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She checked again just to make sure.
“Oh, you won’t see it.”
Jessica’s superior voice was beginning to grate on Edie’s already frazzled nerves.
“But believe me,” she rattled her chain spewing more pink glitter over the duvet, “it is much, much longer.”
Edie couldn't see the end of Jessica's chain; it stretched from the bed and through the closed door to the room.
And hers was longer?
“But we aren’t evil people, Jessica. We sent all those wedding gifts and some bloody expensive ones too. We gave up our weekends and went to all the hen parties and all the weddings, even the ones we knew weren’t going to last. We said all the right things. And we get this?” Edie pointed at the chain. “Tell me it isn’t true,” she implored.
“Empty gestures, Edie. When did we ever congratulate them from the heart? We shut ourselves off from their happiness and our own. We had withering hearts behind our withering put downs. You remember don’t you? All those conversations and bets on who would be divorced first. We said how stupid they all were for believing in fairytales. And how we knew better. Well at least they did believe. Because I’m stuck carrying this chain on my own. Alone. For eternity.”
The ghoul shook its chain and sniffed back tears.
Edie shivered at the misery that came off it in waves.
“But you have a chance, Edie. You can change.” The spirit eagerly leaned towards her as she spoke.
“But how?” asked Edie.
“You will be haunted,” Jessica the ghost said, “by three Spirits.”
She was going to be haunted by more ghosts? This wasn’t happening. She was going mad. Maybe she needed to take some time off. She hadn't had a holiday in years.
“Three Spirits?” she said.
Jessica nodded.
“And this is my chance?” she asked falteringly.
“Yes.”
“My only chance?”
“Yes.”
“No other way?”
“No, if you don’t do this…” the ghost paused and then gestured down towards her outfit. Edie shuddered; the peach shiny dress and the pink glitter encrusted chain made her feel ill.
“Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one.”
“Can’t I take them all at once? I mean three nights of interrupted sleep are going to play hell with my work schedule,” Edie hinted.
The spirit Jessica ignored her.
“Expect the second a week later at the same hour; and the third in a fortnight. Edie, please, for your own sake remember this.” The ghoul stood as she said this and wrapped her chain around her arm.
A set of fairy wings fluttered against a pair of devil's horns.
“I’ve got two weeks of this?” Edie’s voice rose an octave or two.
“Better two weeks now than an eternity later,” The ghoul retorted.
When it was put like that…
“Will I see you again?” Edie asked.
Did she want to see Jessica again? She hadn’t been overly keen on her when she was alive. But maybe she could have someone to talk things over with after the haunting? Edie was used to dealing with things alone, but this was huge.
“No, this was my one chance to right some of my wrongs. My one chance to save you from the same fate,” The spirit walked towards the window, heels tapping and chain scraping.
“Remember Edie, it’s all in the small print of the Ts and Cs. Let the love in.” The spirit paused. “I can’t believe the crap they’ve got me saying,” Jessica muttered as the sash window flung itself up and open of its own accord and she stepped out.
Edie threw back the covers and rushed to the window.
Hovering just over the sill, Jessica stared back at her.
“Remember!” she wailed and turning joined the throng of similarly clad women and morning-suited men who suddenly appeared. Glitter, fairy wings, handcuffs and dodgy hats filled the air.
“Remember!”
The ghoul rushed away from Edie and up over the rooftop of the mansion block opposite. And then she and the rest of the wedding crazed ghosts were gone.
“Madness,” Edie whispered. “Complete and utter madness. That chicken must have been off.”
But still she slammed the window shut and double-checked the locks. She leapt back into bed and pulled the duvet up to her chin. She absently picked at her manicure.
“It was just a dream, just a dream,” she repeated to herself, ignoring the glint of pink glitter that dusted the end of her bed.
She was still saying that under her breath as she marched through the reception area of the office the next morning. Edie ignored the receptionist cringing behind the large wood and chrome desk, she forgot to sling her usual scathing comment on the state of the poor woman’s dress or that she’d let the flower arrangement droop.
“It was just a dream,” she said softly while she waited for the lift.
Edie had already said it as she sat up in bed, as she showered, as she dressed, as she made breakfast and in a frothy white mumble as she brushed her teeth.
The lift arrived empty, for which she was thankful. She especially didn't want to deal with people this morning. She got in, jabbing the button for her floor.
As the doors were about to close a large be-suited arm, stopped them.
Damn it. She shifted to the side without looking up.
“It was just a dream,” she whispered to herself. “I must cut down on meat."
“I did that, did me the world of good but there were times I’d kill for a steak or a bacon sandwich,” a deep voice said in her left ear.
Chapter 3 (#u8bd58e47-96b6-5dac-b5db-dc2174be9bbf)
Edie jumped.
“What?” she said and looked up at the man next to her.
He was looking down at her with a friendly smile. Looking down from a long way up. And it was a very charming smile. Edie’s hackles went up. She didn't want to deal with people today. Especially charming ones.
“Cutting back on meat, you were just saying,” he explained.
“Kindly keep your dietary tips and stories for someone who cares,” she said. She didn’t need charming. Ms Satis had warned her to look behind the charm because they were normally hiding something. She was usually right.
