Tamsyn Murray-My So-Called Haunting

by Tamsyn Murray

  ‘So your aunt sees ghosts as well?’ He studied me for a moment, then waved a hand at the church. ‘Was that her in there?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You look like family,’ he said. ‘But your mum isn’t psychic?’

  ‘No.’ I decided that whatever game we’d been playing was over now and it was OK to introduce myself. ‘I’m Skye Thackery.’

  ‘Dontay Ambrose.’ He held out a fist and I tried to tap it with my own. My fingers slid through his and I dropped my hand with a shiver.

  Now that we were on first-name terms, I guessed it was all right to sit next to him on the wall. It looked more natural to passers-by than me standing on my own in the middle of the pavement. Not that anyone had walked past, but I didn’t want to risk attracting the wrong kind of attention. In somewhere like Kensal Green any sort of attention could be the wrong kind. ‘Are you, er, from round here?’

  ‘Nah,’ he replied, throwing a scornful look up and down the street. ‘Kensal Green is small time, man. I’m from Hackney.’

  I stared at him. Where had I heard that name recently? Then a memory surfaced. ‘A boy got really badly beaten there last week. I saw it on the news.’

  Dontay’s eyes didn’t meet mine. ‘Yeah, and?’

  ‘It was a gang crime, wasn’t it?’ I heard my tone hardening at his apparent indifference. ‘He was on another gang’s turf so they taught him a lesson.’

  He shrugged, but it wasn’t convincing. ‘You got to be careful round there. They don’t tolerate no disrespect.’

  The cogs in my brain whirred. ‘So you were a gang member?’

  A closed look came over his face and his gaze skittered away. ‘Might have been.’

  The mixed messages I was getting were confusing. On one hand, he seemed almost proud of where he was from, but on the other, I’d sensed hostility towards the gang culture which seemed to be part of his everyday life there. Hesitantly, I asked, ‘Is that how you died?’

  He pushed off from the wall with a violent effort, facing me angrily. ‘What’s it to you how I died? I didn’t come here for no interrogation.’

  He turned and stormed off down the street, passing a group of men heading towards me.

  ‘Dontay, wait!’ I started to call, but the words died in my throat. From the way the men were staggering along it looked like they’d spent the afternoon in the pub and their slurred conversation was drifting along the pavement. The last thing I needed was a drunken run-in. With a dejected shrug, I gave up on Dontay and headed back to the Dearly D. I hoped he’d be back once he’d calmed down, because underneath the attitude, I’d seen a flash of how he really felt: scared and alone. Sooner or later he’d have to admit he needed help. And until that happened, at least I had his name.

  On Wednesday morning I had to catch the bus because Mary had hidden one of my shoes, and by the time I’d found it I didn’t have time to walk. The downside of it was that I was treated to a glimpse of the suicide ghost as we trundled over Hornsey Lane Bridge. Watching her tortured face through the window as we rolled by, I decided I’d take Jeremy up on his offer of a lift. Apart from anything else, I was starting to dread my journey to school each day.

  It was turning out to be harder than I expected to find out who the woman was. Once Celestine and I had got back from the Dearly D, I’d been straight on to the laptop, hoping to catch Megan on MSN, but there was no sign of her. Then I remembered she’d mentioned going to the cinema with her parents and younger sister. None of my Edinburgh friends were online either; MSN was so quiet it practically had tumbleweeds blowing across the screen. I’d spent the rest of the evening Googling both our mystery ghosts. Although I couldn’t find the woman I’d seen, there were plenty of other suicides in Highgate to choose from, and they made grim reading. I shuddered in bleak disbelief as we scrolled through report after report of the desperate souls who’d leaped to their deaths from the bridge at Hornsey Lane.

  ‘I so need to find another way to school,’ I said to Celestine as we read on. ‘That bridge is seriously bad news.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve driven underneath it once or twice and got a chill each time. I try to avoid it if I can.’

