“Shit!” she cried. It was half past ten and she had to be at work in half an hour, and she wasn’t even dressed yet. With lightening speed she flew up the stairs, grabbed some clothes, and got dressed and ready in record time. Amazingly, she was only two minutes late as she rushed through the doors of Glitz.
“Good morning, Petal,” called Oscar. “Come and have a coffee before you start.”
Alice made her way over to the little private alcove where the staff had their coffee breaks, and found Oscar chatting with a man she didn’t recognise. He was good looking, in a very classical way, and was wearing an expensive looking designer suit. He looked a bit like a 1950’s film star, she thought.
“Sweetie, this is Darren.”
Darren smiled and gave her a little wave. “So you’re the Dancing Queen of Glitz!” he grinned.
“Oh god, Oscar, have you told the whole of London?”
“No, Sweetie, just the whole of Camden!”
“Hmm! Anyone want another coffee?”
“Ooh yes please, Petal. Darren will have one too. Oh, and would you stick the Abba, Voulez Vous CD on for me please?”
“Yes of course. I do a mean rendition of Kisses of Fire!” she laughed, as she made her way to the espresso machine.
Alice found the right CD, popped it in the player and skilfully started frothing milk for the lattes, when Dean popped his head through the kitchen door. “Psst,” he whispered, “in here, quick.”
Alice glanced over her shoulder towards the alcove and saw that Oscar and Darren were busy chatting away, so she left the milk on the side and slid silently into the kitchen, where Dean was waiting.
“Thanks again for Saturday night,” he smiled, giving her a friendly peck on the cheek.
“That’s OK. I really enjoyed it too. So, is that the same Darren that you were telling me about?” she whispered, nodding her head in the direction of the restaurant.
“Yes, that’s him. Just so you know, I pretended to be on the phone when he arrived, and I knew that he would overhear what I was saying.” Dean lowered his voice, even though the crystal clear voices of Frida and Agnetha were blaring from the restaurant. “I told this bogus caller that I had just found out that in the late 1800’s a rich man called James Salisbury owned this building. He ran a tobacco business from here and was very powerful and revered. One night, when he was working late, someone broke in and murdered him. Shot him right through the heart with a rifle and stole his money, watch and other valuables. I then said that it has been rumoured over the years that this James Salisbury has been haunting the building ever since, and has cursed every business that’s ever operated from here.” Dean grinned. “What do you think?”
“Very good. But why would he curse this place?”
“Who cares. Darren won’t think of that. I was watching him while I was talking, and he was definitely listening. So now I need you to ask Oscar to bring up the subject of ghosts while you’re drinking your coffee, and then we’ll see if he takes the bait. Is that okay?”
“No problem” giggled Alice, and slipped quietly back into the restaurant.
“What happened to you?” called Oscar, as she approached the coffee machine.
“Oh, nothing. I was just looking for some more milk.”
“It’s in the fridge under the counter where it always is, silly.”
“Oh yes, so it is.” Alice hurriedly made three lattes, took them over to the alcove and joined Oscar and Darren. “So Darren, you’re a friend of Oscar’s?” What a stupid question, she thought to herself.
“We’ve been friends for over ten years,” said Darren, fondly. He seemed really nice, thought Alice, suddenly feeling guilty for what she was about to do. She smiled sweetly at them both while she was raking her brain to find a way to bring up the subject of ghosts.
“Darren, did you know that Alice is also psychic? You two should get together to compare notes.”
“Really?” beamed Darren, looking thrilled to find a kindred spirit. “I’d love to have a chat with you. Did you know that this place is haunted?”
“Well, Oscar did mention something,” said Alice. This was too easy, she thought. She hadn’t even needed to bring the subject up herself. She wondered if Oscar had deliberately set this up, hoping maybe that he could get them both to convince Dean that he was right. Her gut feeling about Darren though, was that he wasn’t deliberately acting as a fraudulent psychic, but seemed to genuinely believe what he was feeling. It was a shame that it was having such a negative effect on Oscar, otherwise she would have preferred to leave Darren to his deluded belief that he was a gifted psychic. She hoped he wouldn’t be too upset when they exposed his shortcomings, but it needed to be done. She knew Oscar needed a big wake-up call so he could concentrate on getting the business back on its feet.
