The Weight of Souls

9 YOU DON’T BELIEVE YOU’RE A GHOST?

“Right.” Justin regarded me from under raised eyebrows. “You’ll ‘avenge’ my ‘death’ so I can ‘move on’.” He used his fingers to create quotation marks. “You are in on it, aren’t you? This is your dare. See how far you can make Justin go? They don’t usually go all in like this, but I guess they have been spicing things up lately. Go on then, what do you have to get me to do?”

I exhaled noisily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, dipwad. I don’t want you to do anything. Just tell me what happened.”

“What happened when?”

“When you died. Tell me who killed you.”

He crossed his arms. “You do what you have to, but I’m not going along with this.” He glowered around the bus. “C’mon you guys. Haven’t you had enough?” His voice had a quaver in it, so slight I could barely hear it.

Anger made me hiss. “How can you not believe this?” I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead. The longer I carried the Mark, the more likely it was that the Darkness would come for me. I’d never had to deal with the newly dead before. I should be gentle with him…

My memory flashed up a scene. It was well-worn, but bright, like a silver locket often taken out of its box, rubbed and replaced.

“Dad! Are you alright?”

He looks like hell; his face so bruised and swollen that the only way I know it’s him is the wedding ring chained over his collar bone. It catches the light as he twists towards me. His arms are in bandages and he’s in plaster up to the waist.

He looks around anxiously. “Where’s your aunt?”

“She brought me in, I wanted to see you.”

He shakes his head and wheezes with the pain of movement. “I told her to keep you at home.”

My eyes fill with tears. He doesn’t want me here.

“She wanted to see Mum too, you know.”

He gives a little jerk, as if he wants to hold my hand, but he can't get to me. Suddenly the curtain around his bed twitches open. A nurse picks up his chart, checks it and gives me a smile.

“Here to see your dad, love? He looks scary at the moment, doesn’t he? Like a mummy. But he’s going to be alright.” As she says it, her eyes darken. “Do you have any sensation in your feet yet, Mr Oh?”

Dad shakes his head and beneath the swelling his jaw tightens. There is silence for a moment as she updates his chart.

“I’m just going to check your temperature and give you a dose of morphine.” She smiles down at me. “Your dad’s going to be a bit out of it for a while, love. Who are you here with?”

“My aunt.” I find that, nice as the nurse is, I can’t speak above a whisper. My whole body is prickling, as if something’s coming: a monster I can’t quite see. “She went to see how my mum’s doing. She’s still in s-surgery.” The word feels foreign on my tongue.

The nurse nods. “Let me go and find her for you.” She finishes taking Dad’s temperature just as the curtain moves behind her. I hold my breath and a doctor steps in. He looks exhausted.

“Have you given him morphine yet, Andi?”

The nurse’s smile freezes. “I was about to.” She hesitates with her hand in the air. “Will I need…?”

“Something stronger, a sedative, yes please.” The doctor comes to sit on the end of the bed. “And who’s this?”

“The daughter.” The nurse is pressing her lips together. They are white as her shoes.

“And she’s with…?”

“An aunt. I’ll send her in.”

Andi, the nurse, almost runs from the cubicle. I stare at the doctor. There’s a tiny speck of blood on the wrist of his gown. His eyes are bloodshot and he avoids looking at me. Dad is saying nothing. As soon as the nurse mentioned the sedative he went cold and still. It’s as if he thinks speaking will bring the monster into the room.

“Dad?” I touch his nose with my finger tip. It’s the only part of him that doesn’t look bruised.

His mouth stretches into a false smile; a rictus that fails to reassure and instead makes me shiver. “I hear your aunt.”

I turn. Dad’s ward is quiet but I can still hear a ringing telephone, running feet, a baby crying. Then my aunt’s voice. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t.”

I whip round and catch Dad’s expression; his features have collapsed like scaffolding. Then Auntie bursts into the room and throws her arms around me.

“We did everything we could…” the doctor begins.

He was kind. But hearing that Mum had died was the worst moment of my life. Wouldn’t finding out that it was you who had passed on be just as bad? Or worse?

I should be kind.

But it was Justin Hargreaves.

“You think this is all a big joke, right?” I wrapped my bare fingers around the rim of my chair. “Go on then, touch my seat.”

He blinked. “I’m sitting right here just fine.”

“Yes, but I want you to touch this seat.”

