When I walked down from the bus stop Peter was standing on the corner where we’d arranged to meet.

“Hi.” He looked down on me. (Did I mention that he’s also tall? Hovering somewhere around six foot.)

“Hi,” I said, my voice lower than a stage whisper. He looked even better in broad daylight. The afternoon sun was weak but it still struck a blue-black glow off his hair. The shadows under his eyes made them look even darker. I don’t know what gene pool this boy swam out of, but it must have been a deep one.

“OK,” he said, after we’d walked a block in silence. “Melissa. What did you want to ask me about her?”

I swallowed. “Have you thought of anything else? We need all the details, even the small ones. Something that might just solve the mystery.”

“We need?” he repeated. “Mystery? What mystery? We know what happened. Mr Cupido, your next door neighbour. Remember? He’s the one who –”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “But there must be something more. Why would she come back now? Why not years ago, when he was still alive?”

“She was scared, remember?” Peter said. “For your grandparents. If they’d confronted him…”

“Oh.” Suddenly all the things I’d been so sure of melted into a sorry little puddle. “I’d forgotten that,” I said.

“She came to let your grandparents know what happened,” Peter said. “That’s all.”

More silence. Another block. And then it came to me. “Hang on,” I said. “If she only came to set my grandparents’ minds at rest, she’d also be able to rest, right? Job done and all that.”

“I suppose so,” Peter said.

“So why do I feel as if she still wants us to do something?” I said.

“What’s with all this ‘us’ and ‘we’?” Peter Cho sounded a bit pissed off. “Look Charlene, I agreed to meet you to talk more about your aunt. What happened to her, your family, all that shit, I’m sorry about that. But it’s not my problem. Sorry.”

I looked down at my shoes. Baby-girl school shoes. How stupid was I, to think I could take on something like this.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. Don’t worry. I’m probably imagining things.”

“Imagining?”

“In the last few days I feel like someone’s been watching me. You know when you almost catch sight of something, and then it’s gone? I thought it was maybe Melissa. If not, it’s just my imagination.” I laughed shakily. “I guess I’m a bit freaked out by the whole Peter-Cho-saw-my-aunt thing.”

“OK,” he said and stopped walking. “This is it. Where I saw her.”

“Oh,” I said.

I looked around. Nothing out of the ordinary. No abandoned warehouses, no graveyards with crumbling headstones and Romeo-and-Juliet type crypts. Just an ordinary street with ordinary houses, a small, rundown playground with a slide and a few swings, a vacant plot, fenced and with someone’s veggies planted in neat green rows. Just your average Mitchells Plain road. Not the sort of place you’d expect to meet a ghost.

“You know, Charlene,” Peter said. “I did take what you said seriously. I just can’t think of anything else about your aunt. Nothing that would help you.”

“OK,” I said, my voice small. “Thanks anyway.”

“See you.”

And then he stopped, his face sickly sallow. “Do you feel that?” he said.

***

Tell us what you think: What does Peter feel?