“Well, I’ve just suggested to Oscar that we hold a séance. Will you join us?”
Alice looked suitably enthusiastic and readily agreed to taking part in the séance, which they had agreed would take place on Christmas Eve, as Darren couldn’t make it before then.
“Best not to tell Dean,” whispered Oscar. “He’s such a non believer that his negative energy could keep the spirits away. We’ll do it after we’ve closed and spring it on him at the last minute.”
“I’m not meant to be working on Christmas Eve,” said Alice, as she got up to set the tables. “Shall I come in anyway and give you a hand?”
“That’ll be great,” said Oscar. “I can arrange for you to swap shifts if you like. And remember, mum’s the word!” He tapped his nose dramatically, and Alice felt another sense of guilt that she was lying to her boss, who she now considered a friend, but it was for his own good. She felt a thrill of excitement as she imagined what her first séance would be like, followed immediately by a feeling of regret that it was all based on a lie.
Chapter 18
The lunchtime shift was busy and Alice didn’t have a chance to tell Dean about the planned séance. At three o’clock she had finished clearing away and was ready to leave. Jack wouldn’t be home until late, so she decided to pop round to the old flat to start packing up. She had left a lot of stuff there when she’d moved into Jack’s, especially Jemma’s things, but she just hadn’t been able to deal with sorting through them, then. Jack had offered to do it, but she felt it was something she had to do herself; eventually. But now, her parents wanted to rent the flat out to someone else, which was fair enough, and she had promised them that she would have the flat cleared and vacant by the new year.
She held her breath as the let herself in through the door, still half expecting to hear Jemma’s voice shout out a welcoming greeting, but the silence seemed more intensive than ever, and Alice felt a shiver of apprehension run through her as she closed the door and walked into the small living room. She stood still for a moment, looking around the room, letting the memories flow back again. With a deep sigh, she made her way into Jemma’s room and took in the task that lay ahead of her. Everything was pretty much the way it was before her friend had died. Jemma’s clothes were everywhere, strewn across the chair and hanging out of drawers. There were several stacks of various things dotted around the room, comprising of a mixture of magazines, shoes, clothes and god knows what else. Alice never knew how Jemma could stand living in such a mess, but Jemma had always insisted that she knew exactly which stack contained what and, oddly enough, she did always seem to know exactly where to find whatever she was looking for.
But now, no matter how organised this mess might be, Alice didn’t have a clue where she was going to start. Right, she thought, decisively, she would put everything into three piles, one for rubbish, one for charity and one to keep. It could well be that Jemma’s Aunt Tess would like something, but apart from that she knew she had to be ruthless. Plugging her iPod into some speakers, she slowly started sifting through the mess as the dark sound of The Sisters of Mercy kept her company.
Alice lost track of time as she got caught up in the music,
and the memories, that Jemma’s belongings were bringing back to her. The piles were slowly going down as the labelled bin liners were filling up, and it gradually dawned on her that she was finding this incredibly therapeutic. It was as if packing Jemma’s things away was putting a finality on her grief, somehow helping her come to terms with what had happened. She would always miss Jemma, and she knew some days would be easier than others, but she also knew that perhaps it was time to move on and let Jemma’s memory be a happy and positive one. Her spirits lifted as she made progress, and she felt increasingly positive as more and more of the carpet became visible. But then she remembered Jemma’s message on the voice recorder, and her heart sank again. Every time she tried to move on, Jemma’s words rang in her head. What had her friend been trying to tell her, where was she, and if she could she hear Jemma’s voice on a recorder, why hadn’t she been able to talk to her? She couldn’t wait for Maggie to get back from that retreat so she could talk to her some more. Right now, Maggie seemed her only chance of making contact with Jemma, and until she returned, Alice felt powerless to do anything. Jack had tried to teach her how to reach a deep meditative state in the hope that she could reach Jemma that way, but nothing had happened, although she was still practicing. She sighed as she resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to get any answers just yet, and carried on clearing through Jemma’s things, with renewed determination to get through it all.
