Little Eden

by KT King

  Sophie smiled - she was slightly amused but didn’t reply.

  “Vincent!” Peony scolded him playfully. “You’ll have to forgive him, Sophie. He says whatever comes into his head! Don’t you? Vincent.”

  “Oh, darling, don’t ever be offended by me!” Vincent replied, waving some shaving brushes in the air in a theatrical manner. “I just say what I want, when I want! Being myself, open, and true, that’s what I’m about these days! What you see is what you get with me!”

  “Yes. So it would seem!” Sophie replied. “It’s nice to see you again after all these years. Good luck with the new venture.”

  “You are such a darling!” Vincent replied. “Well, must get on - so much to do before opening! You’ll come to the opening night? Did we send the Lawrence girls an invitation, Peony, darling?”

  Peony nodded.

  “Well then, we’ll all be able to catch up over champers and canapés!” Vincent bowed, and flounced back into the wardrobe.

  Peony and Sophie walked back down the stairs, and Sophie couldn’t help giggling to herself.

  “Vincent can be a bit full on,” Peony admitted. “But, I like his honesty. As he says - what you see is what you get with him.”

  “Perhaps!” Sophie chuckled.

  Just as Sophie had opened the front door and was about to say goodbye, Peony said, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Yeah, sure!” Sophie replied, closing the door again to keep out the chill.

  “Well, it’s more about Lucy, really,” Peony admitted.

  “Oh, don’t worry! You can ask us anything,” Sophie said, “What you see is what you get!”

  “Well, I was wondering - are Lucy and Jack Fortune an item?”

  “No! Good grief!” Sophie laughed. “Whatever made you think that?”

  “Just the way he is always coming and going from the Café, I suppose,” Peony admitted. “He was helping me, the other morning, with a delivery and he mentioned Lucy quite a lot.”

  Sophie shook her head. “Jack is like a brother to us. His parents died when he was fourteen and he lived with our Aunt Lil ‘til he was old enough to take over the antiques shop.”

  “Oh, poor Jack!” Peony exclaimed.

  Sophie smiled at Peony’s concern. “It is rather a sad story actually,” Sophie told her. “Jack’s father, Ace Fortune, was high up in the Government, although no one really knew what he did exactly. He was killed in an IRA car bomb in the eighties, here in London. Jack’s mother, Maggie, poor soul, she took an overdose shortly afterwards. Jack was at boarding school with Robert, so Lilly used to have him for the holidays with us.” Sophie smiled to herself, seeing Peony’s sad face. “I don’t suppose you are asking because you fancy Jack by any chance?”

  Peony blushed.

  “Oh! No need to be embarrassed,” Sophie reassured her. “You won’t be the first and you won’t be the last to fancy the pants off our Jacky Boy!”

  “Well, I have only met him a couple of times.” Peony admitted. “But, he is, well, very…”

  “Annoying, arrogant, too good-looking for his own good?” Sophie interrupted and then smiled. “Just kidding! Jack is a sweetheart really. We trained him and Robert well, from being boys. They know how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at the right times, open doors for ladies and they send flowers on birthdays. We have never managed to get them to really listen, but I think that is asking too much of any man!”

  “I met Johnathon Grail the other day as well,” Peony said and giggled. “He was rather fit, I must say.”

  “Actually, thinking about it,” Sophie commented, “There is a high proportion of handsome and very nice men here in Little Eden. It must be the atmosphere that attracts them! Devlin Thomas, at the chocolate shop, and Tage Johansen, at the baker’s across the alley, they are both as yummy as the things they sell! In fact the only thing that could improve on Devlin is if he were covered in chocolate!”

  “I bet none of them are single, are they?” Peony enquired. “I thought, with Jack especially, it would be a long shot if he was single.”

  “Jack is never in a relationship very long. He will tell you he can’t be tamed and won’t ever marry. I think eighteen months is about his record. All his girlfriends think they are the one who will ‘fix’ him, mind you.”

  Peony looked disappointed. “I knew there had to be a catch!”

