Never Can Say Goodbye

Author:Christina Jones [Jones, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780749953324
Google: HhfLZt26q8sC
Amazon: 0749953322
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2011-08-31T23:00:00+00:00

So, here she was, at a quarter to midnight, two Saturdays before Christmas, with Lilly all dressed in spectral black for the occasion, waiting for Dexter to arrive with Maisie.

The ice-cold weather continued across Berkshire, but the clear skies had given way to sullen low clouds and a biting north-easterly wind. Everyone was forecasting a white Christmas.

‘Oooh, it’s quite shuddery, just thinking about it, isn’t it?’ Lilly prowled round the rails. ‘What if there is a ghost, and it comes out all howling and dripping blood from its fangs?’

‘That’s vampires,’ Frankie said, also pacing up and down. ‘And it won’t be scary, Lilly, I promise you.’

‘Oh, I’m not scared, just curious. I watched Paranormal Experience all on my own. Twice. I wouldn’t mind meeting a ghost, actually. Do you think I’d look OK in this lime-green shifty thing?’

‘No.’ Frankie shook her head. ‘You’d look like a runner bean. Put it back, Lill. It’ll get all creased. Ah, here they are.’

The door opened and Dexter, incongruously pulling a tartan shopping trolley, stood back to allow Maisie to step inside.

Frankie pressed her lips together tightly to prevent any laughter escaping. Lilly didn’t.

Maisie was wearing a marquee-sized kaftan in a multi-coloured geometric print, skyscraper heels in green and lilac and adorned with tinsel bows, and a bright blue woolly bonnet over the curls.

‘Hello, sweethearts – oh, my goodness!’ She did the head-hitting-with-the-back-of-the-hand thing again. The bonnet fell off. Maisie slumped backwards against the door. Dexter, manoeuvring the shopping trolley, skipped niftily out of the way. ‘I may need a chair. Oh, I can feel them immediately. Everywhere … They’re draining my energy. You have a very serious problem here.’

Lilly grabbed a chair and Maisie overflowed onto it with a sigh.

‘If you just tell us what we have to do,’ Frankie said, now pretty sure, given Maisie’s repeat Oscar-winning performance, that this was going to be a complete waste of time, ‘we’ll get you anything you need.’

‘Lovely. Thank you.’ Maisie spoke faintly. ‘This is amazing. I can actually hear them calling to me already. Dexter has my bag of tricks – and that’s just a figure of speech, not an indication that this is a magic act –’ she looked sternly at Lilly ‘– so if I could have a little table just beside me, here.’

The table was fetched, a jug of water and a glass set on it, and the tartan shopping trolley placed beside the chair.

Delving into it, Maisie brought out two small bowls of what looked like potpourri but smelled like Bombay mix, a small brass filigreed lantern, two bunches of dried herbs and a greying lump of something that defied description, and arranged them on the table.

‘For cleansing the negative auras,’ Maisie said shakily. ‘I still feel a lot of negativity.’

‘Can’t imagine why,’ Dexter chuckled.

‘We don’t need the lights,’ Maisie whispered. ‘Just my cleansing candles for illumination. In my bag, sweetheart. I’ll have the big orange calendula one on the table here, and the little jasmine ones along the counter

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