Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [59]
They grew agitated, and even looked as if they were shouting, but the only things she could hear were the sighs of the wind, and the far-off cries of dogs and foxes. One ghost soundlessly stamped its foot in frustration. The loonlight glimmered through them.
“I need to see a list. I need to see the list,” Deeba said. She mouthed the words slowly, as if she were talking to someone who didn’t speak good English. “One of you must be able to talk to me,” she said. “Don’t come any closer! I’ll be gone in a second! I just need to see the list!”
Deeba stepped back from a nebulous figure dressed like Shakespeare, who had come close enough to touch.
“Stay away!” she shouted. “Don’t any of you understand?”
“They all understand you,” someone said. “You don’t understand them.”
She turned. Through the spectral layers of the crowd around her, leaning against a flickering ghost-house, she could just make out the boy Hemi.
“You!” she said.
He walked towards her, straight through the ghosts, one by one.
“Don’t come too close,” she said warningly. “Stay back! How long you been watching?”
“‘Don’t come close’?” he said. “How rude are you? You’re the one came here asking for help.” A nearby ghost looked down in surprise as Hemi stepped through his chest and stood before Deeba.
He wore a shabby old suit. His skin was as pale as she remembered, his eyes as shadowed, his voice as sarky. “Blimey, look who’s back,” he said.
“Just stay away,” Deeba said. She backed up warily, raising her umbrella. “Why do you keep following me?”
Hemi made a rude noise.
“Follow you?” he barked. “Don’t be soft.”
“You were on the bus,” Deeba said. “With that man.” Hemi looked sheepish.
“Alright, yeah…I did sort of follow you on the bus. But just because your mate’s…y’know, the Shwazzy,” he said. “I wanted to know about you, and anyway…” He stopped suddenly. “What do you mean, ‘with that man’?” he demanded.
“And you followed us on the roofs. And you stole Zanna’s travelcard!”
“Hold on! Alright, granted I was sort of behind you on the roofs, too, but how dare you call me a thief! I was looking out for you on the roofs, you dozy ingrate. Who do you think whistled up to the bridge when those junkies were coming? I blatantly never stole nothing! And what do you mean ‘with that man’?”
“You tell me.” Deeba’s voice was guarded.
“I knew it! You’re saying I was one of them grossbottlers.” He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Outrageous. Blame the wisper, right? It was me who stopped that bloke!”
“Why…?”
“’Cause he was trying to hurt the Shwazzy! I mean…’ cause…y’know.”
Deeba said nothing. She thought back to what had happened: the ghost-boy, or half-ghost-boy, emerging somehow from nowhere—sending the attacker neatly into Obaday’s head. She’d never actually seen him touch Zanna on the roofs, either. “I…never realized,” she said at last. Maybe Zanna had simply lost that card—it wasn’t as if Deeba’d never done that. “Why didn’t you say nothing?”
“Like you lot would’ve listened to the wisper.” He raised an eyebrow. “You just said I was following you, and I don’t even know where you came from! You came here! This lot called me as soon as they saw you,” he said. “They know you’re too deaf to hear them. Now put down your bleeding umbrella, tell us what you want, and bog off.”
“Sorry,” said Deeba. “But I know what you lot do. I don’t want anyone taking my body. I just have to find something out—”
Hemi interrupted.
“You really do take the Michael don’t you? Why’d any of us want your nasty body?”
Deeba was taken aback. In fact, many of the ghosts were shaking their fists at her angrily, mouthing what looked like swearwords.
“You barge in here,” Hemi said, “spouting nonsense, and then you demand help?”
“I…I’m sorry,” Deeba said. “I was told—”
“What next, you going to join in with the rest of them saying we’re in league with the bleeding Smog?”
Deeba looked around the gathered ghosts. “You…don’t want to possess people?”
“For Deadsey’s sake, of course not!” said Hemi. “Look, you,” he said to Deeba, jabbing his finger at her. “I’m not