  Google had more to offer when I tapped in Dontay Ambrose, but in a way I wished it hadn’t. He was from the estates that towered over the Hackney skyline, and his story had made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. I understood why he’d kicked off when I’d asked about gangs. Although the newspaper reports claimed he was one of the London Fields Posse, he hadn’t died because of it. In fact, his heartbroken mother had sworn he’d hated the violent culture around him, which explained his reaction to my questions. Hanging with a mate outside the tall block of flats where he’d lived, Dontay had been caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. Paramedics had struggled to stem the bleeding from the wounds to his thigh and neck, but he hadn’t really stood a chance. It had been a tragic consequence of a pointless war; being in the wrong place at the wrong time had cost him his life. No wonder he was angry.

  I approached the school gates with an odd mixture of anticipation and uneasiness swirling around with my Coco Pops. If Mystery Boy had blabbed to his mates, I might as well turn around and go home because, by now, the entire school probably knew I was mentally unhinged. If he had, it wouldn’t really matter what I did next; the whispering would have already begun.

  As I crossed the playground, I braced myself for the onslaught of muttered comments and averted looks. Dr Bailey was there, glowering at the other kids. ‘You there! Smarten up or ship out, boy!’

  I had his lines in my bag, thanks to Jeremy’s genius idea of typing them up using one of the handwriting fonts on the laptop. It’d taken minutes to do and Dr Bailey would be none the wiser. He’d have to wait until lessons had begun, though; I couldn’t risk being caught apparently talking to myself again. I ducked out of his line of sight, my eyes darting left and right for evidence that I was the hot topic on the gossip grapevine. There didn’t seem to be any. A group of Year Sevens giggled when I walked by, but that didn’t mean anything – giggling came as standard with them. In fact, as I reached registration without a single thing out of the ordinary happening, I realised it could only mean one thing: Mystery Boy hadn’t told.

  Typically, there was no sign of Megan, so I joined the end of the queue outside the classroom and leaned against the corridor wall. One or two of the other kids nodded to me, and Ellie McCauley threw me a dirty look, but there was no smothered laughter and definitely no pointing. I couldn’t believe my luck; anyone else would have spread it over Facebook faster than you could say ‘freak show’. Of course, there was always the chance that he was ill and that the true horror would hit me the next day, but I’d worry about that later. What mattered right now was getting through today.

  Mr Exton was late, an irony that wasn’t lost on me. I was idly dreaming about handing him a lunchtime detention when I realised a furious whispering had broken out among Ellie and her mates. Here it comes, I thought, misery uncoiling in my gut; the nightmare begins. But judging from the excited glances they were casting along the corridor behind me, I wasn’t the topic of conversation. It had to be someone pretty high up the Heath Park pecking order to send the McCauley Coven into such a frenzy. I twisted round and craned my head to see what the fuss was about, but since I was pretty much the shortest fourteen-year-old on the planet, my chances were zero.

  ‘Hi, Nico,’ I heard Ellie simper and I followed her gaze. My jaw dropped open in disbelief. For the third time in two days, I was looking at Mystery Boy. Was he stalking me or something?

  He wasn’t returning Ellie’s admiring glances, though. His eyes were fixed on me, dark and intense. His expression was unfathomable as he slowed.

  ‘All right?’ he said, raising his chin in greeting.

  I nodded, my tongue suddenly feeling twice its size and incapable of speech. Then he was past me and disappearing along the corridor. My frazzled brain scrambled to catch up. He wasn’t off sick, which had to
mean he’d kept quiet about my little ‘episode’ the day before. As grateful as I was, I couldn’t help wondering why.

  ‘Who was that?’ I demanded of Ellie.

  Peering after him, she didn’t reply. Megan did, though. I hadn’t even noticed her arrive.

  ‘Nico Albescu, from the other half of Year Ten,’ she said breathlessly, her eyes glittering with interest. ‘Man of mystery and officially the Fittest Boy Ever.’

  So how come she hadn’t mentioned him before? I’d heard plenty about Charlie Henderson, who Megan had admired from afar since Year Eight, but nothing about a solid gold hottie in our midst. ‘Albescu?’ I echoed, frowning. ‘What kind of surname is that – Polish?’

  Megan’s forehead creased as she stared after him. ‘Romanian, but I think he’s lived in this country most of his life, because his English is so good. He started here in September and keeps himself to himself. Disappears every now and then, which is why you haven’t seen him before. Single, as far as we know.’

