Ghost 05 - Fairytale Come Alive

  Then she unveiled a silver double frame that was folded in on itself.

  Fiona floated over her while she opened it then floated back several feet when she saw what was in it.

  On one side was a photo of Isabella and Prentice together, he was swinging her up in his arms, she had her arms around his neck, her head thrown back, his head was tilted to look down at her and they were both laughing. On the other side was just a photo of Prentice, close up, much younger and, as ever, deliciously handsome.

  He was looking at the camera in a way that was familiar to Fiona. It was because his face was soft and warm and infinitely loving.

  It was then Isabella Austin Evangelista did the thing Fiona wished she’d never, never, never seen her do.

  After touching Prentice’s face lovingly with just the tip of one finger, she opened the frames, slowly sliding out the photos. Then she tossed the frame back in the bag and replaced the bag in the wardrobe.

  Then she walked to the bathroom.

  Standing over the toilet, while Fiona stared in horror, she ripped up the photos and tossed them in.

  But she wasn’t done.

  Pulling a very thin, delicate, gold chain from her neck, it was freed from the bodice of her nightgown and Fiona saw it held a diamond engagement ring.

  Tears falling completely silently down her beautiful face, Isabella Austin Evangelista tossed the engagement ring Prentice gave her twenty years ago in the toilet. A ring Fiona knew because of the photos, and the tears, had been hanging around her neck for every one of those twenty years.

  Isabella stared in the toilet for what seemed like forever.

  And Fiona stared at Isabella as the tears rolled down Isabella’s face, her neck, down her chest, wetting her gown.

  So many tears.

  God, she didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone cry that many tears, especially not silently.

  Then Isabella leaned toward the handle and Fiona found herself trying (and failing) to shout, Don’t do it!

  Isabella flushed.

  Then she walked out of the room.

  Fiona hovered over the toilet and looked down it hoping for the first time that Prentice’s excellent plumbing would be faulty.

  It wasn’t.

  Fiona floated back into the bedroom. It was dark, Isabella motionless in bed, her eyes closed but with her super keen, supernatural senses, Fiona saw that her hands were clenched so tightly they were mottled red but white at the joints.

  Fiona watched Isabella a long time, not knowing what she was feeling but thinking something pretty colossal had changed in the way she thought about Isabella Austin Evangelista.

  She only knew it had changed when Isabella finally fell asleep, her hands relaxed to open and Fiona saw the deep grooves that her fingernails had made in her palms.

  It wasn’t even the new, angry, purple grooves.

  It was the overabundance of white, fingernail-shaped scars that surrounded them.

  Chapter Three

  Ginger Snaps

  Isabella

  Isabella sat next to Prentice the next morning as he drove them toward Fergus’s home after they’d dropped the children off at school.

  She had carefully missed the pre-school preparations, although she heard them because she’d opened her door so she could. Mostly Sally’s ceaseless chatter but also Jason’s low mumbles and Prentice’s deep rumbly commands. It sounded manic but fun.

  She’d come down at what she’d hoped was the last minute (and she’d been correct) and did her best to be cool and detached from Sally and failed miserably. She couldn’t be cool and detached from the sweet, high-spirited, brown-eyed, brown-haired girl who looked startlingly like Fiona, a fact which had to be both heartbreaking and easing for Prentice.

  Then she’d asked for a ride to Fergus’s to which Prentice agreed.

  While on their way to school, Sally asked approximately one thousand questions about what “Mrs. Evangahlala” was making for dinner that night give or take a question or two. Then she’d stood at Isabella’s door of Prentice’s Range Rover, slapping it and waving madly until Isabella smiled and waved back. Only then did she turn and run toward the school.

  Now, Isabella had her hands clenched tightly in fists, feeling the calming pain, her eyes looking out the window.

  “This is the last time you’ll have to do this. I’ve a rental car being delivered today,” she told him.

  “Aye,” he replied shortly.