  “Oh, don’t let me put you off!” Sophie replied. She looked out of the window and across at the Café. “I believe we don’t actually choose who we fall in love with anyway. There is either ‘love-karma’ between two people or there isn’t. That is what makes us fall for each other - karma. It’s always karma. Not love!”

  “You don’t believe in love?” Peony said, a little shocked.

  Sophie shrugged. “Personal connections of any kind, work colleagues, family, friends, partners - it’s just soul mates reliving their past life relationships for good or bad! And in my experience, romantic soul mates are usually a whole lot of trouble!”

  “Well, if you and I have a past life karma maybe I have with Jack too?” Peony said hopefully.

  “If you have love-karma with Jack then there will be little choice in how you feel about each other,” Sophie replied.

  “But, am I his type?” Peony asked.

  “Are you definitely female?” Sophie laughed, looking her up and down.

  “Of course!”

  “Then you are his type!”

  Chapter 13

  ~ * ~

  Back over at No.1 Daisy Place, Lucy awoke with a sudden feeling of panic. She didn’t know where she was for a moment and her heart was racing with fear. She felt for her tiger’s eye bracelet but realised it was not there. Then she remembered, she had left it in Lilly’s room on the day of the funeral.

  She gently opened the door to her Aunt Lil’s room, but at first, she couldn’t bring herself to go in. She hesitated. The bedroom was engulfed in semi-darkness. A veil of ashen shadows danced in a solitary shaft of crepuscular winter sun, which stealthily slipped through the half-closed curtains and lay across the bed. The snow on the roof was pressed against the French windows, almost to knee height, creating an icy barrier to the outside world.

  Lucy took a few shaky steps inside and closed the door behind her. She stood motionless for a while. A hush pervaded the room with an eerie stillness and Lilly’s perfume still lingered in the air. Suddenly, a piercing pain ran through Lucy’s chest like a sharp blade. The spectre of grief was twisting in her heart again. She could almost stand the physical pain. Physical pain was a comfort right now. It was a languishing witness to her still being alive, when most of the time she felt so numb.

  In a daze, she walked slowly over to the dressing table and there was her bracelet, where she had left it. She sat down at the dressing table and looked around at Lilly’s things - now covered in a fine layer of white dust. She picked up a photograph of Lilly holding Tambo in her arms, taken the day he was born. It had pride of place, in an ornate silver-gilt frame, amongst her perfumes and pearls. Lucy hugged the photo to her searing chest. “Oh, Lilly,” she said quietly, as she rocked gently backwards and forwards. “What am I going to do without you?” She replaced the photo and wrapped Lilly’s pearls around her hand like a rosary. With that, her stomach squeezed itself into wrenching knots and grief began to creep like sickening spiders prickling and crawling through her blood. She felt herself drop to the floor, engulfed by a torrent of tears. She sobbed her heart out, there on the carpet, until she had no energy left to cry any more.

  Lying with her cheek pressed against the floor, Lucy, involuntarily, began to pray…

  Great Goddess of Love in whom I trust,

  Please send your feathers to surround me,

  So that, beneath your wings I may take refuge.

  Let your faithful covenant be my shield and my cast
le.

  I shall not fear the terrors of the night, nor the arrows that fly by day

  For you shall send your angels to guide, comfort and protect me in all my ways.*

  Under her breath she repeated the prayer over and over. Gradually, she felt a silent wave of comfort and solace flowing through her. The deafening noise of her pain was hushed and a feather-like, floating sensation caressed her senses. “Are you here?” Lucy whispered under her breath. “Aunt Lil, are you here?” Unexpectedly, she began to feel a strength rise within her. It was a mysterious, yet unmistakable, sensation of being supported by an invisible force. She found she could stand up, albeit a little shakily, and pulled herself onto Lilly’s ample bed. Cuddling her aunt’s cold, soft pillow, which cooled her burning cheeks, her poor wretched body found comfort in the cradle of feather quilts and white sheets. Her mind began to clear, and as she slipped into a half-sleep, she could hear a mellifluous whisper dancing inside her mind…

  I am a thousand winds that blow

  I am the diamond glints on snow

  Do not stand at my grave and cry

  I am not there; I did not die*

  Like a lullaby, the words echoed through her mind until she fell asleep.

