“I was studying Dentistry really,” Rima told Harriet, apparently under the assumption that she would otherwise genuinely believe that Rima had been doing a degree in Wrestling when she was alive. “But only because my parents wanted me to. I rushed through all my coursework so I could watch TV. What did you want to do when you were older?”
Harriet looked up at the sky, wistfully. “I was going to work for Vogue one day. I’ve got a channel online where I post videos of make-up tutorials. Contouring and stuff, you know? I had some collabs lined up with other YouTubers – bigger ones, so I could get some more subs. I thought it’d be the kind of thing Vogue would be interested in.”
“You should start a ghost Vogue,” Rima said, looking amused by the idea.
“Kasper would love modelling for it,” Felix said. Kasper had modelled for a Rowing Society charity calendar when he was alive, which for some inexplicable reason had involved all the Soc members posing nude with baby animals. Felix had once walked into their shared bathroom, only to find Kasper and five of his friends waxing each other’s bums, while covered in tanning lotion. He’d backed out again immediately, then pre-ordered five copies of the calendar.
Tragically, the issue hadn’t been delivered before he died. There was a parcel for Felix tucked into one of the postal pigeonholes down in reception. For decades, Felix had been wondering whether the package was the calendar, or if it was a package from his mum.
When he was homesick during the first term of university, she used to send him envelopes full of things she’d ripped out of magazines and newspapers. Oscar had thought it was silly, but Felix had found it comforting. It showed she was thinking about him. Oscar had never got homesick, anyway. He was too busy having fun and skipping lectures.
Felix missed his brother so much. He always got nostalgic in the autumn, near the anniversary of their deaths, and Oscar’s escape. Soon he’d come for his annual visit.
It hurt in a good way, seeing how much he had changed. Becoming a man, a husband, a father – even a divorcee. Doing things that Felix would never have the chance to do. The hardest part of dying had been adjusting to surviving without Oscar.
“Do you have a Vogue?” Harriet asked Felix.
“I wanted to be a computer programmer,” Felix said, immediately. He was the only person in Mulcture Hall who had been studying Computer Science. Kasper, who had been reading Art History, had only been scheduled for a third of the number of lectures as Felix, which had been a constant source of irritation.
“What about you, Leah?” Rima asked her. “You must have wanted to be something when you were little. Even Kasper wanted to be a teacher.”
Rima was constantly prying into Leah’s life even though she was very, very clear about how much she disliked it. Rima even kept a list of facts, which she’d told Felix once. It included:
1. Leah had been alive at one point in time.
2. Leah had died at another, later point in time.
3. Leah had once had a mother and a father.
4. Claudia also had a mother and a father.
a. Leah was Claudia’s mother.
b. Claudia was between zero and seven months old.
5. Leah had hated coriander.
6. She had been allergic to dogs.
7. Leah’s power let her look into the future.
Felix had been reluctantly impressed by the thoroughness of the documentation.
Leah flopped over onto her stomach, pulling up the hem of her dress to sun her thighs. To Felix’s surprise, she started talking. “My – my family … we weren’t raised to have careers. Not girls, anyway.”
“And you got pregnant when you were, what, seventeen?” Harriet said. “I guess that makes it hard to plan ahead.”
Rima touched one finger to Claudia’s cheek. “It was worth it, though, for little Claudia,” she said eventually.
Harriet’s gaze kept returning to the baby. “How have you avoided disintegrating, in all this time? Did you get more energy from somewhere?”
Leah stared at her stonily. “We’re not that old.”
Harriet blanched. She finally looked away. “Right. Sorry.”
“Harriet and I were discussing this earlier,” Felix said, trying to break the tension like a bubble. “About what happens to us after we disintegrate, I mean.”
Rima grinned. “Did you mention my reincarnation theory?”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Of course I didn’t. It’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not! It makes a lot of sense!” Rima turned to Harriet. “I’ve got it all worked out. We came from living human bodies, right? It makes sense that when we disintegrate, that energy goes to another human body and the cycle starts again. It can’t just disappear into the air. Right?!”
“I think maybe that sounds a bit far-fetched…” Harriet said slowly. “It’s too magical.”
Rima fluffed up in indignation. “We’re literally ghosts! How much more magical can you get?”
“Yeah, but at least ghosts make sense. We’re still the same people we were when we were alive. But what you’re talking about – being reborn? – we’d forget who we were. What’s the point of us being born again if we don’t remember our old lives? We might as well start from scratch each time. It doesn’t make any difference in the long run.”
“If reincarnation was real, wouldn’t we all remember our previous lives?” Leah pointed out, shaking her head. “We live and we die, end of story.”
“I don’t know—” Felix said, and then abruptly made himself stop talking. It was silly. “Never mind.”
Rima nudged him. “What were you going to say?”
“Well, it’s just that I had a cousin who used to talk about his past life when he was a toddler. He used to describe these vivid memories of places he had never seen. We assumed he was describing stuff from the TV. But what if he wasn’t? What if it was real?”
Rima glowed. “See! I’m totally
