunt you...' I walk around her chair in a tight circle, fading through the surrounding kids like I'm mist. She keeps her face straight forwards but she's gone three shades paler and I can see tiny beads of sweat beginning to form on her top lip. 'Bethany... I know you can see me...' She's still trying to look straight ahead. I think she might cry but I just can't stop. 'Bethany!' I shout at her now. 'I've come to take you to hell!' She glances up at me; there's real terror in her eyes and just for a moment I feel bad. But this is Bethany Willis. Her face goes forwards again and she clasps her hands together to try to hold the tremors. I loom over her and raise my arms in the air like a zombie. Suddenly her eyes roll back in her head and she falls sideways off her chair. The three girls next to her leap off their seats and rush over. She's out cold on the floor. The hall erupts in a low ripple of murmurs that soon grows into an excited babble and somewhere, someone starts a round of applause, which Mr Patel immediately shouts down. Maisie Burrows, who's a prefect, arrives next and kneels beside Bethany, tapping her face and talking to her, but she doesn't wake up. Miss Jacobs and Mr Bauer come over and have a quick conversation about whether they should try and bring her round on the spot, or whether she looks bad enough to call an ambulance. Finally, they decide not to do either of these things and, instead, they drag Bethany away. I follow them to the nurse station and watch as they haul Bethany onto the bed. It's not really a nurse station - we don't have a school nurse - but, for some reason, everyone calls it that. Really, it's just a tiny room with a bed and a first aid kit in it. Mostly, it gets used for stuff like this, like in the summer when kids faint in the heat during assembly or get knocked on the head playing hockey. Miss Jacobs loosens Bethany's tie and undoes the top buttons of her shirt. Underneath, Bethany's neck is covered in purple and black marks that sort of look like fingerprints and Miss Jacobs seems to go white as she looks up at Mr Bauer. Neither of them says anything about it. 'Could you get some water, please?' Miss Jacobs asks Mr Bauer. He nods and leaves the room. Miss Jacobs looks down at Bethany with a helpless expression. It's sort of beautiful, though, sad but hopeful, like she's desperate to do something to make things better for her. Of all the people who saw my body after I died, nobody looked at it like Miss Jacobs looks at Bethany Willis now. If Miss Jacobs had seen me after I died, would she have given that look to me? Bethany's eyes start to open but she can't seem to focus and she's groaning slightly. Then her gaze settles on me and her eyes open wide as she tries to clamber up the bed away from me. I shrug. 'I was just having a laugh.' Bethany shoots a questioning look at Miss Jacobs and then looks back at me. Miss Jacobs turns around but she doesn't see me.

'Are you alright, Bethany?' Miss Jacobs' voice is small and tweety, like a bird. It's a bit like her dainty and cute. I always fancied Miss Jacobs. She's so nice to Bethany, even though she must think Bethany is a freak. Everyone thinks Bethany is a freak, I don't see how the teachers can be any different. Bethany nods slowly, trying her hardest not to look at me, though I can feel her gaze pulling my way like it's on a fishing wire. My eyes travel to the marks on her neck and Bethany must realize that it's bare and fumbles with her top buttons to do them up. Now I know that she can definitely see me and hear me properly. 'I'm ok now, Miss,' she says, looking away from me. 'Can I go back to assembly?' 'I don't think that's a good idea,' Miss Jacobs says kindly. 'Perhaps we should phone your dad to come and pick you up?' 'No!' Bethany almost shouts. Miss Jacobs raises her eyebrows slightly in surprise and then Bethany's voice goes quiet again. 'I don't want to go home, I'm fine now.' Miss Jacobs watches Bethany for a moment, her expression thoughtful. 'Did you hurt yourself over the weekend?' 'What do you mean, Miss?' 'You seem to have some bruises...' 'Yeah, I bruise easily, Miss. I fell over and hit myself on the end of my bed.' 'Funny place to hit yourself.' 'It was a funny way that I fell, Miss.' Miss Jacobs pauses. 'So... there's nothing you would like to talk about?' Bethany shakes her head forcefully. 'No, Miss.' 'You're sure? Because whatever you tell me will be in absolute confidence.' 'I'm sure, Miss, there's nothing. Can I go back to assembly?' Miss Jacobs looks at her watch. 'Assembly is nearly over, Bethany. Perhaps we'll go to the canteen and get you a drink and a bit of air? Then you can go back to your lessons.' 'Will you stay with me in the canteen, Miss?' Bethany asks, glancing at me. 'If you like. But, Bethany, we will have to tell your parents what happened.' 'You mean my dad?' 'Sorry, your dad.' Miss Jacobs looks a bit embarrassed. 'It's ok, Miss. People forget all the time.' Mr Bauer comes back with a glass of water. 'You're up, then? How are you feeling?' He hands Bethany the glass. 'Better thanks, Sir,' Bethany says, taking it from him and sipping. 'Can I go now?' 'Canteen?' Miss Jacobs asks. 'Don't worry, I won't follow you in there,' I say to Bethany. She tries not to look at me. I shrug. 'I didn't mean to make you faint.' 'Yeah, canteen, Miss,' Bethany says, ignoring me. I suppose she can't reply, though. I suppose that might make her look like she really isn't alright at all to Miss Jacobs and Mr Bauer. 'You'll stay with me, won't you?' she asks Miss Jacobs. 'I don't want to sit on my own.' 'Of course I will,' Miss Jacobs replies. Bethany shoots me one last glance as she clambers unsteadily from the bed. Sitting on the wall in the yard I can't get Bethany Willis out of my head. The rain comes down like darts from the leaden sty but I'm not wet and I'm not cold. I can smell cooking meat coming from the canteen. I suppose they're getting started on dinners. I don't feel hungry but the smell sets me longing for something that's gradually fading from my memory. Lots of things are starting to fade. I wonder if that's what happens when you die - that you don't go straight away but gradually disappear from existence like dust blown away on the wind. Maybe all this is normal. Maybe this is what happened to Dad. If it did, where is he now? Has he gone on or is he wandering around somewhere different to me? Like maybe we're all in parallel dimensions or something, because I haven't seen any others like me all the time I've been dead. Then again, how would I know for sure they're like me if I did see them? And how would they know that I'm like them? Maybe we do see each other and just don't talk for fear of being wrong. Bethany could see me, for sure. How come? She is definitely not like me; she was talking to Miss Jacobs and Miss Jacobs could see her. It's been two or three weeks (I wish I could remember) and not another soul has looked at me, spoken to me, even got a chill down their spine as I entered the room. I'm like a walking memory. Is Bethany Willis a real-deal version of the medium woman in the village? I should try to get her alone and find out. Maybe she'll talk to my

mum for me. I go to the window of the canteen and peer in. The walls of the canteen are covered in green tiles and all the surfaces are dull silver, apart from the plastic tables and chairs; it's about the least inspiring place to have your dinner that you can imagine. Bethany is still sitting in there with Miss Jacobs. She's twisting her fingers around each other and staring into a glass of water while Miss Jacobs watches her carefully. Miss Jacobs says something and Bethany looks up. She casts her eyes towards the window as she replies and I duck out of sight sharpish. If my heart was still beating it'd be going like a trip-hammer. I don't want her to see me now for some reason, even though I wanted to talk to her. I almost feel like I'm the freak now. My head inches up above the windowsill again. Miss Jacobs is walking out of the canteen and Bethany is sitting alone now. She checks her watch and drags herself up from the table. It looks like she still feels unwell. I wonder whether to nick in now to try and talk to her again, but I don't think I'd be able to deal with her fainting all over the place and it's not like I could go and fetch anyone. I couldn't even waft her to bring her round, seeing how I don't even stir the air when I move. So I watch her leave the canteen. She throws one last look back at the window and I shift out of the way but I think she saw me. When I dare to check, she's gone. I don't know what to do about Bethany, so I go and look for Ingrid instead. I don't really know why. It hurts like hell, this wanting her, worse than it ever did before. You'd think being dead would change that but it doesn't. I suppose it's because now she's even more unreachable than ever before, and even if she did notice me for one solitary second, there's nothing I could do about it. I find her with Matt behind the temporary science block. The science block consists of two parallel buildings that run alongside each other with a narrow corridor in between and the roof of each sort of juts out so that it's dry under there when it rains. It's meant to be out of bounds, but loads of kids ignore that. Matt and Ingrid are together under the roof now and there's nobody else around. If anyone was there before, Matt probably told them to get lost; he likes to think that it's his spot. I stop and stare at them as the truth smacks me in the face. I've never seen them so much as talk to each other before, though they are definitely not talking much now either. Ingrid and Matt? That git. He was supposed to be my best mate. She's the reason I was on that road in the first place, bombing round delivering papers at the village. I know I had an argument with Mum but she had never wanted me to do the paper round in the first place. But I wanted to get some money to take Ingrid out. I figured that Ingrid isn't the sort of girl that will settle for a bag of chips and a night at the swings, so I was going to take her somewhere out of the village, somewhere nice. Matt told me she'd never say yes and to sack the paper round and hang out with him instead. No wonder he was telling me to forget it, he knew that he was going to move on her and get her. I can't decide how I feel about this; does that make him a friend or a backstabber?' He's got his arms folded tight around her neck, trying to suck her face off by the looks of things. I get up right close to them and try to be menacing, or at least give them a cold shiver that they can't quite explain, but... nothing. I step back and watch as they mash and sigh, wishing I could throw something. Eventually, he lets her breathe. She throws her hair back and bats her lashes at him. 'The funeral was the worst,' he says quietly, glancing at her with that shifty look that I've seen him use on girls before. He knows that she's soaking up every line and he's loving it. Before, I would have thought it was funny. But this is Ingrid... my Ingrid. 'It was a horrible day,' she says. 'I cried for ages and my face was a right mess.' 'You still looked amazing,' he says. She smiles and her face just lights up. Score one to Matt. 'Do you miss him?' she asks. He nods, all serious. 'It's a weird thing, losing your best friend. It makes you feel sort of... disconnected. You realize that life is short and you have to grab every precious moment.' 'Like this one?' she says, walking her fingers up his arm. He pulls her closer. 'Like this one...' He doesn't look very disconnected as he tries to eat her tonsils again. 'You shit!' I snarl. 'I can't believe you'd use my death to pull Ingrid!'

'I had no idea of what you'd gone through,' she says to Matt in a voice that sounds like melted chocolate. 'I feel like I want to make it all better for you.' 'You are,' he says as he snogs her again and his hand slips under her shirt to find her bra strap. She grabs it and moves it back to her waist but she doesn't seem too worried about where his other hand is going. If I had anything in my stomach I'd throw up over the pair of them. I'm totally stalking him from now on and if there are any ghost powers I will learn to use them on him. I think about watching them some more but then realize that it's actually a bit creepy. The rules are different now, I suppose, but I don't really know what they are anymore. Just suppose I followed Ingrid home now and watched her take a shower, would that be wrong? After all, she wouldn't have a clue I was there and it's not like I could jump on her, so would it matter? But now I think about it, I realize that those are exactly the reasons why there's no point in following her home. I start to wonder about Bethany Willis again. If she can see me and hear me, can she touch me too? It would be nice, to feel someone's skin on mine again. Not in a pervy way... definitely not with Bethany Willis anyway, but some contact with someone would help to fight this feeling that everything that once made me is slowly drifting apart. The school bell rings and Ingrid jumps away from Matt. 'We should go in,' she says, tucking her blouse back into her skirt. 'Meet me later?' he asks. She chews on her lip and looks at him thoughtfully, her eyes wide. Oh God, she looks so good when she does that it almost kills me again. 'Don't go!' I shout. I know she can't hear me but I can't help it. 'Ok,' she says finally. 'What time?' 'Are you completely stupid?' I stamp my foot at her. As I do this, she looks in my direction. My heart skips. She's heard me? Is that all it takes, for me to really need something to make it happen? But her eyes are blank and they're not seeing me at all. My stomach lurches at the realization. 'About seven?' he says. 'I'll call for you.' 'Where are we going?' she says as she swings her bag onto her shoulder. Matt shrugs. 'I'll think of somewhere,' he grins. They both go in separate directions for their next lesson and I just stand there in the rain on my own. School is empty now. In a way, it feels dead too with none of the kids here, like the blood that moves it has drained away. I'm sitting at my old desk thinking about Ingrid and Matt. Maybe sitting isn't the right word. My form is sort of folded as if I'm sitting but I don't think I'm actually on the chair, rather, around it. The classroom is in darkness now already, even though it's only just after five. Through the huge window I can see the endless stream of blurred headlights on the main road that runs past the village as people make their way back from work. Most of the people on that road don't live in our village, they just drive on past to places that are far more exciting. I suppose they'll be home soon in their warm, orange living rooms with steaming mugs of tea and telly. They'll be able to hug and laugh and argue and eat beans on toast and won't give any of it a second thought. Right now, Matt's mum will be rushing about for him, making him something nice for tea, and he'll sit there eating it, thinking about what he's going to do with Ingrid later, like it's really ok. I still can't believe he'd do that to me; I thought we were best mates. Suddenly, a shadow moves across the window. Quick and quiet like a wraith. I'm thinking maybe the caretaker, but even though I only saw it for a second, it seemed too small and thin to be Mr Allen. I get up and go to look out of the window. It looks like a kid -I can't see who but they have a short jacket showing their skinny legs and a too-big rucksack slung across a shoulder. Still hanging around school after five? No after-school clubs here; a rural school is too badly staffed for that sort of torture so the kids go home at three. That makes the person still wandering around a saddo or a ghost. I'm going with saddo. I can't pop from place to place like ghosts do on the telly, but I can push myself through the wall and I do. As the figure passes under a security lamp I can see that the rucksack has flowers on it so I must he following a girl. I might he dead, but why change the habit of a lifetime? Her breath unfurls in a white plume as her figure is briefly lit. She has the tiniest shoulders and an odd,

awkward stride, like her boots don't fit properly. There's only one set of footsteps clicking on the concrete path and the distorted whoosh of the traffic from the road in the distance, otherwise, there's cold silence. Round by the back of the kitchens there are huge metal bins next to the fence. Once, Matt and Paulie chucked a year seven in one of them. We couldn't stop laughing because every time the kid tried to get out, he just slid right back down again. The girl ducks behind one of them and I follow to see there's a gap in the wire. She squeezes through it and onto the playing fields. I keep a good distance but I carry on following. I'm not sure why, but it suddenly feels like I'm intruding on her privacy. She's walking slowly. She either doesn't really know where to go, or she does, and really doesn't want to get there. I sort of know how she feels. But then the fields are black as anything the further you get from the lights of the school, so maybe she's only walking slowly because she can't see where she's going properly. At the far end of the playing fields is another fence. She walks the line of it and I follow. After a while, she stops and pulls apart another bit of loose wire, then she ducks through it and out onto the road. What the hell does Mr Allen do all day? Not fix fencing, that's for sure. Under the yellow glow of the streetlamps now she turns suddenly and freezes. It's Bethany Willis. I shrink back into the shadows and she faces forwards again, picking up her pace. I'm not sure if she knows I'm here but I think she does. She glances back and this time I don't hide. She walks even faster, and then starts a panicked half-run, her backpack slapping against her as she goes. I run too. I could shout, tell her that she doesn't have to be scared of me, but I don't think it would make any difference. So I stop running and let her go. I watch her rush down the lane that leads to the small cluster of council houses on the outskirts of the village, until she becomes a speck to be swallowed by the dark. Do I follow her? I'm guessing that she lives in one of those houses but I don't know which one. And I feel pretty bad now for freaking her out so much in assembly. Even if she talks to me, how do I explain that? But she can see me. For a few minutes, I don't do anything; I just stand there looking into the darkness. I know she won't talk to me, but I can't seem to stop my feet from starting out on the road after her. There are only ten houses on this stretch, overlooking a road and a scrubby field. There's a lone, skinny horse standing on the field eyeing me warily. Animals seem to be able to see me, or if they don't, somehow they know I'm there. Which makes me even more confused about Bethany. Not that I think she's a horse or anything. But out of all the people who are important to me, none of them see me, and this one girl who means nothing can. The houses are all painted white - at least, they probably used to be white, though not one of them is any longer. Now, in the gloom, they look grey with the feeling of army barracks rather than homes. They're grouped in twos that mirror each other. I could easily get through each front door and see who lives there but it suddenly seems like a boundary that I shouldn't cross so I sit on a wall and stare up at the curtain covered lights at the windows. She won't come out again tonight, I suppose. It's probably cold out here, though I can't feel it. I don't even see my breath in the air. But if I was cosy in one of those houses I wouldn't come out, not for anything. And certainly not if I thought a dead kid was stalking me. I gave up waiting for Bethany and came to look at my grave instead. I wish I could remember how long I've been dead, but it's hard to keep track of time when the days all feel the same. There's nothing here yet to mark me, so maybe it's not all that long. Though, I suppose Mum hasn't got enough money; I remember when Dad died it took her ages to get the money together for a gravestone. She told Roger about it once too and he just tutted and looked like he cared but I know he didn't. The graveyard looks different tonight than it did on the day of my funeral, somehow barren and deserted, like all the people buried here have been forgotten. In the summer it looks nicer, a warm green canopy overhanging the crooked rows of stones and the lazy buzzing of insects filling the air. I've even hung out here from time to time with Matt, sitting on the ancient fallen stones by the wall and laughing at stupid jokes. Tonight the hare branches look sort of mournful, at least they do to me. Mum has put some new stuff on the mound of earth where I am, things that had been in my bedroom, so I

know it's mine. I think some kids from school have been here too, there are teddies and flowers and messages from them. I wonder who left them, because I'm pretty sure nobody liked me enough to buy teddies for me. I bend down to have a look at a white fluffy bear. There's a card attached to it and I reach for it but my hand goes through, of course. Sometimes, I still forget that I'm made of nothing now. I try to read the card, but in the dim light from the road, I can't make out the letters. Sitting on the ground, I huddle into my shirt and stare at the pile of stuff. I'm not cold, just my soul is, I think. It's funny to think that underneath that plot is a pile of mashed up old meat that used to be me. I wouldn't want to see it, though, I think it would he gross. It's so quiet here that I start to hum, just to break it. The words of Lucky pop into my head and I sing them. I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll, this time, I feel my luck could change... It doesn't matter, after all, nobody can hear me. It starts off sad, but then I sort of like it. Pull me out of the air crash Pull me out of the lake 'Cause I'm your superhero... I don't know how long has passed in the graveyard. I don't feel like singing any more so I curl up and lie next to the toys and gifts and things from my room and watch the thinnest clouds race across the sky, flitting over the stars, swallowing the moon and then spitting it out, over and over. Now I'm sitting next to Dad. Or rather, what's left of Dad. His stone has been here for three years. It's not like the really old ones further over near the church, where the letters have worn away, but moss is already growing around the base. His name still stands out in gold lettering on the black stone - Sean David Cottle -I can see it plainly in the moonlight. I came to look at it on the day of my funeral, but I hadn't been for a long time before then. Mum came down a lot, before Roger. I sort of thought that if I didn't see the gravestone, then it wouldn't be true and my dad wouldn't be dead. I suppose that's pretty stupid. 'Hey, Dad.' I listen to the silence that echoes back at me. I wonder where he is now. I wonder if he can hear me and see me like I can hear and see everyone else. Why can't I hear and see him if he's dead too? What happened to make me different? 'I'm fed up, Dad. I'm sick of wandering around this village all the time like a shadow. I don't want to be here anymore. Please talk to me; please say that I get to go where you are soon.' I close my eyes tight and wait for him to reply. But nothing comes. I'm outside Bethany's again this morning, waiting for her to come out for school. I figured I might try to apologize, if she stops long enough to let me, and then maybe she'll talk to my mum for me. Maybe she even knows about my dad, or she can at least tell me what's going on. I'm not sure what she is or why she can see me, but it has to mean something. I'm sitting on the same wall as I did last night. I tried to talk to the horse earlier but it just looked at me, blew a great smelly plume from its nose and walked off. Does that mean it's scared of me or just bored? After the graveyard last night, I wandered over to Ingrid's house for a while. I thought about going in, but I knew that Matt was there and I wasn't sure if I'd like what I found. It'd drive me mental, seeing him all over her again. Instead, I went home to see what Mum and Roger were doing. Roger had bought mum takeout curry. I suppose he was trying to cheer her up. It smelt good to me, even though I wasn't hungry. She didn't eat much, she just pushed it around her plate and said sorry but she was feeling a bit sick. He looked annoyed but he didn't say anything, he just took her plate away and chucked it all in the bin. Then he went to bed and she started crying again. I sat next to her for a while and told her that she would feel better

soon, but I don't know if that's true. Later, when Mum had fallen asleep on the sofa, I checked out my room. It was a lot cleaner and emptier than last time I saw it. A lot of my stuff was stacked in bin bags piled against the wall, the bed had been stripped and the curtains had been taken down. I suppose Mum wanted to wash them. I suppose she'll want to redecorate it soon. I sat in there for a while, but even that doesn't feel like home now that it's all cleared out. When I'd had enough of that I walked the streets and then out to the fields at the edge of the village. All the while I was alive I never noticed the amazing stuff just beyond the tiny circle of my existence. Like the rabbits I saw playing, and the badger, and the slug dragging a sparkling trail across a dock leaf. Even the streets of the village have their own sort of beauty at night, still and silent, as if they're holding their breath for the new day. And then the dawn. The last sunrise I watched was the one just after I'd died. It wasn't the best, to be honest. This morning, the clouds tore open and the sun set them on fire in pink and orange and this time I wasn't staring down at my mangled body while all that drama was going on in the sky, I just stood and watched. It's funny how it takes death to make you appreciate things like that. The row of houses where Bethany lives looks even worse in the grey daylight than it did last night - you can see just how dirty the paintwork is and how overgrown the gardens are. A couple of them at the end look ok. I hope Bethany lives in one of them or my mum might not take too kindly to her. A cracked yellow door, the paintwork coming away in strips, opens at one of the middle houses. It's probably the scruffiest one of the lot. Bethany looks straight at me and freezes. I try to smile, but maybe it looks a bit sinister because she doesn't smile hack, and she seems absolutely terrified now. She races down the steps, so fast she almost trips, and then turns and starts to walk really quickly towards school. 'Bethany...'I start to follow her but she doesn't look round. 'Bethany, wait!' I jog to catch up. My footsteps make no noise but she walks faster anyway, even though she hasn't looked back, like she somehow knows I'm running after her. 'Bethany, I don't want to scare you, I just want to talk to you.' She stops, turns around and glances up and down the deserted lane, biting her lip and fiddling with the strap of her rucksack. Then she looks at me and opens her mouth like she might say something but quickly turns around and carries on walking, only slower now. I catch up and walk at her side. She keeps staring straight ahead as she goes. I know you can hear me,'I say. I try to grab her arm but my hand goes clean through. She doesn't even shiver and she carries on walking without looking at me, so I suppose she didn't feel a thing. My heart feels like someone just ripped it from my dead chest. No touching, not even Bethany Willis. 'Please... Bethany... just tell me that I'm right, that you can see me...' She doesn't look at me and doesn't reply. 'Come on, Bethany. Tell me you can see me and I'll get off your case. I just want to know, that's all.' She finally stops and looks me straight in the eye. 'Why can't you leave me alone?' Her eyes are shining, like she has tears in them. 'I... I'm sorry...' I stammer. 'I'm lonely.' This admission surprises even me. Bored, I thought, but I never realized that maybe I was confusing boredom with loneliness. Now that I've said it, I know it's true. Seeing everyone else getting on with their normal everyday lives - curry and snogging and messing around in assembly -and me on the outside, no one even knowing I'm there; it hurts more than anything ever hurt when I was alive. If there is a hell, I think maybe this is it. 'I just don't know what to do,' I say. She glances up and down the lane again before she speaks. 'Are you real, though?' I shrug. 'I don't even know myself, if I'm honest. This dying business doesn't seem to come with a manual.' Her eyes widen. 'So you know you're dead? And it definitely is you?' 'Yeah, I think so,' I say. How can I even know what I am anymore? Sometimes I wonder myself if I'm actually still alive and just going loopy. She reaches a shaking hand out to me and moves it slowly through my chest then she steps back and catches her breath, staring at me, her blue eyes round with something that doesn't

