Ghosts on Board

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‘Welcome, everyone,' called the tall woman. ‘Welcome to Marigold's Island Tours.'

The crowd on the Trusty Mermaid murmured to each other and licked their ice creams. Only one of them glanced across to the bank of cloud that they were approaching, a look of doubt crossing her face. The rest soaked up the glassy blue sea to the south, the warm sunshine dancing across the water, and threw the complimentary floppy hot dogs to the seagulls that played in the wake of the boat.

‘We'll moor for a very few minutes on Mystery Smoke Island –'

‘Why's it called Mystery Smoke, Miss?' piped up a small girl clutching a plastic pony.

The tour guide ignored her. ‘– which was the scene of the tragic shipwreck in 1859, when the
Golden Unicorn
was bound for Lisbon, and instead –'

‘Did everybody die, Miss? Was it horrible?' asked the girl with the pony.

‘Yes. I believe –'

‘Was it horrible, Miss? Was there lots of screaming and tragedy, Miss?'

‘I don't –'

‘Was it because of a sea monster, Miss? Or did a hole open up –'

‘Shhh,' said the girl's father, and stuffed a lollypop in her mouth.

‘Yes, well,' said the tour guide as sweetly as she could manage. ‘D'you know? No one's been for years – this is the first trip within living memory. I've certainly never been.'

‘But, Miss –' sputtered the girl with the pony.

‘Shall we dock, Captain?' interrupted the tour guide.

The seagulls fled as the boat drifted towards a crumbling jetty that loomed out of the mist. A crewman threw a rope around an ancient rusty bollard and pulled them alongside.

The day trippers hesitated. It was sunny out at sea. Here it was colourless and chill.

‘Anyone up for a spot of exploration?' asked the tour guide.

A handful of people teetered along the gangplank and stepped onto the island. Inside the fog, Mystery Smoke Island was even greyer. Everything on it was grey, worn and bony, from the empty bell tower to the gravestones spread along the shore, to the rabbit's skull picked clean by the salt and the wind. Even the thorn bush embedded in the black sand was grey.

‘It's ever so cold here,' said a woman, rubbing her bare arms.

‘Maybe we should get back on the boat?' said another, hanging her handbag on the wing of a stone eagle that stuck out from one of the graves. She put on her cardigan.

‘I  … ' said the guide and paused. She glanced around at everyone as if there was something wrong. ‘Does anyone else feel watched?' she muttered.

‘What's that?' said a man, pointing towards the mist on the far side of the island. Something swirled in the whiteness, something dark. The mist parted, as if an invisible person was running through it. As if more than one invisible person was running towards them.

As they stared, an icy wind blew across the island. It cut a path right through the dried grasses in the graveyard, and whisked the fallen leaves into the air. It caught the bag hanging from the eagle's wing and twisted and tossed it. It whipped the island fog and wrapped it around the boat, cutting them off thickly from the blue sea they had just left.

Everything fell deathly silent and very cold.

No one spoke, but the few that had ventured onto the island crowded to get back on the boat, their footsteps muffled and hollow on the wooden gangplank.

Unasked, the crewman slipped the rope from the bollard and leapt back on deck. The captain revved the engine and swung the boat out towards the open sea, out of the fog.

Everyone leaned forward, hoping they would break out of the cloud any second.

Everyone strained for the sunlight.

But they couldn't reach it.

For an hour they headed west, distant sparkles catching on distant waves, but the fog stayed with them and no matter how the captain steered, the boat remained cold, dark and grey.

‘It's as if we picked something up on that island,' said the woman with the bare arms.

‘Yes,' said her friend. ‘Call me silly, but it's as if we've taken on a spirit.'

‘Don't say that,' said the other.

The boat ploughed on in silence for another hour.

Somewhere at the back someone laughed. It was a long, delighted laugh, a wicked laugh.

They all turned to look.

But there was no one there.

No one, but the fog.

‘That,' says Jacob, beside me, ‘is the best idea anyone's had in absolutely ages.'

Eric leans forward and reads out the notice pinned to the telegraph pole.
‘Town meeting to discuss the plans for redevelopment of North Beach Nature Reserve and surrounding area. Agenda to include the siting of proposed theme park and Whizzo Builder Corp's commitment to renovation of the seawater baths at South Beach. Plans can be viewed in the library  … 
What?! That's not a good idea at all – it's terrible.'

