So, of course, he hadn’t made many friends in halls until after his death, which said a lot about how shy he had been when he was alive. It had taken literally an eternity for him to open up enough to make real close friends, rather than casual acquaintances. Even then, he’d only managed it with Rima, Kasper and Leah.
When he was little, he’d always been worried and quiet. His brother was the brave and outgoing one. He pretended that Oscar was here now, rolling his eyes at Felix’s nervousness. What would he say to Harriet? What would he think of her? He’d have known exactly what to do right now. A yearning for his brother opened up inside Felix again.
“Can you show me your power?” Harriet asked.
Felix was relieved that she clearly didn’t need coaching through a death-related therapy session. This was a topic of conversation that he could handle. He’d been wondering how long it would take Harriet to ask what their powers were.
Instead of replying, he looked at Cody and thought: Roll over. The fox immediately rolled onto her back and started licking in between the pads of her back foot.
Harriet didn’t look impressed. “Rima can do that, too.”
“Yeah, but she uses commands,” he explained. “I hypnotized her.” His power was less hypnotism and more insistent suggestion, but hypnotism sounded more impressive.
“That’s so extra,” Harriet said.
Felix preened. He always had to resist the urge to brag when he told people about his power. He had an excellent one. Not like poor Kasper.
There was a new gleam in her eyes. “What other kind of things can you do?”
“Well, I can make people see things that aren’t there. Look.”
He focused on Cody, imagining a pink butterfly fluttering around her head. She opened her eyes sleepily, then snapped her jaws at it. The butterfly flew out of reach, making Cody leap after it, wiggling her bum.
“Brilliant!” Harriet said, watching the butterfly dissolve into dust. “Though if you can hypnotize her, why did Rima bother training Cody? You could just force her to do whatever you like. You could have an army of foxes!”
Felix shook his head, frowning. “I would never do that. She has to want to do stuff for Rima, otherwise it’s not fair.”
Harriet blinked, looking very much like she was struggling to process this. “Right. Well, could you make Kasper pick his nose?” She grinned.
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.