look like fear now. 'Have you seen dead people before?' I ask. She shakes her head. 'Not like this.' 'What does that mean?' 'Sometimes I see, like, the leftovers of people. I know there's someone there but it'smore of a feeling, a space in reality that they're filling. They never talk to me. But you look real; you're just standing there in front of me.' I think about this for a moment. 'Are you a medium?' 'No. I don't think so.' I frown. 'So you can't tell me what's happening to me?' She shakes her head again in disbelief. 'How would I know that?' 'I just wondered... as you can see me and hear me and nobody else can.' 'Are you sad about it?' she asks. 'Not that so much... I'm confused. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I'm not sure if there's something you have to do to go where all the other dead people are.' I feel a bit stupid now but I say it anyway. 'I was hoping you would be able to tell me. I thought you might be a medium.' She doesn't laugh at me, like I thought she would. 'Sorry, but I'm not. There's a woman in the village who is.' 'Raven?' 'Yeah.' 'I know about her. I went to see her first, just after I died, but she can't see me or hear me. I think she's a fake.' 'I thought about going to her to talk to my mum.' She takes me by surprise for a moment. 'Oh, I forgot your mum was dead.' She shrugs. 'It was last year. I'm used to it now.' I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything at all. 'Do you see other dead people?' she asks. 'Your dad is dead, isn't he? Now that you're dead have you seen him?' She remembers that my dad is dead, even though I forgot about her mum. 'I haven't seen any other dead people at all. There's just me,' I tell her. 'But there's loads of dead people, thousands, millions. How come?' 'I don't know,' I say, looking down at her boots. They're still muddy from last night and the soles are peeling away from the fronts. I look up again. 'What do you think?' 'I don't know what to think.' She gives me a small smile. It makes her face look completely different, like a light goes on inside her. 'So, can I talk to you now without you freaking out?' 'I thought you were going to get off my case if I spoke to you this once.' 'I know, but can I talk to you again? There are loads of things I want to ask you.' 'You were pretty horrible in the hall,' she says, her face serious again. 'Sorry, I was just fed up. I didn't mean to make you pass out like that.' Her face twists more into an accusing frown. 'You were pretty horrible to me when you were alive too.' 'Yeah,' I step from foot to foot awkwardly, 'but everyone is.' Straightaway, I wish I hadn't said it. Her frown deepens. 'I know that doesn't make it alright,' I add quickly. She considers for a moment and the darkness in her face clears. 'Nobody else can see you only me?' I nod. She looks at me thoughtfully. 'I suppose that must be boring.' 'If I wasn't already dead I'd die of boredom.' She gives me another small smile. 'What do you think?' 'You can't come to school with me,' she warns. 'But that means I can come and talk to you again?' 'Why do you want to talk to me? I'm Bethany Willis.' Her voice sounds harder now. She's right, of course. I can just imagine what Matt would say. But right now, Bethany Willis is all

I've got. I shrug. 'Who else am I gonna talk to?' She thinks about this for a moment, like she might argue, then nods. 'Not at school though, and definitely not at home. Ill meet you later.' 'Where?' 'I'll think of somewhere.' 'But I won't know where to wait. How about the swings?' She pauses for a moment. 'No, people will be hanging around there and they might see me. I don't want to give them any more reasons to hate me.' I think about what she's said. I suppose apparently talking to herself on the swings might do just that. 'The churchyard?' She nods. 'Wait for me around here after school. When I can get away, III meet you outside my house.' 'You want me to sit outside your house?' 'How else am I going to let you know I'm ready?' 'Can't I come to school with you for a bit?' 'No.' 'I won't talk to you or anything.' 'What's the point then?' 'I've got nothing else to do.' carries on walking. She chews her lip. 'You can't talk to me, no matter what.' 'I won't, I promise. You won't even know I'm there.' 'Ok.' She starts to walk again and I trot at her side. 'What are you doing?' she says from the corner of her mouth. 'We're both going to the same place.' 'Yeah, but you can't walk with me. What if someone sees?' 'They'll just see you walking to school.' She throws me a sideways glance. 'Don't talk to me then.' I pull my finger across my lips in a zipping motion. That smile lights her face again, just for a moment, then she looks straight ahead and carries on walking. Three: Bethany Bethany is lit by her torch, her face in weird upside-down shadow. Her jeans are a bit too short and her coat doesn't really look thick enough for the frost that's glistening over the grass of the churchyard. But I imagine the huge scarf that's wrapped around her neck and the bobble hat pulled tight over her head is helping. We're sitting on an old blanket that she brought to keep the damp ground from chilling her. I tried my hardest to keep out of her way but she still saw me a couple of times today at school. The first time was in the corridor. She was going to the II block. Matt shoved past her as he headed to the sports hall and nearly knocked her over. I ran over as she pushed herself back up from the wall and told her he was a dickhead but she totally blanked me. The second time she had just been to the canteen for lunch. I watched her through the glass canteen doors as she sat by herself to eat her sandwiches. When she came out, she shot me a quick look and smiled a bit before she rushed off to Maths. Oh, yeah... the Cottle charm still works, even after death. 'So, what do you think?' I say. 'Will you do it?' She blows into her hands and rubs them together before answering slowly. 'I don't think it's a very good idea.' The church clock chimes. Distracted, we count together in silence as it echoes across the graveyard. It stops at seven. "Why not?' 'Imagine it from her point of view. Some random girl rocks up at her door and says she can see you and talk to you. She'd totally freak.' 'I thought about that. You could tell her something that only me and her would know? She'd believe you then.'

'If someone had come to me like that when my mum died, I don't think anything would have persuaded me. I'd have either been scared or really angry with them.' 'Would you? But you said you could see dead people before...' 'Yeah, but it didn't feel like they were actual people and they certainly weren't having chats with me in churchyards.' 'Can't you at least try? I just want her to stop crying about me.' 'David, the only thing that is going to stop her crying about you is time. And even then, deep in her heart, she'll always be sad. I miss my mum every day. Your dad is dead; you should know what that's like.' 'I do,' I say, but when I look at her, I'm not even sure that what we feel is the same. She looks across at the grassy slopes beyond the old wall, shrouded in velvet blackness, and doesn't answer. I wonder whether she's wishing her mum was sitting here instead of me. 'But if you were dead instead of your mum, and you were like me, wouldn't you want her to know that you're ok?' I insist. She looks at me now, her shadowed face wearing a frown. 'But you're not ok.' 'Yeah, I know... what I mean is I'm not sad or anything.' 'But you are sad.' I sigh. 'I can't explain what I mean.' 'You want her to stop worrying about you, to think that you're ok and that you're not sad? Nothing I say would change the way she feels, because she is going to worry that it was somehow her fault, and she knows you're about as not-ok as it gets because you're dead, and if I tell her that you're wandering the village like some tragic gothic spirit she's probably going to figure out you're not happy either.' 'I'm not tragic' 'Maybe you don't feel like it. But that's how it looks from here.' 'You should know all about tragic,' I snap. I look away from her hurt expression. I wish I hadn't said that now. She doesn't reply for a while and I don't know how to take it back. 'I'd better go home,' she says eventually, starting to get up. 'It's only seven.' 'Yeah, but Dad will be missing me soon.' 'Where did you tell him you were going?' I jump to my feet and she rolls up the blanket. 'I didn't.' 'Doesn't he freak out if he doesn't know where you've gone?' 'Not especially. But he'll want some tea.' 'You have to make his tea?' She turns to me and shrugs. 'Who else is going to do it?' I don't know what to say to that. My mum wouldn't even let me boil the kettle. 'Did your mum always do it before?' 'Yeah, she looked after us really well.' I think about what she's just said. I can never remember a time when she didn't look scruffy and weird. It's not like I really noticed her that much, but she was always there, one of those kids on the outside looking in. I try to recall what I know about her. I can't remember ever seeing her with a group of mates, though I think she talks to some girls occasionally. For a while, I didn't even know her name until one of the teachers told us that Bethany Willis's mum died falling down the stairs. She was off school for a couple of weeks and then when she came back, Ingrid pointed out who she was. People were nice to her for a while, when she first came back to school after it happened, but things soon got back to normal. She's sort of like a shadow at school, invisible, nobody really notices her at all. 'Maybe you want to show me your mum's grave, now that we're here?' I ask. It's been so long since I had someone to talk to that I don't want her to go just yet. 'It's ok,' she says, 'I come all the time.' 'But I've never seen it. You could show me and maybe I could visit at night for you.' 'Why would you do that?' 'I haven't got anything else to do.' She shakes her head. 'I'll come back when it's light and bring flowers.' 'You want to see where my dad is buried, then?' 'Not now.'

'Or me,' I say, you haven't seen where I am yet.' She looks pretty uncomfortable with this. 'I've already seen where you're buried. I'd really better get back before Dad misses me,' she says. 'Ok.' I can see that she's not going to budge. And maybe I should just let her go, if she gets in trouble being out with me then she might not come and meet me again. 'You want me to walk back with you?' I ask, suddenly feeling stupid. It's not like I'm going to beat anyone up if they attack her. 'I suppose that would be ok.' She stuffs the blanket in her rucksack. We start to walk back across the churchyard, the torch weaving a tube of light over the ground. I can hear her boots as a muffled crunch on the icy grass. She climbs over the gate and I walk through it. She looks back and throws me a sad smile. 'Why do you think you're still here?' she asks me as we walk down to the road. There are a few streetlights now and she clicks the torch off, stowing it in her bag. I don't know. Maybe everyone dies like this... a bit at a time?' 'A bit at a time? Do you feel like you're still dying, then?' I dunno. I just feel like...'I close my eyes for a moment trying to frame my words. 'Like things are slipping away from me, like I'm disappearing gradually from view.' 'Maybe you only feel like that because people can't see you.' 'You see me.' I don't really count, though, do I?' I want to argue with what she's just said, but I can't. She's right. But maybe I was never any better. 'I can't even leave the tiniest mark on the world though.' I stamp my foot on the ground to show her. No mark on the ice, no sound from my trainer. She looks at me like Miss Jacobs looked at her that day in the nurse station. The first time anyone has ever given me that look since I died. 'Come to think of it,' I add, 'I didn't even do that when I was alive.' She smiles. 'I'm sure that's not true. What about your mum and step dad? They miss you.' 'Roger hates me.' 'Oh. Are you sure about that?' 'What does that even mean? Of course I'm sure. Did your dad move someone else in after your mum died?' 'No-' 'Then you don't know what it's like.' 'Your dad's been dead a while, though.' 'She had other boyfriends before Roger. When he hadn't been dead a while.' I look down at my feet as I walk. 'It won't be long before she replaces me too, just like that.' Bethany goes quiet. 'But maybe she's the sort of person who gets lonely,' she says finally. I look up. 'She had me. And even if she was lonely, she didn't need to marry Roger.' 'Maybe she loves him.' 'He's nothing like my dad. My dad was cool.' 'He doesn't have to he the same for her to like him. Maybe she changed.' 'I don't know. All I know is that she's way too good for him.' 'Maybe that's why you're still here. Perhaps you need to be ok with Roger before you can move on? Like unfinished business or something.' I shake my head. 'I don't think so. He hated me, I hated him. I don't see what difference it makes to anything.' 'But maybe it matters to you, even if you don't realize it.' 'I couldn't care less about him.' She thinks for a moment. 'If everyone dies like this, how come you're not with loads of other people who are dying along with you?' 'I don't know. Maybe we all have our own little dimension, so we can do it in private or something.' 'That sounds a bit weird. A bit like torture, if anything.' 'Perhaps it's a test.' 'But not everyone passes tests.' She hitches her rucksack up. 'If that were true, what would happen to the people who failed?' 'I have no idea. Maybe I've already failed it.' The notion makes me feel light-headed

suddenly. 'What if I've already failed and I have to hang around like this forever?' 'Forever is a long time,' she says. I know.' 'Try not to think about it like that,' she says. 'We'll figure it out.' I don't know how,' I say. 'Who can we ask?' 'Maybe someone else will be able to see you, not just me?' she says. I can't believe there would only be me in the whole world. And maybe that someone will know what's going on. We just have to find them.' She looks across at me. 'Maybe we need Raven after all.' 'That medium? I told you she can't see me.' 'But she might know what's going on.' I shake my head. 'I don't think so.' 'Who else then?' I don't know. It's not like we have a lot of people to choose from in this place.' I wave my hand at the lights of the houses beyond the lane. 'Then well have to look somewhere else.' I can't pop from place to place, you know, like on films, and I don't know if I can sit in a car or on a bus without falling through the floor.' 'So that rules out backpacking across the world.' I laugh. I haven't laughed in ages. I suppose it does.' I'll find someone,' she says, 'and I'll get them to come here to you.' 'You'd do that for me?' I stop and look at her now as if she's brand new. 'Why not?' she says, stopping with me. 'Well...' I begin slowly, 'I suppose I wasn't very nice to you before.' She shrugs. 'Like you said, no one is very nice to me. I'm used to it.' 'Doesn't it bother you? Surely it makes you want to smash their faces in.' I thought about smacking yours in a few times,' she says. This makes me laugh too, for some reason. Like, really laugh. 'It's not funny,' she says. She starts to walk again. I can't see her face properly in the gloom but I think she might he pouting. 'I'm sorry.' 'Your mate's worse though.' 'Matt?' 'Yeah. I hate him.' 'But he's never done anything to you.' 'He doesn't have to. The way he looks at me is enough, like I'm something he just spat out.' 'He looks at everyone like that.' 'He pushes and shoves and takes and thinks he's God's gift to the world. He's like that to everyone, but he's worse with me.' 'Why are you telling me all this now?' 'You're dead. It's not like you're going to tell him, is it?' 'Even so... why tell me at all? What can I do about it now?' 'Nothing.' She shrugs. 'It's nice to tell someone, that's all. Sometimes I want to scream from holding all this hurt and anger inside. But I'm scared too, that it will be just another reason to give me a hard time if I tell anyone. Things are bad enough, without that.' 'I suppose... Why don't you try being a bit less... weird? People might not he so mean to you then.' She stops and turns to me, her face in shadow but her voice raised in an indignant squeak. 'It's not my fault we have no money, it's not my fault my mum fell down the stairs, it's not my fault my dad... I want to be like everyone else,' she sighs,' 'but I'm not and there is nothing I can do about it. And that doesn't give them the right to treat me like dirt.' I've never seen Bethany lose it before. At school she's so quiet; she never raises her hand in class, never gives an opinion on anything. 'I've never really thought about it before,' I say. 'There are the kids that people like and the ones that they don't. I just figured you were one of the ones they don't.' 'I can't wait to leave school,' she says. 'And get away from this small-minded dump of a

village.' 'It's not that bad,' I say. She shoots me this look like she's going to he sick on me. 'Ok, maybe it's a bit boring.' 'It's grimy and pointless. There's nothing to do apart from some rusty old swings and a graveyard. My house is a dump, all the houses are dumps -' 'Hey, not all the houses are dumps. Mine's nice.' 'Then you're lucky. You should try being one of the council house kids in a village where there are only ten council houses.' 'So it's a bit rundown and we only have a couple of shops and a pub. It can be a laugh sometimes. Me and Matt used to turn the road signs around so that the tourists would get lost on the way through.' 'Thrilling,' she says. For the first time her voice really shows how much she hates Matt. How much she must have hated me. 'It's not so bad, is all I'm saying. There's not much to do, but you can make it fun.' 'Easy to say when you have friends.' 'You must have some friends,' I say. But I know that she doesn't. She just sniffs. 'No one's allowed to be different here. Being different doesn't get you friends.' 'Like you?' 'Yeah, I suppose like me.' 'So, you're going to leave forever?' 'Yep, and never look back.' The thought of her leaving makes me feel scared for some reason, but I don't say it. 'Won't you miss your dad?' I can come back and visit, if I want to. Show everyone that I did ok after all.' 'So... what are you going to do?' She shrugs. 'Maybe university.' 'That sounds like fun,' I say, and I suppose she hears the longing in my voice. 'Sorry.' "What for?' 'For being able to go to university.' 'It doesn't matter. It's not your fault I'm dead.' 'Who am I kidding?' she says, plunging her hands deeper in her pockets. 'There's no way I'm going to uni. I have to look after my dad.' I hesitate. What mental age is this guy if he needs a fifteen-year-old girl to look after him? 'Can't he manage without you?' She doesn't reply and stops walking. I look up to see that we're standing by the wall across from her house. 'Want to do something tomorrow?' I ask. 'Maybe,' she says. 'Are you going to hang around school?' 'Maybe.' 'So... maybe I'll see you tomorrow?' I grin. 'Maybe you will.' She smiles. It's that unfamiliar Bethany again. 'Maybe it's goodnight, then,' she says, turning for the house. I tip my forefinger to my temple in a salute. 'Maybe it is,' I say, and I watch her climb the steps to her dirty yellow door. I stayed outside Bethany's house for a while last night, watching the windows. I saw lights go on and off in different rooms, and in other houses along the row. All of the people in those houses were safe, all of them happy and alive. In the end, I couldn't stand it and I ran to Dad's grave and stayed there until the sun came up, watching the stars and singing Radiohead songs. In the morning, I walked into school with Bethany but she said I couldn't talk to her so I just listened to the sound of her boots hitting the pavement and her breaths in the freezing air. When we got to school, Ingrid saw us - no, she saw Bethany - come in through the gate, looked her up and down and pulled a disgusted face. She turned to her cronies. I don't know what she said, but a couple seconds later, they all laughed.

'Forget about it,' I said to Bethany. But she looked straight through me, just like the others do, and went into class. It's lunchtime now. All the kids pour out of class and go to the canteen, or get a table outside where it's cold but at least it's dry today and the hot stench of bodies and food in the cafeteria doesn't get in your nose and put you off your food. Some of them just wander around and don't eat anything, preferring to chew gum and save the lunch money their parents give them. Matt does that sometimes, when he needs some extra cash. Once or twice, I did it too, but I always got home and went on a fridge raid and Mum would know what I'd done. Matt's mum never seems to figure it out. But she lets him do whatever he wants anyway. I wonder whether to wait for Bethany but I think about her warning and decide not to. If I annoy her by talking to her in school, she might not go to see my mum for me. I'm pretty sure if I play it right, I can still persuade her to do that. Instead, I've found Matt and Ingrid behind the science block again. It's like torture, but something in me can't leave them alone. He's all over her again but she doesn't look like she's happy about it today. 'Get off!'She slaps Matt's hand away but he doesn't stop. 'I said, get off me!' 'You weren't complaining last night,' he sniggers, trying to get under her shirt again. She grabs his hand and throws it off, then does up her jacket. 'Last night wasn't in broad daylight at school.' 'Ok, I won't do it again,' he says, pulling her in by the small of her back to kiss her. 'You'd better not,' she says before he gets his gob round hers. Straightaway, his hand is under her coat again. 'I told you to stop it!' Ingrid pushes him away. 'Yeah, but I thought you were just being shy.' 'Shy? Are you simple or something?' 'No,' he says, trying to grab her waist again. She shoves him away. 'I can't help it, I fancy you like mad.' He throws her a look that he thinks is going to get him into her knickers. I can only stand here and watch when I want to punch his face in and it makes me want to scream. 'I thought you were nice, y'know? Sensitive,' she says. 'Sensitive?' I go up and stand between them and look her right in the eye. 'I could have done sensitive if I'd known that was what you were into!' She stares through me at Matt. 'But I'm beginning to wonder if you aren't the same kind of arse that your mate was.' 'Arse? I hope you're not talking about me, you bitch!' I shout. My God, I thought people only said nice stuff about you when you were dead. That's what my mum used to tell me: don't speak ill of the dead, David. When was I an arse, anyway? I can't believe you've just said that about my best friend,' Matt says. His face contorts into a pained frown and his lip wobbles. 'Oh, grow up,' she snaps. 'You weren't missing him when we were at the graveyard last night. In fact, he couldn't have been further from your mind.' 'You were at the graveyard? Did you go to my grave? Together?' Something makes me think they weren't putting flowers on there. 'What time was this?' I ask. I'm just thankful it wasn't when I was there with Bethany. But then something bothers me...what if they were in the churchyard at the same time I was there with Bethany? I didn't hear anyone else but I can't be sure. What if they saw her talking to me? 'He wasn't exactly on your mind either,' Matt says. 'You keep going on about how upset you are about Cottle being dead all the time but you didn't even like him.' I knew him, though. Things like that get to you. Besides, it's hard to have someone on your mind when his best mate is sticking his tongue down your throat,' she says with ice in her voice. 'You weren't putting up much of a fight,' Matt says to her. 'I felt sorry for you.' 'Do you do that for everyone you feel sorry for? If David ever comes back from the dead, hell be well in your knickers.' 'You shit! I thought you were upset.' 'Did I say I was upset?'

"Well, no -' 'I just said I wanted to go the churchyard. I didn't say I was upset.' 'So, why did we go, then?' she asks. 'Where else were we going to go in this place? The swings? Your house? My house? It was just somewhere quiet to go.' 'But I thought... we looked at his grave.' She looks like she might cry now. 'You wanted to look.' 'But then you...' He tucks his shirt in and looks at his watch. 'Forget it. Come and find me when you're less narky.' He walks back down the narrow passageway that leads away from the science block and to the main school yard. The sudden silence is filled with the dull hum of chatter from the grounds beyond the new blocks. Ingrid straightens her jacket and leans against the wall, tipping her face to the sky and taking deep breaths. Then she begins to cry, just quietly, small tears sliding down her cheeks. Part of me wants to do something for her. But part of me is too angry to care that she's crying. I hate Matt. I hate Ingrid too for being shallow enough to fall for him. Suddenly, I feel like we're not alone and I turn around to see Bethany unravelling some earphones and not looking what she's walking in to. Ingrid looks up and rubs her eyes clear. 'What do you want?' she says to Bethany. Bethany fires a quick glance at me and then looks back at Ingrid. 'Nothing,' she says. I just came to listen to some music. 'What, behind here? You know you're a freak, don't you?' 'You're behind here,' Bethany replies, not looking at me, though I can feel her questions as though she's beaming them straight into my head. Ingrid marches towards her and pushes her out of the way as she goes back to the main yard. Bethany waits for her to go. 'What was going on there?' she asks when the coast is clear. Not suspicious, just concerned. I shrug. 'Not sure. But they were at my grave last night.' Bethany looks puzzled for a moment. 'Who's they?' 'Ingrid and Matt.' 'Oh.' She winds the earphones back up and stows them in her rucksack before coming to sit on the floor against the wall. I slide down next to her. 'Do you think they saw us? I mean you talking to me?' I ask her. She shakes her head. 'I don't know. But I don't think so.' 'How can you be so sure?' She gives me a sideways look through her long fringe. 'Do you really think they would have missed an opportunity to take the piss out of me? If they'd seen us last night, it would have been halfway around the school by now.' 'I suppose you're right.' 'Does it make you sad?' Bethany asks. 'What?' 'Ingrid and Matt.' I shrug. 'I don't know what I feel. I'm angry about what they might have been doing right near my grave. I don't think they were leaving flowers.' 'Probably not,' she agrees. 'You're supposed to argue that and make me feel better,' I say. 'What's the point? You know what the truth is as well as I do.' 'It doesn't seem fair.' 'Life isn't fair.' 'Death isn't either.' She gives me a small sideways smile. 'Why was she crying?' 'I got here halfway through the conversation,' I say. 'She told Matt that he was an arse like me,' I say, suddenly remembering.

