Perhaps she hadn’t understood him. “No,” he explained patiently. “I don’t use it on other ghosts. I’d get sent down to the basement.”
He didn’t use his power fully much at all. Sometimes he worried that if there was ever an emergency, it would be useless, like a muscle he hadn’t exercised. But the threat of it was usually enough to keep people scared of him.
She frowned. “People don’t ask you to use your power for them? Is that not the kind of thing you trade for stuff?”
When had she learnt about trading? She’d only been here for a day. “No,” he said slowly. “I don’t trade my power.”
Harriet raised her eyebrows. “Why? If there’s something you want, surely it would be easy to use it to get stuff?”
“I can’t go around making everyone do things against their will.” A tinge of horror made its way into his voice, without his permission.
Harriet’s expression froze for a second, but she recovered quickly. “No, obviously. I was hypothesizing.” She let out a short, fake laugh. “But what do you trade instead? Like, what would you say most people are after?”
Why was she asking about trading so much? What had happened with Qi? Harriet clearly hadn’t found her power, based solely on her miserable expression. Was that why she was digging for information? Felix picked at his fingernail, thinking about how to answer her.
In the end, he forced a smile. “Oh, I’m a simple sort. I don’t really need much. I’ve never really traded anything. Some people trade stuff for rats—”
She cut him off. “The spirit energy, yeah, I know. But what else do people want around here?”
There was such an intensity in her eyes it almost scared him.
“The same things as everyone, I suppose,” he said, pretending to misunderstand her. “I mean, what kind of things do you want?”
Her face went stiff. “I want to go home.” She bit her lip. “My parents are dead, too. I think they might be ghosts at my gran’s house. Maybe even my grandad – he had some sort of medication overdose after dental surgery when I was a kid. He died in bed at home. I want to see them all again. I want to talk to my mum.”
Felix softened. He could understand that. He missed Oscar every second of every day.
“It’s hard being stuck here. Everyone has someone they want to see again, whether they’re alive or living as a ghost somewhere else. But there’s no power that lets us leave the place where we died. If that’s what you’re looking for, you won’t find it. I’m sorry, Harriet.”
Harriet looked away from him. The muscles in her neck were tight with tension. She swallowed.
“Right,” she said. Her voice was cold, brittle. “I guess you would know. You’re the expert.”
He tried to unravel the thoughts behind her expression. It was almost like she blamed Felix and the others. Did she think they were keeping her here on purpose? They didn’t make the rules, just tried to live by them. He found that hard enough, most of the time.
It had been impossible to control his power when he’d first died. Unlike Rima, whose power hadn’t manifested for almost a month, Felix had been able to hypnotize people the moment he died. Distraught, panicked, and terrified – whenever he had felt a strong emotion – he’d accidentally inflected his words with hypnotism.
It had caused quite a bit of trouble. Especially around Kasper.
Kasper and Felix had hated each other before their deaths – they had been famous for never managing to sit at the same table during lunch without arguing over something or other. Their hallmates used to place bets on them.
That was nothing compared to their arguments after they died, though. Once, Felix had accidentally hypnotized Kasper into shutting up in the middle of an argument, and only realized after he hadn’t spoken in a week.
Once they became friends with Rima, she managed to stop them fighting. She helped Felix realize that most of Kasper’s bluster was designed to cover up his fears and worries. He was more delicate than he wanted people to believe.
Harriet was staring into space with a frustrated expression that made Felix’s skin prickle. He wondered whether he should apologize to Harriet for not being able to help her leave. Everything about her was disquieting.
To his relief, Rima jumped from the first floor into the foyer before he had to cast around for something to say.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance!” Rima yelled at Kasper, hitting the floor in a barrel roll. She was almost giggling too hard to get her words out properly.
Kasper dived over the banister after her. They were clearly in the middle of some intricate play-fight involving a hero and villain face-off.
“You could have just taken the stai—” Felix started to say, exasperated, and then gave up. They were shouting too much to hear him anyway. Besides, Rima had spent years perfecting the art of the dramatic entrance. She took pride in it.
“You aren’t as funny as you think you are!” Kasper yelled at Rima, stalking her across the room. “Once I overheard you memorizing puns in the bathroom!”
Leah had followed them downstairs more sedately, with Claudia balanced on one hip. She interjected, “He’s right. You said that even your mum never used to laugh at your jokes, Rima.”
“All of my jokes,” Rima corrected. “I said all of my jokes. And I told you that in confidence, Leah! If you keep this up, I’m gonna stop being best friends with you.”
“When?” Leah asked, longingly.
Rima gasped, insulted, her hand flying to the Best Friends Forever locket around her neck. It was in the shape of half a heart. She’d traded another ghost for the two necklaces years ago on the black market and given the other half of the heart to Leah. Felix had never seen Leah wear it, but he’d also never
