Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“Yes, and the woman next to him.”
“Fantastic! His wife Margaret, I imagine. How lovely. Do they look happy?”
“Yeah, they look happy. They’re waving at me. George looks like he’s won the lottery.”
He did, as well. He looked like the happiest man in the world with his wife – Margaret – at his side.
“Excellent,” Hans whispered, and raised his glass to me. “Congratulations on your emerging skills. You will make an amazing ghost whisperer. Well done.”
“Yes, well done,” said Frederick, and raised his glass too.
A ghost whisperer.
I was going to be a ghost whisperer?
I didn’t know whether congratulations were truly in order, since I very nearly fainted out cold on the floor.
Chapter Eighteen
It was my turn to take a bathroom break. I needed to get out of there. Fast.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Hans and Frederick, trying my best to seem like I was steady on my feet as I rushed away.
I don’t know how I made it to the bathroom, but I did. I shunted my way into a cubicle and dropped myself down on the toilet with the room spinning.
It couldn’t be true. There was no way I could be a ghost whisperer, whatever that even meant.
Once again, though, it all came flooding back to me… the countless times I’d told Mum and Grandma about the people I’d seen across the street in my imagination wearing vintage clothes. The countless times they’d told me I was daydreaming.
Stop lying! There’s nobody there!
I’d heard the same response so many times that I’d stopped saying anything at all, giving myself the same message that they had. Stop being a stupid little girl.
Finally, I’d stopped questioning it, stopped talking about it. Stopped believing in it myself.
And now here I was, just turned eighteen, back in the midst of the fantasy confusion I’d had when I was eight.
I felt two different sides of myself battling, but there was no doubt which was going to win the war this time. For once in my life, the stupid little girl was going to stand up for herself and come up trumps. How could she not? Meeting a vampire named Hans and hearing him talk of witches, and wizards, and ghosts. There was no denying it. George and his wife were sitting at the bar.
Whatever the outcome of the inner battle, I had to get a grip of myself.
I couldn’t break down in the Regency bathroom, rocking on the tiled floor like the world was ending. The world wasn’t ending at all. My eyes were simply opening.
I moved from the cubicle to the basin and put my hands under the cold, running water, trying to slow down my heartrate. I needed to calm down. I thought that might be working a little until the bathroom door swung open.
There she was. Margaret. And she wasn’t just a waving figure at the other end of the bar this time, she was right up close, standing beside me.
She was a frail old lady, but she carried herself so well, standing tall. The wrinkles around her eyes complemented her warm smile, and she was dressed so perfectly demure, in a cream blouse and dark green skirt, with an emerald broach at the collar. She looked like she belonged on George’s arm. Most definitely.
“My husband has said lovely things about you,” she told me. “He said you were an excellent barmaid, always very helpful. That’s a massive compliment for an old grump like him.”
I felt like a fool, out of my depth when I replied with a ridiculous thank you, that’s a lovely thing to hear.
“It’s really quite the novelty to be seen by someone after all this time,” she said. “For over a decade I’ve been wandering around our house, trying to get George to see me, but it was like screeching at a wall. I only wish I’d accompanied him to the bar sooner, I may have been able to have a bit of chatter to fill my days.”
She gave a little chuckle.
I knew I was staring, and my mouth was gaping. I was talking to a freaking ghost.
“Just as well George met his end and came to join me, wasn’t it?” she went on. “I was about to give up and go haunt someone else, just to get them to notice me.”
She was joking, but my laugh in return got stuck in my throat. I sounded like a coughing frog.
“Oh dear,” she said. “Are you ill, my love? You look like you’re burning up.”
“I just can’t believe this is really happening,” I admitted.
“Can’t believe what is happening?”
I gestured at her wildly. “This. Seeing you. Seeing George. Everything.”
Her expression showed her confusion.
“Surely this can’t be the first time? You are a witch, after all.”
The room spun, my eyes trying to stay fixed on her.
“Sorry, what? What did you say?”
Her eyes sparkled along with her broach.