  Isabella forged ahead in her attempt to be polite. “I know Annie has a goodly number of guests coming this week but I’ll call around to some B&Bs and –”

  He cut her off, “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Isabella persevered, “Maybe there’s a cancellation or –”

  Without taking his eyes from the road, he interrupted her again, “Don’t do it, Isabella.”

  She found this vaguely surprising. He’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t want her in his home. He’d made it infinitely clear he didn’t want her around his children. Why wouldn’t he want her to find alternate accommodation?

  “It’s no bother,” she went on. “They have cancellations all the time, I’m sure something will come up.

  He glanced swiftly at her then back to the road. “Likely, aye.”

  “So, I’ll make some calls.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  She turned and looked at him.

  Age, she thought, had not been kind to him.

  It had been generous.

  How he could be more beautiful now than when they’d been together when she thought he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen (because he was) was a cruel twist of fate.

  He still wore his thick hair (which she described to her girlfriends at Northwestern as “exactly two shades lighter than the darkest, dark brown”) a little long. Sun and laughter had given him attractive lines radiating from the sides of his eyes. His jaw had lost none of its sharp angularity, nor had his cheekbones. His eyes were the same unusually beautiful every-color as they’d always been. Even his body had become better; he was bigger, more muscular, more powerfully-built.

  She took her thoughts off her latest cruel twist of fate and stated, “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re no’ unknown around here,” Prentice said by way of explanation.

  She was not unknown everywhere thanks to Laurent and her father and, well, freaking Laurent (the jerk).

  “I’m used to that,” Isabella explained softly.

  “Aye, I’m sure you are. Perhaps I should have said you’re no’ liked around here.”

  Silently, Isabella pulled in breath. She hadn’t expected that.

  She should have, especially after what Debs said the day before, not to mention what Prentice had said, both of these instances scoring at her heart.

  Luckily, her heart had been lacerated beyond feeling much of anything anymore so she didn’t feel like tossing herself off the nearest cliff, of which there were a fair few around here.

  But still, she hadn’t anticipated that.

  Once upon a time (in other words, twenty years ago), Prentice’s village was the only safe haven Isabella had known in her life.

  Now, it was a place where she was reviled.

  She tightened her fists further and looked out the window, murmuring, “I won’t make the calls.”

  “Aye, smart,” he muttered and she got the impression he was barely listening to her.

  Which he probably wasn’t.

  She stayed silent until he stopped in front of Fergus’s house. She didn’t look at him when she expressed her gratitude for the ride and put her hand to the door.

  “Isabella,” he called, she stopped and turned to him.

  He was holding up a key.

  “To the house,” he said, dropping it in her palm when she lifted her hand for the key.

  His eyes started to move away but all of a sudden they jerked back, slightly narrowed and focused on her palm.

  Instantly, her hand closed over
the key.

  “I’ve decided I’ll make dinner and then I’ll explain to the children that I have a raging headache,” she blurted, wanting to divert his attention as his still narrowed gaze followed her closed hand.

  His eyes shot to hers, his mouth was tight and he looked very angry.

  “Why in the fuck would you do that?” he bit out, his voice proving she was so, very correct about him being so, very angry.

  “Um –” Isabella’s mind went blank at his anger.

  She remembered a great deal about him (in fact, pretty much everything) but she’d never seen him angry (well, not this angry). She didn’t know what to say, she didn’t even know if she could speak.

  Then she remembered what to say.

  “So I can leave you to dinner and get to my rooms.”

  His head gave a small jerk and he looked over her shoulder, probably, she decided, to gain control.

  Then his eyes met hers.

  “Their mother died of a brain tumor,” he told her and it sounded like those words were dredged straight out of the depth of some hole inside of him that was too deep to measure.

  “I know,” Isabella whispered. “Annie told me.”

  “It started with headaches.”

  Isabella automatically made a noise as if someone very strong had pressed the breath right out of her lungs.

  She was going to cry.

  She was going to cry.

  Oh no.

