Free Mary Hades by Sarah Dalton Page B

concentrating,” she says. “Check this out.”
    Lacey’s form flickers and disappears, leaving the stone floating in the air.
    “Whoa,” I breathe.
    The stone drops down onto the mossy grass with a thud. Lacey reappears.
    “I’m still practising. P retty cool though, right? This way, I have your back. I can throw stones at any bastard who tries it on.” She flexes her muscles and laughs.
    “So, how do you make yourself disappear?” I ask.
    “Well, it’s kinda like there are four channels. There’s the hollow weird shit I told you about, there’s around but, you know, not visible, not even to you. Then I can show myself to you, which is how I am without concentrating.” She breaks into a grin. “There’s another one.”
    “Showing yourself to regular people?” I ask.
    “Yup.”
    My jaw drops. “You can do that?”
    She nods. “I tried it. There was this dude on his own, behind the campsite, taking a leak. I appear, tell him he’s gross for pissing in public. The guy nearly shat his pants. It was hilarious.”
    “ Lacey! Be careful.”
    “Why?” She laughs. “What’s going to happen? I’m dead! It’s not like anyone can hurt me, or arrest me , or whatever. The way I see it, I can make the most of this gig. I can scare the pants off people who deserve it. I’m like the ghosts in the Dickens book, rattling chains and shit.”
    I shake my head in awe. “You’re crazy.”
    Her smile fades. “I’m serious though. You need protection. Amy revealed herself to you. That means she’s goin g to act. We need to prepare ourselves. We need to know more about my kind and how to stop us. You need to do some research.”
    Her kind sounds so strange, like she’s an alien.
    I shrug heavily. This whole burden, this ghost-whispering thing, it’s like a dead we ight on my shoulders, pushing me down. “How?”
    “You could start with your new Goth friend,” she suggests.
    I guess it’s as good a place to start as any.
     
    *
     
    I inhale and the air smells like warm moss. My fingers trail the foliage of the neatly trimmed bushes that lead up th e driveway back to Five Moors. Birds play a melody on the overhead telephone wires. I left Lacey practising with the stones on the hill. She had a manic look in her eye, excited about the prospect of holding and reading books. It saddens me that something so simple is all she has to look forward to, now.
    The midday sun beats down, forcing me to wear the sunglasses I always carry around in my shoulder bag. I don’t like wearing them. I’d rather see the world as it is; experience the colours as they exist, not through a filter; certainly not through a lens. I hardly ever take photos.
    When I finish adjusting my glasses so they don’t rest on my temples—why are glasses so constrictive? They give me headaches—that I see someone who makes my heart fall to my knees.
    Seth.
    I would recognise that silhouette anywhere. It’s ingrained in my memory, as vivid as the blood on Little Amy’s arms. He sits, cross-legged, on a picnic bench on the edge of the campsite. Instead of staring out into the distance, like he has the last two times I saw him—the only two times I have ever seen him—he has a book in his hand, and seems far away in the pages, lost in words.
    When I move closer, I realise he’s reading Dubliners —an odd choice for your average mechanic. High-brow. The copy is battered and the pages hang loose in his hands as though it has been opened and folded over many times.
    I have to clear my throat to get his attention. “Hey.”
    He looks up from under those soft eyelashes that set my heart aflutter. “Hey.”
    I shift the strap of my shoulder bag and move my weight from one foot to the other, wondering whether I should take a seat next to him, or stay standing… or what. “How come you’re here?”
    “I’m looking for you,” he says. His voice betrays no emotion, but it doesn’t sound angry or bitter, not like the last time I saw him. “I