  Lucy had slept for well over an hour when she was eventually awoken by her sister. “I didn’t want to wake you before,” Sophie said, sitting on the bed. “Whatcha you doing in here? You feeling any better?”

  “Yes, a bit,” Lucy replied. “I came to get my bracelet, but I had my first tsunami of grief. I must have fallen asleep. “Oh, my god,” she said suddenly, pointing at the floor. “Look!”

  Sophie looked down and saw the photograph of Lilly and Tambo on the floor beside the bed. “It’s just a photo,” Sophie said puzzled.

  “But, what’s it doing on the floor?” Lucy asked. “It was on the dressing table earlier! How did it get over here?”

  “Well, you must have brought it with you and it rolled off onto the floor when you fell asleep,” Sophie suggested.

  “No, I didn’t! I swear. I didn’t!” Lucy protested.

  Sophie and Lucy looked at each other and felt chills race down their spines!

  “Oh, don’t!” Sophie said, picking up the photo. “You’re giving me goose bumps!”

  “It must have been Lilly!” Lucy replied. “She must have moved it whilst I was asleep!”

  Sophie shivered. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe that is going a bit far? Things that move around by themselves - that’s a rare thing and usually there is another explanation!”

  “You sound like Jack!” Lucy rebuked her. “You know as well as I do, that old Mr Muggle’s ghost used to put all the clocks in the shop back half an hour on his birthday! Or, what about Stella? Her mother’s portrait literally jumped off the wall the day of her funeral and landed on the sofa! Don’t you remember?”

  “I suppose,” Sophie said, putting the picture back on the dressing table. “I don’t like things that go bump in the night. You’re giving me the creeps.”

  “But, if it is Aunt Lilly, then there’s nothing to be scared of, is there?” Lucy replied.

  “I guess not,” Sophie said. In spite of her regular conversations with spirits she didn’t like it when they got too close in the human world!

  Lucy rubbed her forehead. “I had the strangest dream. I can’t remember it all now.”

  Sophie saw fear shoot across Lucy’s eyes and she shuddered.

  “It was about Alice,” Lucy recalled. “I remember now. Oh! It was awful.” She shivered as she relived it. “Aunt Lil was in the Abbey, but she wasn’t dead. She rose out of her coffin and the choir kept singing as if it was perfectly normal! Then, Alice got into the coffin and I kept trying to pull her back out, but Jennifer started nailing the lid on, and Shilty Cunningham started praying as if Alice was dead, and I kept screaming at everyone to save Alice, but no one could hear me, and then (and this is the weirdest bit), a huge hole opened up just beneath the coffin and a massive dragon came up through the floor! Then everyone did notice what was happening and ran away screaming, but I just stayed there and tried to get Alice out of the coffin. The dragon seemed to be friendly to me. Then…” Lucy paused for a moment…

  “Then what?” Sophie asked.

  “...Then…” Lucy held onto Sophie’s hand, “I know it was only a dream, but it was so vivid I thought it was real - which seems silly now of course, but…”

  “What?”

  “…I looked up and saw that all the kids had been hung from the rafters of the church, and Alice fell into the hole in the ground and I couldn’t save her. Robert was there, but he was just a little boy, and I tried to get him to help me, but he just stood there eating an ice-cream, of all things. I really thought all the kids were dead and I couldn’t save them!”

  Sophie patted her sister’s hand to reassure her, but her own heart turned cold with fear. She had not told Lucy about what Dr G had said to Robert and her about the dragon portal. This independent knowledge was confirmation that maybe there was truth in it after all. “It’s okay. It was just a bad dream,” Sophie said. “It wasn’t real.”

  “No. It wasn’t real,” Lucy replied. “They are all okay though, aren’t they? I hope it wasn’t one of my portent dreams.”

  “All the kids are fine!” Sophie replied. “They’re all playing outside.”