  Ellie turned round and studied me through narrowed eyes. ‘He seems to know you, though. How? You’ve only been here five minutes and he doesn’t bother with just anyone.’

  I shrugged. ‘I’ve bumped into him a few times, that’s all.’

  She looked like she didn’t believe a word of it. ‘Don’t get any ideas about him. He’s mine.’

  ‘Has anyone told him that?’ I said, before my survival instinct cut in.

  Ellie’s pretty face darkened with jealousy as she stepped towards me. ‘You’re new, so I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, but I mean it when I say keep away from him. This isn’t High School Musical and Little Miss Geeky does not steal the show. Get it?’

  In other circumstances I might have risen to the challenge, but I couldn’t get involved with Nico Albescu. So what if he went right up to eleven on the gorgeousness scale and had swooped in like Prince Charming’s sexier younger brother? Even if I did owe him for keeping quiet about the incident in the hallway it didn’t mean we were going to be mates. Or anything else, no matter how much he turned my brain to jelly and made my stomach flip whenever I saw him. Because the simple truth was that I’d never trusted anyone with my secret, not even my closest friends back in Scotland. How did you begin a conversation like that? Maybe one day I’d meet someone I could confide in, but they’d have to be pretty special or I’d be checking in at Heartbreak Hotel before I knew it.

  Mr Exton turned up and huffed his way to the front of the line to open the classroom. I couldn’t explain the real reason I couldn’t be interested in Nico to Ellie, but if I wanted to save myself some unnecessary grief I’d have to show her I wasn’t a threat. As I sank into my seat I could practically hear her sharpening her claws.

  While Mr Exton called the register from his laptop, I peered down at my timetable. Ellie and I hardly shared any of the same classes but we did have PE together that afternoon. Maybe I’d get a chance to talk to her then, preferably before she decapitated me with a hockey stick.

  Megan twisted in her seat and leaned towards me. ‘Don’t worry about Ellie. She’s fancied Nico since he arrived, but he doesn’t even know she exists.’ She pushed her Calvin Klein glasses back up her nose and grinned. ‘Which is why she got so bothered when he spoke to you. How do you know him?’

  ‘I don’t really,’ I murmured back. ‘He sorted out a few Year Eleven boys who were having a go yesterday, but that’s about it.’

  It wasn’t exactly the whole truth, but it was enough for Megan. Her eyes widened. ‘He rescued you?’ she squeaked. ‘How romantic!’

  Mr Exton looked up in irritation and Megan spun round to face the front. I stared at her mass of chestnut curls and thought about what she’d said. Now that she mentioned it, I supposed it did sound kind of romantic, but the reality had been anything but; my bruised ribcage was proof of that. And although Nico had appeared out of nowhere to save me, he’d hardly stuck around afterwards to sweep me off my feet. No, I decided, romance had definitely not featured highly.

  The second Mr Exton’s attention was back on the laptop, Megan twisted round again, her eyes gleaming with excitement. ‘Did you exchange longing glances? Ellie is going to go nuts when she finds out!’

  Longing glances? Where was this girl from – Mills and Boonsville? ‘No, we didn’t, and I’d rather Ellie didn’t find out about it.’ Her face lit up and I knew I’d said the wrong thing. ‘Not that there’s anything to find out about. Nico appeared, Peterson and his gang left and we all went our separate ways. End of story.’

  Well, almost end of story, I thought as I crossed my fingers under the table.

  ‘Except that he came to find you this morning.’

  I sighed. ‘No, he happened to walk past me in the corridor.’

  Megan shook her head from side to side like a wet dog. ‘He didn’t. The other Year Ten classes are over on the opposite side of the building so he had no reason to be here.’ She paused meaningfully. ‘Other than searching for you, that is.’

  Mr Exton’s head rose sharply and his expression was one of extreme annoyance. ‘Do you girls want to share your conversation with the rest of the class, since it clearly can’t wait until breaktime?’

  Eek, absolutely not. Megan faced the front and we both chorused, ‘No, sir.’

  We sat in silence until the bell rang for first lesson. As we left the room, Megan mouthed, ‘Lunchtime!’ at me. I nodded and headed off to double science. Next time I saw her I was going to have to set her straight. There was nothing happening between Nico and me. It was a non-story.