  No, no, no no, no!

  She couldn’t cry!

  Her hands fisted, the key bit into her palm, the pain shot through her and she didn’t cry.

  Instead, she said, “I’m an idiot.”

  He turned away, putting one of his hands back to the steering wheel, the other to the clutch.

  “I’ll come up with something else, I promise,” she blathered on.

  Only his head turned so he could look at her.

  “Food poisoning!” she cried, sounding both stupid and desperate.

  “I’m not sure food poisoning is good, Isabella, considering you’ll be cooking.”

  Yes, stupid.

  Yes, an idiot.

  Yes, desperate.

  Triple threat!

  “Oh, right,” Isabella muttered but he’d already turned back away.

  Isabella opened her door, promising again (under her breath this time), “Well, I’ll think of something.”

  She barely got the door closed when he drove away.

  She stood in the drive watching his SUV thinking she hated pretty much everything about her life, but the thing she hated most at that particular moment was hearing Prentice address her as “Isabella”.

  Then she turned and walked up to Fergus’s house.

  * * * * *

  Fiona

  “Flapjacks!” Annie shouted from down the grocery aisle, she was holding up a box of flapjacks in each hand and waving them around. “Kids love flapjacks!”

  “I’m not stocking their larder, Annie, I’m making them dinner,” Isabella called back.

  “Nothing wrong with stocking that hot guy’s larder, you hear what I’m saying?” Mikey muttered, staring with curiosity at the jam selection.

  “Don’t go there,” Isabella warned softly.

  “Time heals all wounds,” Mikey was still muttering and his eyes had gone narrow.

  Fiona watched closely as Isabella allowed herself an open reaction, considering Mikey was staring at the jams and Annie was tossing flapjacks into the cart Isabella was pushing.

  Sorrow.

  Unadulterated.

  Then she masked it.

  No, Fiona thought, time did not heal all wounds.

  “Where’s the grape jelly?” Mikey asked the jam selection.

  “They don’t have grape jelly here,” Annie explained.

  “That’s un-American!” Mikey shrieked, his head turning to Isabella and Annie.

  “Well, yeah, considering we aren’t in America,” Annie drawled.

  “Kids love grape jelly,” Mikey said with authority.

  “American kids like grape jelly, Scottish kids like, I don’t know, marmite,” Annie replied as Isabella pushed the cart forward.

  “Marmite?” Mikey asked then pulled an exaggerated horrified face.

  Lime marmalade! Fiona shouted her children’s preference.

  “Lime marmalade,” Isabella said instantly and Fiona was so shocked she accidentally floated straight through Mikey causing him to shiver.

  She hated floating through people and avoided it at all costs, she didn’t feel anything physically, just emotionally, but it made her sadder than her normal sad at being dead when the only thing she could make people feel was cold.

  “Cat walked over my grave,” he whispered, doing another shiver just for effect as Isabella grabbed a jar of lime marmalade. Then she grabbed another one.

  “I hate lime marmalade, too sweet,” Annie mumbled.

  “It’s fruit and sugar and fruit is sugar so there’s no way for it not to be sweet,” Mikey hilariously explained.

  No matter how funny he was being, and Fiona had decided she liked Mikey, Fiona wasn’t listening.

  She floated close to Isabella and asked, Can you hear me?

  “So, I’m thinking chicken strips, fries and some kind of vegetable,” Isabella, clearly not hearing Fiona’s voice from beyond the grave, stated. “What kind of vegetable?”

  Peas, Fiona told her.

  “Broccoli?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t think so. Forget the veggies, kids hate veggies,” Mikey advised and Fiona forgot she liked him and gave him a dirty look.

  For the past year, one month, three weeks and five days (and then some, considering she was super sick before she died but her Mum had helped with the cooking then), Prentice hadn’t been great on the nutrition front.

  Her kids needed their veg.

  “How about green beans?” Annie asked.

  Peas! Fiona shouted at Isabella.