'He is,' Bethany says. 'And so are you.' 'You're only saying that to me now because I can't hit you,' I laugh, feeling a bit awkward. 'Yes, I am.' She pulls out a plastic box. 'Would it bother you if I ate my sandwiches?' 'I suppose not.' She opens it up and unwraps her lunch. 'What's on them?' I ask. 'Ham and pickle.' 'I think I like ham and pickle.' She sees me look at her food longingly. 'I suppose you can't eat,' she says. I shake my head. She looks thoughtful. Then she says, 'Try to imagine what it tastes like while I eat mine. Then maybe it'll feel like we're eating them together.' I stare at her for a moment. Then I close my eyes and think about salty ham and the fruity sharpness of pickle and I can almost remember the flavours. When I open my eyes she's smiling at me. 'How was that?' 'Good,' I say. 'I think I know why Ingrid is so upset,' she says suddenly. 'Why?' 'Maybe she gave something away last night, something she can never get back.' She snorts. 'To Matt Spencer, of all people.' 'What does that even mean?' She sighs and takes another bite of her sandwich. 'Do you think they've split up?' 'Don't know. I hope so.' 'Why should you care now?' she says carefully. 'I still like her. Just because you're dead you don't stop fancying people.' 'Does everything like that stay the same? Do you still get emotions and... urges,' she says the word quickly, like it's embarrassing, 'and stuff?' 'Sort of. But it feels like I'm forgetting those things as well, slowly.' 'Maybe you're not forgetting them, exactly... just changing. You still seem pretty human to me.' 'Thanks... I think.' 'We still need to figure out what's happening to you,' she says. I feel like it's a very deliberate change of subject. 'Any more thoughts?' Bethany looks up sharply as a group of year seven boys race past the opening to our narrow entryway. It seems to remind her that although it feels like we're alone here, we're really not. 'You shouldn't be talking to me now,' she says. 'I seem to recall you started it.' 'You took me by surprise; I didn't expect you to be here. I can normally come here and be alone.' 'Are you mental? Matt is always here. You'll have to find somewhere else to go in future.' 'He's not always here,' she says defensively. 'I'm not having a go at you,' I say. 'You just need to be careful.' 'I suppose. You should go,' she says, wrapping her sandwiches back up. She's hardly eaten enough to feed an anorexic gnat. No wonder she's so skinny. 'Meet me tonight?' Where?' I think about the churchyard and whether Matt will be there again with Ingrid. 'I'm not sure. Where do you think?' She snaps the lid back on her lunchbox. 'How about back here? There's a gap in the fence -' I know where it is.' 'Oh, yeah, of course. About eight? After I've done Dad's tea.' I think about how many hours it is until eight o'clock. They seem to stretch out ahead

forever. 'Eight... ok.' Bethany sees me waiting under the security light and runs up the field. She glances up at me as she ducks through the gap in the fence and I can see the frown furrowing her brow even in the half-light. 'I thought you weren't coming,' I say. 'Yeah, sorry. I had trouble getting away.' 'I've been waiting ages.' 'I said sorry.' I try to bite back my annoyance. 'It's ok. I just thought you weren't coming, that's all.' She doesn't reply and starts to walk in the direction of the benches beneath the windows of the canteen. I get the sense that something she wants to say is stuck in her throat. 'Are you ok?' I ask as I follow her. She flops down on a bench and hugs herself. The frosted concrete glints diamond hard in the stark security light. She must be cold in her crappy thin coat. 'Dad gave me a bit of a hard time,' she says. 'It's nothing I can't handle.' I sit next to her, as close as I can. Then I remember that no matter how close I sit I can't warm her any. But she looks at me gratefully as if she realizes that I'm trying. 'Did he want to know where you were going?' I ask. 'Not that,' she says, pulling her coat tighter. 'Sometimes, he just gets... difficult.' 'Difficult? How did you get away then?' 'I had to wait until he fell asleep.' 'He fell asleep? It's only about eight o'clock.' She shrugs. 'He gets tired when he's had a beer or two.' She smiles slightly. 'So I made sure he had a beer or two.' I'm beginning to realize that there's a whole other Bethany I don't know at all. 'What did you do after I left you at lunch?' she asks. 'I wandered around a bit.' 'It must be boring.' 'It is. Do you think there are rules to this?' 'What do you mean?' 'I mean, like about where I can and can't go?' 'Can't you go anywhere?' 'Well, there is only one place in the whole village anyone's supposed to have seen the plague kids.' She nods. 'Why don't they go anywhere else?' 'That's just a story,' she says slowly, 'there are no ghosts there really.' 'How can you say that when I'm sitting right here with you?' I just feel like you're different.' 'But what would happen if I decided to leave the village? Do I have to stay here to exist? Would I disappear like smoke on the wind if I didn't?' I don't know,' she replies thoughtfully. I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. Maybe one day I'll be so fed up that I'll try to leave to see if that happens. Maybe I won't care if it does.' 'I'd care,' she says. 'You wouldn't be here, you'd be at university, or living in London, or Leeds, or Edinburgh doing some amazing job and living some amazing life, and you'd have forgotten all about me. Even if you ever remembered I'd be so faded that I'd hardly be there at all anyway.' 'Don't say that.' 'Why not? I'm fading, Bethany, I know it. I think that's what happened to my dad, that's why I can't see him. One day I'll be so see-through that you'll forget I was ever here, just like everyone else has.' She's quiet for a moment, staring into the darkness, 'I think we should go and see Raven,' she says finally. I shake my head. 'Why not?'

'She's a fake. I went to her and she couldn't see or hear me, just like everyone else.' Bethany looks at me with a frown. 'Maybe she has to do something first, like a seance or something?' 'Even if she does, she'll want paying.' 'How much?' I shrug. 'Probably loads.' 'That could be a problem.' I look at her hopefully. Her frown deepens. 'Sorry,' I say, 'that was a stupid thing to ask after how mean I've been to you. Why would you give me your money?' 'It's not that,' she corrects quickly. I just don't get much spare cash. I can't think of anyone else who might be able to help you, though.' She stares at the black expanse of the fields. 'If we just went to Raven and explained everything, maybe she'd feel sorry for you and help.' 'You think someone who cons upset people by pretending to see their dead family members is going to help for nothing?' 'We haven't even tried,' she says. 'You want to know what's going on, don't you?' 'Course I do. I just don't think it will work.' 'I googled earlier,' she says. 'There was loads of stuff on there but you can't ever know what to believe on the internet, can you?' 'You have a computer?' She laughs. 'Don't sound so shocked. We're not that poor.' 'Is it a good one?' Her eyes open wide. 'Some things never change, even when you're dead. Does it matter what computer I have?' I can't help but grin. 'I suppose not.' 'But it is pretty crap,' she laughs. 'What sort of stuff did you find out?' 'Mostly loads about unfinished business, people not ready to go, some stuff about bearing grudges -' I don't have any grudges.' She looks at me with a knowing smile. 'You don't have any grudges? I can name a few. And you do have some unfinished business.' I open my mouth to argue but then I realize that she's right. 'Ingrid... But that's never going to happen now.' 'You saying that's never going to happen doesn't mean you can let it go,' she says. 'But the stuff on the internet also says that sometimes the dead person's spirit attaches itself to a significant living one and it's only them that can hear and see the spirit. If that's true, how come Ingrid isn't having this conversation with you instead of me?' 'Maybe because Ingrid would freak as soon as she saw me and you don't?' 'It still doesn't make any sense, though. I mean, we practically never even looked at each other before now.' As bad as it makes me feel she has a point. 'That can't be right, then, can it?' 'Which is why we need to talk to someone who knows this stuff. Ill go and see her. It's got to be worth a try.' I stare at her. She looks different tonight, but I'm not sure why. 'You seem like you're not even sure you want to go on to where you're supposed to be,' she says. I can't hang around like this forever, it's driving me crazy. But I don't know what's waiting for me either.' She nods. 'It's pretty scary, I suppose.' 'Terrifying.' Saying it even takes me by surprise. 'It's ok to be afraid,' she says. I don't know what to say, so I look out across the fields. You can't see what's out there beyond our little circle of light. My hand creeps along the bench and rests next to Bethany's. She looks across at me and smiles as she puts her hand on the bench through mine. 'We don't have to do anything,' she says quietly.

'We don't,' I agree, "but I'm even more scared of being alone forever.' 'I'm sure there must be other people like me, who can see you,' she says. I know she's just trying to be encouraging and I wish I could feel better for it. Suddenly, she sits up really straight and cocks her head to one side. 'Did you hear something?' I listen for a second. There's absolute silence, not even the distant whoosh of a car on the road, not the tiniest breeze stirring the grass. But then I hear a sound, like the rustle of fabric. Bethany leaps off the bench and squeezes herself in a corner beneath a canteen window. She waves her hand frantically at me to join her. 'No one can see me,' I say. 'Wait here, I'll go and look.' She nods silently, her wide eyes reflecting the security light. I round the corner of the building and the main yard opens out in front of me. There's something strangely exhilarating about not having to be scared any more and I stride across the grounds. The yard is in gloom but I see two silhouettes flit past the fence towards the main building. They don't look like kids, at least, not little ones. I watch for a few moments but the yard is still and silent again. Whoever they were, they've gone now. I run back to Bethany. She's still in the corner, her breathing shallow, eyes darting everywhere. 'You need to go,' I whisper. 'And you need to be really quiet.' I don't know why I suddenly feel like she needs to go. And I don't know why I'm whispering but I can't help it. She doesn't question my instructions but scrambles up and makes her way silently along the wall, keeping as close as she can. I follow her. We reach the edge of the canteen wall, and the only way to get to the fence now is to break cover. In silent agreement, we start to run towards the gap in the wire. From the corner of my eye I see a shadow and before I have a chance to warn her, another figure steps forwards and blocks her way. A squeal dies in her throat as she stops dead and stares up at the dark shape. 'Who're you talking to?' the boy asks. I recognize the voice, but I can't place it. Bethany shakes her head but doesn't speak. 'Who's with you?' he says. His voice is steady but it sounds like he's losing his temper beneath the steel in it. 'Tell him you were talking to yourself,' I say. She throws me a sideways glance. I can't see her expression, it's too dark, but I'm guessing she's really scared. 'Nobody,' she says in a small voice. I was just messing around, talking to myself.' She says it and I suddenly realize that it's a bad idea. The guy steps towards her. 'You sure?' She nods. 'So you're on your own?' This time she just stares up at him. I think she's realized the mistake too. He grabs her arm. She starts to pull against his grip, trying to wrench free, but he takes hold of her with both hands and starts to drag her towards the cover of the alleyway behind the science block. 'Bethany!' I shout. She squeals but it's a high pitched half of nothing and nobody would be able to hear it, even if they were in the next room. 'No... please.... let me go,' she whimpers. I run after them; my brain's working like crazy to try and think of something to help, something I can actually do. Suddenly, a name comes to me. 'It's Gary,' I shout to Bethany. 'Gary James. Call him Gary. If he thinks you know him he might think twice about doing anything to you.' I don't know if she's heard me or not, she's crying so much. 'Gary, please, don't hurt me,' she manages to squeak out. 'I won't tell anyone you were here if you let me go.' He slows his stride, just for a second, as though he's surprised to hear his name. 'How do you know who I am?' 'Tell him everyone knows him,' I say. 'Everyone knows you around here,' she says. 'But I won't tell anyone about you.' 'You won't tell anyone anyway,' he says. 'Because little sluts that tell get what's coming to them. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun before you go home, does it?'

He drags her down the alleyway and shoves her against the wall. She just manages to keep her balance but I can see that her legs are shaking so much she's barely staying upright. He gets close and pushes his whole self up against her. I stand at the opening not knowing what to do. I want to scream with frustration for being so helpless. She's in bits, just sobbing. It's dark down there and I can't see what's going on properly but my mind is playing all sorts of sick images to me. 'For God's sake, Beth, just knee him in the nuts or something!' I shout, but she carries on crying. I have to get in closer. I'd take a deep breath if I had any, but I steel myself and make my way to them. He's slobbering all over her face as she turns it away from him. I get right close to Bethany's ear. 'Listen to me,' I say in the calmest voice I can manage. 'Stop crying and listen to me.' Her sobs start to break up into sort of stuttering gasps. His hands are making their way down her body and I have to stay calm myself because I feel like I could gag. 'Get your finger,' I tell her, 'find the place at the bottom of his windpipe... there's sort of a hollow, at the bottom of his neck before you get to his collarbone, just under his Adam's apple -put your finger in there and press as hard as you can and don't stop no matter what he does.' She lifts her hand and starts to trail her finger down his neck. When she gets to the place I tell her. "That's it. Now push!' She shoves her finger in hard and the shock makes him back off, grabbing for his throat. He goes to smack her face but she has enough room now to bring her knee up between his legs. It's only a puny kick but it's enough to make him fall away with a howl and she starts to run like a newborn gazelle up the alleyway. We break out into the open together and I look round to see that Gary's mates have now joined him. 'That little bitch kneed me in the nads,' Gary shouts and they all start tearing after us. 'Beth, run!' I scream. She glances behind her and then turns her face back to me for a second. In the white security light I can see she's terrified and her legs are shaking as she runs. But she finds more speed and bolts for the gap in the fence, ripping through it without a thought for the wire that razors her cheek bringing a jagged line of blood. Then we're out on the field, making distance between us and the boys chasing after, the darkness swallowing us a little more with every desperate stride. 'I know somewhere we can hide,' I call and I veer to the left. Bethany looks across at me and follows. There's an old drainage tunnel buried on the edge of the fields and hidden by shrubs and weeds. Matt and me have hidden from Mr Allen there enough times for me to know its location well. As we're almost on it Bethany realizes my intention. She stops and stares at me, her chest rising and falling like she could never get enough air again. 'Get in,' I tell her. For a minute I think she's going to say no but then she climbs inside the metal tubing and scrunches herself up as small as she can. I sit on the ground outside and listen to her harsh breathing, which seems to echo across the frozen fields, but Gary and his two mates don't hear and they run right past. After a few minutes Bethany whispers, 'Do you think they've gone?' I break through the cover of the shrubs. The moon has come out from a hank of cloud and the frosted grass glints in its silver glow. The fields look empty. I walk hack to Bethany. 'I think you can come out.' She clambers from the tube. Her jeans are filthy and her face is tear-stained. I can see she's still trembling. She looks up at me and I know the question without her asking. 'They must have been trying to break into the school,' I say. 'What for?' she whispers. I shrug. 'For a laugh.' She drops to the grassy bank below the pipe and sits holding her head in her hands. The blood on her cheek is congealing already so I suppose the cut wasn't too deep. She puts a hand up to it and runs her finger gingerly along the length of the wound. Then she lifts her head and glances down at her dirty jeans.

'Dad'll go nuts when he sees me like this.' 'What are you going to tell him?' I sit down next to her, keeping a close eye on the landscape, though the kids that I think were chasing us will probably look for their kicks elsewhere now. 'I'll have to tell him I fell over or something.' She throws a small smile at me. I'm not sure if she's feeling better now or she's just trying to make me believe that she is. 'Thanks,' she says. 'For what?' 'For being there.' I look away. Neither of us says anything about the fact that she wouldn't have been in trouble at all if it wasn't for me. 'Do you know them?' she asks. I nod. 'I don't know them, exactly, but I know who they are. Gary James left school two years ago. Don't you remember him?' She shakes her head. 'He used to hang around with Tom Delaney and Callum Peters,' I remind her. 'I think I might remember them vaguely,' she says. 'They don't live in our village do they?' I shake my head. 'No. It was definitely Gary, though, so it's probably those three that chased us. They wouldn't have done anything serious, they always liked to pretend they were harder than they actually were.' That's not true, but I tell her that anyway and hope that it makes her feel safer. 'It didn't feel that way when he got me against the wall,' Bethany says staring out over the fields. She shivers and pulls her coat tighter around her. 'I daren't go home now, in case they're waiting for me.' 'I don't think they will be.' 'Are you sure?' she asks doubtfully. 'Ill go down and check they've gone if you want to wait here.' She shakes her head fiercely. 'No, stay with me.' I wonder what good staying with her would do and she probably does too but I don't argue. 'If we sit for half an hour, they'll probably be long gone, then you can go home.' She nods and her hand goes up to the cut on her cheek again. 'Does it hurt?' I ask. 'A bit.' She pauses. Then she asks in a timid voice, 'What did it feel like... when you died? Did that hurt?' I think about this before I answer. 'I suppose it did when the car hit me. After that I can't remember. It must have done.' 'Kids at school said you were really smashed up.' 'How did they know?' She shrugs. 'I suppose someone told them. Word gets round pretty fast in this village.' 'I suppose so,' I say. 'It looked bad.' 'You saw?' 'Yeah. I stayed with my body for a while. I didn't really know what was happening at the time so I felt like I didn't dare leave in case I wasn't dead and I could climb back in, y'know, like they do on films when they realize it isn't their time to go.' She looks thoughtful. 'Maybe that's what did happen. Perhaps you're still here because your body wasn't actually ready to die but you didn't get back in? And now it's too late because your body is buried and you're trapped.' I shake my head. 'If you'd seen the mess I was in, you'd have known there was no way I was going to survive that. I was definitely dead.' 'What happened to the car?' she says. 'It drove off straightaway.' 'Did you get a look at it?' 'Not really. It was black, pimped job, thats about all I can tell you.' 'So it was a hit-and-run?' 'I suppose it was.' 'Perhaps you're here to solve the mystery of who hit you then?' I consider this. 'I don't think so. It's not like it changes anything for me whether I know

who did it or not. Besides, what would I do about it if I found out?' 'We could go to the police,' she says. 'And tell them to arrest someone on the strength of what a dead boy is saying to you?' She pushes her hair back from her forehead. 'Maybe not.' As she says this I can see what looks like a bruise on her temple. She catches me looking and drags her fringe back down over it. It's dark where we are and I can't see all that well, but it looks too black to be from tonight. The way she covers it up, though, it doesn't seem like she wants me to mention it. 'You're ok now?' I ask instead. 'Not really,' she says with a shaky half-laugh. I can see that she's shivering. I'm not sure whether she's still scared. 'I saw you at the funeral, you know,' she says. 'The funeral?' 'Yours.' I know which one you mean. Why didn't you mention it before?' 'I didn't know what to say about it. Does it matter?' I don't suppose so. What did you think? It must have been weird.' I was scared.' 'Of me?' 'Of seeing you dead.' 'But you see dead people, you said so.' 'No,' she corrects me, I said I get a sense of where they are. I've never seen them lurking at the doors of the church where their funeral is before.' 'Maybe you're getting better at seeing us?' I don't think so. It's something about you that's special.' I laugh. "That's the first time anyone has ever said that without adding needs to the end of the sentence.' She laughs too. I didn't see you at the funeral,' I say. As soon as it comes out, I wish it hadn't. She's quiet for a moment. 'You wouldn't, though, would you?' She's right. Bethany was probably more invisible than me at that funeral. At least one person noticed I was there. We sit quietly for a while. In the distance a dog barks and the church clock strikes a half hour, though I'm not sure which half hour it is. Somehow, time gets all muddled up lately. Then I'm aware that Bethany is shivering even more than before. 'You must be freezing.' 'A bit,' she says pulling herself into a hug. I wish I could remember what being cold feels like. 'Would it help to walk around?' 'It might, but I don't think my legs are working properly yet,' she says. 'Give me a minute.' 'Ok.' 'What's it like not worrying about anyone hurting you?' she asks. 'I don't know.' I get up and scan the fields. 'I never really thought about it.' When I turn around she's staring at me and she looks like she might start crying again. 'You don't need to be scared now,' I say. 'I think they've gone.' 'I'm ok,' she says. I should go home.' 'Ill walk with you.' She tries to smile but it only makes her frown. 'Thanks,' she says as she stands up. Her legs do look wobbly still, but she shoves her hands deep in her pockets and starts to make her way down the grassy slopes towards the outer fence. We stop outside her yellow door. She's hardly said anything as we walked back, the night air crisp and shiny around us. I think the things that happened tonight freaked her out more than she lets on. 'I suppose you want me to stay away now,' I say as we look up at her house from across the road. The horse comes up to the wall and nuzzles her back. I click at it encouragingly and it doesn't back off. I think it's getting used to me, though it seems to prefer her living scent

and nudges her again. She turns and gives it an absent pat on the nose. I don't know,' she says. 'Shall I call for you tomorrow?' 'I don't know what to think, David. Maybe.' I watch her cross the road and climb the steps to her front door. She looks back once and then goes inside. I turn to the horse. 'What do you think I should do?' The horse snorts a plume of warm breath and whinnies softly, its huge brown eyes reflecting the moonlight hack at me. 'Fat lot of good you are,' I say. It lowers its head and pushes its nose towards me, then seems to take a startled step hack as it goes through my hand. 'Yeah, I don't blame you,' I say as I take my hand away. 'I'd be grossed out too.' I take one last look at Bethany's house. The light in one of the upstairs rooms goes on. The curtains are already drawn - pale green with tiny flowers on them - so I guess it must he her room. 'Goodnight, Beth,' I say, and turn to follow the lane towards home. Mum's talking to me. Not exactly to me, but at me. She's talking out loud to my empty bed, but I sit in front of her and pretend that she's really talking to me like she can see me. I promised myself I wouldn't come back, but here I am. Being here hurts but staying away hurts just as much. 'I'm sorry,' she says, 'for all the things I said to you that last night.' She's not crying now, but her eyes are dull and blank, like there's nobody in there. 'I should have come looking for you, like a good mother would.' 'It's not your fault, Mum,' I say. 'I was a total git.' 'I should have checked where you were. When I think how much you must have suffered... I'd give my own life to spare you that.' 'Don't say that, Mum. Don't ever say that.' She pushes a sleeve up and runs a hand along her forearm. It's scored with angry red ridges. I look closer. 'What's that?' I ask. She scratches at one of the scars, making it bleed. Then she works her way along the length of her arm, poking and dragging her nails into every one until her arm is a network of mutilated skin. She winces and whimpers with each rip but she never stops. Even though it's tearing me up, I can't stop watching. And I can't shout at her to stop, though I want to, it sticks in my throat. I run downstairs. Roger is in the kitchen getting a pizza out from the oven. He rushes it over to the work surface where he drops it and starts to cut it into slices. Two plates of salad are already waiting. 'Get up there and stop her, you u ballbag!' I shout at him. He licks some sauce from his finger and goes to the bottom of the stairs. 'Lisa... come and eat something,' he calls. He waits but she doesn't reply. 'Lisa!' he calls again. He trudges upstairs and I hop behind him, willing him to walk faster, ready to scream in frustration. First he goes to their bedroom and checks. 'She's not going to be in there you dick!' I shout. 'Look in my room!' He walks along the landing. Slowly, he pushes my door open. When he sees Mum, her curly head bent over her arm, pulling furiously at the skin, he runs in. He grabs her and holds her close and tight and she starts to cry and I have to get out before I start to cry too. Outside the night feels like a deep breath. It's so silent and still out on the lane. I look down at the ditch. I wonder how much of my blood has washed from the earth, or how much of me is still a part of it. It looks so ordinary now, just another muddy patch at the side of any old country road. The tyre tracks and paint chips have gone. There's not an indent, not even a raking of soil to show that I ever lay there. The moon casts a weak light from above the latticed roof of tree branches and a movement catches my eye. The fox has returned. It must be a she because this time she has cubs with her. They're not cute fluffy cubs like I once saw on a wildlife calendar my mum had up in the kitchen, but gangly-looking, half-grown. All three of them eye me warily. I

