Free Voices in Stone by Emily Diamand Page A

the living.”
    Isis pulled her hand away, shuddering at the cold. Jess must have felt the chill too, because she rubbed her arms. Then she stopped, her eyes widening.
    “I read on the internet – spirits and ghosts are freezing cold, aren’t they?”
    Isis opened her mouth, then shut it again. Panic sang through her mind.
    “Is she here?” asked Jess. “Is she?”
    “Please stop talking,” Mrs Potter called out. “We’ll worktogether on how to use these words in everyday sentences.”
    Almost gasping with relief, Isis turned to face the whiteboard, looking away from Jess and the elderly ghost. But Mandeville whispered in Isis’s ear.
    “What will you do? Hide the truth of your power and undo all the good you have stirred – or carry on?”
    “I miss her so much,” whispered Jess. “Can you talk to her for me?”
    Isis stared at Mrs Potter, not hearing a word the teacher was saying. Could Mandeville be right? Might this be her chance to turn something that had always seemed a burden into something good?
    She turned around. “At break time,” she whispered. “I’ll try.”

Chapter Nine
Isis
    Raindrops pattered and slid down the classroom window. Outside, the playing field was darkened by mud and the line of birch trees at the end of the field were drooping under the rain, their leaves in murky greens and yellows, waiting to fall.
    Isis turned away from the drab outdoors. The classroom was warm and bright with artificial light, cosy compared to the beginnings of autumn outside. Normally Isis hated wet break times, but normally she had to sit on her own, or at a table with the other outcasts.
    Isis smiled.
    “That’s so rubbish! Pink and sparkles are for little girls. I saw a purple one that had these black flowers on.” Jesswas arguing with Hayley about phone covers. Both of them wanted new ones, even though as far as Isis could see there was nothing wrong with what they’d got.
    “What do you think, Isis?” asked Jess. “Isn’t pink for babies?”
    Isis was sitting with Jess and her gang. On their table. She’d been included for nearly two weeks now, and not because a teacher had made them, but because they’d asked her to. Well, Jess had, and the others did what Jess wanted.
    “My mum buys me pink stuff,” said Isis.
    “See!” cried Jess. “ Isis agrees with me. You definitely should not get a pink one.”
    “She didn’t say that!” said Hayley.
    “If your mum chooses pink, you definitely shouldn’t!” said Jess. She laughed, and after a moment Hayley laughed too.
    “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
    “You can’t let your mum choose anything!” said Jess.
    “Or you get jumpers with fluffy bobbles on,” agreed Chloe.
    “Frilly dresses,” said Nafira, rolling her eyes.
    “My mum does that too,” said Isis, although she’d never really cared what her mum bought. It had always been the least of her worries, and Cally hardly ever had the money to go shopping. But Isis didn’t say that; it felt much nicer going along with things.
    Last night, she’d asked her mum if she could go round to Jess’s at the weekend.
    “Jess?” asked Cally. “I haven’t met her, have I?”
    “She’s my new friend.” The words had felt luscious. She’d wanted to keep on saying them.
    Isis looked at the girls on the table. Jess, Hayley, Chloe, Nafira. They were all popular and Isis was spending lunchtime with them, instead of watching from across the room. It was like a hug, sitting here. Like warmth after years of cold.
    The conversation wound away from phone cases on to shoes, then to a song Hayley liked. Isis didn’t say much, she mostly listened, learning this new language of girls together. Basking.
    An older girl came into the room, looking around. Isis didn’t recognise her; she was probably on an errand or searching out a younger brother or sister. Then she spotted Jess, waved, and walked towards them. Jess waved back.
    “Hi, Summer.”
    “Hi,” Summer said to Jess. Everyone at