Little Eden Read online

  “Yes!” Robert replied. “That is the message I got too! What’s a dragon portal?”

  “No idea!” Sophie replied.

  “Well, that makes perfect sense then!” Jack said, teasingly.

  Lucy pushed against his shoulder. “Shhh, it’s important!” she scolded him lightly.

  “Just before you mentioned the sword,” Robert said, “I felt someone was handing me one. I mean, not really, but astrally. I can sense it! It’s rusty and old. It’s finely engraved and the hilt is magnificently carved in gold. I can’t explain why, but I feel as if it is mine. As if I have used it in battle in a past life. It feels almost real!” He had his hands out in front of him, as if he was holding up an invisible sword, “I can almost feel its weight. It’s jolly heavy.” Everyone looked at Robert but saw nothing real in his hands.

  “The vision is fading,” Sophie said. She made sure the time portal was closed down and opened her eyes to look at the 2012 world again; and tried to get her mind orientated with her usual five senses.

  “How do you see it? Spirit I mean? Past lives?” Jack asked. “Did you really see all that? I knew you did these psychic-type things, but honestly, from here, it just looked as if you were making it up and waving your hand about a bit. And Robert, you looked like a crazy person with your invisible sword!”

  “It looked and sounded crazy to me too, once upon a time,” Sophie laughed. “It always does when you don’t experience it yourself. I remember seeing someone on the TV, years ago, talking to spirit, and thought they were a complete nutter! I couldn’t believe it then either. The thing is, the sixth sense and psychic stuff takes place inside your mind, not externally, so, to someone observing you, you just look as if you are making it up! But, it feels very different when you are in the trance state. When it happens to you personally, you have no option any more - you have to believe it!”

  “What did Alienor look like?” Lucy asked. “Does she look like the lady on the tomb over there? Did she have a book and a crown?”

  Sophie looked thoughtful for a moment and said, “Pretty much! She was wearing a cardinal red and royal purple cloak with a splendid ermine collar, and she had a small, very plain, but beautiful gold crown on her head. But I didn’t see any books!”

  “And no lions at her feet!” Jack joked.

  “No! No lions!” Sophie smiled. “Just a wet dog!”

  “Let’s put Aunt Lilly’s ashes in their place and go back to the Café!” Lucy suggested. “It’s getting late and it’s all got a bit too creepy for me!” As Lucy turned to pick up the small box containing her aunt’s ashes, Sophie held her hand up and said, “Wait a minute, it’s not warming up in here as it should. It feels as if there is something still happening in the spirit world. Let me look! I thought I had closed it all down.” Sophie closed her eyes again and tears began to roll down her cheeks. Lucy put her arms around her in concern, but within a few seconds Sophie smiled and her eyes shone with joy. “It’s okay, Luce, it’s Aunt Lilly again! She looks so beautiful - like a shining angel! She wanted to say goodbye properly.”

  “Where? Where?” Lucy said eagerly. “Oh, I wish I could see her!” Lucy sighed, exasperated at not having the ability of clairvoyance.

  “She is giving you a hug right now!” Sophie smiled.

  “Oh, my god, I can feel it!” Lucy replied, and she too, started to cry. “It’s so strong! It really is the feeling of being hugged! Aunt Lilly, if you are there, can you hear me? I love you!” Lucy said out loud.

  “She can hear you,” Sophie reassured her.

  “I will take good care of the Café and the Bookshop and of Sophie and Tambo. I promise! Tambo wanted to see you earlier; did you leave us a sign at the Chappelle door?” Lucy asked her aunt.

  “She’s showing me white feathers!” Sophie declared.

  “That was it! Yes!” Lucy smiled. “We found two white feathers in the doorway when we were outside during the service. It really is her! Oh, Sophie, describe her to me! What is she wearing?” Lucy urged.

  “She’s wearing her favourite dress, the vintage one; you know - her black and white ‘Grace Kelly’ dress.

  “I can smell her perfume!” Lucy said with delight. “It’s her! Sophie! Oh my god! It’s really her!”