  Lucy sighed with relief. Still a bit shaken, she wanted to change the subject. “I was thinking, let’s redecorate in here as soon as the snow clears. We can get Noddy to come and repaint. Then you can have this room as your own and you’ll feel as if you are settled here with us. I wondered if you wanted to keep the furniture - we always loved it so! Do you remember? We used to come in here and pretend we were princesses in the Palace of Versailles!”

  “I bet we could both still fit in the wardrobe!” Sophie giggled. “Are you sure it’s not too soon to move Aunt Lilly’s things? Don’t most people leave a room for a while before clearing it out?”

  “Everyone is different,” Lucy said, making the bed. “And we both know Aunt Lil isn’t dead to us; she’s just in spirit rather than in a body. I know she would want you to be in here where you are safe, and besides, I can’t stand to be maudlin. I won’t be able to come in here anymore if it feels like a tomb or some kind of shrine. It’s too upsetting.”

  “I would have thought you should have these rooms. They’re bigger than yours and have the en suite and the view across London. I can take your room if you like,” Sophie suggested.

  “No, I want to be on the same floor as Tambo,” Lucy told her. “And besides, me sharing a bathroom with my son makes more sense than you having to share with him!” Lucy hugged her sister. “And another thing!” she added. “Aunt Lil left this place to us both! I wish you would stop thinking it’s mine!”

  “But you do all the work here. You earn the money to keep it going.” Sophie sighed.

  “So?” Lucy said. “We are a team, and if one team member goes under for a while, well, we don’t just walk away, do we? We rally round and help out ‘til they are back on their feet!”

  “The thing is, I am not sure I ever will get back on my feet,” Sophie confessed. “It seems chronic fatigue is a recurring illness for some people, and I am one of those people. Even after all these years, it’s not going away. I could be well for a few years and then bam - back to square one - in bed for twenty hours a day, and even if I feel okay, I’d still be sitting on my arse most of the time just trying to stave off another relapse!”

  “I don’t care if you sit on your arse all day, every day, for the rest of your life, as long as you are sitting on your arse with me and Tambo!” Lucy laughed. “You’re not going anywhere!”

  Sophie hugged her sister. “What would I do without you?”

  “You’d starve in the hedgerows and become a bag lady!” Lucy teased.

  Lucy put her hand
on the back of her neck - it was aching with sadness and her throat hurt from crying so much.

  “Here,” Sophie said. “I got us another Rainbow Rescuer.” She put a few drops of the coloured oils on her palms and rubbed them into Lucy’s temples and neck. “This will take away the sting.”

  All of a sudden they could hear someone calling from the conservatory. It was Jimmy Pratt, who had finally shown up after days of being offline. Sophie sighed as Lucy went to find him.

  He was standing in the kitchen area looking around, as if he had never seen a kettle or toaster before in his life.

  “I’m dying for a brew! Make us one, babe. And none of that fancy herbal stuff - proper tea with two sugars,” he told her. He tried to embrace Lucy but she pushed him gently away. “I can’t stay long,” he continued to say. “Van Ike wants to edit the film we took at the Tower. We got some great footage at the old prison. Well, some bits that will look like great footage when we edit them together. It was bloody cold in there! You got anything to eat? I’m starving! Bacon and eggs?”

  Automatically, Lucy started to make him a cup of tea saying, “Do you have to edit today? I was hoping...”

  “I can’t stay, babe!” Jimmy interrupted. “The network want it as soon as. It’s the biggest deal Van Ike’s ever done. We’re changing the title to Haunted or Not. Good eh! I get top billing now! I thought I would change my name - James Hollywood - how does that sound, eh, babe? You’ve got a famous boyfriend now.”

  “Well, it’s better than Pratt!” Lucy said, sighing and handing him his tea. “I am fine, by the way, thanks for asking.”

  “Come on, babe!” Jimmy replied, coming to her side of the kitchen worktop and putting his arms around her from behind. He nudged himself playfully against her round bottom. “Come on, you know I love you; even if you are getting a little tubby these days. Why don’t I show you how much I love you! Come and have a quick cuddle in the bedroom, eh?” He spun her around and was about to kiss her when his phone started ringing. “Got to get this, babe!” he said.