Finally, the floor was clear and Alice sat back with satisfaction and admired her progress. She couldn’t allow herself to relax though, and decided to make a start on the wardrobe straight away. There were six bin liners full of stuff already, three of which were for the charity shop and only one which was rubbish. The other two contained the things that either she or Aunt Tess would like to keep. Surveying the room she decided to move the bags out into the hallway to give her some more space.
“Hey now, hey now now,” she sang, as she dragged a heavy bag through the doorway, but as she did so, the music suddenly stopped and the flat was thrown into silence. “Shit,” she grumbled under her breath, and made her way back into Jemma’s room to switch the music back on. But then, completely out of the blue, she felt herself stiffen and she stopped in her tracks. Something wasn’t right, the goosebumps that had come up on her arms felt as if someone was blowing cool air on them, making the tiny hairs stand on end. The silence grew from a mere lack of sound, to a feeling of intense heaviness, as if someone was covering her with a thick blanket, making it hard to breath. She tried taking a step forward, but found that she couldn’t move, and that’s when she realised that she had experienced this sensation before; the day the boy had appeared in her kitchen! But this time, instead of panicking, she willed herself to wait calmly, well, as calmly as she could, as she remembered what Dean had said, and, sure enough, the pale boy slowly appeared in front of her, looking as enigmatic and ethereal as before.
“Alice! Do not be afraid, I mean you no harm.” The voice was clearly audible, although the boy had not moved his mouth.
“I know that now. Are you an angel?” her voice sounded small, but steady.
The boy remained silent, although there was a very slight hint of a smile on his lips. Alice knew instinctively that he was indeed an angel, Dean had been right. Now that she wasn’t in a state of terror, she found that she was able to study the boy more closely. His eyes shone as if they were made of the most brilliant diamonds you could ever imagine, and his whole being radiated warmth and light, which contrasted dramatically with the cold, dark atmosphere she was standing in. She was completely mesmerised, and could only stare in wonderment at the vision in front of her.
“I am sorry that I frightened you before. I have been trying to talk to you since Jemma died, but your fear kept me from making contact with you.” The voice was soft, gentle, and Alice felt herself being soothed by the melodic tone. It felt as if the words were dancing in front of her, wrapping themselves around her body, before seeping through to her most inner consciousness.
“Every living person has an angel, and I am Jemma’s. But I let her down, Alice, because she was not meant to die that day, and now she is trapped in a place for lost souls; somewhere I cannot reach her or help her.”
“That’s awful,” whispered Alice.
“You have a special gift, Alice, and you need to use that gift to pass on a message to Jemma for me. I cannot communicate with the lost souls, but you have the ability to talk to her. You must tell her to leave the eleventh dimension and return to the living. It was not her time to die, and she will never be able to move on and find peace if she stays where she is. You must tell her this, Alice. She will know what to do, but tell her also that she must beware of Max!”
“Max?” asked Alice, trying to recall if Jemma had ever known anyone called Max.
But the angel was starting to fade, and she knew that his work was done, and it was now up to her to do as the angel had asked. As the last particles of light faded, Alice just managed to catch a smile from the angel before he disappeared completely, and she knew that that would be the last time she saw him. Then the music started playing again, just as suddenly as it had stopped, making Alice jump, and she hurried over to turn it off, now resenting the intrusion. She wanted to remain quiet, because she knew that she would never hear or feel silence in quite the same way again. She wanted to remember every last detail of what had just happened. There had been something so captivating about the presence of the angel, and she wondered if she would ever experience anything so overwhelming and powerful again.