  “Peas,” Isabella said and Fiona stopped floating along with them, her shock and excitement was too profound.

  Good God, could the woman hear her?

  She was stunned motionless for so long she had to float up and over the shelves to catch them up on the other side.

  “What are you making for dessert?” Mikey asked when Fiona arrived.

  “No dessert. I don’t want Prentice to think I’m trying to make them like me,” Isabella answered.

  Fiona closed her ghostly eyes.

  Yesterday, after her beloved husband told off his hated ex-fiancée, Fiona had wished she could kiss him (not for the first time).

  Today, she wished she could kick him (also not for the first time, however, it had been the first time since she’d died).

  “You make a mean hot fudge sundae,” Annie said to Isabella.

  Sally would love an American hot fudge sundae, Fiona told her excitedly. And Jason’s favorite food in the world is clotted cream ice cream. Make that!

  “No dessert,” Isabella said softly but firmly in her weird authoritative voice.

  Annie halted, Mikey halted with her and both of them glared at Isabella, Mikey adding a cross of the arms on his chest which made his glare far more effective.

  “Okay, Debs was out-of-control yesterday. You shouldn’t be surprised about that, Debs was always out-of-control,” Annie stated. “And Prentice got upset with you but you shouldn’t be surprised about that either. First, you dumped him and never explained, which, I will repeat, for the five thousandth time, you should have. Or you should have let me explain it to him and Dougal and Debs and everybody. Something, which I will remind you, you refused to let me do, about… oh, I don’t know? Five thousand times. Or you should have let Dad say something which he’s been wanting to do for years. And last, Prentice lost his wife and he’s on edge. He’s taking care of two kids, running his own firm, his best friend is blissfully happy and his ex-girlfriend is sleeping under his roof.”

  “And who arranged that?” Isabella returned c
oolly and Fiona, floating beside her, nodded in invisible agreement because, especially for Annie, that was underhanded.

  Though, Fiona was curious to know what there was to explain and why Isabella wouldn’t let Annie or Fergus do it.

  Annie had the good manners to blush.

  “I want all the people I love to get along,” she said quietly and Fiona lost her pique.

  So did Isabella.

  Even so, Isabella walked around the cart to her friend and grabbed Annie’s hand. “First, I think you know why I’ve never explained or let you explain.”

  “I know why,” Annie returned. “I just don’t agree.”

  “I don’t either,” Mikey put in.

  Fiona floated closer.

  “I know you both don’t agree,” Isabella replied. “But I believe, deeply, it’s better this way and I’ll ask, again, that you respect my wishes.”

  Neither Mikey nor Annie looked happy about this but they didn’t respond.

  Isabella continued, “And, I’m sorry Annie, but Prentice doesn’t have to like me. He doesn’t even have to get along with me. He has to put up with for me for one week. Then, sweetie, I’m gone. Don’t put this pressure on him, he’s got enough on his plate. Just let me...” Isabella stopped, her eyes got big, her usually remote face filled with pleasure, making her beauty radiant as it had been the day before when she’d smiled at Fergus then she practically did a small jump in her high-heeled, fancy, posh, brown boots and cried, “I’ve got it!”

  Fiona stared, even Isabella’s soft voice had raised with excitement.

  “Got what?” Mikey asked, staring at her avidly, a small grin on his lips. The look on his face and the attention he was giving his friend told Fiona he didn’t often see her like this and he was intent on enjoying it on the rare occasions she showed it.

  But Isabella had raced back to the handle on the shopping cart and was pushing it with renewed vim and vigor, like she had a new lease on life.

  “The food for the kids and Prentice won’t be from me,” she announced, her eyes searching the shelves, her hands reaching for a variety of biscuits and she studied them. “The sundaes won’t even be from me. I’ll tell Prentice that Annie went shopping with me and I’ll tell him Annie bought it.” She stopped studying the biscuits and looked gleefully at the stunned Annie and Mikey. “He’ll never know!” When she finished, she was almost shouting.