crouch down and put out my hand for them to sniff. I wonder if I smell like death. They don't run away but hack off slowly, never taking their eyes from me until they have gone a few feet away. I move forward cautiously to try again and this time they turn tail and run. It's a reaction, I suppose, and better than none. It means I'm still here. I sit down on the old tree root. I don't know what to do. I can't go home and I can't go to Bethany's. Matt will probably he with Ingrid and, even if he isn't, seeing either of them hurts too much. That's when I see the twin pinpricks of light moving through the dark tunnel of the lane towards me. I stand up and listen to the low throb of the engine cracking the silence of the night, and watch as the lights get bigger and bigger, halos in the crisp air. I step out onto the road and wait. The car gets closer and closer. It's moving fast, too fast for this twistyturny lane. I wait... Then it's almost upon me and I want to feel it hit me, I want to remember what pain feels like. I throw out my arms and invite the collision. But it goes clean through me and roars away and I don't feel a thing. The star-strewn skies are framed by the black claws of the trees and I turn my face to them. Is there anybody up there or am I alone? I trudge back to my seat and bite hack my tears. Now that everything is quiet again I think about what Bethany said to me tonight. There has to he a reason why I'm still here. What if I i to solve the riddle of who killed me, like Bethany said? Perhaps it's worth a try and, even if it makes no difference, at least it'll be something to do. But the more I think about it, the more it seems like a pointless, hopeless task. That car could belong to anyone, anywhere. Do I wander the country looking for it? And how would I know I'd got the right one? Me and my bike probably made a mess of the bodywork between us, but whoever owns the car has had plenty of time to get it fixed up. Even if I did find the driver, what could I do to them? Maybe I'm supposed to find my dad, somehow, or maybe I have to wait for him to rescue me. But the more I think about it, the less likely that seems too. If he was meant to come and get me, surely he wouldn't have left it this long? Perhaps I'm supposed to save my mum? The image of her digging into her arm comes back to me. She's pretty screwed up and that useless tosser, Roger, doesn't seem to be doing a lot to help. I think that must be it. If it is, I need Bethany more than ever; she's the only one who can talk to my mum for me. When the yellow door opens Bethany smiles at me. She crosses the road, hoisting her flowery rucksack onto her shoulder. She looks different this morning, like she looked different last night, but I still can't figure out what it is. She doesn't speak but we walk together. The sun is bright and low on the horizon and it makes me squint. When we're out of view of her house and under the cover of the darkened lane, I turn to her. 'Were you ok after I went?' The cut on her cheek is still an angry red and I wish I could make it better for her. 'Dad was asleep when I got in so I managed to sneak up past him.' 'I didn't mean that,' I say. 'You mean the school?' I nod. 'I don't know. I couldn't sleep for thinking about everything,' she says, smiling again. I don't know what to make of her today. 'What did you do last night?' she asks. It doesn't seem like the right time to tell her about my mum, not when she looks this happy. I shrug. 'I just walked around.' 'That must be pretty lonely,' she says. 'The nights are the worst.' I know what you mean,' she says. 'In the day I have stuff to keep me busy, but at night, that's when I think about my mum.' 'Do you wish your mum had come to you instead of me?' I ask, even though I'm scared of the answer. 'No,' she says. 'That would hurt like hell.' I think about what she's said and I suppose it would. 'Will being at school be a bit scary today... after last night?' I ask. She shakes her head. 'Actually, it's weird. When I had time to think about everything that had happened, I realized that it was ok. I survived that, and now it will take a whole lot more

to scare me than what those losers in our year could come up with.' 'I suppose so. Maybe I should stay close to you today, though?' I don't think for a minute I'd be able to do anything to protect her and she doesn't really need it. It just feels like the right thing to do. 'Maybe you could,' she says. 'Maybe I will, then,' I say. She turns to me with a smile. 'Maybe I'd quite like that.' 'Right, today we're looking at the lifecycle of frogs and toads.... Stop talking and face forwards, Chloe...' Mr Bauer glares across the room at Chloe Love and she fires him a look of pure hate. He turns to some illustrations on the whiteboard. 'Bauer looks like a frog,' I say to Bethany. Bethany looks at me for a moment, her eyes wide in surprise. Then she pulls out her textbook and writes something. She points at it in a tiny movement. I lean over her shoulder. This must be a lesson about his family. 'He'll be getting his photo album out in a minute,' I whisper in her ear. She stifles a giggle as she scribbles something else. As long as we don't have to dissect his mum. 'No, but he has his nan swimming around in ajar.' Bethany covers her mouth and puts her head low over her book but I can see her shoulders shake slightly. I wait for her to face Mr Bauer again. 'Watch this,' I tell her, and then go to the front of the class. I jump up and down behind Mr Bauer like a frog, pull my mouth wide and start to croak. Bethany does a pretty good job of holding it together, so I start to jump even higher. Then I go right up to his ear and shout 'Ribbit!' as loud as I can. Bethany snorts and everyone turns to look at her. 'Everything alright, Bethany?' Mr Bauer asks. She pulls her face straight and nods. 'Sorry, just something in my throat.' 'A frog?'I shout, 'It must be Bauer's nan!' Bethany snorts again and breaks into a snigger. Mr Bauer's eyes look as though they might fall out of his head. 'Something you'd like to share with us?' he asks Bethany. She shakes her head and then bends over her book. 'Hey, Beth...' I shout. She looks up and I put my face next to Mr Bauer's backside and do a loud farting noise. I pretend to waft away the smell and then I fall over, clutching my chest. Everyone looks at her as she squeals this time. She can't even stop laughing when Mr Bauer goes up to her desk. 'What is so funny?' 'You, Kermit!' I say and wait for her to laugh again. I don't know why, but I really like it when she laughs. But Bethany doesn't laugh this time, with Mr Bauer's face right in front of hers looking bright red and furious. Instead, she looks behind him and at me. She looks as though she doesn't know whether to laugh at me now or be angry. 'I suggest,' Mr Bauer says in a gritty voice, 'that you go and sit by the Head's office to wait for me.' She stuffs her book into her rucksack and scrapes her chair away from the desk. 'Don't go to the Head's office,' I say as I follow her out. 'Let's bunk off.' She looks at me and I think she's a bit scared now. She shakes her head in a tiny movement. As soon as the door to the class swings shut she whispers. 'You shouldn't have done that. They'll phone my dad.' 'They won't. They only phone your parents if you go to the Head's office loads of times,' I say as I follow her down the hallway. 'How do you know?' 'How do you think?' I laugh. She just shoots me a nervous look. The Head's office is in a wooden-clad room near the main entrance. Bethany flops down on a chair outside the door and drops her bag to the floor. I take the chair next to her. The

corridor is deserted but I can hear the low hum of conversation in classes taking place behind the doors that line it. 'Let's go,' I say. 'Life's too short to sit here.' 'Mine will be even shorter when my dad gets to hear about this,' she says in a low voice, looking at the glass doors of the entrance. 'What's he going to do? He might give you a hard time, but he does that anyway.' She drags her sleeves over her hands and folds her arms. 'I can't,' she says. 'I know a way we can get out of school without anyone seeing you. It's easy.' 'What about afternoon register?' 'If they ask tomorrow, just say you were in the toilet or something.' 'It won't work.' 'Alright then, tell them you feel faint again.' 'They'll phone my dad to come and get me then.' 'Seriously, just lighten up -' 'It's alright for you,' she snaps, 'nothing can hurt you now.' I don't know what to say to this. She looks past me down the corridor. The door to Mr Bauer's class opens and he comes towards us. Bethany jumps up out of her seat and waits for him. 'Would you care to explain what just happened in there?' he says in a hard voice. 'Sony, Sir, I felt a hit weird.' 'You felt weird? Does your feeling weird usually compel you to laugh like an idiot at nothing?' 'I don't know, Sir.' He folds his arms and stares at her while her gaze drops to her boots. 'You're usually one of my best pupils,' he says as he looks at her thoughtfully. 'I'm surprised beyond measure at that outburst. Do you want me to get your parents in? 'My dad, you mean,' Bethany replies looking up at him and for a moment she looks really pissed off. But then her expression goes blank again. 'Yes, I meant your father,' Mr Bauer says quickly. 'I'm going to give you another chance, Bethany, but one more toe out of line and it will be straight back here.' He turns to leave. 'You can return to the class,' he says. She nods and gets her stuff together to follow him. 'Can I come hack in?' I ask her. She glances across at me as Mr Bauer goes through the classroom door. I can tell by her face that she can't decide if it's a good idea or not. 'I suppose I'll see you at dinner,' I say and dissolve through the outside doors as I leave. I wait for Bethany around the hack of the science block. Matt and Ingrid haven't turned up. I wonder whether they've packed it in and I'm not sure I like the smug feeling that the idea gives me. Bethany turns the corner, rooting in her bag as she walks towards me. 'I wondered if you'd want to come down this alleyway after last night...' I say. 'But there isn't anywhere else private to go,' she finishes for me. 'I know. This is fine.' She sits against the wall and opens her sandwich box. 'Was the frog lesson fun?' I ask. 'No, but at least I didn't get kicked out again.' I drop beside her and hug my knees to my chest. I don't say anything. She starts to unwrap her lunch. 'What have you got today?' I ask, just to break the awkward silence. 'Egg,' she says, pulling one apart to show me. I don't think I like egg.' 'It was all we had in. I hadn't had chance to get the shopping.' 'You do the shopping?' I stare at her. 'You don't expect my dad to do it, do you?' 'Well... I don't know.' 'What's your favourite?' she asks.' 'My favourite what?' 'Sandwich.' I think for a second. 'Chicken salad with mayo.'

'Ok,' she says, 'close your eyes and think about chicken salad and mayo. Really think about it. Think about how fresh bread feels all squishy and sticky around your teeth so that you have to prize it away with your tongue, about the lettuce all crisp and cold, the chicken a bit salty and sweet with the mayo...' While she says this I have my eyes sbut and I try to imagine eating it, feeling the tomato burst on my tongue and all the flavours mingling. 'How's that working for you?' she asks. I look at her. "That's the best sandwich ever.' She laughs. 'You want some crisps with that?' 'No, I'm full now.' 'Cool.' She takes a bite of her lunch. She looks much happier than when I left her earlier. In fact, I'm still trying to figure out what looks different about her. I see it more plainly than ever now but I have no idea what's changed. 'Sorry I got you in trouble earlier,' I say. She shoots me a sideways glance and swallows her bread. 'You seem to be good at that.' 'I just wanted to make you laugh.' 'You did. It's just a shame Mr Bauer didn't find it so funny.' 'To be fair,' I say, 'if he could have seen me he would have done.' 'No, he would have given you detention too.' 'You got detention?' 'After school. I think I got off pretty lightly, though.' 'How long?' 'Only thirty minutes.' I think about thirty minutes. Another half hour I have to wait by myself at the end of school. 'No need to look so miserable,' she says. 'You can come and wait with me but just don't talk.' 'But if I don't talk I might as well be alone.' 'At least someone knows you're there, though.' 'Maybe. But I think I'll wait outside, just in case.' She shrugs. 'If you want.' 'You want to do something after school? I understand if you don't -' 'Yeah, I do. That would be good,' she says quickly. 'Great. Where do you want to go then?' She's thoughtful for a moment. 'You still haven't decided what you want to do about Raven.' I'm just about to reply when she holds a finger up and looks sharply at the opening of the alleyway. 'Who're you talking to?' Matt says as he stands with his arm hanging off Ingrid. Bethany's mouth works silently for a moment. 'I was on my phone,' she says finally. 'You've got a phone? Is it made out of wood and pebbles?' Matt snipes and Ingrid snorts. Bethany doesn't say anything. 'Well, you can clear off, freak,' he says taking a step towards her. 'This spot is ours.' Bethany glances quickly at me as she scoops her leftovers into her lunchbox and snaps the lid on. She sidles past Matt and Ingrid, who seem to be doing their best to fill the space and make it as hard as possible for her to get away, and I follow her. Even though they're being vile to her, she shoots Ingrid the most pitying look as she passes by and I see Ingrid shrink back a little, sort of freaked by it. I've seen that knowing look from Bethany before, it's like she can see right into your soul. I think that's why people don't like her, it's almost like she knows too much about you. It makes you feel kind of guilty, I suppose. Then we're out on the open yard. Bethany swings her bag onto her shoulder. She gives me a tiny knowing look, and heads back into the building, and all I can do is watch her go and think about how long it is until the end of school. I wait for Bethany by the gap in the fence. I watch the kids file out when the home time bell goes. The air is full of voices and laughter, but then there's a lull until the detention kids

follow a while after, their conversations more subdued. It feels like I've been waiting my whole life when she finally shows. She squeezes through the hole in the fence without a word and we walk together in silence until the slope of the fields puts us out of view of the school yard. 'Have you been ok?' she asks me. 'Of course I have,' I say. 'What did you think was going to happen to me?' She shrugs. 'Just asking. It must be boring hanging around for me.' 'I don't mind,' I say. The sun is starting to sink low but it's still bright and casts a glow that sets fire to the gold bits in her hair as she walks. For a few seconds I can't look at anything but that. 'It's not like I can go and hang out with anyone else,' I add quickly. 'I suppose not,' she says. She rifles in her bag and pulls out a packet of crisps. 'Do you want to do the remembering thing?' she asks as she opens them. 'It's ok, you can eat them. I'm not sure if I like salt and vinegar anyway.' 'So, did you decide about Raven?' 'It'd cost too much money,' I reply. 'I thought about that,' she says in between crisps, 'I could get a job.' 'Where?' 'Paper shop.' 'No way. There's not a parent in this village who will let their kid have a paper round after what happened to me. Old Bert's having to take the papers out in his car.' 'I know,' she says giving me a knowing smile. 'That's why he'll snap my hand off when I offer.' 'What about your dad?' 'I don't have to tell him. It'll only be for a week or two while we get enough cash to pay her.' 'He'll notice you gone every night, surely?' 'As long as I get back to do his tea, he won't care.' I think about this for a moment. 'Ok, what if you do the paper round and save up and she's useless?' 'We won't have lost anything by trying.' 'Other than a lot of money.' 'Who cares about money?' 'You don't have much,' I say. 'I have enough.' 'No,' I say. 'I don't want you to do it.' 'Who made you the boss of me?' She stops and turns to face me. 'If I decide to get a job, then I get one.' 'It's just...'I don't know how to say what I want to tell her. 'Nothing will happen to me,' she says, guessing what's in my mind. 'What are the chances of two kids being killed the same way on the same road doing the same job?' 'Maybe you should tell that to all the parents.' 'Parents freak out about stuff like that, it's what they do.' She starts to walk again. 'I might as well go and see Bert now, I'm already late and it's on the way home anyway.' I follow quietly. That new Bethany is with me again and I don't know what to do with her. The bell tinkles at the door of the paper shop and we go in. It's gloomy and smells of dust and dried tobacco, just like it did on that last night when I picked up my papers. The shelves where Bert keeps emergency stocks of stuff like teabags and bread look like they haven't been cleaned for years. Mum never bought food from here; she always drove to the supermarket on the ring road no matter how late it was. At least that's something still in my memory. Bert seems doubtful. He looks at Bethany through his one good eye as if he thinks she's a lowlife, just like the kids at school do. I never noticed adults do it before. 'The bag is heavy, and it'll be dark as the nights draw in,' he says scratching his head through his thinning hair. 'I don't mind,' she replies brightly. 'I'm stronger than I look and I don't get scared by the

dark.' 'Are you sure? A young girl on your own?' 'I'm sure. We live in a pretty safe place, after all.' Not that safe, I think, but I don't say anything. 'What about your dad?' Bert asks, frowning. 'He won't be coming in asking after you, will he?' 'No, he says he doesn't mind me bringing a bit extra into the house,' she replies. I'm actually impressed how good she is at lying. Bert's gaze flicks to the bound up piles of papers that have just arrived and then back at Bethany again. 'I suppose I could give you a trial,' he says with a sigh. 'Will you pay me, even though I'm on trial?' 'You'll get paid, don't worry.' 'So... you want me to start tonight?' He nods. 'Why not? Come back about five.' 'Cool.' I follow her from the shop. She stops outside and peers at the cards in the window. When she sees the one with the medium's number on she roots in her bag for a notebook. 'Raven. Cool name,' she says writing down the woman's details. 'Stupid name if you ask me.' 'That's because you have no imagination.' 'That's because I'm dead.' 'How long do you reckon it'll take me to do the round?' she asks, ignoring my last statement. 'Depends on which half of the village he gets you to do. Hour, maybe hour and a half. It's too big to do it all by yourself.' 'But if I can do it by myself maybe hell pay me double and I won't have to do it for as long.' 'That's crazy. You can't do the whole village by yourself.' 'It's not that big.' 'No, but it's still a lot of papers. It'd weigh a ton.'' 'You managed ok.' 'Me? I didn't do the whole lot myself.' 'No, but you're not exactly muscley, are you?' I'm about to snap a reply when I see her smile a little. 'Ha ha.' 'If it makes you happy, I'll just do the one lot and see how that goes.' I wish I could help you,' I say, staring down at the floor. I feel like such a loser right now. 'You can,' she says. I look up at her and she's smiling again. 'You know the quickest route around so you can show it to me.' I think about the quickest route. I decide to show her the safest one. Four: Raven 'Actually, I think Bert's a bit tight making you do this. He should do the papers in his car and let you look after the shop while he's gone.' Bethany shoots me one of those looks that I'm getting used to, the one that says I haven't thought through what I've just said one bit. She's leaning to one side, trying to balance out the enormous weight of her paper bag, and looking at the laminated list of addresses by the light other torch.'As if he's going to do that.' 'Just saying...' 'He doesn't even know me. He's not going to trust me alone with all the money in his till.' 'He knows who you are,' I remind her, 'he asked about your dad.' 'I know,' she says. 'That's not going to help either.' I wonder what she means by that but it doesn't seem the time to ask.

'It would help if you could remember this list,' she says. 'We'd be much faster if I didn't have to keep stopping to look at it.' 'Sorry,' I shrug. 'It's just gone out of my head. I do remember that it gets easier once you've been on the bit with the new houses -you dump loads of papers there and your bag's lighter,' I explain, almost as an apology. 'It's the long way around, though, this road,' she says. 'Yeah, but -' 'There has to be a quicker way.' 'There isn't.' 'There is.' 'Where?' 'Yarrow Lane's quicker.' 'It's too dangerous.' 'This is stupid,' she says dropping the the floor. 'This bag weighs a ton, the sooner I can empty it the better. Let's go the quickest way.' No!' I almost shout at her. 'I'm not taking you there,' I say, trying to get my voice under control again. 'If you don't, I can still figure it out myself eventually, so you might as well.' We stare at each other in silence. I can see that she's not going to budge and I finally have to give in. 'Right, ok. But we are going to be careful.' 'Nothing is going to happen to me there. Ill look out for cars and all that talk of it being haunted is just stupid. Ok?' I nod. 'Ok then.' 'Thank you,' she says, pulling the bag back to onto her shoulder. She looks a bit like a sapling holding the weight of a vulture the way the bag is bending her to one side. We start to walk again. 'This is a lot of work just for me,' I say. I don't understand why you'd want to do it.' She glances at me quickly and then turns to face ahead once more before she answers. 'I've got nothing else to do. Same as you said before, it's not like I can go hang out with anyone else, is it?' 'But,' I say, 'if this woman does figure out why I'm still here and she knows how to sort it, then I suppose I'll go... wherever it is I'm supposed to go.' We're both quiet as soon as I've said this; you can almost see the question mark hanging in the air. 'We'll just have to see what happens,' she says eventually. The moon disappears behind a bank of cloud so that the only light is the white streak of Bethany's torch. Yarrow Lane is deserted and silent, the same as always. Almost always. 'Can you show me where it happened?' she asks quietly. I look at her. 'You want to see where I died?' 'Yes. Can I?' 'What for? Isn't that a bit creepy?' She shrugs. 'I don't know. It just feels important.' I walk ahead and look for the place. 'Here...' I call Bethany over. She comes over and stands next to me. We look down at the ditch together. 'This is it, then?' she asks. Her voice is quiet but it still seems to echo through the trees. 'This is where you died?' 'Yes.' 'There's nothing here,' she says, 'where are all the flowers? You always see flowers where there are road accidents.' I don't know,' I say. 'I suppose people have forgotten me by now.' I don't think so,' she says, 'it wasn't all that long ago. What about your mum? She would leave some.' 'I think it would make her cry too much to come here. I'm glad she doesn't.' She's quiet for a moment. Then she says, 'I feel like I should do something to mark the spot.'

'It doesn't need marking, I know it,' I say. 'It's like there's a part of me still in the soil and it draws me to the right place without me even having to try.' There's a movement in the shadows, just out of the reach of the torchlight. Bethany sweeps the grass with the beam and we see the fox with her cubs dive out of sight. 'They must live nearby,' I say. "They're always here when I come.' Bethany turns the light back to the ditch as if she hasn't heard me. 'Did you bleed a lot?' she whispers. 'I think so. It looked like a lot to me.' 'You can't even tell anything happened here,' she says. She drops the paper bag and pulls her front door key from her pocket. With her weight against the old tree that overhangs the ditch, she holds the torch in one hand and, with her key in the other, slowly makes a series of jagged marks in the trunk. I watch as it takes shape. David Around my name she carves a heart. 'Thank you,' I say. It's such a tiny phrase for such a massive thing. She turns to me and smiles as she puts the key away. I think her eyes are shining wet in the torchlight but I can't be sure. 'Nobody will ever forget now,' she says. By the time the last paper has gone through the last letterbox it's seven-thirty. 'I really need to get home,' Bethany says. 'Will your dad be missing you?' 'He'll be hungry,' she says. 'I should have gone home and cooked first and then come to do this.' 'Don't you get sick of looking after him all the time?' I ask as we stride back towards her house. 'It's just me and him now. It doesn't matter if I get sick of it or not.' 'Don't you have any other family?' She shrugs. 'Mum hadn't spoken to my grandparents for years, not that I remember them.' 'Were they from the village?' 'Yes, but they moved away.' 'People don't usually move away from here.' 'I don't know what happened, but I think there was a lot of trouble when she married my dad; they didn't approve of him and there was a massive bust up. Perhaps that's what made them move.' 'What about your dad? Has he got family?' 'He has some family, down South. We see them sometimes, weddings and funerals and stuff, but Dad doesn't really like them much.' 'Beth... did your dad ever...' She looks at me sharply, as if she knows the next question and doesn't want me to ask it. 'My mum remarried eventually,' I say, changing the subject. 'Perhaps your dad will. It might get you off the hook a bit.' She rubs her arm, deep in thought. 'Perhaps.' 'How did your mum fall down the stairs?' 'I don't know. Clumsy, I suppose.' 'Were you there when it happened? Was she dead straightaway?' 'Do you mind if we don't talk about it?' she asks looking ahead and picking up the pace. We reach her yellow door after walking the rest of the way in silence. 'Shall I come for you tomorrow morning?' I ask. 'Yeah.' I look up at her house. There's just one dim light in the front downstairs window. 'Will he give you a really hard time for being late?' 'Nothing I can't handle,' she smiles, though the smile doesn't look quite real; it's not the one that changes her face when it's just us, but the one that she wears at school for the teachers. 'Maybe I could come in?' I say. I suppose it's lonely on your own all night?' 'A bit.'