“Why?” His eyes narrowed. “What’ve you done to it?”

“Nothing. All you have to do is knock on the back of my seat with your fist. What’s wrong, scared you can’t?” I tilted my head in a mocking challenge.

He exhaled. Then all of a sudden he leaned forward and knocked on the back of my seat. At least, he tried to.

As his hand went through the cushion he lost his balance and fell forward. His forearm appeared above my lap and I caught his clenched fist in mine.

Justin yelped and tried to pull away but I kept hold of him, forcing him to look at his arm as it vanished through the chair-back.

“I-it’s a trick of some sort. The seat isn’t there, it’s a… a projection.”

Wordlessly I knocked on the metal rim.

“It’s a trick.” He yanked and I had to let him go. The whites were showing in his eyes and he scooted back against the window. He cradled his hand as if I’d burned it and he was shaking. I was getting through.

“Justin, you’re a ghost.”

He licked his lips. “You touched me, you held my fist.”

“I’m the only one who can touch you. For the same reason I’m the only one who can see you.”

“I’m ending this.” Justin leaped to his feet and addressed the air. “This isn’t funny any more.” He strode down the juddering bus until he reached an art student who was sitting near the sliding doors.

“Hey, pal.” He waved his hand in front of the guy’s face. “I don't know who you are, but the joke’s over.”

The student rubbed his cheek and settled lower in the seat.

“Idiot.” Justin kicked out viciously and his foot connected with the art case that stuck out from the seat opposite. It rocked and fell to the floor with a thud.

Justin stared at his foot and the student swore and reached for his case. His arm went right through Justin’s leg.

Justin yelled and jerked back as the student checked his artwork with a relieved sigh.

I watched Justin desperately patting his leg. It looked like he was on fire. Finally he ran back to me. “Did you see that?”

“You’re a ghost. I’ve seen it before.”

He stared at his legs then slumped into the seat next to me. “It doesn’t make sense,” he whispered.

“You’re dead,” I growled without looking at him.

“Not that. How did that guy’s arm go through my leg after I was able to kick his case? How come I can sit on the bus?”

Surprise pulled my eyebrows upwards; I hadn’t expected him to be able to think clearly about his situation. “I’m not sure how it works exactly. I know you can’t touch anything living, attached to a living thing, or that a living thing is touching directly. The art case was on another seat, that guy wasn’t touching it.” I gestured towards the student, who’d gone back into stasis. “You can sit on your seat, but you can’t touch mine while I’m sitting here. You can’t affect the living in any way. Mum thought it was something to do with resonances. I don’t know.”

“So I could pick up a knife, but not stab someone with it.”

“You don’t have any substance, Hargreaves. You can feel yourself touch things, even knock things over. But you can’t pick anything up; people would notice stuff floating around.”

He frowned. “OK. You’re touching this bus. Shouldn’t I fall through the floor?”

“Everyone on the bus is wearing shoes, Hargreaves. No one is touching the floor directly. You won’t fall through it.”

Tentatively he reached for the back of my seat again. His hand continued through wood and plastic until he groped my shoulder.

“Get off,” I hissed and shrugged him away.

Justin stared at his hands. “You’re the only one I can touch. Ever?”

“Sorry.” I loaded my voice with sarcasm. “Look, once I’ve found your killer and transferred this Mark you left on my hand, you can move on and we’ll never have to see each other again.”

“But…” Justin looked up and his eyes swam with tears. “But I never…” his voice trailed off. His hands dropped to his lap. “I’m going travelling after A-levels. I thought I’d go back to Dubai for a bit. I’m applying to do engineering at Cambridge next year.” His voice broke. “Tammy and I…”

I saw his throat move like he was trying to swallow a huge lump. “I never did anything.”

I bit my lip. “I’m sorry,” I said and I actually was. “If you can tell me how it happened, we can… OK, we can’t make it right but I can avenge you. It’s what I do.”

Justin looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “This is bull.” He hurled himself from his seat and lunged for the back of the bus.

“Come back.” I grabbed for his jacket, but missed.

Ignoring me, he leaped off the bus and onto the Hammersmith overpass, dodged through the traffic and disappeared from view.

Stunned, I stood and wobbled with the movement of the vehicle. “Dammit.” I examined my hands, one clean, the other stained with a blemish that screamed murder. The Darkness was coming. And without Justin, I had no way of getting rid of the Mark before it came for the one carrying it.