Callum froze. He wasn’t imagining it. Something was slinking slowly across the tattered old carpet, low and secretive, keeping to the shadows but getting closer and closer . . .

Without warning, a dark shape sprang from the floor, and landed on Callum’s chest. Sharp claws pierced his skin and a pair of eyes flashed in the moonlight. Heart pounding, Callum scrambled into a sitting position, sending the creature flying. It tumbled down to the foot of the bed with an outraged yowl.

Callum let out an explosive breath of relief. It was only Cadbury, Gran’s kamikaze black-and-white tomcat.

‘Cad!’ he laughed. ‘You made me jump out of my skin!’

Cadbury gave his short trill of greeting and cautiously picked his way up into Callum’s lap.

‘So,’ said Callum, scratching him behind the ears. ‘Do cats see ghosts? Is that why you’re bouncing off the walls the whole time?’

Cadbury wedged himself under Callum’s arm, kneading and purring, as if he was trying to smooth away his worries.

‘But it wasn’t a ghost that followed me tonight,’ Callum told the cat softly. ‘Not a normal one. It was something new.’

Then an equally unpleasant thought twisted in Callum’s mind. What if it wasn’t something new? What if his ability to see these unnatural things was growing stronger?

What if the presence he felt tonight had always been there, and he simply hadn’t noticed it before?

Chapter 3

Callum ran.

At first he ran for the pleasure of it, as he sometimes did around the track at school, but after a while he realised he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t want to stop and look; in fact, he was afraid of stopping, afraid of what he might see or meet if he even slowed down.