Much as Gran’s fussing annoyed him sometimes, he loved this little house. One small sitting room, a miniature kitchen and a bathroom tacked on the back, two even tinier rooms upstairs: that was all there was to it. It was like a cocoon, small and safe. Callum had always loved it, even before it became his home. He wondered why he felt that way. Maybe it was because he knew his dad had grown up here too.

Callum ran the water scalding hot. Waiting for the tub to fill, he studied his face in the mirror for a moment, trying to see if there was anything in his own features that made him different from anyone else. But no, he looked pretty average: the broad cheekbones that Gran insisted were ‘dashing good looks’, smeared with mud from the match, and his tangled brown hair, too long and standing up at the back as usual. His face was a little anxious around the eyes, with a crease of worry between the eyebrows – but it was just a face. A normal face. Nothing to give away the fact that he was a freak who saw ghosts round every corner.

Gran tapped on the door. ‘Bovril or hot chocolate?’ she called.

‘I don’t mind, Gran,’ Callum sighed.

What would she think if she caught him staring at himself in the mirror? That he was admiring himself, probably.

Undressing quickly, Callum lowered himself into the tub and tried to pull himself together. The last thing he wanted was for Gran to start digging for the real reason he’d been scared. He never talked to her about his strange abilities. Gran might be eccentric and old-fashioned, but she didn’t have a superstitious bone in her body and Callum didn’t want her to think there was anything wrong with him. All the things that made him different – his Luck, the ghosts – these things weren’t new to Callum. When he’d been very small, he sometimes hadn’t been able to tell the ghosts apart from the living. In the first horrible weeks after his mum’s accident, Callum had tried to console himself with his strange ability. At least I’ll see her again, he had thought. Even if she won’t be able to talk to me or hold me, at least I’ll see her.