The little girl unfolded her arms and held out a hand. Edie looked at it as if it would bite her. She remembered all the other little flower girls she had held the hands of. She remembered the sticky residue, the snotty slickness.
“Come on! Get up! We have to get going,” the hand was shaken closer towards her. Edie wanted to say she wasn’t dressed, that it was cold outside and didn’t the little girl have parents who would be worried about her? Instead, Edie reluctantly took the hand. It was soft and warm, dry and without stickiness and it was very strong.
With a raised eyebrow the Ghost said,
“Stop letting outside appearances blind you to reality.”
And then it pulled Edie from the bed and took her towards the window.
Edie didn’t have time to grab her robe, her bare feet squeaked on the floor and she shivered in her t-shirt and cotton pyjama bottoms.
“I’m not going out of the window,” she said.
The Ghost reached out and up and laid its small hand on Edie’s t-shirt, right over her heart.
“Have faith.” The eyes were kind even though they still burned bright, “just put up with having my hand here and you’ll be supported in all this and more.”
And with those words they passed through the wall.
“What the…”
There was no plummeting to the ground, as Edie had tensed herself to expect. In fact they were already on the ground but they were definitely not in London any more. Instead of her street of mansion blocks, they were outside on the verge of a lane beside a country churchyard.
Instead of darkness and that weird fog, it was a bright summer’s day. The sort of June weather that happened when June behaved properly and it was the way Edie remembered her childhood when she thought about it, which wasn’t often. Butterflies flitted from cowslip to buttercup.
“Oh my God…” breathed Edie.
Her hands shook as she reached to touch a flower. She slowly turned on the spot, drinking in the scene. “This can’t be, this is the place where I grew up. This is Little Hanningfield.”
Her hand went to feel the rough stone wall that separated the grass verge they were on from the tiny cemetery and the small squat stone church.
The Spirit looked up at her, a strange smile hovering round her little girl lips, but it was a grown-up, wise smile.
Edie rubbed her chest; she could still feel the imprint of the little hand on her. She could feel each finger and along with it she could smell her childhood. Freshly cut grass, the smell of warm tarmac and horses. And with the smells came rushing in all her childish thoughts, hopes and dreams. The dam she had barricaded them behind had been breached by the touch of a tiny hand and she was flooded.
“You OK?” the Ghost asked. “Your lip is trembling and… are you crying?”
“No, no… just a touch of hay fever,” muttered Edie with a husky catch to her voice. “So where are we going?” she changed the subject.
“Where do you think?” the Spirit asked.
“Home,” breathed Edie.
“Do you remember the way?” The flower girl asked, staring hard at Edie.
“Remember it! Of course I remember it!” she scoffed.
“Odd, it isn’t like you visit here often,” the Ghost replied.
Edie rushed off the grass verge and headed down the small country lane, away from the church and towards the village green.
“Look that’s old Mrs Scaman’s cottage, it looks exactly the same. I used to come here because she made the most amazing lemon drizzle cake. And see, all the cats are out sunning themselves. There’s Gerry and Dylan and Merlin.”
She paused.
“But they died when I was a teenager.”
She looked from the cats towards the Ghost who was standing in front of her.
“This is the Past, Edie. Shadows of what has been. They don’t know we’re here,” she replied.
Tell that to Merlin, thought Edie, as the smoky grey cat twined itself between her legs, purring.
“Bloody cats,” said the Ghost. “They never can stick to the rules.”
Five minutes later they stood by a worn wooden gate, a garland of flowers and ribbons covered it. Red balloons bobbed from the gate post.
“But this was Philly’s wedding,” Edie gasped, remembering. “But that was…” she did some frantic calculation in her head and came up with a number which shocked her.
“I told you, I’m the Ghost of Weddings Past,” said the Spirit. “And this was your first wedding. Come watch.”
Edie allowed the small strong hand to pull her to one side of the gate.
Suddenly, out of the front door of the house flew a little red whirlwind about the same age as the Ghost standing beside her. Fine dark hair in a bob was held ruthlessly back with a flower headband that allowed a mischievous freckled face with two front teeth missing to show.
“Look Mummy! Look! Daddy, come and see!” the girl cried as she started twirling in circles, looking down at the way her dress flew round her. “I’m a princess!”
“I felt like a princess that day,” whispered Edie. Her eyes blurred as she stared down at herself. “I used to dream that I could have that day again. That I would have a wedding day and feel like a princess again.”
Behind the young Edie came a woman who was about Edie’s age now.
“Mum!” both Edies cried.
“She is so young,” wondered the older Edie.
“She’s younger than you are now,” pointed out the Ghost.
She was, thought Edie. And she had a family and a home then. It had all gone wrong; everything did, but her mother had known it however briefly. What did Edie have?
A job, a voice in her head said. It sounded like Ms Satis. Edie had a life where she didn’t have to answer to anyone but herself. And that was just fine, wasn’t it?
“Oh this is where my Aunt Philly comes out!” Edie remembered. “She looked like a queen. I wanted to be just like her. We had so much fun planning the flowers and putting together the orders of service. Did you know that flowers have a language? That if you use different blooms they mean something?” Edie was smiling; tension that had been in her jaw for years was easing.
And then from out of the house came a glowing young woman, the dated gown doing nothing to dispel her beauty. Little Edie and her mother instantly surrounded her. When was the last time Edie had been with just her mother and aunt? Last Christmas? The Christmas before?
Oh no, not then. That was the year she had gone away on her own because she was too stressed from work to be able to deal with her mother and the empty space which they all tried to ignore. And well, who had time at weekends to visit? At least she would see her at Mel’s wedding. Edie’s mood dipped.
“I wish,” she whispered, blotting her leaking eyes with the back of her hand, “but it’s too late.”
“What is it?” asked the Spirit staring up at her seriously.
“No, it’s just that my mother phoned me the other night and because I was too busy and tired and didn’t want the stress I didn’t answer and never called her back. I wish I had. She’s all I have left.”
And