‘Oh God, I loved you so much!’
I fell towards him and he drew me close, burying his face in my hair. And with his touch the bright colours of a forgotten memory suddenly burst forward through the darkness.
At last she turned to face me: my mother with her grubby old T-shirt sticking to her sides. Her cheeks were full of sunshine and her eyes sparkled as she dropped the pink bloom into my hand. A peony.
‘I have to ask you something,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Why is it that I can see you, and Gladys, and now the house? What’s so special about me?’
His fingers reached down to my waist, slid up beneath my top and traced the scar I’d carried with me for so long.
‘You were there in the bus with them that day, weren’t you? When your parents died? That’s how you got this scar, from all that glass smashing about you when the bus veered into the shop window.’
As the words came out of his mouth the scar burned hot beneath his hand.
‘How did you know? I’ve never told anyone,’ I groaned.
‘No. And I doubt whether you’ve ever truly faced it yourself. But there had to be some reason why you were so scared of broken glass.’
The memories surged back in. Unstoppable now. Unshrinkable. My own private fortress crashing down around me.
‘A great shard of it went in,’ I tried to swallow back the tears. ‘Freezing cold and boiling hot at the same time. I fought my way out of the wreck alone, with the glass still inside me. It took hours for them to stitch me up in the hospital. I lost so much blood...’
‘And whilst you were lying there you stared right into the face of death, didn’t you? After that the world changed forever. You stumbled on through life like a lonely ghost, seeing everything around you for what it was. All that had ever been beautiful was gone.’
‘Until I came here,’ I sobbed. ‘Until I found you!’
‘But it’s too late for me. Leave this place, please, before I try to stop you. Don’t throw away a second chance.’
He lifted up my chin and our mouths touched with a kiss that gently melted into nothing. When I opened my eyes, he’d gone.
We have all lived with ghosts at some point in our lives. They’ve embraced us passionately in the darkest hours, made us laugh and cry when we are lonely and at our most vulnerable. But there also comes a time when we have to shut the doors of our past behind us and venture back into the world with new skin. And although I lost a part of myself forever when I walked away from Marguerite Avenue, it also felt as if my heart was finally beginning to beat with fresh blood again. Second chances really do exist. It was time for me to live.
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephanie Elmas was born in Hong Kong to an English father and Czech mother but spent most of her childhood in Bristol. She studied English at university in London. She has worked as a head hunter, taught English in Japan and returned to university to complete a Masters in Victorian fiction. It was here that she developed her interest in the dark dangerous world of Victorian sensation writing. Stephanie now lives in a chaotic house in Surrey with her husband and three highly energetic but wonderful children.
REVIEWS
If you have enjoyed my writing, I would be very grateful if you wrote a review on the last page of this book. Reviews and social networking sell books and, as a new author, I would appreciate your help. My success as an author will come from the quality of my writing and my readers' support.
COMING UP
The Curious Life of Walter Balanchine
(working title)
During the writing of The Room Beyond I fell so in love with the character of Walter Balanchine that I felt he deserved a story of his own. And so my next novel plunges into the labyrinthine alleyways of the Victorian East End to find Walter in his youth. It is told through the eyes of Tom Winter, Walter’s old workhouse friend, and how together the two men turn a simple conjuring show into a mystical sensation that will rock the very pillars of London society.
Stephanie Elmas
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my family and friends for their unfailing encouragement over the long period of time it has taken me to write this book. I am also so grateful to hhb agency for being a powerhouse of support, know-how and empathy throughout this process. Thank you Heather Holden-Brown, Elly James, Celia Hayley and Claire Houghton-Price. Celia, I could not have made The Room Beyond what it is without your editorial skills. I would never have found hhb agency without the help of Clarissa Dickson Wright. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. My heartfelt thanks go to Jennie Rawlings for her beautiful cover design. Finally I would like to acknowledge my husband Alpaslan and mother Jarmila for reading all those rewrites and always encouraging me to follow my dream. This book is for both of you.
The Room Beyond Page 32