The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker

death, because they’d started grilling her about various aspects of modern life.
Harriet didn’t really mind. She was getting to spill a lot of gossip about Hugh Grant, Bill Clinton, O.J. Simpson and the Kardashians. Rima straight up refused to believe that Princess Diana had died, let alone that Charles had married Camilla.
Harriet shrugged at Felix’s question. “Phones are pretty good, I guess. Especially since Instagram updated their filters so you can put bunny ears on your selfies.”
They all stared at her, wide-eyed – except Leah, who was dozing in a corner with her baby. She had got bored when they’d started talking about celebrities.
“You guys didn’t understand a single word in that sentence, did you?” Harriet asked.
Felix said, “Not one. But the phone works without you touching it? That’s amazing.”
“You can have a go on it, if you want,” she offered. “I don’t think I’ll be needing it again.”
Felix looked thrilled, even as Kasper rolled his eyes.
Harriet had considered using her phone to send a text to the police, letting them know where her body was. But then they would realize that someone had been using her phone anonymously after she had died, and that would only create more problems.
It might lead to an investigation to find her murderer, and her gran would be caught up in the middle of it, unable to mourn Harriet’s death for the accident it had really been.
In the end, she’d decided to just wait for the police to find her body on their own. Surely it wouldn’t take long? Her car was parked right outside. They’d find it immediately if they started looking for her.
She was half hoping to see police cars through the window now, but the car park was quiet.
Felix cleared his throat. He seemed to be debating whether to say something. “Listen, I can relate to wanting to leave. I have people on the outside too. My twin brother … he was out clubbing on the night of our deaths, and he survived. Oscar’s in his forties now.”
Harriet had forgotten again how old the ghosts all were. Forty was ancient.
“That must be weird,” she said, trying to work out what to say. Rima, who was lying on the floor cuddling a fox spirit, tapped her foot against Felix’s back in sympathy. Harriet couldn’t offer that to Felix. She barely knew him – and besides, showing affection had never come easily to her.
Felix sighed. “He’s had this whole life that I’m not a part of. He’s lived longer without me than he did with me.”
“I’m sorry,” Harriet said. “You must miss him a lot.”
“He comes to visit sometimes. To Mulcture Hall, I mean.” Felix rubbed his thumb over his lower lip.
A fizz of excitement spread up her spine. “Can he see you?”
“What?” He looked at her, surprised. “No, of course not. He – he just comes and sits in my bedroom. On the anniversary.”
“Don’t you ever want to talk to him?”
“I do,” Felix said. “I tell him everything, even though he can’t hear me. He just cries.”
Rima shuffled around to hug him, while Kasper patted Felix’s shoulder. Harriet’s nails bit into her palms. Watching them interact was giving her a lot to think about. She almost wanted to take notes, to try to work out what they meant by everything they said to each other. Her curiosity was mixed with a deep-seated envy.
“He knows you love him,” Rima said. “That’s all that matters.”
Harriet didn’t understand how his brother could have visited for all these years and it had never even occurred to Felix to find a way to communicate with him. “But if you tried, if we just searched for a way to talk to him—”
“Harriet, there isn’t a way. I know you want to talk to your gran, but it’s impossible, just like leaving the building.”
Harriet curled her lips around her teeth, restraining herself from shouting at him. They had all just given up. They were stagnant. They probably didn’t know anything about how being a ghost even worked.
She took a deep breath, calming herself down. She couldn’t yell at him. She still needed to get more answers out of them.
“I just want to understand the physics of how it all works,” she explained. “Why can my phone recognize my voice, but my gran couldn’t? I can’t pick things up, but I don’t fall through the floor. And I can push my way through doors, but lean against them, too. This ghost logic doesn’t make any sense.”
“We don’t really know how these things work, either,” Felix said. “Personally, I’ve got some theories, but we have no way of proving anything.”
“You should talk to Qi, though,” Rima added. “She’s done all kinds of cool experiments on it.”
“Experiments?” Harriet was surprised. What kind of experiments did a ghost do?
“Yeah, she was doing a Chemistry PhD when she was alive. She wants to work out what happens to ghosts after they disintegrate by doing tests on animal spirits and stuff.”
“Like that fox?” Harriet gestured to the fox spirit that was lying next to Rima.
Rima looked horrified. “No! I meant rats and mice, or insects. Cody is a friend.”
“How do you tame a fox, anyway?” Harriet asked Rima, trying to keep the disgust out of her voice. Cody gave her the phantom itch of fleas. She could see its ribs through its patchy fur. It looked like it had rabies.
“Don’t even go there,” Kasper warned. “If you get her started, she’ll never shut up.”
Rima said, gruffly offended, “Hey.” She winked at Harriet. “I’ll show you later.”
Sighing, Harriet touched the concrete floor to test the limits of her incorporeality. She couldn’t move physical objects, but she could make contact when she focused on them. Or was she just imagining what it would feel like?
Her body was operating as if she was still human, because she expected it to. She would probably bleed if her skin was cut too, just because she expected to bleed. She projected her memories of being human on her spirit.
When she lay