  All of a sudden, Robert jumped backwards and let out a (very manly) scream! “Good grief! It felt as if someone just brushed passed me! I felt it on my neck!” Robert brushed his clothes down as if he were covered in some invisible dust.

  With that, Jack followed him with an unexpected, “What the f**k!” A ghastly breeze shot through him, violently blowing out the candles along the wall next to him. Jack couldn’t help himself and he exclaimed again, “F**k! I saw that!”

  “Saw what?” Lucy asked him urgently, holding onto Sophie in fright.

  “That!” Jack said, pointing at nothing. “That! There! Damn it! It’s gone! It was, well it was a woman! I mean a ghost! Didn’t you see it too?”

  “Really?” Lucy said. “You really saw a ghost? What did she look like?”

  “Like a woman!” Jack repeated, still a little dazed.

  “No, I mean did she have long hair? Short hair? Dark? Fair? Short? Tall? Was it Aunt Lilly or Alienor?” Lucy quizzed him.

  “Enough with the twenty questions!” Jack replied a little snappily. He was actually shaking and was shocked at how his body had reacted so violently and involuntarily to the ghostly presence. He was not usually easily frightened. “Good god, I’m actually shaking here! My heart feels like it’s going to burst - it’s beating so fast! Give me a mo’!”

  Lucy put her hand over his chest to calm him and he began to regain his composure. Jack took a deep breath and finally, in a softer tone said, “Well, err…she, it, her…whatever it was…it wasn’t either Lilly or Alienor. She had long, red hair and bare feet. She looked like she was wearing one of those old-fashioned white night dresses, sort of came off the shoulder, sort of baggy!”

  “Yeah, she would be half undressed, knowing you!” Lucy teased him, trying to lighten the fear she felt racing through him.

  “No! I’m being serious!” Jack insisted, pointing towards the west wall of the crypt. “She went right through me and disappeared into that marble!”

  “That definitely doesn’t sound like Alienor or Lilly! Who was that?” Robert asked, and they all looked at Sophie for answers!

  “I don’t know?” Sophie said, nonplussed. “I didn’t see her, but if you hold on, I’ll ask my guides, see if they know!”

  “Ask who?” Jack asked Lucy, cocking his head in Sophie’s direction.

  “Her spirit guides!” Lucy replied. As if it was perfectly normal to ask spirit guides for help in general.

  Sophie concentrated for a few seconds. “It was…hang on…oh dear,” she said and wrinkled her nose. “I’m hopeless with getting names! It’s Mel…or maybe Annie…or both?”

  “Maybe Melanie?” Lucy suggested.

  “Yes, that’s it!” Sophie replied. “But, wait…uh oh…I don’t know if I should say this, but I get the strong feeling that whoever Melanie was in the past, she is Jennifer in the now!”

  “My mother, Jennifer!” Robert exclaimed. “Good grief! But Mother isn’t dead!”

  “No! But Melanie is!” Sophie said.

  “How can someone be more than one person at once?” Jack asked. “Robert was riding a horse in 600 but he is standing here right now! His mother is a ghost called Melanie and Lilly was once a Bartlett-Hart ancestor called Alienor? This is too confusing!”

  “That’s reincarnation for you,” Sophie replied and shrugged.

  “It’s suddenly warm again!” Lucy said. “It must be over now. Robert, are you okay? Sophie, are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m ok now.” Robert said. “I feel everything is normal again.”

  “I’m okay.” Sophie nodded.

  “Did yo
ur father know that Aunt Lilly was a reincarnation of Alienor; and that’s why he made her a Trustee and why he let her ashes be laid down here?” Lucy asked Robert.

  “He never said anything like that to me!” Robert declared, looking a bit shaken. “But he did believe in reincarnation. I don’t understand? Why would Alienor come back as your Aunt Lilly rather than a member of the Bartlett-Hart family?”

  “When it comes to past lives we don’t always stay within the same family, but often we stay close by,” Sophie explained. “Some people are reincarnated hundreds of thousands of times! And who knows who she was before she was Alienor! She could have been born into different cultures, lived in different countries - been a man even! She has been several of the people buried here, I can feel it!” Sophie said.