She glances up at the house and rubs her arm absently before she replies. 'Don't come in tonight.' I nod slowly. 'Ok, I won't.' 'See you tomorrow,' she says and crosses the road to her house. I watch as she climbs the steps and the front door closes behind her. The road is quiet, only the muffled sounds of televisions along the row and the snorting of the horse in the field behind me. Suddenly, the night air is sliced by a high pitched squeal. It sounds as though it's coming from one of the houses. I run away so that I don't have to hear it again. Bethany hasn't come out of her house yet this morning. I think it's pretty late but I have no way of knowing. Her green flowery curtains are still closed as though she's in bed. I could go inside, fade through the walls and see, but it doesn't seem right to do that when she told me last night not to go in. Besides, she might be getting dressed or something and then she'd be really pissed off. The horse from the field comes up to me. 'Have you seen her yet? Have I missed her already?' I ask him. Bethany told me the horse was a boy. He looks at me as he blows a warm breath from his muzzle, and then walks back across the field. 'Yeah, thanks!' I call after him. 'Thanks for nothing.' I walk down the row of houses, and then back up again to the wall outside her door. Nothing moves at Bethany's house; no curtain twitches, no door opens. Maybe she's gone to school without me. I don't know why she would and I don't know why the idea bothers me but it does. A door a couple of houses away opens and someone comes down the steps and gets into a car. I think it's Fred Taylor, I remember he worked with my dad for a while until they laid him off. I suppose he must have another job now, as he looks as though he's going to work with his sandwich bag and a suit on. I wonder what he thinks of Bethany and her dad. I watch Fred drive off and then look up at Bethany's door again, but it doesn't open. Bethany is not at school either. I've looked in the form room, then I went to the II suite in case she went straight there for first period but there was no sign of her. I even checked the nurse station in case she had fainted or something, but the room is empty. Nobody says a word about the fact that she isn't in when morning register is called and when Miss Jacobs asks if anyone knows where she is, everyone just shakes their heads and looks like they don't know and don't care. 'Maybe she's finally figured out that everyone thinks she's a loser and has hanged herself from a tree,' Matt sniggers to Paulie. 'You piece of shit!' I shout at him. I want to hurt him, I really, really want to hurt him so bad. I go and stand right in front of him. I must be able to move something; maybe if I think hard about what I want to do, I can get something to fly at him. There has to be a use for all this anger that's burning me up. I look for something small to start with. His pencil case is out on the desk in front of him. Not massive, but he'll know about it if it hits him in the face. I close my eyes tight and concentrate. I think about moving the pencil case, about making it fly at him. I scrunch my eyes up and I try to pour all my rage into that one act. His laughter makes my eyes open again. He's cracking up at something Paulie has just whispered to him. The pencil case is open and he's doodling on the front of his English book. It hasn't even moved one tiny bit, as far as I can tell. Maybe if I concentrate on being solid somehow, I can move it with my hand. So I close my eyes again and think about my hand being real and being able to pick things up and move them. When I open them again, I make my breathing slow and I try to focus and I move my hand towards the pencil case. My hand goes through it, the same as always. 'BASTARD!' I scream. I look up at the class. 'I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU ALL!' Nobody hears me. Bethany's curtains are still closed. It's lunchtime at school and she definitely ought to be up by now. I suppose she's ill or something. What would she want me to do? Should I go in and see if she's ok? If she's puking then I don't suppose she wants me hassling her, but if I

don't go in then she'll think I don't care. But what if she's really worse than ill? What if something very bad has happened? I wonder if she'll be ok to do her paper round later. Bert would surely sack her if she didn't turn in on only her second day. So now I'm thinking that I really ought to go in and find out if she's going to make it to the paper shop tonight. I hear laughter and see that Matt and Ingrid are coming up the lane towards me. Matt is the one laughing about something but Ingrid looks worried. 'I don't think it's a good idea,' Ingrid says as they walk past me. 'Don't be so uptight,' Matt replies, 'he's probably too drunk to remember who we are.' 'He sees my dad in the pub,' Ingrid says, 'so he knows who I am.' 'You don't go in the pub, though, do you?' Matt looks at his watch. 'We'd better hurry up; it'll be afternoon registration soon.' 'This is just stupid,' Ingrid moans but she stands at the bottom of Bethany's steps anyway and keeps watch as Matt goes up with a parcel in his hands. Suddenly, I know what it is he's doing; it's a trick we've played a hundred times before. He gets a lighter from his pocket and sets fire to the package before shoving it through the letterbox. He bangs on the front door and then races down the steps, laughing his head off and dragging Ingrid with him, who's laughing too now. Bethany's curtain moves and she peers out. She sees me. 'Beth! There's something inside your front door, don't stamp on it, go and get some water to put it out!' She frowns like she hasn't understood me. 'Go and get some water to put out the fire by your front door!' I shout again. I wait for a few minutes. Then the front door opens a tiny crack and Bethany looks out. She beckons me over. 'What the hell was that about?' she asks in a fierce whisper. 'Matt and Ingrid,' I say. 'The dog shit on fire trick?' She looks puzzled. 'You know, whoever sees it on fire comes and stamps on it to put the fire out and then they've stamped dog shit everywhere.' 'Well, that's just stupid,' she hisses. I shrug. 'Did you get some water like I said?' 'Yeah,' she says. 'Thank God my dad didn't see it. It's still made a mess and it stinks, I'll have to clean it before he gets back from the pub. She darts a nervous glance up and down the street. I catch sight of her hand as she holds open the door. It looks badly swollen. 'What did you do to your hand? Is that why you're not at school today?' 'No,' she says, pulling it out of sight quickly. I trapped this in a door. I'm not at school because I didn't feel well today.' 'Are you ok now?' 'I'd be better if some idiot wasn't pushing dog poo through my letterbox.' 'Yeah, sorry about that.' I feel responsible somehow for what Matt did. She looks at me thoughtfully. I can't believe you're friends with someone like him.' 'Was friends with him. Not now.' 'Only because he can't see you now.' 'No, because I've realized he's a dick.' 'That's good,' she says. 'Sorry, but I have to go so I can clean up.' She starts to close the door. 'Beth,' I say. The door opens again and she pops her head around it with a questioning look. 'What about papers tonight?' 'What about them?' 'Will you be able to go?' 'Don't worry,' she says, 'well get your money.' 'I don't mean that,' I say quickly, though, of course, the only reason she is doing it is to get money for me. 'I just wondered if you ought to let Bert know you're ill.' 'I'll phone him.' The door starts to close again. 'Beth!'

'What?' she says as she appears once more. 'Does that mean you're not coming out tonight?' She hesitates before answering. 'Sorry, I can't tonight,' she says and closes the door. I don't know how many days Bethany has been off school, but it feels like a lot. Most of the nights she was missing, I sat on the wall outside her house, talking to the horse and waiting for her to come out, but she never did. When she finally came out to see me, she didn't say a thing about why she'd been off and I didn't dare ask. She looked even thinner than before, but she went to see old Bert and got her paper round back and we just carried on as if nothing had happened. By the time she packed the paper job in, we had enough for Raven and some to spare. I liked to see how happy she was about that. Raven lives in a tiny cottage that stands on its own on the outskirts of the village. It's not one of those cute cottages you imagine with roses growing around the door and a thatched roof; instead, it sort of looks like a second world war bomb shelter that someone turned into a house. It's a squat bungalow with a roof of green tin and a garden of lumpy black concrete and rough grass. Mum always said it was the ugliest building she'd ever seen and that the land would be worth more if someone pulled the house down. Bethany shoves the rusting gate. From the way it scrapes on an overgrown tussock of grass at the edge of the path I'm guessing that Raven doesn't get much in the way of custom. Or actual live visitors, for that matter. The sky is grey with low clouds. I feel snow coming,' Bethany says as she looks up. 'I'm glad it's not a school day.' 'How can you tell?' I don't know, I just can. I'm always right too.' I used to love snow. I try to remember what it felt like. 'You should he a medium,' I laugh, 'you'd make loads of money.' I don't think so,' she says, but she smiles. We walk down the path and stop at the front door, looking up at the head curtain behind the panes of glass that conceal what's waiting inside. Bethany turns to me. 'Are you ready?' 'No,' I say. 'Are you?' 'No,' she says with a nervous laugh. 'Ok.' I nod towards the doorbell. 'Let's do it.' Bethany presses the little circle of plastic. We can't hear it from outside. We wait. 'Maybe it doesn't work?' I say when nobody comes. Bethany presses again and we wait. 'You'd think she'd know we were coming,' I say, "being psychic and all.' I don't think that's the same thing as seeing the dead,' she laughs. 'Shall I press it one more time? I did phone her first so she should he expecting us, at least she's expecting me,' Bethany raises her eyebrows, 'psychic or not.' I nod, and she's just about to reach for the bell when there's the sound of a chain rattling and the door swings open. 'Bethany?' Raven asks. Bethany nods. 'Come in.' Raven steps to one side to let her through the door. We're greeted by a sweet smell that I can't quite put a name to, but I think it's something I used to like. 'It's lovely and warm in here,' Bethany says as Raven closes the front door. 'Yes, it's not a big house - easy to heat,' Raven replies. 'And it's all made out of metal,' I say to Bethany. 'I bet it's like living inside a radiator.' Bethany gives me a small smile. The hallway is lined with photos of what looks like Raven at different ages; they look like they've been taken in some pretty exotic places - deserts, temples, jungles - but she mostly stands in them alone. I know that she lives on her own now, but wonder if there's ever been a Mr or even a Mrs Raven. There's a shelf running the length of the hall with loads of carved wooden stuff: wild animals, a boomerang adorned with aborigine designs, a little set of ornate drawers. Bethany looks at them with an awed expression. We follow Raven down to her living room. The door is gone from the frame but she has a curtain of coloured beads

hanging there instead, like the ones behind her front door, and they click together as she passes through them. When we get into the room she scratches a hand through her dreads and crams her huge backside into an armchair. 'Sit down, sweetie,' she chirps, waving Bethany to a chair. Her voice sounds like she looks - bold and happy, larger-than-life. Not what you'd expect from someone who makes her living from the dead. Bethany sits across from her and shoots me a sideways glance. Raven doesn't look at me once. 'What can I do for you, sweetheart?' she asks Bethany. 'Is it your mum you'd like me to reach?' I'm just about to be amazed by her knowledge. I'm pretty sure that Bethany didn't tell her on the phone what she wanted exactly, only that it was a consultation. But then I remember where we live. It's pretty likely that she knew about Bethany's mum anyway. 'Yes...' Bethany says, 'but I need you to do something else too. Will it cost me more to do two things?' Raven flashes a smile full of brilliant teeth. 'I don't think so. Depends on what it is, of course. Why don't I make us a cup of tea and then you can tell me?' She heaves herself from the chair and shuffles towards the open kitchen door. 'Thanks, but I don't like tea,' Bethany says. I have green tea... much cleaner taste. Or cocoa...' Raven offers. 'Green tea?' I whisper. 'Only fruit loops drink green tea. We're not going to get any sense out of her.' Bethany shakes her head in a tiny movement and frowns at me. 'Just saying...' 'I'm really ok, thanks,' Bethany calls to her. We listen to the sound of the kettle starting to boil as Raven searches in a cupboard for a mug and then drops a teabag in it. I glance across at Bethany. I wonder what's going through her head. She looks nervous. We talked about how she might be able to speak to her mum too and she seemed cool about it, but I suppose things are different now that she's here. 'It'll be ok,' I say. She looks at me and tries to smile. 'I mean, I won't let her con you. If I see your mum in the room, I'll tell you, but if she's not here and Raven says she is, I'll tell you that too... ok?' 'But what if you can't see her?' she whispers. 'You can't see your dad, so maybe you won't be able to see my mum. What about that different dimension idea that you had?' 'I don't know,' I say. 'I just thought I might be able to somehow.' 'You're just trying to make me feel better,' she smiles. 'I know that.' 'You're scared though?' 'In case she can get my mum?' I nod. 'Terrified.' She pauses for a moment. 'I'm actually a bit scared that she might have the answer to your problem too.' I'm about to ask what she means when Bethany looks up quickly. Raven has a mug of tea and a biscuit tin and settles back into her armchair, pulling her long skirt in around her legs. The plump toes of her bare feet peep out from beneath the expanse of fabric and I can see rings on them, just like in that nursery rhyme. 'It's been about a year for your mum now?' Raven says to Bethany in a warm voice. I can see why people feel happier when they've been to see her. Even if she doesn't see their relatives, she has such a kind, friendly voice that she makes you feel better just listening to it. She still doesn't look at me, though. 'A year at Christmas,' Bethany replies, twisting her fingers together. 'Christmas day, actually.' I give Bethany a sharp look that she doesn't notice. She never told me her mum died on Christmas day. Come to think of it, she doesn't tell me much about it at all. 'So, why don't you tell me what you want to know?' Raven prizes the lid from the biscuit tin. 'Would you like one?' she asks offering the tin to Bethany. Bethany shakes her head. I look in the tin. There are chocolate covered ones and ones with

cream in the centre. I'm pretty sure I used to like those. When we're alone I think I'll ask Bethany to remind me of the way those biscuits taste. 'I'm not sure where to begin,' Bethany says glancing at me. 'If you want to speak to your mum first, it's cool,' I say to her. 'No,' she says, 'we came for you, so well do that first.' Raven's biscuit stops halfway to her mouth as she watches Bethany talk to me. Or rather, talk to thin air, I suppose. Bethany turns back to her. 'It's like this...' Bethany begins slowly, 'sometimes I feel like dead people are around me but I don't really see them, I just get a sense of where they are.' 'And you think you can sense your mum nearby?' Raven asks. 'That's understandable, I'm sure she's watching over you all the time.' Bethany shakes her head. 'I don't think she is. That's not the reason I'm here, although I would like to talk to her if you could get her. It's someone else.' 'Ah,' Raven nods knowingly, 'so you have a little sight too. How long has that been going on?' I can't really remember when it started -it's just always been. I suppose that was how it was for you?' Raven nods. 'Since I was a little girl in Jamaica. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?' 'Sort of,' Bethany says. 'But when you see those people, do you ever see them as though they're actually there with you, real and solid, just as if they were alive?' 'Do you?' Raven asks. Her voice drops. She puts her biscuit back into the tin and places it on a small side-table next to her tea, never taking her eyes from Bethany. 'You remember David Cottle?' 'Yes...' 'Tell her I came to see her and she couldn't hear me,' I say. 'Tell her that I know she's a big fraud.' Bethany frowns at me. 'I'll get to that bit.' Raven stares at Bethany now. 'Who are you talking to, sweetie?' 'David,' Bethany says. 'He's here. Sitting right next to me and I can see him just as though he was alive. We want to know why he's still here and why I can see him.' 'He talks to you?' 'Yes.' 'Only you?' 'Well, we haven't met anyone else who can hear or see him yet, Bethany says. 'Can you?' she asks Raven. Raven shakes her head, still staring at Bethany. 'No, sweetheart, I can't.' 'Do you know what it means?' Raven looks at Bethany like she wants to hug the life out of her. She doesn't speak at first. 'Are you ok?' Bethany asks. Raven nods. 'I'm sorry, I can't help you.' 'But I brought the money...'Bethany begins, pulling a wad from her coat pocket. 'It's not the money,' Raven says. She shrinks back in her chair, suddenly looking half the size she did. Her big, cheery expression is replaced by something that looks like fear or pity, I can't decide which. 'What then?' Bethany asks. 'Don't you know why?' Raven hesitates. 'No, I don't know. I'm sorry but I can't help you.' Bethany looks at me. 'Told you so,' I say. But it's only to distract her because I can see she's freaked out by Raven's reaction. 'Maybe we can just talk to my mum instead?' Bethany asks. 'Or David would like to see if you can find his dad.' I can't get anyone for you now. I have a headache. Would you mind leaving?' 'Now?' 'Yes, please.' Raven gets out of her armchair and goes to the bead curtain, holding it open for us to leave. Bethany stalls for a moment before ; that she's not going to get any more out

of her. Then she gets up from her chair and follows Raven out to the front door. 'Can we come back when you feel better?' Bethany asks when we get outside. Raven gives her that look again, like she would scoop her up in her arms if she could. 'There's no point, sweetheart,' she says in a quiet voice, I can't help you.' And then she closes the front door. 'Sorry we didn't get your mum,' I say as we walk down the overgrown path of Raven's front garden. 'We should have done that first.' 'No, you were right,' Bethany says. 'Raven's a fake.' She pulls her coat tight around her and shivers. 'Do you think?' Bethany nods. 'She didn't look at you once.' 'Yeah, but like you said, maybe she needed to do some kind of ritual first or something.' 'She looked pretty surprised that I was talking to you, though.' I suppose so. Maybe she just didn't expect someone else in the same village to be able to do what she does.' I don't think it was that. She was ok when she thought I just wanted to ask her about that.' 'But she said she'd always seen stuff since she was a little girl, just like you. So she must be real. Have you always seen things?' I don't really know what it is I see,' Bethany says. 'Maybe it's nothing more than other people see. 'But you see me,' I remind her. She looks ahead and doesn't speak. The churchyard clock chimes as we walk - three muffled clangs in the distance. Mid-afternoon but already a gloom is creeping across the land. 'Ok, so no Raven. What do we do now?' I say. She shrugs. 'I don't know. There's nothing left we can do.' 'So... I'm stuck here?' She nods. 'It looks that way.' 'With you?' 'It looks like it.' 'Maybe that won't he so had,' I say. I turn to her and try to smile. She looks at me. 'I suppose we'll get used to it,' she says. 'Do you think I'll keep fading?' 'Who knows?' She turns to me thoughtfully. 'I'm not sure you are fading. You still seem solid enough to me.' 'I'm definitely not solid,' I say. 'You know what I mean.' 'I'm forgetting everything though,' I say. She shakes her head. 'Maybe you're just re-remembering stuff.' 'What does that mean?' 'That you're changing into someone else.' I'm not sure I understand. I don't know how to ask her to explain it though. The sky starts to spit a flurry of tiny snowflakes. 'Told you it would snow,' she says. 'Only just.' I say. 'We'll have more, you watch.' 'It doesn't make you clever, Miss-Snow-Predictor,' I say. She laughs. 'Do you remember how snow feels?' she asks me. 'Not really. I think I used to like it, though.' 'Do you want to play our memory game?' 'Yeah, I'd like that.' She screws up her eyes for a moment. 'This snow that's coming down now is too small to make you wet, it's not like proper snow. This snow feels like tiny cold kisses on your face.' I concentrate. I can almost feel it on my skin. 'You're really good at this,' I say. 'But you know the best thing about snow is when you get home all freezing and wet but then you get changed into something dry and your mum sits you in front of the fire and gets you a hot chocolate. Remember that?'

I think about the contentment from warm, fleecy clothing wrapping my cold skin. Then I try to recall the taste of hot chocolate, and I suddenly remember something. 'In Raven's house it smelt just like hot chocolate.' She smiles. 'See, it works. You can remember if you try.' I shake my head. 'No, I only remember if you help me. It's like you're keeping me alive.' 'Maybe it's me keeping you here,' she says, suddenly thoughtful. 'If we stopped hanging out perhaps you'd move on.' 'No,' I say. 'Not that.' I can't tell her that I'm afraid to be alone. 'It's ok,' she says, we won't do anything you don't want to.' 'That's just it. I don't even know what I want. How can I? Nothing makes sense to me anymore.' She goes quiet for a few seconds before she answers. 'Wake each day and deal with what it brings. It's all you can do.' 'If I ever went to sleep I would.' 'What will you do tonight?' I shrug. 'What I do every night... wander around on my own while the world sleeps without me. At night is when I really feel like a ghost, like one of the plague kids.' 'Would it help if you stayed at mine tonight?' she asks. 'I thought -' 'I know. It didn't seem right before, somehow. But I don't mind tonight.' 'What about your dad?' She laughs. 'He can't see you.' 'Yeah, I know that. I just mean,what if he hears you talking to me. Won't he think that's weird?' 'Ill just have to talk really quietly, won't I?' 'You could write stuff down for me.' 'If we only talk when we're in my room, he won't hear a thing. He always falls asleep about ten anyway and he never wakes up after that, unless he decides to go to the pub. Either way it won't matter.' I nod slowly. 'I think I'd like that.' She gives me her special smile, the one that nobody else sees. Five: Lisa Bethany's dad keeps his glassy eyes on the TV as she walks past the open living room door. 'Where have you been?' he shouts. There's a smell that I recognize coming from the room, but it's not sweet and comforting like the smell in Raven's hallway. Just like at Raven's though, I can't place it, but something about the unpleasantness of it tells me I shouldn't ask Bethany what it is. 'Chloe's,' she calls back, jogging up the stairs before he has time to ask anything more. I follow her, checking out the stairs as I go. They're narrow, walled on either side with a handrail and a stained carpet. At the bottom there's no carpet only a red, stone-tiled floor. A speeding car - that looks like something that could kill you, it looks dangerous. This looks so unlikely, just like someone's safe, cosy house. I wonder if Bethany's mum's blood is still in the cracks of the tiles, just like mine is in the ground of Yarrow Lane. Like my dad's is in the cogs of the machinery that sucked him in and crushed him to death while he was working one day. I wonder if we all leave traces of ourselves everywhere. Bethany closes the door of her room, throws off her coat and roots in a set of drawers. She pulls a chunky looking jumper over her head and sits on her bed, wrapping the duvet around her legs. I can see the breath curl from her mouth. 'Is it cold in here?' She nods. 'Heating doesn't come on until eight.' I look around. There's a small electric fire in a corner. It looks pretty old and there's a thick layer of dust on it. 'Can't you put that on?' I say, pointing to it. 'Dad goes mad if I use it, costs too much.' 'What's it here for then?' 'Dunno. It's just always sat there.'