  My relationship with my mum is what you might call complicated. Don’t get me wrong, I love her dearly and I know she feels the same way about me, but I always felt things changed once she knew I was psychic. It’s like I was in a gang she could never join, and that somehow made her feel differently towards me. On the outside she was still the same loving mother she’d always been, kissing my knees better when I fell over and putting on funny voices to read my bedtime stories, but I’d occasionally catch her watching me as though she didn’t really know me at all. When she’d been offered the chance to study in Australia, I knew that a tiny part of her wanted a chance at normality, and that had hurt. She was still my mother, whatever our problems were, and my only living parent. But although I hadn’t wanted her to go, it was an opportunity of a lifetime and I couldn’t stand in her way. In spite of our differences, I still missed her every day. We spoke on the phone loads, but even a webcam wasn’t enough to bridge the distance sometimes.

  Celestine was doing her best to make it up to me. Since I’d moved in with her, we’d grown closer than ever and I knew she could read how much I missed Mum. Maybe that was why she’d suggested my helping out at the Dearly D.

  ‘Fancy coming to work with me again later?’ she asked as I sat at the breakfast bar on Thursday evening, puzzling over negative fractions. ‘I’m hoping Dontay will be back.’

  I thought about it. From the way he’d freaked out last time I wasn’t at all sure he’d show up again, but if he did, I wanted to be there. I’d breezed through my homework, and, miraculously, there’d been no more run-ins with the teachers, ghostly or otherwise. I didn’t want to jinx anything, but it felt like things were finally starting to settle down. Maybe I could juggle my social life and psychic life after all. ‘Yeah, OK.’

  ‘It might be better if you don’t ask him straight out about his death. Let him tell you about it in his own time.’

  I nodded as I polished off the last equation. I’d figured that much out for myself. As much as I wanted to help Dontay, I wasn’t going to make the mistake of overstepping the boundary again. Which only left the problem of what we were going to talk about. Somehow, I didn’t think Gossip Girl was going to cut it.

  I spotted him as soon as we walked in, and this time he didn’t bother with the staring match. Waiting until Celestine had discreetly melted away, he approached me, hands stuffed in his pockets and head down.

  ‘Hey,’ I said when
he shuffled to a stop at the front of the church. ‘How’ve you been?’

  ‘All right,’ he mumbled, still staring down at the red-carpeted floor. Then he looked up. ‘Apart from being dead, obviously.’

  I grinned and the tension between my shoulder blades eased. ‘Yeah, apart from that.’

  He flashed me an apologetic look. ‘I’m sorry I went off the other night.’

  ‘It’s OK. I was being nosey anyway.’

  A smile tugged at his lips. ‘Maybe a bit.’

  Glancing around at the rapidly filling church, I said, ‘Do you want to go somewhere to talk? They’ve got some rooms here and I don’t really want to stand outside looking like a lunatic again.’

  A wary expression crept over his face. ‘S’pose.’

  ‘Unless you’d rather chat to some of the other ghosts? Mrs Peacock would love to tell you about her varicose veins.’

  He shuddered. ‘Nah. Let’s get out of here.’

  We slipped through the vestry door and into one of the small side rooms Celestine had told me would be empty. The rooms were set up for the psychics to meet with bereaved families and most had comfortable chairs and a low table. I flicked the light on and settled into a flowery armchair, tucking my legs underneath me. Dontay sat on the sofa in silence, looking like he wished he was somewhere else.

  I wiped my clammy palms on my jeans. ‘This is a bit strange,’ I ventured, as much to break the ice as anything. ‘Although it’s probably weirder for you than me. I mean, I’ve been talking to ghosts my whole life but you’ve only been dead . . .’ I trailed off, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.

  For a second, I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he cleared his throat. ‘Four months. It feels a lot longer, though.’

  I glanced around the room, with its vase of wilting flowers on the chipped coffee table and faded yellow curtains at the window. Ancient magazines fanned out across the ring-marked surface between us. It was like a cross between an old people’s home and a doctor’s surgery, and I couldn’t imagine a worse place to sit with someone who didn’t totally trust you. How was he ever going to open up if neither of us was comfortable?