  “Who else has Alienor reincarnated as down here then?” Jack asked, looking around as if expecting to see words appear on tombs saying;

  ‘Alienor was ’ere too!’

  “Well,” Sophie began, and then paused as she let the answers come to her psychically. “I get the impression that she comes back into the Bartlett-Hart family when she is needed. I get a strong feeling she was Henrietta - the one who started the Trust.” Sophie pointed at the tomb with the two angels on it and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know why she came back as our Aunt Lilly and I am too tired to work it all out now.”

  “It’s possible that we could all have been a Bartlett-Hart at one time or another then?” Lucy said, looking around to see if she felt affinity with any of the people buried in the half-lit crypt. She hoped she would have one of the grander tombs. “Would you know, Sophie? Who we all were in past lives - if we were any of these people down here?”

  “Past lives are so complex!” Sophie said yawning, fatigued from so much psychic work and from such a long day. The chronic fatigue was starting to wash over her like a wave and she sat down on a low tomb. “Sometimes, it’s helpful to go back into past lives to heal trauma, and when used as a therapy it can be very effective. But you have to be careful with it! Knowing what you have done in a previous incarnation can change the way we see each other in the present. For example; if I had killed you in a past life would you want to know that?”

  “Mmmm…yeah….not sure I would want to know about that, old girl!” Jack laughed. “By the way, who is this mysterious woman in white who just ran through me? Melanie? Is she one of the ancestors? Is she buried down here too?”

  “I’m not sure,” Robert said. “I wish I had paid more attention to the family tree now. I would have to look it up, but the name doesn’t ring a bell. I don’t remember a Melanie on any of the tombs in here. Everyone have a quick look around - see if you can see Melanie anywhere.”

  Sophie stayed sitting down. She really just wanted to lie down and go to sleep! She felt weak and had a terrible headache, but she waited patiently whilst the others all took candles and looked around; but there was not a Melanie to be found on any of the tombs or plaques.

  “I think we should go,” Lucy said, realising that Sophie was looking rather peaky. “It’s getting damp and proper chilly now, and besides I need a wee! Let’s get Lilly’s ashes settled and go home.”

  Lucy carefully picked up the small box containing her aunt’s ashes and took out what looked like a Fabergé egg.

  “That’s not real is it?” Jack said surprised, looking at the egg in the candle light.

  “No, of course not! You should know that - Mr Antiques Dealer that you are!” Lucy laughed.

  “Besides, if it were real wouldn’t it have some sort of surprise in the middle?” Robert asked.

  “Well, it has now!” Lucy giggled. “If anyone opened this at Easter they would get a surprise, that’s for sure! There are some of Lilly’s ashes inside it!”

  “It’s a jolly good copy!” Jack said. “Those are real diamonds and the enamelling is exquisite. It would still sell for thousands. Where did you get it?”

  Lucy pushed his hand away playfully. “Don’t get any ideas! I can see pound signs in your eyes!” She giggled again. “Stella Dew gave it to us. Apparently she promised it to Lilly when she died. Obviously, she imagined that she would die before Lilly - being so much older.” Tears welled up in Lucy’s eyes and she held Sophie’s hand.

  “Stella said Lilly should have it anyway,” Sophie said in a faint voice.

  “It seems a shame to hide it down here, it’s so beautiful. But it sort of goes with all these fancy tombs doesn’t it?” Lucy said. “Aunt Lil won’t be disgraced with this as her resting place. Even if she was not technically an aristocratic Bartlett-Hart this time around!”

  “Knowing what we know now, should we put her with Alienor?” Robert suggested. He reached behind the sepulchre again and placed the egg on the crease of the wooden pages of the book. It sat proudly in the fold, as if it were a ready-made nest.

  “Oh, yes!” Lucy said, peering round. “It looks perfect!”

  They said a few words of goodbye, and took a minute’s silence, before Jack said, “Well, this will be a night to remember! I understand why Jimmy Pratt goes ghost hunting now. Bet he wishes he had come tonight after all, and brought his camera with him, his loss on all counts!”