The wallpaper looks as though it used to be beige stripes but it's so faded now that it's almost one colour. There's a small desk in the corner, the sort with a lid that they used to have in schools, an old portable telly and an overflowing bookcase. I go over to take a look at what books she has. 'The movies, they'll goddamn kill you...' I murmur. "The Catcher in the Rye,' she says. 'Did you like it?' I turn to her. 'I don't remember,' I say. She flips the blankets off her legs and comes to look at the bookcase with me, hugging herself. 'I never had you down as the reading sort.' 'I'm not sure I was,' I say. 'But there were lots of books in my room before Mum cleared out.' 'Are you sure you can't remember?' she asks, 'or are you just pretending to be someone different than you are?' 'How can I be someone different? I'm just me.' 'You seem to remember some things and not others, but something like whether you used to read a lot or not... well... I think you'd know that. I think you're so used to hiding the real you that you can't stop, even now.' I turn to her. 'I don't know what you mean.' 'Well,' she begins slowly, what you pretended to be at school... I don't think that was who you really were, was it?' I shrug. 'I could say the same to you. We do what we have to, don't we?' 'I suppose we do.' 'It's funny how we both lost parents but we never even saw how much the same that made us until now.' 'I did,' she says. 'You did? I didn't really think about it.' 'That's because you were an arse,' she says. 'Ingrid says that,' I reply. I haven't thought about Ingrid in days and it's funny, but when I think of her now, it doesn't hurt nearly as much. I wish I'd been nicer to you, though.' She laughs. 'You're only saying that because you have nobody else now.' 'No... I mean it. I think at first...' I don't finish, because I don't know how to. She pulls her copy of The Catcher in the Rye from the shelf. 'It looks old,' I say as she opens it. That musty smell of ageing books unfurls from the yellowing pages. 'My mum's copy,' she says. I could read it to you, if you want.' 'Ok,' I say. I think I'd like that.' I sit on the floor and cross my legs, like a nursery kid waiting for the teacher to tell a story. She sits on the bed and opens the book, but then she frowns at me. 'David, if you melt through walls and stuff, how are you not disappearing through my floor?' I look down at myself and shrug. 'I haven't figured that out. I just don't seem to.' She cocks her head to one side and looks at me carefully. 'I think you're sort of suspended, not quite touching the floor. Is that how you walk around?' 'I don't know. Maybe.' I smile suddenly. 'I'm like Casper the Friendly Ghost.' 'Not nearly as cute, though,' she says smiling back. 'I need a white sheet.' She giggles. 'You'd give my dad a fright.' I suddenly remember him. 'You think you ought to be quieter?' 'He's watching telly. He always watches telly on Saturday afternoons and doesn't bother me until he wants his tea. Come to think of it, he does that every afternoon.' 'Doesn't he go to work?' 'Before mum died he did. But now he has to look after me so he quit.' 'Look after you? Seems like it's the other way around to me.' 'No,' she says quickly. 'He does loads for me.' 'Like what?' 'I have this house, for a start.' She pauses as if she's trying to think of some other things. 'I'm sick of the way people judge him around here. Like I said before, it's a small-minded

dump.' I think about what she's said. 'People don't seem to like him very much around here, that's for sure.' 'That's because he's not from the village. Mum was, but he moved here when they got married.' I don't think it's that,' I say. I think people find him a bit...'I don't know what word I want. 'It was hard for him, when Mum died,' she cuts in. 'People forget that.' 'It was hard for you too,' I say. 'Me and Dad... we had to take care of each other because it was all we had.' I only see you taking care of him,' I insist. 'You don't understand,' she frowns. The look she gives me says don't argue. Maybe she has a point, though. Somebody, no matter how one-sided the relationship might seem, is better than nobody, I suppose. I think about my mum and Roger. Much as I hate Roger, I have to admit that I'm glad she has him now. Bethany is cooking. it's nothing fancy: beans and sausages with oven chips. It still smells good to me. I've never cooked anything so I'm impressed as I watch her flit between tasks, and the way she knows how to make sure everything is ready at the same time. Sometimes, she throws me a secret smile as she works, or whispers a passing comment to me. We're not really talking about anything important, but I like it. If I'm honest, I'm tired of talking about important things. Bethany's kitchen is a dim square of a room, a tiny curtain-less window reflecting the bare lightbulb hanging above us. Like the rest of the house, it needs decorating and there is no way to tell what colour the walls started out, now they're a sort of putty grey. She puts out two plates. On one she puts the largest share of everything, on the other a tiny portion that doesn't look like it would feed a flea. 'Is that one yours?' I ask, frowning at the small plate. 'I'm not really hungry,' she whispers as she takes a tray from the cupboard and wipes it with a cloth before putting the large plate on it. I follow as she takes it through to her dad in the living room. I get a good look at him now. He's skinny - just like Bethany - mousey hair cropped short and washed-out eyes. He's sunk so far in his armchair that it's hard to tell where the chair ends and he begins. He looks like someone who doesn't know what he's for anymore. He barely glances up from the TV -just long enough to take the food without spilling it - and doesn't speak to her once. We sit at the table together while Bethany eats her food carefully, like she daren't even get a speck of gravy on the table. 'Want a taste?' she whispers. 'It's ok,' I say. 'Maybe you can tell me about it later.' The silence has a sort of gloom to it as she eats. I try to remember what mealtimes were like in my house. Sometimes they'd be filled with blazing rows. Sometimes they'd be filled with laughter. I don't remember them ever being like this. Back in Bethany's room it seems warmer. She flicks on the lamp and settles on the bed while I take my place on the floor. 'Want to watch telly?' she asks. I shrug. 'I suppose we could.' She grabs a remote and switches on the old TV, flicking through what's on offer. 'I don't have many channels,' she says. 'Sorry.' Telly used to seem important. Somehow, it doesn't anymore. 'I'm not that bothered,' I say. 'You could turn it off if you don't want to watch anything.' 'What do you want to do then?' 'We could talk.' 'You want to talk?' She raises her eyebrows. 'Yeah. What's wrong with that?' 'Nothing. It's just... ok,' she says, 'what do you want to talk about?' I think for a moment. 'Tell me about your mum,' I say. She pauses to gather her thoughts. 'There are no exciting stories to tell. She wasn't special

or clever or the most beautiful woman in the world. But she was my mum.' 'I don't want exciting stories. I'd just like to hear you talk about her.' She leaps off the bed and drags an old shoebox from under it, blowing away a fine layer of dust. 'I have photos,' she says, climbing back on the bed and taking the lid from the box. Inside is a pile of shiny images. She holds one up to me. 'This is her.' I lean forwards to look. I see a woman with a slender face, bright blue eyes wrinkled into a huge smile, a peppering of tiny freckles, blonde hair blowing about her face. 'She looks a lot like you,' I say glancing back up at Bethany. 'I'm not as pretty,' she says. 'Your hair's a bit darker,' I say. 'That's all.' She beams at me, the biggest smile I've ever seen from her. Then she pulls out another one and holds it up. 'This is us at the Lake District. This was taken about two years ago.' I look. Her dad and mum are holding hands. Bethany is standing in front of them. She's a lot smaller, a bit chubbier, though she's still pretty skinny. Her hair is tied up in a ponytail. They're next to a jetty where there's a sign announcing boat trips and a white cruiser waits. It looks windy and they're all dressed in raincoats. Bethany looks really happy. 'Who took that one?' I ask. 'Someone else waiting for the boat trip, I think.' I don't think your dad was having a very good time,' I say. She whips the photo around and stares at it. I think maybe Dad was grumpy about how much the trip cost,' she decides. 'But mum and me wanted to go on it. He's always had to be careful about money.' The photo flirts from her hand. She reaches down over the edge of the bed to fetch it from the floor and her sleeve hitches up. There's a black bruise over her wrist, though the swelling on her hand I saw that day Matt came to play the dog dirt trick has gone down. She glances at me and then pulls the fabric back over her arm again. I pretend not to notice. 'So... your mum liked books?' I say. Bethany nods gratefully. 'She loved to read. All the classics - never anything trashy.' 'Are those all hers, then?' I ask, tilting my head at the bookshelf. 'Quite a lot of them.' 'I think I would have liked her,' I say. 'I hope so,' she replies. 'So, now you can tell me about your dad.' 'What do you want to know?' 'Anything you like.' 'He was really into music. He played guitar and was always trying to persuade me to learn but I couldn't be bothered. I wish I had now.' 'He died at work, didn't he? I remember hearing it at school.' I nod. 'He got stuck in some machinery that was on the fritz. He climbed in to fix it without getting someone to turn it off first. There was an investigation and stuff, but it was his fault.' She gives me that look that she gave me once before, the one that says she wishes she could make it better for me. 'It must have been horrible for you.' 'Worse for Mum. She was pregnant, but she lost the baby too after he died. She says it was from the stress.' Something comes back into my mind, something about Mum and the reason we had that massive argument on the night I died, and I realize that pretty soon, we're going to have to talk about those important things again if I'm going to help her. Bethany's eyelids are drooping as she leans on her pillow, legs hanging over the edge of the bed. She's wearing fluffy pyjamas and smells all clean and minty. 'You're tired.' 'A bit,' she says. 'Do you want to go to bed?' 'Yeah, I do.' 'You want me to go?' She gazes at me for a moment. 'Do you want to go?' 'I just thought.... it might be creepy, having a dead kid sit next to you while you sleep...'

'You don't seem like a dead kid to me,' she says. 'That might be even creepier then. That just makes me a crazy staring stalker watching you sleep.' She laughs. 'Does that mean you'll sit staring at me all night?' I might not mean to,' I say. 'But I might not be able to help it.' 'Maybe I won't mind so much,' she says. Her smile is sleepy but it still lights up her face. 'Maybe I'll stay, then.' 'Maybe that would be cool.' 'Maybe it would.' She pulls her legs up and swings them under the covers, snuggling down. 'You want me to leave the lamp on?' I look at her, cocooned in her warm bed. I wish I could feel that safe. 'If it won't get you in trouble,' I say. She reaches over for the lamp from the bedside table and puts it down on the floor, placing a book over the opening of the shade so it's as dim as can be. 'Dad won't notice it now if he comes past my room,' she says. 'You've done that before,' I smile. 'Sometimes, I get scared of the dark,' she says as she settles into the pillow again. I move to the floor and sit where I can see her. 'What will you do all night?' she asks. I'll just sit here and think.' 'Won't that be boring?' 'I'm getting pretty good at sitting and thinking, I get a lot of practice now. If I get bored I can always go out for a walk.' 'Ok. But you'll he here in the morning when I wake?' 'Yeah, I'll come back.' 'Good.' She closes her eyes. I gaze around the room. She doesn't really have much stuff, now that I come to think about it. The jeans she wore today are hanging neatly over a chair and three pairs of shoes, including the boots she seems to wear for both school and home, and trainers for PE, are lined up beneath it. There's a hairbrush, some deodorant and some ponytail bands on the old desk. My mum's dressing table is crammed with face cream and hair products and the bathroom shelf has twice as much again. Ingrid is always pulling lip gloss from her bag or spraying herself with perfume, but I don't see any of that in Bethany's room. 'You want to remember about sleeping?' she whispers. 'I thought you'd already gone to sleep.' 'Not yet. You want to play the memory game first?' 'I don't need to sleep.' 'I know that, but don't you want to remember? Don't you miss it? 'Not sleeping. I miss dreaming, though,' 'Close your eyes,' she says. I do. 'Imagine you're on a gentle sea in a little row boat. Let the waves tilt you this way and that and then let your thoughts go with it, rocking this way and that...' I try to empty my mind and let myself sway with the blackness. 'Are you all calm?' she asks in a quiet voice. 'Yes.' 'Now, just let nice pictures come into your head, whatever gets there first, let it grow into a story...' I see my mum. I'm on the swings and she's laughing. I can tell I'm only small because my legs don't reach the ground. The sun is high and warm and the park smells of newly cut grass. She pushes me, higher and higher and each time the earth tilts a little more until I feel like the blue sky is breaking over me in waves. My stomach is doing somersaults and I'm giggling... I feel myself drift onto the next image... I'm chasing a red balloon around our kitchen. I'm still small. I smell home baked cake and fruit juice and candle wax. Mum and Dad are singing

happy birthday to me... I open my eyes. I was dreaming!' But Bethany is asleep. I know I said I would try not to stare at her but I can't help it. Her mouth is turned up a little at the corners. I figure she's having a nice dream. Her chest rises and falls with slow breaths and her eyelids flicker. Now that her eyes are closed I see that her lashes are really long and much darker than her golden hair. She looks tiny, frail, like someone you want to scoop up in your arms and keep safe. I said that I would go out for a walk if I got bored in the night, but I don't think I will get bored. I think I could watch Bethany sleep for a hundred years and not get bored. And then the idea comes to me. Perhaps that's why I'm still here. It's not to find my dad or the person who killed me or even to make Ingrid fall in love with me. I'm like a guardian angel or something. I can save Mum and I can keep Bethany safe too. I think about the bruises on Bethany's arms. That's definitely it. The morning peeks in through a chink in Bethany's curtains and she stirs. Her eyes half open and she sees me and smiles. 'Did you have nice dreams?' she says in a groggy voice. 'Yes,' I lie. I spent the night watching her and thinking about how I could keep her safe. If there are ghost skills or tricks, or whatever, things that will give me some control over the world around me, I need to learn them. 'What did you dream about?' she asks, closing her eyes again. 'Mostly about stuff that happened when I was little... nice stuff.' 'That's good,' she says, drifting into a doze. The sound of a hacking cough from another room opens her eyes again. 'Dad's awake.' 'Is it Sunday?' I ask. 'Yep. At least he won't want to get up early today.' 'Does he normally get up early? He doesn't work.' 'Still gets up, though. He likes to be around before I go to school.' 'Is that because he won't get any breakfast if he doesn't?' She frowns slightly and doesn't reply. 'Just saying...' 'You don't know about my life,' she says. 'You can't judge if you don't know.' 'I know what I see here.' 'It's hard for him. Mum used to do everything.' I bite back the words I want to say because I liked staying here last night and I don't want to make her angry. 'Do you have plans today?' 'With Dad, you mean?' 'Yeah.' 'I doubt it. We could do something, if you like.' 'Maybe I would like that.' 'Maybe I would too,' she whispers and snuggles under the covers to sleep again. My grave finally has a marker. White stone with pale grey flecks, new and polished so that the edges gleam. David Cottle Much loved son There are flowers arranged at the base and old toys still lie undisturbed on the freshly turned earth. To be honest, that last fact surprises me, knowing the kids in this village. I'm quite surprised too that there is a stone here so soon. 'Bethany,' I say quietly, 'how long have I been dead? I can't keep track any more.' She shrugs. 'I'm not sure. A couple of months, maybe.' 'That long? You said to Raven that it's nearly Christmas, how close is Christmas?' 'It is in a couple of weeks.' 'What will you do? For Christmas, I mean?' 'I don't know. Dad doesn't talk about it.' 'I suppose he wouldn't. I suppose you'll be pretty upset too on Christmas day.' She nods. 'My mum will be too,' I say. 'You know she had presents for me already? I found them under her bed, a few days before I died. There wasn't anything there that I had asked for, but I knew they were mine. I suppose she was going to get the other things later.'

'Was Christmas nice in your house?' 'It was ok,' I say. 'Not too good since Dad died but Mum made an effort for Roger. I think she knew that I would never enjoy it again no matter what she did.' 'Maybe you could come to my house for Christmas day?' Bethany says. 'It won't be exciting but at least you won't be alone... that is, if you want to, of course,'she adds quickly. 'Won't you be doing stuff with your dad?' 'We'll have dinner, and then he'll probably have some beers and fall asleep.' She laughs. 'He used to do that when Mum was with us, so I can't imagine this year will be any different.' 'If it's ok then l'd like it.'I say. 'As long as it wouldn't be too difficult for you.' 'It'll be fine,' she says. 'You can stay in my room if you like and I'll come and talk to you when Dad nods off.' We turn to the stone again. 'It looks nice, doesn't it?' I ask Bethany as we stand and look at it together. She doesn't say anything. 'It's ok,' I say as I turn to see that she's biting her lip to hold back tears. 'It's not really me under there... at least, not anymore.' 'It's not that,' she says, wiping a sleeve across her eyes. 'It's just so... so final. Seeing your stone there is like it's really the end of you.' I don't like to see her cry; I like it when she's happy. I try to smile to make her feel better but she doesn't smile hack. 'But it's not the end of me, is it?' I say 'We know that now. Think of it like the end of the end.' 'The end of the end means beginning again.' She looks at me and I see fear in her eyes. 'But the beginning of what?' I shudder. I don't want to think about that. 'Come on,' I say. 'Let's go and sit somewhere else. The churchyard clock hits noon as we make our way to the cover of the trees that skirt the old stone walls. Bethany pulls her tattered blanket from her rucksack and spreads it on the ground near the trunk of a bare oak. She sits and wraps her arms around herself against the cold. The churchyard is white and crisp in the frost that still hasn't melted from this morning. There's nobody but us here - at least, if you don't count the people beneath our feet. After we looked at my new stone, we went to see my dad's grave and her mum's. We stood next to each one, not speaking, because we didn't need to. Bethany's mum's had actual plants around the stone, I'm guessing that Bethany put them there, but she didn't say. They look nice. Bethany glances towards the sky where heavy white clouds are moving in. 'It's going to snow later,' she says. 'The sky is full of it.' 'You said that yesterday.' 'And it did,' she says. 'Just not very much. It'll he loads tonight, you'll see.' I wonder how that will feel - cold, wet flakes falling right through me. 'Can I stay at yours again tonight?' 'You don't need to worry about snow,' she laughs. 'I know. It's not that. I just...' 'I liked it, having you around last night,' she says, stealing my words from me. I feel something flutter inside me, something that has no right to be there. I'm dead now, how can that be? I try to focus on something else. 'I think I know why I'm still here,' I say. She lies back and stares up at the sky beyond our canopy of branches. 'Watch the clouds with me.' I lie next to her and follow her gaze. 'I think I'm here to watch over you.' 'That one's full of snow, you can see it.' She points up. 'I'm your guardian angel.' 'I bet it's miles thick. I wonder what it would be like to fly above it. I've never been in a plane, have you?' 'Did you hear what I said? I'm here to protect you.' She glances across at me. 'Don't,' she says. 'What?' 'You're making fun of me.' 'I'm not,' I say, 'I think it's the truth.'

'I don't need a guardian angel,' she says. 'Think about it,' I say, 'what about Gary James? I was there when he attacked you for a reason.' She throws me a sideways glance. 'I was there for a reason too.' I know that,' I say impatiently, 'the point is that I could help. I can't make things move or haunt people but I can tell you about stuff, I can make sure you're always ready for what's coming.' 'You really want to spend eternity following me around so that you can shout up if you see a piano about to fall on my head?' 'You're making fun of me now.' 'I'm not,' she says, 'I'm just being realistic. I really don't need a guardian angel.' 'Maybe,' I reply. 'But you have one anyway.' I don't need one,' she repeats. 'Maybe you need a friend, though?' She pauses before she replies. 'Friend is good...' 'Ok, so let's just do that.' I make a promise to myself to watch over her quietly and not tell her I'm doing it. 'Does it get on your nerves, me being around all the time?' 'No,' she says, I like it now that I'm used to you.' I wish I'd known you like I do now when I was still alive,' I say, glancing across at her. 'You wouldn't have got to know me if you'd had a choice.' 'Probably.' I think about whether to say the next thing, the thing that wants to come from my mouth as though it has a life of its own. Once it's out there, it's too late to take it back. What if she doesn't like it? What if I lose her forever? 'But at least I would have been able to kiss you,' I finally say. She doesn't reply for what seems like a long time, she just stares up at the sky. Then she turns her face to me. She doesn't look angry, she looks sad. 'You wouldn't have wanted to.' 'I know that. But I do now.' She turns her face back to the clouds. 'Me too.' We lie in silence for a moment. A chill blows across the churchyard. I can't feel it but I see it shake the branches above us. 'We could do the memory game,' she says. I hesitate. 'Have you ever kissed anyone? she asks in a suddenly shy voice. 'Of course I have, loads of times.' I mean properly.' 'Yeah. Haven't you?' 'I've never kissed anyone,' she says. 'Not ever.' I think she expects me to laugh, but I don't. 'How were you going to make me remember then?' 'I was hoping you could do the memory thing to me instead.' 'Ok, I'll try. I probably won't be as good as you though.' I screw my eyes up and think. 'When you feel their lips on yours it's really soft and warm,' I begin. I look across and she's still staring at the sky. 'Hey,' I laugh, 'if we're doing this then close your eyes and do it properly.' She smiles and closes her eyes. 'Your stomach feels like it could wriggle away all by itself. And your whole body is filled with excitement, running through your veins, right to the top of your head, as if it could pop your hair right out. And if they're just the right person it'll taste great and they'll smell good.... Are you there yet?' 'Yes,' she whispers, eyes still closed and a smile on her face. 'Are you?' she asks. I close my eyes and think for a moment. 'Yes.' 'Is it nice?' 'It's nice. How about you?' 'It's lovely,' she says. We lie in silence. I imagine kissing Bethany. All the times I thought about kissing Ingrid, it never felt like this.

I'm not sure how long has passed when Bethany speaks. 'How do I taste?' I open my eyes and she's rolled onto her side to look at me. 'Like cherry bubblegum,' I tell her. Her face wrinkles into a giggle. 'How about me?' I say. 'What do I taste of?' 'Cheese and onion crisps,' she snorts and her giggle gets louder and I can't stop myself from laughing with her. She rolls onto her back. 'Let's do it again.' 'One snog is usually enough,' I say. 'I must be getting better at it.' 'I've got low expectations,' she teases. The first snowflake drifts down and lands in Bethany's hair. 'You were right,' I say. 'It's starting to snow.' 'Told you.' 'Should we head back?' I ask. 'You must be freezing.' 'I'm ok for a while,' she says. 'It's not much yet. 'But you're right about that cloud. Now that I come to look at it there is loads of snow in it.' 'Dad goes to the pub on a Sunday afternoon. We'll wait until he's gone and then head back.' I sit up and look across the churchyard to see a figure standing where my grave is. 'Bethany, get up.' She does and follows my gaze across the stones and crisp grass. 'Is that your mum?' 'Yes.' Mum kneels down by my grave and starts to sort through the flowers, putting all the old ones in a pile by her feet. She takes a vase from a bag and then starts to arrange some fresh flowers in it. 'She has lovely hair,' Bethany says. 'She's cool,' I say. She turns to me. 'You miss her loads.' I shrug. 'I do. But it's hard to see her cry so much all the time too, so I stopped going to see her.' Bethany is quiet for a moment. 'I miss my mum like crazy, every day. I'd give everything I owned just to talk to her for one last time.' 'I suppose at least I can still see my mum. I must be lucky that I can talk to her.' 'But she can't see you. And you can't get her to answer you. That almost seems worse.' Mr Allen, the school caretaker, trudges up the path dragging a fir tree. it's all bound up tight with string and sweeps the path behind him leaving a trail of pine needles. Mr Allen is the school caretaker but he also helps out at the church. Everybody does a bit extra of everything around here, it's just the way it's always been. 'They must be putting the Christmas tree up,' Bethany says, nodding at him. 'It's a bit late, isn't it?' I think the old one got vandalised or something. But then the landlord of the Hope and Anchor had a raffle and gave them the money.' 'How do you know all that?' 'Dad told me.' Mr Allen stops for a moment and waves a greeting to my mum. She looks up and nods, smiling politely, but then carries on with her flower arranging. We watch for a while longer. When Mum is done she gathers up all the old bits and shoves them into the carrier bag. She stays on her knees for a while, just staring at the stone. Then she straightens up with a hand to her back and pulls her coat more tightly around her. 'She should be careful on this ice,' I say. 'It's dangerous for her to fall over.' 'She looks so lonely,' Bethany says. 'Shall I go and talk to her?' 'What would you say?' 'What would you like me to say?' I don't answer straight away. This is what I have wanted Bethany to do since I first hooked up with her, but, suddenly, it doesn't seem like such a good idea.

