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minute – don’t people die in their beds of smoke inhalation? I think I’ve seen the adverts for it on the telly. Oh god. What the hell am I going to find up here?
     
     
     

four
     
     
     
    Just as I round the corner to Davey’s room I make a sudden, almost instinctive leap over something and then look down to see what it is. Beneath my feet is what appears to be a heap of clothes lying on the landing. I peer more closely and realise it doesn’t look right. It looks kind of hazy, ghostly. I reach down towards it and before I’ve even touched it, I make out the body of an old man. My hand flies back like it’s been stung and with my heart hammering so much I think I might be sick, I pat my chest to the rhythm of its racing beat and try to convince myself to calm down. I take a deep breath like Mum tells herself to when she gets all stressy. In. Hold it. Out. Everything is fine. Mum and dad are downstairs, this can’t be really happening and nothing can hurt me. I put a brave face on, shut my eyes, step over the … over it and carry on into Davey’s room.
     
    The feeling of smoke is stronger in here than on the landing and I’m guessing it’s because the room is small and the smoke is trapped or whatever. I walk over to Davey’s bed and something catches the back of my throat as I take in the sight before me.
     
    Davey, strangely, is still fast asleep, one arm lies on top of the bedcovers and his cheeks look a little red but that aside, he is peaceful. I check to make certain the bedclothes and his chest are rising and falling, so I know he really is asleep and breathing properly and hasn’t been suffocated by ghostly smoke fumes. I knew he wouldn’t be. This is something that’s happening around us not to us.
     
    But it’s the something.. .I mean somebody else that’s lying beside him that makes my heart freeze. There’s a misty figure of a girl curled up along the length of Davey’s body – spooning, isn’t that what’s it’s called? Her arm is looped over his chest and her face is as angelic as Davey’s although it’s paler. It’s a kind of grey-white. Well, it would be – if she’s a ghost, then she’s dead, isn’t she? So, obviously, she’s not breathing. But a part of me feels that she is looking after Davey and comforting him and I thank her silently for doing so. I wonder if this is the girl he was calling ‘Mia’ earlier on. She doesn’t look scary, like I thought a ghost would be. In fact, it’s quite a poignant sight. But one which I’m not entirely sure my mum is ready to see right now so I turn and leave, all the time working out what to tell my parents when I get downstairs.
     
    I am just about to put my foot on the top step when a thought occurs to me. Is there anything happening in MY room? I walk to the doorway and then stop because suddenly I don’t know if I want to see what’s in there. The door is slightly open anyway so I push it a bit more and peer inside. I can’t see anything because it’s dark and the curtains are closed and then my eyes start to adjust to the darkness.
     
    There’s the hazy outline of a male body sprawled on the floor of my room, face down. His arms are reaching out towards the door. I can’t see his face properly and I don’t think I want to. It looks like he was either trying to get to the door or else he just fell over with the fumes from the smoke when he got out of bed. I am slightly grateful that it looked as if the girl – Mia - in Davey’s room didn’t even wake up to the nightmare that was going on in the house before dying in her sleep.
     
    I tiptoe quietly back out, my mouth not as dry as before and my heart just about starting to calm down a bit. For some strange reason, I realise I don’t feel threatened or anything by the things I’ve heard or even seen tonight. In fact I feel slightly calmer than I did before – now that Mum and Dad have seen some strange things happening too, I mean. Now I know it’s not