‘Why?' asks Jacob, stuffing one end of a jelly lace between his lips and sucking. ‘A theme park would be awesome  …  megatastic  …  amaze balls!' Jacob heaves himself around in a circle, rising and dropping. I think he's trying to be a roller coaster.

‘It's where they want to build it – the North Beach Nature Reserve – they can't possibly build a theme park there,' says Eric.

‘Whyever not? It's just a load of birds and some mangy scrub. The only people who are going to miss it are twisters, witchers  …  whatever.'

‘Twitchers, actually,' says Eric. A single wild curl of his ginger hair bounces furiously on his forehead. ‘We're twitchers, and birds are important. Birds are a crucial part of the ecosystem. They enrich our lives and they've as much right to this planet as we have. Theme parks are utterly frivolous, noisy, pointless things.'

‘Oooo – ooh,' says Jacob, raising his eyebrows. ‘So now, Snot Face is a greeny earth-warrior killjoy as well as a nerd. Well,
you
can spend
your
holidays twitching with a load of stinky birds – some of us like having FUN!' He races off squealing with his arms out.

‘Rat-tat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat-tat,' he shouts. Somehow he resembles a winged gobstopper, but in his mind, he's probably some sort of aeroplane firing on innocent aliens.

‘Jacob,' Eric shouts at his back. ‘If all you can do is insult me, I'm not going to bother arguing with you. Just accept it this time, you're wrong.'

I'm not sure I've ever seen Eric so cross.

Jacob dances ahead of us, swooping and rat-tatting. We walk on down the hill in silence. The thing is, I sort of agree with Jacob. North Beach is cold, dismal and covered in bird poo. It's a miserable place. I can't actually see that turning it into a theme park would be any loss at all. It would mean there was actually something to do here. As Jacob says, something fun. But I don't like to see Eric so miserable.

I glance back at him. He's wrapped the kite string around his hand so tightly that the tips of his fingers are bright pink. His face is red too.

We stop by the end of the pier. A line of day trippers skitter along the jetty, towards the shore.

‘They don't look like they've had much fun,' I say, feeling a sudden shiver down my spine as the last of them passes.

Eric doesn't answer. He rubs his arms and looks angry.

We clamber down to the beach, and Eric holds out the kite as if it might leap from his hands into the sky.

There's absolutely no wind. In fact there's a slight fog, but I can't bear the look on Eric's face so I rush backwards with the string, passing through a strange cold patch of air and step ankle deep into the waves.

The kite stays flat on the pebbles.

‘Kites are for babies,' announces Jacob, strolling back towards the pier. ‘Tell me when you've had enough running around. I'm going to act my age and go and look at the plans for the theme park in the library – I bet they'll have a Wall of Death.' He crunches over the sand and struggles up onto the sea wall. ‘See you.'

I watch his back until he disappears amid the tourists.

Behind me, Eric sighs.

The kite's still lying dead on the beach. I pull the string again, but it refuses to fly.

‘It's no good,' he says, sadly, wiping the corner of his eye. Since he and Jacob developed strange powers, I can't tell if he's crying or if he's spouting the spontaneous water that his hands and feet now generate, but just now, I suspect tears. ‘It's not going to work.' He sits on the sand, lies back and points at the sky.

A seagull wheels and swoops over the pier. ‘A Little Tern,' he says. ‘They wouldn't have anywhere to live if North Beach was redeveloped.'

‘Oh,' I say, ‘surely there's a rock or something?'

‘No – they like the shingle ground, so that they can dig out their nests. If they can't have North Beach, the lucky ones will skip up the coast to Bywater Regis and cram in on the tiny bird reserve there. The rest won't bother to come here at all. They'll migrate to somewhere else – or die.'

I glance around for anything that might take his mind off it. A patch of concentrated fog lingers at the end of the beach and, above the cry of the Tern, I can hear some singing. ‘Where is it? Where is meeeeee?' comes a thin, flat girl's voice.

But there's no girl, just the captain of the Marigold Tours boat and an anxious-looking tour guide talking to each other and a group of boys licking ice creams.

‘Can you hear that?' I say.

‘No,' says Eric. ‘What?'

I point towards the flickering mist.

‘That singing over there.'

‘Oh,' says Eric, still watching the seagull. ‘It's probably nothing.'

But as I stare into the small patch of whiteness, I see the shape of a top hat, and underneath it, a pair of eyes glinting.

I peer into the mist, expecting it to fade. But it doesn't. I see the eyes and the eyes see me and even though Eric's almost always right, I'm pretty sure they aren't nothing.