I really don't mind going over, if you want me to,' she says. 'I'd like to help.' 'Ask her if she's ok.' 'That's all?' I nod. 'I'm not sure she's ready for the rest.' Bethany starts to walk towards the grave and I follow. As she draws near Mum spins around, drying her eyes, and stares at Bethany with a question in her face. 'Hello,' Bethany says as she draws level. Mum nods shortly. 'Hello...' 'Bethany,' Bethany smiles. 'I'm in David's year at school.' Mum frowns for a moment. 'I didn't mean to disturb you,' Bethany says. 'I just wondered if you were alright.' 'Oh. Thanks.' Mum tries to smile hack. 'Did you know David well? He never mentioned you, as far as I remember.' 'Not really,' she says, 'I feel like I do now, though.' Mum glances at the grave, and then hack at Bethany. 'Have you come to see him?' 'Tell her you've come to see your mum's grave,' I say. 'She might think it's freaky if you've come to see mine.' Bethany throws me the tiniest puzzled look. 'Yes,' she says to my mum, 'and no. My mum is buried here too.' Understanding suddenly lights Mum's face. 'Bethany Willis?' 'That's me,' Bethany smiles. 'How long has it been since you lost her?' 'Nearly a year. I know how you're feeling right now,' she says, nodding her head towards the earth in front of them. 'But it's not always bad.' Mum nods. 'Then you'll also know that I'd rather he alone right now, if you don't mind.' Bethany glances at me. 'Just ask her if she's ok and tell her that it's not her fault,' I say. Bethany hesitates before speaking. 'David wouldn't want you to blame yourself for what happened,' she says. 'And he'd want you to be alright.' Mum looks at her sharply, her politeness gone. 'What would you know about it? You just said you didn't know him.' 'I knew him a bit.' 'He never even mentioned you,' she says, her voice like ice. 'How could you know what he would want?' Bethany begins to back away. 'He... I just wanted you to feel better.' 'I don't need scum like you to make me feel better.' Bethany eyes widen and her mouth falls open. 'She means your dad, Beth,' I say quickly, 'she doesn't mean you.' 'My dad's not scum,' Bethany says to me, tears starting to fall. Mum glances across at where I am and then stares at Bethany. 'What the hell is wrong with you?' 'Please, don't cry,' I tell Bethany, 'I didn't mean your dad was scum, I'm just saying what Mum was thinking.' 'Everybody thinks I'm like him but I'm not.' Bethany growls at me. 'I know that. I can't help what the rest of the village thinks.' 'Is that why you were so vile to me at school?' 'I wasn't... I didn't do anything to you.' 'You didn't do anything to help me either.' 'Who are you talking to?' Mum asks, staring Bethany turns and runs away down the path. Six: The Beginning 'Beth, just let me explain.' She's lying on her bed with her face to the wall. She's still huddled in her coat and I can see that it's cold again in her room by the way her breath curls into the air. It took me a few

minutes to decide whether to go into her house uninvited, but then I figured she was mad enough at me anyway so I might as well. 'Please, we're friends, yeah? Don't do this to me.' There is only cold silence and she doesn't move. 'I need you,' I say quietly. Then she turns around. Her face is all swollen from crying. 'And I needed someone but why did it have to go and be you... stupid, dead you?' 'Beth, I...' 'Get lost,' she spits. 'I didn't ask you to come in.' 'I'm a ghost,' I say. 'It's vampires that need permission to come in.' She stops crying for a moment, staring at me. Then she smiles a little. 'You're an idiot,' she says, sniffing. 'My mum didn't mean what she said. She's in a really had place right now. You know how that is... right?' 'I didn't go around insulting people when my mum died.' 'No, but I bet you weren't really yourself for a while?' Bethany sighs and sits up, drawing her knees to her chest and hugging them. 'She's only saying what everyone around here thinks.' 'She doesn't think that, she always tries to see the best in everyone. She was sad when she heard about your mum. You caught her at a bad time today.' 'You're just trying to make me feel better.' 'Well, yes, I am. But I'm also telling you the truth.' I pause, wondering how to tell her the next thing I need to say. It'll make me look bad, there's no way of getting around that. But maybe it's the only way to help Mum. 'We had a massive row the night I died, just before I left to do the papers, and I said some crappy things to her. She said some crappy things to me too. I don't think she's dealing with that very well.' 'We all say things we wish we hadn't to our parents. That's just the way it is. They don't really believe we mean them.' 'I think she did. I think she believed me enough to hate me right then. The night I died, she could have saved me. She could have come to look for me when I didn't come home from papers and if she had, I'd be alive now, because it took nearly all night for me to die on Yarrow Lane. I think somebody told her that, the police or a doctor or someone.' Bethany stares at me. 'Oh my God, that's awful. You must have really suffered.' 'I don't care about that. Beth, my mum's really not right... in the head, I mean. I think... she's doing stuff to herself. Sort of in punishment.' 'Like, painful things?' I nod. 'Horrible things. I went round one day to see her and she was hurting herself. Her arms are covered in cuts; I can't even look. Roger tries to keep an eye on her but he can't be there all the time. And she needs to look after herself now. There's something else too...' 'What?' I still can't bring myself to say it. 'She just needs to take care,' is all I manage and hope that Bethany will understand. 'You're really worried for her?' 'Yeah. I never really thought about her feelings before, but now, just when I can't tell her, there's so much I need to say. I want her to know that the stuff we said to each other... well, the stuff I said anyway, I didn't mean any of it.' She looks at me, deep in thought. 'You want me to tell her this, don't you?' 'After all that happened this afternoon, I understand that you wouldn't want to see her now.' 'I don't, to be honest. And she wouldn't talk to me anyway.' 'She doesn't really think you're scum. When your mum died she felt sorry for you, she said so, loads of times. I bet she's feeling bad right now about what she said to you earlier. I reckon she'd be glad of the chance to apologise.' 'Even so, how am I going to have that conversation with her? Excuse me, I just had a chat with your dead son and he asked me to tell you not to stress about him...'

'I know. Maybe there is another way of doing it?' 'How?' 'Like... we could say that Raven told you.' 'Raven? So that wouldn't be weird at all, me consulting a medium about a boy from my class.' 'No, you say you went to see her about your mum and I came through instead.' She holds me in a steady gaze. 'I suppose that could work.' 'You'll do it?' 'I'll think about it,' she says. She's quiet for a moment but when she speaks again she looks doubtful. 'If I do this, what if that's your unfinished business finished?' 'You mean my mum is happy and I leave?' She nods. I think about what she's said before I reply. 'I'm pretty sure I'm not here for that.' 'You don't still think you're here to look after me?' she asks, raising her eyebrows. 'Yeah, I do.' 'Why? We never had anything to do with each other before. Why aren't you looking after Ingrid? She at least meant something to you when you were alive.' I shrug. 'I don't know. Maybe Ingrid doesn't need looking after.' 'And I do?' 'Roll back your sleeves,' I tell her. She stares at me. 'Roll them back,' I repeat. 'No,' she says, pulling the fabric of her sweatshirt further over her wrists. 'It doesn't matter anyway,' I say calmly. 'I can see a bruise on your neck.' 'I bruise easily,' she says, pouting at me. 'You must do,' I say. 'Because you're covered in them.' Her mouth works for a moment but no sound comes out. 'I have to wash up,' she finally tells me and I watch as she flips off the bed and leaves me alone in her bedroom. I cross to the window. The snow is coming down as powder, barely filling the cracks of the paving slabs on the front path, but the sky still looks heavy. The road is deserted, other than the horse hanging his head over the wall of his field as he tries to pull at a long weed growing on the other side. I've decided to call him George, he sort of looks like a George. Bethany's dad's seething tones carry up the stairs. I can hear Bethany's voice too, but it's much quieter and he gets most of the exchange. His voice gets louder and louder. I hear a thud, like an object being thrown at a wall. Then, something that sounds like a slap reaches me, followed by a sharp squeal. I get into Bethany's wardrobe and crouch down behind her clothes, covering my ears in the darkness. Some guardian angel I am. Bethany takes a deep breath and glances at me before turning back to the door. Her face is in shadow, apart from the muted glow of the lights showing behind the curtained window of our living room. 'What if she won't talk to me?' she whispers, still staring at the doorbell. 'She will,' I whisper back. I'm not even sure why I'm whispering. 'Shell always hear people out.' Bethany frowns. I hope you're right.' 'Just remember the story: you went to see Raven about your mum and she told you that I wanted to get a message to my mum. Then you tell her that I don't blame her and I'm sorry for what I said.' 'You think that will be enough?' I don't know.' She gives a short nod and then reaches up to ring the bell. We hear the faint chime and then the sound of a door opening inside and footsteps echoing along the wood of the hallway floor. Roger opens the door, his huge frame almost blocking out the light from the hall. 'Yes?' 'Urn... I just wondered if I could talk to David's mum?' 'What do you want her for?' 'It's ok,' I tell her. 'He looks scarier than he is.'

'I need to tell her about something,' Bethany says. 'She can't come to the door right now.' Roger goes to sbut the front door. 'It's kind of important,' Bethany says in a small voice. The front door stops and Roger looks at Bethany more closely. 'Are you the girl that was in the churchyard earlier? Willis's daughter?' Bethany glances at me. 'Yes, but -' 'She came home in a right state after seeing you.' 'I didn't mean to upset her.' 'Well, you did. So I think you'd better go.' 'Tell the mono-browed lump of lard that you need to talk to my mum about what Raven said,' I say to Bethany. 'I just have to see her for a couple of minutes,' she says, 'to tell her about something that the medium in the village told me.' 'What did the medium say?' Mum's voice comes from behind Roger. He turns in the doorway so that we can see her standing behind. She has a bobbled old cardi pulled tight around her and her face is pale, though her eyes are red and swollen. 'It's about David,' Bethany says, glancing behind at the empty street. She turns back to Mum and Roger. 'Step into the hallway a minute,' Mum says, 'Say what you need to say and then go.' Bethany goes in and I follow. Roger closes the door behind. Bethany takes off her hat. She pulls her hair down over her ear but I can still see the red marks that look like fingers on the side of her face. She looks nervous as Roger and Mum stare at her. 'Don't worry,' I say. 'Just remember the story.' Bethany swallows. 'I went to see the medium in the village yesterday. About my mum. But she didn't tell me about my mum. While I was there David spoke to her and wanted me to give you a message -' 'Is that right?' Mum interrupts, folding her arms. 'I went to see Raven this afternoon, right after I'd bumped into you at the churchyard and do you know what she told me?' Bethany shakes her head slowly, her eyes wide. 'When I asked her to reach David for me she said she couldn't. She said she'd never spoken to him since he passed on. So, whatever sick joke you're playing you can stop now.' 'It's not a joke,' Bethany cries. 'Then you're a nutter?' 'No!' 'Leave it, Beth,' I say. I reach for her arm but my hand goes straight through. 'Beth, let's go-' She turns to me. I said I'd tell her and I will.' 'What's wrong with you, you little freak?' Mum shouts. 'Stop talking to thin air.' 'David's here,' Bethany says, her voice beginning to crack. 'He wants me to tell you that he doesn't blame you for how he died, he doesn't want you to carry on being sad... he wants you to stop hurting yourself.' 'What did you say?' Roger steps forwards. 'She doesn't have to cut herself. David hates it; it's making him miserable,' 'You little bitch!' Mum spits. 'How dare you make up such vile lies.' 'I'm not lying,' Bethany begins to sob. 'Tell them, David, tell them I'm not lying.' I try to think of something, something that only me and Mum would know. 'When I was four I asked Santa for a dog, even though I'm allergic to them, tell her that.' 'He says when he was four he asked Santa for a dog.' 'Get out,' Roger says, opening the door. Mum's eyes fill with tears. Her fingers creep beneath her cardigan sleeves and I see her scratch at her arms. 'Tell her I used to sleep with one of her jumpers when she wouldn't let me in her bed.' 'When he was little he... he used to sleep with one of your jumpers...' Roger pulls Bethany's elbow and begins to drag her to the door and I go too, like we're joined by elastic.

I didn't mean what I said about the baby!' I shout. 'I was angry that night but I didn't mean it.' 'He didn't mean what he said about the baby...' Bethany squeaks as she fights back her tears and Roger shoves her out over the doorstep. She opens her mouth to speak again but the door is slammed sbut. Bethany slides down it and puts her face in her hands. Her shoulders are shaking as she quietly sobs on the doorstep. 'I'm sorry,' I say. She draws a deep breath and swallows her tears as she looks at me. The snow is falling faster now, the flakes like feathers against the ochre sky, and the garden disappearing under it. 'They'll tell my dad, won't they?' she whispers. 'No, no they won't.' 'Ill be in so much trouble.' 'You won't, it'll be ok,' I say, though I really don't believe it myself. 'I can't do anything more for you,' she says, pulling herself up to her feet. I have to go home now. Don't follow me, please.' She pulls her flimsy coat tight, wedges the hat back on her head and starts to trudge down the path. 'Can I come tomorrow?' I call after her. She looks at me. 'I don't think so,' she says quietly. She turns back to the path without another word, and walks away. From inside the house, I can hear the muffled sound of Mum sobbing. Roger's voice is strong and calm and I can tell that he's trying to soothe her, even though I can't hear what he's saying. I think about going back in. It's not something I'm strong enough to face, though. Without Bethany, I have no purpose again; already I can feel myself fading. Raven's low roof is heavy with a glittering blanket of snow. I let myself in and wander down her dark hallway, through the beaded curtain and into the living room where she's sitting in her armchair bent over some cards spread across a stained coffee table. What's the point in this stupid rule I set myself about not going into people's houses when I'm no more noticeable than the spiders under their floorboards? If I'm about to disappear from existence, what does it matter? Raven is humming to herself; her voice is rich and strong and I think she must be a pretty good singer. There's a small fire in the grate throwing flickering shadows over her face. She turns over a card and frowns before laying it across one that is already turned. They look like playing cards, but they have other pictures on them. I suppose they must be tarots or something, but I've never seen any up close before. I look over her shoulder, but whatever it is she's seeing in them means nothing to me. I take a seat on the floor in front of her. Strangely, since my mum told Bethany that Raven came clean about not being able to hear me, I have more faith that she is for real. I wonder if the fault is with me; perhaps I'm not talking to her properly. Is there a right way to do it? I close my eyes and try to concentrate, but everything is muddled up in my head and all I can think about is what just happened in the hallway of my house. I open my eyes again. I wish you could hear me,' I say to Raven. Raven doesn't look up from her cards; instead, she takes another one from the pack and turns it, poring over it. I don't know what to do,' I tell her. 'None of this makes any sense.' Raven looks up and for a moment I think maybe she's heard me, but she stares straight through me and reaches for a steaming mug to take a sip. 'I can't understand why I'm still here. If it's not for my mum and not for Bethany, then why? And why can only Bethany see me? She's right - it should be Ingrid seeing me, not her, it was Ingrid that I was crazy about. And even if I'm supposed to be here to protect Bethany, I can't do anything anyway. So why leave me here? I'm pointless, just an annoying shadow.' Raven leans back in her chair and cradles her mug, closing her eyes. 'I tried to tell mum I was sorry for what I said about the baby. I never meant that I wanted her baby to die, even if it is half Roger's. I would never mean that. And now Bethany doesn't

want me around either. What am I going to do if I don't have her?' Raven's eyes are still closed. I wonder if she's falling asleep. 'Please, please, Raven. I just want to know what I'm supposed to do...' She doesn't even glance up at me; she just sits there with her eyes closed. Through the tiny window behind her the sky is dotted with fat snowflakes, falling faster than before. Bethany never did tell me how that sort of snow feels. I lie against Dad's gravestone, hugging myself, even though I'm not cold. I know he's not there, but that doesn't stop me from hoping. 'Why did you have to leave us? Why did you have to go and climb in that stupid machine and get stuck? Mum would have had your baby, not Roger's... there'd have been no Roger and we'd have been a happy family: me, you, Mum, my baby brother...' I rub my sleeve over my eyes and gaze up at the dots of snow, spiralling down to earth. I look across at the church. The tree is up outside now, only strung with simple white fairy lights, but it looks sort of magical all the same. Slices of yellow light shine from the church windows and it looks like there is a fair crowd in there. Just then, the muffled sound of the organ striking up reaches me, and then layers of voices breaking into song. I cock my head and recognise the first strains of Silent Night. There's nothing special about the way it's being sung, in fact, there are bum notes and bad timings all over the place, but they're all singing it as if they have this shared joy for the words and the meaning, and it has me listening, captivated. We were never a religious family, but Mum took me to so many of these services when I was a little kid. It was like a part of our Christmas traditions, when you went to the carol service, you knew that Christmas was close. I always said I hated them when she made me go, but I didn't. Part of me wants to go in and sit amongst them now, sing along and pretend that they know I'm there. But I don't think I will go in. Maybe it's no place for the dead. Yarrow Lane is disappearing under a crust of white. My feet make no marks in the fresh snowfall as I find the place where my blood is still in the earth. I came back here one night after Bethany and I had visited that first time, and someone had left flowers to mark the spot. No more appeared though, and those ones had gradually wilted every time I came back. Now they're buried under the drift; all that's left is the heart that Bethany carved on the tree with my name in it. I sit down on the roots and turn my face to the sky, longing to feel the cold wetness on it. I have to remember. Looking at the ground again I can see tiny paw prints. My foxes? Animals are pretty much the only friends I have now, but even the foxes seem to be absent tonight. Maybe I'll go and talk to George, the horse. But that would mean going to Bethany's house and I'm not sure I can look up at her window, knowing she's in there and doesn't want me around. What if I left the village? Would I disappear as soon as I reached beyond the boundary, just disintegrate? What if I didn't? What if I just kept walking and didn't stop, what would happen then? Maybe I'd just fade quietly away. I get up and start to walk, down the lane, away from everything I know. Maybe I'll keep walking until I get to the very top of Scotland. Then where? Would I be able to walk over the sea? Would I be able to keep going forever? What if I wander around for the whole of eternity and nobody else but Bethany ever sees me? The idea makes me feel empty, like my soul has been scooped out and thrown into the ditch along with those last traces of my body. Maybe I don't want to go - not like this anyway. First, I should say goodbye. When I get home Roger is just letting himself in the front door so I follow him in. A smell wafts out to greet me. I screw my eyes tight and try to remember what it is. It's soft and light, kind of fluffy... baby lotion, maybe? Mum used to use baby lotion all the time, when I was little. It reminds me of being hugged on her knee, gathered up in her arms while she stroked my hair, and I suddenly have this heavy ache in my heart. 'Where have you been?' Mum asks as she meets Roger in the hallway. 'You didn't go to see him, did you?' Roger shakes the snow off his coat and hangs it over the radiator. 'He was in the pub, where I thought he'd be.' 'Please tell me you didn't say anything.'

'Of course I did; what was the point in me going otherwise?' Mum starts to wring her hands. 'I wish you hadn't.' 'I'm not having the likes of that little freak upsetting you.' He puts a hand on Mum's belly. 'You don't need that right now.' 'I don't think she meant any harm, though.' 'It doesn't matter what she meant or didn't mean - you can't go around saying things like that to grieving families, it's just not right. Someone needs to tell her.' 'But how did she know about the baby?' Mum asks quietly. 'The more I think about it the more I wonder if she was telling the truth.' 'Don't be silly,' he says, taking Mum's elbow and guiding her to the living room, 'David could have told her that before...' I think he's going to say before he died, but he sees Mum's face and stops himself. 'But that was the argument we had just before he left for his paper round. We didn't tell him I was pregnant before then. How could he have told anyone?' Roger shrugs. 'Perhaps he saw her when he was out delivering.' 'She hardly knew him at school, she said so. Why would he stop to tell a girl he hardly knows about something like that?' 'I don't know.' 'Maybe she's telling the truth -' 'She's not! That's a ridiculous idea. And you can't keep blaming yourself for the way you reacted on David's last night. I know he's dead but it doesn't change the fact that it was a vicious thing to say. He knew how much it had hurt you to lose the baby before... to say that was plain evil.' 'He was just upset,' Mum says taking a seat on the sofa. 'It was a shock; I didn't handle telling him well.' 'Lisa... he was fifteen, not five. Old enough to accept that things change and that people can't always be the centre of the universe.' 'But he was the centre of mine. For a long time, anyway. It must have been hard for him.' 'He certainly made it hard for me,' Roger grunts as he goes into the kitchen and fills the kettle. I go and sit next to Mum on the sofa. She peels back her sleeve and scratches at her scars. Then she seems to shake herself and covers them up again. Her hand moves to her belly and she strokes it. 'What do you think he'll do to her?' Mum says as Roger comes back in. He shrugs. 'Willis?' Mum nods. 'Probably give her a good talking to, just like she needs,' he says. 'She's a sandwich short of a picnic anyway, just like her old man.' 'That's not fair,' I say to Roger. 'You don't know her.' I leap up from the sofa and pace the room. My thoughts are whirling like a tornado. 'But what if it's true what they say about him?' Mum asks Roger. 'What's that?' 'About how his wife died...' 'It's gossip, nothing more.' Roger sits next to Mum and pulls her hand into his. 'Stop worrying about everyone else. You need to start worrying about yourself and that little fella you're carrying.' She looks up into his eyes. 'But if he's capable of that...' 'The police cleared him, Lisa. Nothing was ever proved.' 'But the girl... she had a mark on her cheek.' Roger sighs and lets go of her hand. 'That was from the cold or something. I don't know. Whatever is going on in their house is none of our business.' 'It will be if we've made things worse.' 'For God's sake, Lisa, just leave it!' Roger jumps up and stalks into the kitchen. I stare at Mum, trying to make sense of what they've just said. What did the police clear Bethany's dad of? I never heard anything about it at school. Whatever it was, it was the sort of thing that adults discussed in hushed tones when they thought the kids weren't about. And Bethany has never said anything to me. The idea hits me like a smack in the face: this is it; this is why I'm here. I have to warn her, I have to keep her safe.