As the euphoria of the angel’s appearance started to wear off though, the implications of what he had said were dawning on her. Jemma was trapped, and possibly in danger from this Max. He had said that she must return, but how could that happen? She was dead, after all. This was all way beyond her modest psychic knowledge, and she was at a loss of what do to next. But Dean might know, she thought suddenly. She decided that she had to talk to him straight away, so she grabbed her coat, and ran out of the flat, leaving the bin liners lying on the floor.
It didn’t take long to get to Glitz, it was only down the road, but as she approached the door, it occurred to her that there might not be anyone there. Oscar and Dean lived in the flat upstairs, but she’d never been up there, in fact, she wasn’t even sure where the door to the flat was, so she hoped that Dean would still be in the restaurant, as he was a workaholic, and was nearly always there. To her relief, the door was unlocked, and as she pushed it open, she heard the sound of Underscore on the sound system, so she knew immediately that he was there.
“Hello there!” said Dean, looking surprised to see her back again so soon.
“Dean, I’m so glad you’re here. You were right. It was an angel, he came back. I’ve just seen him.”
“Woa, slow down,” laughed Dean. “Come and sit down.”
Alice sat down opposite Dean, and excitedly told him about her encounter with the angel. “He was beautiful, Dean,” she finished. “I’ve never been so moved by anything in my life.”
“You’re very lucky. Few people ever get to see an angel, let alone talk to one. What did he say?”
“Well, that’s what’s worrying me. He said that Jemma wasn’t meant to die, and that I’ve got to pass on a message to her to tell her to come back, but how can you come back from the dead? Oh, and I’ve got to warn her about someone called Max. He said that I can use my gift, but I don’t know what to do. How the hell am I going to do this?”
At that moment, Oscar burst through the doors. “Hello, Sweetie,” he smiled, when he saw Alice. “Are you telling Dean about the séance?”
“That’s it!” exclaimed Alice, excitedly. “A séance, of course. Why didn’t I think of that before?”
*****
“Jemma?”
“Huh?” Jemma looked up from the computer screen that Jack was using, and smiled at Susie.
“Are you homesick? Do you still want to leave?”
“Er...” J
emma hesitated as Susie jumped onto the kitchen table and sat, cross legged, in front of her. “Well...” This was when she should be telling Susie that it wasn’t herself going home, but her and Tom, but Tom was right, there’s no way Susie could keep her mouth shut, so instead she replied, “Well, yes. I plan to leave just after Christmas.”
“But why? I don’t get it. You’ve seemed so happy lately, what with your thing with Tom and all. Why do you want to leave him?”
“It’s not Tom, or you, that I want to leave, Susie. I just feel that it’s the right thing to do.”
“Bollocks!”
“Susie!”
“Well, it is. The right thing to do? For who, exactly?”
Oh shit, this was going to be lot harder than she’d thought. Susie was a lot of things, but she wasn’t stupid and she didn’t like lying to her. But she knew she had no choice, they just couldn’t risk her blabbing to Max, so she strengthened her resolve to keep quiet.
“Susie, will you stop going on about it? I’ve got a headache.”
“Ghosts don’t get headaches!”
“Oh for gods sake, Susie, will you just leave me alone,” snapped Jemma, and vanished from the kitchen, leaving Susie looking bewildered, and more than a bit hurt.
Jemma found herself at the forest, not far from Claire’s bench, and for a minute she considered going somewhere else to be alone. There must be hundreds of forests, she thought, she could try somewhere different for once, where no-one would know her. But now that she was there, she thought, she might as well go and ask Claire what she knew about the wormholes. She was beginning to wish she’d never tried so hard to persuade Tom to leave, it would have been so easy just to leave things as they were, and she would have had her happy ending. She could see Claire, sitting in her usual place, and felt a hint of irritation. When was she going to realise that Robert was never going to come for her?
“Hi,” she said, as she approached the bench, “No sign of him yet, then?”
Love In The Wrong Dimension (Romantic Ghost Story) Page 19