  Sophie shrugged as Robert helped her to her feet. “Psychic and paranormal experiences like this wear off very quickly and the logical brain soon kicks back in. What you saw, felt or even smelt with your intuitive brain becomes just a whisper and dream again within a few hours. I bet you, tomorrow, you will be rationalising it all away!”

  “Come on folks!” Lucy smiled sadly. “Let’s leave the spirits to sleep and go have a hot cuppa cha!” She turned and led the way back into the passage, taking one of the candles with her.

  Robert blew out the remaining candles and followed behind Sophie. He took one last glance at the crypt, wondering if he would see something supernatural flash through the air, but it was now as silent as the grave should be!

  Chapter 4

  ~ * ~

  Meanwhile, back on the surface, the freezing night air had sent forth a crystal shower. A crisp carpet of virgin snow smothered the Abbey walls, roof and courtyard. The large stone lions, guarding the gates, looked as if they were wearing thick, white, velvet cloaks upon their backs, and huge saucer-sized flakes were falling as the friends emerged from their subterranean tomb. They set off towards Daisy Place Café, going up Dovecote Street where the multicoloured, solar powered, Victorian style street lamps shone out, creating a sparkling rainbow along the whole length of the street. The road and cars were engulfed in frosty icing and not a soul had walked upon the smooth and untouched expanse of newly fallen snow. Sophie and Lucy couldn’t resist making patterns with their feet.

  Jack started a snowball fight which somehow ended up being boys against girls. As they made their way along the road they took refuge behind whatever they could find. Jack hid behind the statue of Friar Tuck, who greeted all those heading down Lady Well Walk. The affable monk was sporting a white hat and had extra froth on his flagon of beer! Jack gathered a heap of snowballs so that he could pelt the girls as they dodged past him to their next hiding place. In Violet Yard, the girls managed to ambush the boys by hiding behind the old thatched cottage, the roof of which was now so heavy with snow that the straw cockerel was completely submerged and looked like a blob of whipped cream on the top. Some local teenagers, who had been walking through from Binders Lane, joined them, and for several minutes it was open warfare, with snowballs flying in all directions across the Yard. A truce was called when Lucy got snow down the back of her coat, and when Robert slipped and fell off the wall by the Juice Bar landing face down in a heap of snow!

  The girls sat for a moment on a wooden bench against the wall of the tiny one roomed thatched cottage. The overhanging neatly cut straw created a natural shelter from the biggest flakes. Jack rescued Robert, who was having trouble standing back up as he couldn’t get a foothold in th
e thick powdery snow.

  “Listen!” Sophie said to her sister in a hushed voice.

  “I can’t hear anything.” Lucy whispered back.

  “Exactly!” Sophie replied. They sat for a few moments, and the absolute silence was awe-inspiring. In the heart of London, not a voice, not a siren, not a car, not even an alarm could be heard for a few seconds together. Peace pervaded the magical night, and it was as if a cushion of tranquillity surrounded them. “Imagine.” Sophie mused. “In Alienor’s day it would have been so quiet here. There wouldn’t have been a city - just woods and fields as far as the eye could see. On a night like this in Little Eden it would have been like being in Heaven itself!”

  The silence was soon shattered by the loud cawing of a black crow as it flapped overhead. Then, in the distance, a police siren could be heard, and a car alarm went off. Immediately, the city returned to its usual jumble of cacophonous noises.

  “Didn’t last long!” Lucy said. “If only the old walls around Little Eden could block out the noise of the city, it would feel as if we had our own world here. A village far from anywhere, where nothing bad ever happened and where only lovely people lived.”

  “I suppose the walls keep lots of things out; but yes, it would be good if they were sound proof too!” Sophie smiled at the idea. “The walls have kept out the rest of the city, the plague, and even the Great Fire; but as for the people - I reckon evil gets in everywhere, just like sound does!”

  The large crow landed on the snow-laden White Rabbit statue, perched high on the wall of Mr Muggles’ Clock Shop. It called loudly, three times, as if to draw attention to its presence. Sophie grimaced. “Something isn’t right! That crow is making too much of a show of itself. It means there’s witchcraft somewhere abouts.”