I reach Bethany's house so fast I feel like I've flown, but even as I get to the front door I know it wasn't fast enough. The crash of breaking china reaches my ears. I push through the front door and run the length of the house to find Bethany on the floor in the kitchen, shards of crockery at her feet. Her dad is standing over her, fists clenched. He's skinny, a whip of a man, and if I had substance I know I could take him down. But I don't and I can't do anything and the thought makes the rage boil inside me. Bethany stares up at me, shaking her head in the tiniest movement. 'I will not have the likes of Roger Smith laughing at me behind my back,' Bethany's dad growls. 'What the hell were you thinking?' 'I didn't mean, I don't know...'Her voice trails off into nothing. 'You'd better come up with a damn good explanation, lady.' I can smell something on him. I can't remember what it is but it smells sleazy, unclean. He sways slightly and his words are drawn out as if he can't quite recall how to speak. Bethany scrambles back towards the wall, trying to get away from him, but he steps forwards and she's suddenly cornered. 'You have to run, Beth, you have to get out,' I shout. She doesn't look at me. Her wide eyes are trained on her dad. She's waiting, she knows what's coming. I can't believe that she's just going to sit there and take it. 'Listen to me.' I say, trying to stay calm, 'you're in big trouble if you stay here this time. This is what I'm here for - I'm here to warn you.' Her dad lunges for her and she crawls out of his reach, slicing her hand on a piece of china. Her blood smudges across the tiles as she scoots away. He whirls around to find her. 'Get back here, I haven't finished with you yet!' he roars. She stumbles to her feet and heads for the kitchen door, tearing out into the hallway. He lumbers after her, swearing as he collides with the doorframe. Red handprints trail the wall of the stairs as she runs up them. 'What are you doing? Get outside!' I shout after her. I overtake her dad and chase her upstairs, but somehow he catches up and grabs her leg. She squeals and tries to kick him away. 'You little bitch,' he snarls as he wrenches her back. She falls on her front and I try to catch her but her chin hits the step with a sickening crack. 'I'll teach you to go round folks' houses and tell them a load of cock and bull.' He starts to pull her down the stairs. 'Get off her!' I shout. Bethany's eyes are half closed; her leg twitches feebly but she can't seem to fight him off. 'Beth, wake up!' She looks in my direction but I don't think she's really seeing me. Her mouth is bleeding; it looks bad but I can't tell. 'Why aren't you fighting back?' She seems to focus on me now. 'Because it's easier not to,' she whispers. Her arms drag limp over the stairs above her as she's jolted down the steps, one at a time. 'Think you can get away from me!' Bethany's dad roars. 'No!' I shout. 'Beth, get out!' She's in reach now and Bethany's dad flips her round and smacks the back of his hand across her face. She whimpers but doesn't try to escape as he does it again. 'Please... Beth, run...' My rage turns to despair as I see her give up. I'm her guardian angel - I'm supposed to save her and I can't even do that right. I lean down and put my lips close to her ear. 'Please, Beth. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for me.' He lifts his hand to strike again and she shields her face with her arms. Instead he grabs her hair and pulls her up while she screams and scrapes at his hands, trying to prise open his grip. He doesn't let go, but swings her round and tosses her down the remaining few stairs and she lands in an awkward heap at the bottom. I leap down the steps to her. 'Beth, are you ok?' She looks up at me and nods in a tiny movement but she's clutching at her chest and gulping at air, like she can't get enough. 'What's the matter?' She doesn't reply but I don't know whether that's because she can't or daren't. Her dad is down the stairs now and standing over her. 'I'm still waiting for an explanation.' Bethany turns her wide eyes to me, and then back to him. Whatever she tells him won't make any difference to the trouble she's in now and we both know that. 'I'm sorry, Dad,' she wheezes. 'It was a stupid bet, that's all.'

He grabs for her hair again and she squeals as he pulls her up to stand. 'I'll teach you to show me up,' he says bending down and looking her square in the eye. 'Of all the stupid, stupid tricks...' 'No, Dad... please, I didn't mean anything by it...it was a mistake...' 'Oh, yes,' he drags her down the hallway, still gripping her by the hair, 'it was a mistake alright.' Her feet scuff the floor; she's barely touching it as he pulls her along to the kitchen. All I can do is watch and try to fight the suffocating panic that's stopping me from thinking properly. If I lose Bethany, I lose more than just her -I lose my only link to this world and the thought terrifies me. Bethany's dad slings her through the kitchen doorway by her hair. She squeals as she skids across the floor. I look at him. There's so much anger in his eyes, but it's not like someone normal gets angry, it's like he's not really himself anymore, he's just this unthinking heap of rage. He could kill her, I'm sure, without even knowing he was doing it. Something suddenly clicks into place. 'This is what happened to your mum, isn't it?' I say to Bethany. 'And when she died you took her place, you started to get the beatings instead.' Bethany scrambles to her feet. 'No,' she whispers. 'You can't keep protecting him. You need to get out and go somewhere safe, somewhere where he can't hurt you anymore.' She shakes her head uncertainly. 'He killed your mum! And he'll do the same to you!' 'He didn't mean to,' she says. 'It doesn't matter! Dead is dead, Beth, whether he meant it or not. Just look at him, he doesn't care!' She looks at me and frowns, like she's working out some complicated puzzle. She's about to say something when her dad starts towards her with his hand raised again. As she backs away, her bare foot catches a shard of china. She winces and draws her foot up and the action knocks her off balance, sending her crashing down. The side of her head hits the table as she falls to the floor and then she is still. Her dad stares at her as she lies on the grubby tiles and the fog seems to clear from his eyes. 'Bethany?' He stoops down and lifts her head to lean on his arm, patting her cheek gently. 'Wake up, Beth. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' Her head lolls to one side and he gently turns her face to him. 'Oh God, not again. Beth, please...' She begins to groan and her eyes slowly open. It takes a second for her to focus and then she pushes herself up and scoots backwards across the floor, away from him. She hits the wall and pulls her knees to her chest, watching him carefully. 'I know you killed Mum,' she says quietly. His mouth drops open. 'It was an accident, you know it was.' She shakes her head. 'You're going to kill me too.' 'Bethany, I would never...' He's still on his knees. He makes a move towards her and she backs along the wall, squeezing herself into a corner. 'Get away from me!' she cries. I move to the doorway and hold out my hand. 'Come on, Beth, get out now while he's calm.' She just pulls her knees in tighter. She looks at me and then back at him. I glance across at him; he has his face in his hands now. Then he looks up at her and his cheeks are wet. He lumbers to his feet and holds out his arms to her. 'Bethany, I'm so sorry...' Her eyes widen and she squeals as she leaps up and bolts for the doorway. I can hear him calling after her but he doesn't give chase. We tear along the hall together and she yanks open the front door and runs out into the snow. Bethany sits on the wall at the churchyard hugging herself. She's only wearing a thin jumper and her feet are bare. There's a huge gash along the edge of one of them and there's a

bruise spreading across her cheekbone. I suppose there must be loads of other bruises, under her clothes. At least her mouth has stopped bleeding now. The church is quiet and dark again now; the carol service must have ended ages ago and everyone will be safe and warm in their homes. The graves are buried under a blanket of white, the snow still falling heavily and muffling the sounds around us. 'You can't stay out like this,' I say to her for what seems like the hundredth time. 'You'll freeze to death. Go and see my mum, she'll help you.' Bethany shakes her head forcefully. 'Maybe your dad has calmed down now? You could go back home?' 'I can't. I can't ever go back.' She's not crying now but her voice has a defeated weariness to it that's almost worse. 'You said he'd kill me.' I did and I really believed it. But now I'm wondering whether sitting out here in this snow this will be the thing that kills her quicker. 'What are you going to do, then?' She shrugs. 'You're really cold now?' 'A bit,' she says. 'I don't feel so good either.' 'What's wrong?' She squeezes her eyes sbut and then opens them again to look at me. 'My head feels funny, it keeps spinning. And I have a headache coming.' I feel that panic bubble up inside me again. I need to keep her safe but I don't know what to do for her. She must have hit her head harder than it looked. 'You have to get out of the snow.' I scan the landscape. 'The church might be unlocked. You could shelter in there for a bit.' She drops unsteadily from the wall and wobbles for a second before we start walking slowly towards the doors of the church. Her footsteps make no sound and hardly dent the snow. Seeing it unnerves me; it's like she's halfway dead already. 'You're ok?' I ask. She's not ok, but I don't know what else to say. 'My head really hurts,' she says. 'I feel like it's a balloon being pumped up.' We stop in the porch and Bethany pulls at the iron door handle but the door doesn't open. 'Try again,' I say. 'It must be open, churches are supposed to be open all the time in case you want to pray.' She yanks it harder but it stays sbut. 'No praying today,' she says. I try to bite back the frustration that's building. I wish I could try the handle myself because I'm positive it wouldn't be locked. Looking at Bethany as she slides down the door to sit against it, I'm pretty sure that she can't open it because she's just too weak. But it seems pointless asking her again and at least the porch is some shelter from the snow. She closes her eyes and holds her head. 'It's worse?' I ask. 'About the same.' 'Maybe you'll feel better if you sit here for a while?' 'Maybe.' Leaning over to her side she's suddenly sick. She wipes her mouth, not even noticing the steaming puddle by her side, leans back on the door and closes her eyes. 'You can't go to sleep, Beth.' I don't know much about first aid, but I'm pretty sure that's a bad thing to do when you've had a knock on the head. Her eyes don't open and she doesn't answer me. 'Beth!' I shout. 'Don't go to sleep!' 'I'm not,' she murmurs with her eyes still closed. 'Open your eyes.' 'I can't.' 'Yes, you can. Open your eyes.' 'It's dark. What's the point?' 'It's not that dark, Beth. There are lights, on the Christmas tree. Open your eyes and tell me what you see.' 'Everything's spinning too much. It makes me feel sick.' 'You need to go to the hospital.' 'Who will take me?'

'We'll walk to a phone box. You can call an ambulance.' She screws her eyes tight, as though she suddenly has a flare of pain. 'It's too far,' she says through gritted teeth. Then her face relaxes again and she tilts her head back against the door. 'Beth... Beth... you're not going to sleep, are you?' 'Just for a while.' 'No, you can't!' I think about ways of keeping her awake. 'Play the memory game with me.' I can't.' 'Tell me about hot chocolate and being wrapped in a big blanket.' 'I'm too cold to remember what being warm is like.' I see that she's shivering worse than ever. Her head has started to drop to one side. 'You have to get up, Beth. You can't stay here; you need to walk around, get help. Please, go and see my mum, she'll sort you out.' 'She hates me.' 'Shell still help.' Bethany says nothing. 'Please, please...' My voice is strangled in my throat. 'It's not that far and she will help you.' Bethany shakes her head slightly and then screws her face into a pained frown. 'Your head is worse?' 'Yes,' she whispers. 'Ok,' I say, trying to stay calm. 'If you won't see my mum then how about Raven? She's nice, she'd help you.' 'I would like some headache tablets,' Bethany's words suddenly sound a bit slurred. 'And maybe some green tea... yeah, that would be nice.' 'Come on, then. Let's go.' Holding onto the doorframe she drags herself up and then falls onto all fours. Slowly but painfully, she stands again. 'You can do this,' I say. 'Just concentrate, one step at a time, yeah?' 'You'll help me?' 'Ill be here all the time.' She clutches at me and falls against the wall. 'Beth!' 'Where did you go?' she asks, staring at me. Something in her eyes isn't right, like she can't understand who I am. 'You can't hold onto me.' 'But you said you'd help.' 'You have to walk on your own. I'll be right beside you... ok?' She doesn't answer straightaway and looks as though she's trying to figure me out. Then she says, 'ok.' She looks down at her feet. 'Where are my shoes?' she asks. 'You ran out without them, remember?' 'Did I?' 'Come on, you need to walk. Raven's house is a long way.' I wonder whether I can guide her to mine instead. It's closer and if she's this confused she might not notice. Her steps are so wobbly and slow that I feel my frustration start to build again but I have to stay calm. 'That's it,' I tell her. 'Just keep walking.' We make our way down the path. At least, I think it's the path -I can't really tell now. Bethany sinks into the snow, ankle deep with every step. She's shivering but she doesn't even try to hug herself for warmth now. Her head is all over the place, like her neck can't support it properly, and her eyes keep closing from time to time, but she keeps walking like I tell her to. Raven's house is about fifteen minutes away if you can walk normally, but God knows how long it's going to take us to get there. As we walk, Bethany seems to wake up a little. 'What am I going to say to Raven when we get there?' 'About what?' 'I can't tell her that my dad hit me.'

'Why not? He deserves to go to prison.' 'Not that,' she says, her voice wobbling. 'And if he did, what would I do?' 'You'd be safe.' 'I'd go into care. I'd have to leave the village.' 'But I thought you wanted to leave the village?' 'I did, but not like that,' she says. 'What about you? I wouldn't be able to see you again.' I don't answer. What she says makes me feel more alone than ever, but I can't think about that now. 'We'd think of something. Let's just get to Raven's.' She stops and turns to me. 'I don't think I should go.' 'I don't care what you think, we're going.' 'You can't tell me what to do.' 'Please... you promised me...' Then she clutches at her head and falls into the snow. I drop to my knees beside her. 'Beth? Are you ok?' 'No,' she whimpers. 'It hurts so much.' 'Please... please... just try to get up. Just go to Raven's house and she'll be able to help.' But she doesn't answer. I watch as she curls up into a ball and holds her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. 'Beth...' I shake away the despair that threatens to swallow me and shout at her in the harshest voice I can force out. 'Beth, you need to get up.' She lies on the ground, crying and holding her head. 'BETH!' Then she looks up at me and the cloud of pain seems to clear from her face. 'Come on...' I hold out my hand. As she reaches for it I step back and back, Beth grabbing for me until she's on her feet again. 'You can walk?' I ask. 'I think so.' We have to pass by Mart's house to get to Raven's. As we round the corner of his street, I see him having a snowball fight with Paulie. Ingrid sits on his garden wall hugging herself. She has a woolly hat pulled tight over her head but she looks freezing. Matt and Paulie are laughing their heads off as they mess around but she's just watching them with a frown. She looks up as she sees Bethany approach but doesn't say anything. Matt and Paulie see her too. They stand and say nothing, but as soon as she passes them, a snowball hits her in the back and then they break into laughter, another volley of snowballs following quickly after. Some of them hit Bethany, and some just sail past her to disappear in the snow ahead. 'Don't look round,' I say to Bethany. 'Just keep walking.' Bethany keeps her face fixed forwards and concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other. 'Let's give her the white death!' Matt shouts. 'Leave it,' Ingrid says. 'What?' Matt says. 'I said leave her alone.' Matt doesn't reply. I look back to see what they're doing, but he and Paulie just look at each other, and then laugh. Not at Beth, though, but at Ingrid. 'Shut it, Matt,' Ingrid says in a bored voice. She leaps from the wall and trudges after Bethany. 'Hey, are you ok?' Ingrid asks as she catches up, glancing at Bethany's bare feet. Bethany looks up at her. 'Hey.' 'Are you ok?' Ingrid asks her again. 'Yeah,' Bethany says. 'I'm going to Raven's house.' 'But... you have no shoes on.' 'Oh,' Bethany looks confused. 'I left them at home. David told me to.' 'David?' 'You know, David Cottle. He's at our school.' 'I know who he is,' Ingrid says, frowning, 'you know he's dead, right? You went to the funeral.'

'I know,' says Bethany, still walking. Ingrid throws an uncertain glance back at Matt and Paulie, who are watching her talk to Bethany with smirks on their stupid faces. 'Don't you think you should wear some shoes?' she asks Bethany. 'I left them at home,' Bethany says. 'Come on, Ingrid,' I say, 'open your eyes! You can see she's not right!' Ingrid suddenly stops and shivers. She stares all around her. 'You can hear me!' I shout at Ingrid. You can hear me! You have to help!' Ingrid shakes herself and catches up with Bethany. 'Hey, are you sure you're ok? Do you want me to take you home?' 'I'm not going home,' Bethany says, 'I'm going to Raven's. She has green tea and blankets.' Ingrid looks as though she might argue, just for a moment. Then she stops following Bethany and turns to walk back. 'Ingrid, you stupid cow!' I yell at her. 'Please...' But Ingrid carries on walking back to Matt. 'Oooooh,' Matt says in a mocking voice, 'is that your new best mate?' 'Don't be stupid. I just wondered why she didn't have any shoes on.' 'Because she's a total freak,' Paulie cuts in. 'Everyone knows that.' 'Ingrid likes her,' Matt says. Ingrid stares hard at him. You're such a loser, do you know that?' 'Come on, I was only joking,' Matt says. 'I'm sick of this, I'm going home.' I see her turn back the way me and Beth have come, towards her house. Paulie looks at Matt, who shrugs, and then jogs after Ingrid, leaving Paulie to stand on his own in the middle of the snowy street. Bethany reaches for Raven's doorbell. It takes her a few seconds to get a finger to it, like she's drunk and can't see it properly. Then she presses and waits, leaning her head against the door. Her legs are deep in the drift that has collected at Raven's door and I can't see her feet. When nobody answers, I tell her to ring again. I don't think she's in,' Bethany says. Her voice is small, like she's completely exhausted. 'She is,' I say, 'she has to be. Last time she didn't answer straight away. Perhaps the doorbell doesn't work properly. Press it again.' Bethany doesn't reach for the bell, she just thuds a fist against the glass. It hardly makes a sound though. 'You have to knock louder than that, she'll never hear you.' Bethany slumps against the door and then grabs at her head again. 'Your headache's back?' I ask. She doesn't reply, she just crams her head between her knees and whimpers. If ever I needed to make Raven hear me, it's now. I squeeze through the door and into the house. The hallway is in darkness. I make my way to the living room and the fireguard is up, ashes smouldering in the grate. I run upstairs. Two bedrooms, both empty. Not in the bathroom either. I push myself back out to Beth. 'She's not in! The stupid cow never goes anywhere but the one night we need her she's not here!' I grab at my hair and look around. There's not a soul around but me and Bethany, who is still slumped up against Raven's door. My mind races, thinking about where Raven could be. 'Maybe she's gone to see my mum. Maybe she heard me after all and she's going to try and help her somehow. We need to go there.' Bethany closes her eyes and doesn't answer. 'Please, Beth, just one more little walk, I promise.' She staggers to her feet. Then her legs collapse and she falls back against Raven's front door again. It doesn't seem like Bethany can walk anywhere now. I wonder whether there's a way I can get Raven home if I can find her. 'Ok,' I tell Bethany, 'stay here, I'll go and find out where Raven is, then I'll come back for you.'

Raven is at my house sitting in the living room with Mum; Roger doesn't seem to be anywhere around. They're drinking tea and Mum looks as though she's been crying again. But there's no time to listen to what they're talking about. 'Raven! It's me! You need to see me!'I shout as loud as I can. Raven doesn't even look my way. I close my eyes and concentrate hard, trying to focus on her hearing me or feeling my presence. When I look up, she's still talking to Mum in a low voice. 'JUST LISTEN TO ME!' I grab at photos on the mantelpiece, prints on the walls, the curtains, desperately trying to move something. I smash my hand along the bookshelf, but it goes through every book, hardly stirring the dust from their spines. 'MUM!' Nothing. 'Mum, Bethany needs you.... I need you...' I can't cry, I won't cry. 'Please... one of you... I can't lose her, not now.' When I get back to Raven's front door, Bethany isn't there. I search around the outside of the house for her, and then I look inside in case she's managed to find a way in, but everywhere is as deserted as it was before. Maybe she went home. If she went home, then perhaps she feels better. Or if she doesn't, then surely her dad would get an ambulance for her. But then I think back to what happened earlier on, and the rage in her dad's eyes, and I'm not so sure he would. I have to go and find her. The only thing to do now is get her back to my house before Roger returns and Raven leaves. If Raven is there and Roger is not, Mum will help Bethany for sure. Bethany is not at her house either. Her dad is still sitting on the floor of the kitchen staring into space, broken pots and bloody handprints all around him. He has an open bottle of something clutched in his hand. He has that look again, like when I saw him the first time, like someone who has forgotten what he's for. I don't know if he'd be any use to Bethany now, even if I did get her home. No, the only thing I can do for Bethany is get her to my mum. And that means I have to find her, and find her fast. The next best bet seems like the churchyard and that's where I find Bethany. Not at her mum's grave where I expected to find her, or even at mine. Instead, she's huddled in the doorway of the church again and her eyes are closed. 'Beth?' She slowly opens her eyes and looks up at me. 'One more walk, Beth,' I say, the relief flooding through me. 'One more, can you do it?' But Bethany just stares, her eyes not really seeing me at all. 'We have to get to my Mum's. Raven is there and Roger is out. Mum and Raven can help you.' 'Later,' she says groggily, closing her eyes 'Now! Get up!' 'I'm tired, Dad,' she whispers. 'Can't I have a piggy back?' 'It's me, David...' Her eyes open slightly and she tries hard to focus on me. 'David Cottle... aren't you dead?' 'What's wrong with you? We've been hanging out for weeks.' She frowns. 'Oh yes, I know now. You're from my school.' 'You're freaking me out. Get up; we're going to my mum's.' 'Where?' 'My house. Raven is there.' 'Do you think she'll have green tea?' 'Yes.' I stand up. 'She'll have lots of it. And headache tablets and warm blankets.' 'That does sound nice.' 'Then you have to get up,' I say in the sternest voice I can muster. She grabs for my leg and her hand goes clean through. 'You have to do it on your own,' I say. I can't,' she breathes. 'You can. You just have to concentrate.'

She rolls forward onto all fours, then takes a deep breath and pushes herself up slowly. Grabbing for the stones of the archway, she staggers outside. 'Come on, Beth, you're up now. All we have to do is keep walking, it's not that far.' I know that it is, and I don't think she can make it, but I have to try. But we only get to the stone wall at the edge of the churchyard and she pitches sideways and falls into the snow behind it. 'Beth, come on, get up.' She doesn't reply and her eyes are closed. 'Bethany, please...' Nothing. 'You can't go to sleep!' I shout, almost scream at her. I have to get her up no matter what. But she doesn't move. 'Beth, please!' I cast around for something, anything to keep her with me. I drop to my knees beside her. 'Tell me what snow feels like, Beth. Tell me what this feels like now.' The sky is still full of fat snowflakes which are starting to cover her already. 'Please, I need to remember snow, I need to know how it feels!' Her voice is a tiny whisper. 'It feels... it feels like...' 'How, Beth, how does it feel?' 'Like a soft blanket to die under,' she murmurs. 'No!' I glance up and see a figure coming from the direction of Yarrow Lane. 'Bert!' I run towards him waving my arms. 'Bert, come quickly.' I jump up and down in front of him but he carries on walking. 'Please, you have to come she's going to die.' If I can just get him to look rebind the wall he could save her. I will him with all my strength. Stupid old git, just look behind the wall. But he carries on down the lane, huddled in his great big duffle coat, his boots crunching through the snow. I run back to Bethany. 'Beth,' I shout. 'There's help nearby. You have to make a noise, something, or he won't know you're here.' She's still and silent and disappearing beneath the snow. I can feel tears burning my eyes but I can't cry. 'Just one tiny noise, Beth, that's all you have to do.' But Bert's already on his way past the churchyard in the direction of the pub and I know it's too late. It stopped snowing a couple of hours ago. The sun has risen; a blinding white disc in a pink sky behind the bare trees. Bethany is where she fell last night. She's covered in snow, melted in places, but it still hides her from sight. I lay next to her and kept talking, but she never answered. I wonder if the vicar will be here soon to open up the church and maybe hell see her. I stand up and look over the wall for him. After last night I know that I won't be able to make him see Bethany but I feel like I should at least try. Something warm slips into my hand and takes hold. For a second, I don't realize what it means. But then I think about it. I can feel something. I daren't look around. 'David,' she says. I shake my head. I don't want it to be true but the warmth of her hand in mine is too good to ignore. 'Look at me,' she says. Slowly, I turn to face her. She's still barefooted, in the same clothes that she ran out of her house in last night, but there's not a mark on her skin and she looks... she looks really pretty. 'You're dead?' She looks down at her hand in mine and gives it a squeeze, like she's testing it out. 'I think I must be. I don't feel sad, though.' 'It's my fault.' She smiles, that smile that she saves for me. 'It's not,' she says. 'You did what you were meant to.' 'I didn't do anything. I was supposed to protect you.' She shakes her head and there is such tenderness in her look that I feel like I could burst.

'You were here for me,' she says, 'but not to save me. You were here to wait for me.' 'I... I don't understand.' 'Neither do I,' she says. 'Perhaps we're not meant to.' Together, we look down at her lying under the snow. 'So, what now?' I ask. 'Maybe well just hang out here until whatever is supposed to happen next happens.' 'What do you think that is?' 'Maybe your dad and my mum will come and get us now.' 'Do you really think that's what is going to happen?' 'I don't know.' She shrugs. 'But we'll find out together.' And she grips my hand a little tighter.