The tall dark man’s smile faltered under her icy blast.
“Hey, you were the one sharing your dietary story first,” he said his hands held up in peace in front of him. “I thought maybe this was a new Friday office policy people had instigated while I was away.”
Edie stared at him confused. Why was he still talking? No one talked to her in the lift and never after one of her put-downs. And who the hell was he anyway?
The silence stretched for three more floors.
“This is us,” he said brightly.
Edie could feel rage building in her. She didn’t do brightly and she definitely didn’t want brightly charming people on the same floor as her.
The doors slid open and he gestured for her to leave first. She stalked out of the lift and tightened her grip on her briefcase.
Turn left. Turn left. Turn left. She willed him as she turned right. But no one was listening because there he was coming up behind her.
“I’m Jack Twist.” He was so close it felt as if he was speaking in her ear directly.
She stopped.
He wasn’t going to give up, she thought, until he had some sort of conversation. Tenacity was a good trait for a lawyer but not when they were garrulous as well.
It went against her work principles to indulge in chitchat but she needed to set him straight.
She turned on her heel and found herself inches from a very broad chest. It was currently clothed in a crisp striped blue and white cotton shirt. The tie was discretely and geometrically patterned in blue silk that soothed her somewhat. Then her attention was caught by the lining of the charcoal grey suit.
Cerise.
She blinked.
It was still cerise pink. The colour hurt her sleep-deprived eyes.
“Well Mr Twist, thank you for letting me know that you sometimes crave a steak or a bacon sandwich.” She tore herself away from the pink lining and moved her gaze to the determined and tanned chin at the top of the shirt, “I feel I can now begin this day with more of a spring in my step from this minutiae. But for future reference I don’t wish to hear about that or, in fact, anything else about you ever again whether in the lift or anywhere else. Good day.”
She swivelled on her heels and stalked off without waiting to see what Mr Twist had to say about it.
Who the hell did he think he was? OK so she had been talking to herself, which wasn’t something she usually indulged in but after last night…
Edie shivered, it was a dream. Just a dream.
She opened the door to her office.
No Rachel.
And after she promised to come in early.
Edie sniffed. The email she’d sent to HR last night would be followed up by a phone call today. How could she work to her best ability or expect to succeed when the people around her were substandard?
Edie marched to her desk. She placed her briefcase in the centre of it, adjusting it slightly to align it with the edge of the desk. She flicked open the locks, leaned forward to switch on her computer and then sat down in her chair all in one fluid take.
Work. Where she could forget about hallucinating. Where she could forget about ghosts and soft things like loving unconditionally. Where she could concentrate on at least making some money for those poor unfortunates who made the colossal mistake of getting hitched and believing they could have a happily ever after.
As she clicked to open her email, her last thought before she lost herself in work was;
Had some woman persuaded Jack Twist that cerise was a desirable lining for a work suit?
“Having reviewed the joint assets and the pension owed to Mrs Samuels, it is our belief that a fair settlement for my client is…”
The door to the office crashed open, banging on the wall and then almost ricocheting closed again. Edie paused in the middle of dictating her letter on the Samuels settlement. She clicked off the recorder, as Rachel, almost brained by the rebounding door, staggered into the room.
Edie lifted one carefully groomed eyebrow and surveyed the wreck of a girl before her.
“Well hello, Ms Micawber, it is good of you to grace us with your presence,” she said. “But if I could draw your attention to the clock over the door it is now nine fifteen am. If this is your idea of coming in early, I would hate to see you come in late. And may I also point out that you seem to have your skirt on backwards, your tights are laddered and there is a suspicious stain on your shirt.” Edie summed up.
She didn't mention the call she'd made to HR fifteen minutes before.
“Oh God, I am so sorry I’m late!” gasped a red-faced Rachel. A drop of sweat traced a path down her cheek.
“Timmy was sick in the night, and by the time we got him resettled and ourselves back to bed I was so exhausted I missed the alarm,” she stopped to gulp in more air.
“And then Rob gave me a lift to the station but we got a flat,” Rachel peered down at her shirt and made some vague rubbing motion over her left breast, smearing the stain into a bigger circle.
“I think that might be oil or grease from when I was trying to stop Timmy from lifting the spare tyre by himself. He is such a sweetheart, I can’t wait until the wedding and then I’ll be his stepmum properly.”
Edie could feel her eyes beginning to roll back in her head from boredom. It was too early to have to listen to Rachel’s witterings about her allegedly perfect fiancé Rob and his kid Timmy. Actually there was never a good time to listen to her. Edie knew more than she needed to about poor Timmy’s health issues and how his mother had rejected him at birth.
“Rachel," she said sharply. “Enough of the family spiel, we are behind enough already without a rehash of the touching family bonding experience I’m sure you all shared. Pull yourself together and when you have you can tell me where you are with the McCartney-Mills case.”
Edie clicked her Dictaphone back on.
“Half the pension, five thousand pounds a month maintenance and the London flat,” she carried on as if Rachel’s entrance had not happened at all.
Edie pinched her nose as a dull throbbing headache, probably caused by her interrupted night’s sleep, hit her.
And it was still only lunchtime.
She stretched out her arms, laced her fingers and pulled, loosening herself up.
