“Is everything alright?” asked Aunt Tess, who had now paid the bill and was putting her coat on.
“Alice went for an interview this morning, and she just texted me to let me know that she got the job,” smiled Jemma, helping her aunt with her coat.
“Well, that is good news. It’ll be you next, just you see.” Jemma wasn’t so sure though, she couldn’t even get a cleaning job right now, so she certainly wasn’t holding her breath. She had applied for more jobs than she cared to admit, but none of them had come to anything. It didn’t exactly do much to help Jemma’s confidence, especially when she missed out on the cleaning job she had applied for last week. Every time she rang up about a new position, it was gone before she even had a chance to go for an interview.
They walked back to the car, stopping off at a florist on the way, and Aunt Tess drove them to the graveyard in Stenhurst. When they got there, Aunt Tess told Jemma that she would wait in the car so that Jemma could talk to her mum alone. Taking the flowers with her, she smiled her thanks to her aunt, and made her way through the graveyard.
As she approached the black marble headstone with her mum’s name on, Jemma felt a sob escape from deep inside her and, for a moment, she was too upset to speak. Eventually, she gently put the flowers, a beautiful bouquet of yellow and white roses, her mum’s favourite, down onto the grave. “Hi mum,” she said, softly.
She sat down next to the grave, ignoring the damp, cold ground, and closed her eyes. She wanted to feel her mum’s presence as she silently told her mum about how low she was feeling. Tears were pouring down her face freely now, and Jemma let them, glad of the chance to let her feelings out. Then, suddenly, something made her open her eyes again, and, to her amazement, she found a sprig of honeysuckle lying next to her. She picked it up and held it to her nose, smelling the beautiful sweet scent, and wondered how on earth it had got there. She was suddenly overwhelmed with an emotion so intensely powerful that she gasped, and, a second later, she thought she saw the outline of a man standing next to the grave. She blinked and the image was gone, but she couldn’t get it out of her head, and she held the sprig close to her, not sure why she was feeling so attached to it.
Eventually she made her way back to Aunt Tess, who was reading a newspaper in the car. “What’s that, love?” she asked, eying the sprig.
“It’s honeysuckle, but I’ve not idea where it came from. It just sort of appeared out of nowhere. Was mum particularly partial to honeysuckle?”
“No, not really.”
“Hmm.” Jemma didn’t know why, but she couldn’t throw the sprig away, and she held onto it tightly as Aunt Tess drove her back to the station.
“Will you be alright, love?” asked her aunt, looking worried, as they pulled up by the taxi ramp.
Jemma leant over and kissed her on the cheek. “Yes, thank you, I’ll be fine. Thank you for today.”
“Here, take this,” she said, giving Jemma a couple of twenty pound notes. “You know where I am, just call me any time you need anything. And chin up, you’ll be back on your feet in no time.”
Jemma only had to wait about eight minutes for the fast train to London, and she was back in Charing Cross in less than an hour. Still clutching the honeysuckle, she jumped onto a number thirteen bus, which took her all the way to Swiss Cottage. She gazed dreamily out of the window at the hoards of people rushing to get on with their lives. Tourists strolled idly along Oxford Street, while frustrated Londoners, rushing home from work, tried to dodge past them. When she got off the bus at Swiss Cottage station, she decided to walk home, it would give her some thinking time, like what she was going to do with her life.
Swiss Cottage was buzzing as usual, with people, traffic and bikes all rushing to get to their destinations. Jemma decided to pop into a little deli on the way home and buy something nice for her dinner with the money Aunt Tess had given her. She stepped onto the road to cross and ....
Epilogue
Jemma felt a strange sensation of déjà vu as she slowly stood up. She hadn’t seen the bus coming towards her as she had stepped onto the road, one minute she had been about the cross, and the next, everything had gone blank.
“It’s okay,” she said, to the alarmed crowd that was gathering around. “I’m fine.”
And then she remembered. She remembered dying before, and she remembered Tom. And then she remembered Susie, Claire and Max. She gasped as she looked down at her body, which was lying as still and lifeless as it had been the last time. ‘Oh no,’ she thought in dismay, unable to believe her bad luck, ‘it’s happened again, only this time Tom’s not here.’
And then she looked up and saw him. Tom was smiling and walking towards her, looking as real as he had done the first time around.
“Tom?” she cried, and threw herself into his arms. “Oh my god, Tom, I can’t believe it’s you.” She was laughing and crying at the same time. He hugged her tightly, and then gently pulled away and kissed her on the lips. “I’ve brought someone to see you,” he said, softly, and stepped aside. Jemma gasped, she couldn’t believe her eyes. “Mum!” she cried and ran into her mum’s open arms.
“Hello, sweetheart,” said her mum, “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Oh my god, is it really you?” Jemma was beginning to think she might be hallucinating, and just to make sure she wasn’t, she hugged her mum even tighter. Eventually she pulled away and looked at them both, “Is this really happening?”
Tom took her hand and squeezed it tightly. “Yes, my love, you just died again, but this time it was your time to die, and you’ve joined us as a free spirit.”
Still shaking her head in disbelief, she said, “That must have been why the angel was so keen for me to go back, he must have known that I was close to dying for real.”
She couldn’t stop looking at Tom, then at her mum and then back at Tom again. “What about your dad, have you seen him?” she asked, giving him another kiss.
“Yes, he’s here, and he can’t wait to meet you.”
“And Susie?”
“Susie’s fine. She’s a teacher and is married with two kids, a dog and three cats. She’s very happy. We can visit her anytime you like, although she won’t know we’re there, of course. We can go anywhere we want, whenever we want. We could go to the Seychelles, or Norfolk or we could pop along to another galaxy for the day if you like.”
This was all so incredible, she still couldn’t quite believe it was happening. Then a thought struck her, “Alice,” she cried, “oh no, she’s going to be devastated.”
“She’ll be fine. Jack will help her through her grief, just like last time, and this time it’ll be easier for you to communicate with her. When she’s ready, she’ll be able to hear you and maybe even see you.”
Jemma blinked her tears away and suddenly felt lighter and happier than she had ever felt before. She looked again at Tom and her mum, just to make sure they really were there, and then something behind them caught her eye. Standing quietly in the background, watching them, was a small pale boy. He smiled enigmatically before slowly disappearing, as if dissolving in a cloud of mist, his job done and his charge finally at peace, where she belonged.
Thank you for buying this novel, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it.
If you’d like to be informed about future releases or would like to contact me, please visit my website www.anettedarbyshire.com.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with the paranormal, so please feel free to leave your comments on the ‘Ghosts’ page. You may also be interested in a blog I’ve written on the website called ‘What Is A Ghost?’ You can subscribe to future blogs there if you’d like to.
You can also follow me on Twitter, @AGDarbyshire and visit my Facebook page, Anette Darbyshire, Author.
Thanks again and best wishes.
e
Love In The Wrong Dimension (Romantic Ghost Story) Page 27
