Falling For You
GISELL
E
GREE
N
F
al
l
i
n
g
F
o
r
Y
o
u
This
novel
is
entirely
a
work
of
fiction.
The
names,
characters,
and
incidents
portrayed
in
it
are
t
h
e
wor
k
o
f
t
h
e
a
u
t
h
o
r
’
s
im
a
g
in
a
t
i
o
n.
A
n
y
r
e
s
e
m
blan
ce
to
actual
persons,
living
or
dead,
events,
or
localities
is
entirel
y
coincidental.
First
published as a kindle e-book in 2011
Giselle
Green
asserts
the
moral
right
to
be
identified
as
the
author
of
this
work
www.
g
isellegreen.com
Cover design by Debbie Clement
Acknowledgements
Firstly, a big ‘Thank You’ goes to Eliott who’s been an enormous help in getting me to think differently about how I approached this book. Your input has been invaluable.
Warm thanks go to Catri; your eagle eye was just what was needed on the editing front and you did a great job.
To all the friends I’ve spent time with over the last two years at my ‘writing retreat,’ Clare, Jan, Cara and Catriona, thanks as always for the pleasure of your company.
And last but not least, my grateful thanks go to Matthew
for IT assistance along the way.
To Michael,
who already knows how to make his dreams come true
.
‘He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i’ th’ centre and enjoy bright day.’
Milton
I swore I would not do this again and yet…
Here I am.
The door handle to her old room sticks a little, feels stiff in my fingers as I turn the knob. It’s not going to open, is it? The truth is, part of me doesn’t even want it to open. I want it to remain shut. I don’t want to go in there and yet if I do not … I feel a little rush of acid to my throat as it makes that old clicking sound it used to make before the catch releases and then I know it’s open. It’s open and I just stand there, hovering on the threshold, my heart going ten to the dozen because I know it’s been five years,
five long years
since anyone’s even stepped foot in here and I swear to God right now it feels no different than if I were about to open her coffin.
I step in, just a little bit, and the smell of the air inside catches me by surprise because it doesn’t smell of
her
anymore. It doesn’t smell of scented candles burned right down to the wick, none of the old high notes of bergamot or sage, none of the lingering sweet scent of cinnamon incense sticks. It smells - musty. The door makes a loud creaking noise as I push it open wide. It’s late and I stop for a moment, listening out in case I’ve woken Dad upstairs but no sound comes. Thank God. I move a bit further into the room, looking for the light switch.
She’s gone, hasn’t she?
She has. I’m not sure right now if that makes me feel more relieved or sad. If she’s gone - I take in a deep breath - then all she’s done is exactly what I mean to do, which is to leave Clare Farm. That’s why I’ve come back here tonight, to do the one thing I swore I’d never do again.
I blink, as the soft light from the one lamp in the room lights up the old familiar surfaces. Her basket of coloured candles is still there by the window; her gemstone crystals of every shape and hue, they’re still there, collecting dust; the framed picture I drew for her one Mother’s day of a gathering of butterflies spread out across the sky; the
besom
she used to clear the energy in the space before she worked her spells.
That’s still leaning up against the wall. I hesitate, and then I pick it up and examine it a little more closely, feeling the smooth bamboo of the handle with my fingertips, imagining I am back there watching her holding it again. It’s just a broomstick, really. The old-fashioned kind, with the long bits of straw on the end. A broomstick that I will use in a moment to sweep round the space where the spell will be worked, just like I always used to see her do.
Is this wrong?
All I want is the chance to leave home, just like everyone else. All my best friends left Merry Ditton this September, most of them went to Uni and that’s where I should have gone too. It’s where I
would
have gone had things been different. A year ago, I already had the Uni offer I’d set my heart on. I’ve worked so hard, achieved all the grades. My ship was all set, ready to sail…
When I walk over to the drawer under her dresser the little dish of salt I will need to draw my magic circle on the table is still in there; the box of matches. I sprinkle the salt into a circle and then I take a few bright Holly berries from my pocket, roll them onto the table. I push them with my fingertips over to the bottom, the south end.
Red for the South, the element of fire, for passion and for courage and … and get up and go
.
And I have to go. I thought I could be patient and stay here as long as I was needed, that I’d be able to catch up. But then - this week I met up with some of my old friends, freshly returned from their first term at Uni. and I realised something that I hadn’t even begun to see up to now; that I will
never
catch up. Even in just the few weeks they’ve been away, they’ve all moved on. Subtly, in some strange and almost indefinable way I couldn’t quite put my finger on, they’d all changed, stepped somehow from my orbit and left me behind. And the longer I stay here, the further behind I am going to slip. In a few years’ time it won’t matter what my plans for the rest of my life once were; I’ll be like one of those rockets that fails to launch on Guy Fawke’s night, a damp squib that went out with a whimper while everyone else of my age was busy lighting up the sky.
Ouch
. When I strike a match from the box the tip hisses and flares into the darkness, then goes very small, burning my fingertips as the match shrivels to black. The second match I try takes an age to light the wick on the candle. A cold stream of air goes past my back now and almost immediately, the flame goes out.
No, damn it
. What’s wrong with these matches of hers - are they all damp?
Help me out here, Mum.
I grit my teeth and light it up again. I have got to do this, it’s got to work and it has to be now.
You’ve got to help me out
, I can feel the frown deepening with tension on my forehead
, because I can’t do this alone anymore.
I want - I want my chance in the world, just like all the others have got. I want my own life and a career and maybe even a boyfriend …
Red for passion
…
The wick on the candle grows large and yellow suddenly, throwing bright wobbly light across the table, catching me by surprise. I didn’t
mean
that last bit. I feel my face flush with an uncomfortable warmth because I know I put far more energy into that thought than I should have. No. I shake my head abruptly. I didn’t set up the circle tonight to ask for a boyfriend.
The candle light does a very strange thing now, elongating itself into a long thin taper and I tell myself there must be some current of air in the room that’s causing it. And why has the air in the room suddenly gone so very cold?
Of course it’s gone cold. It’s nearly midnight on the 23
rd
dec. The heating went off two hours ago and they’re predicting snow.
I focus on the candle again, what it means. The thing I set my heart on, long ago; the future I desire to move towards, now. I have to be specific, I remember, if this is going to work. So; I close my eyes and see myself back in the grounds of the college I want to go to. I see it as it was the first time I ever laid eyes on it. I see it as it is. I see it as it will be.
I want my offer. So I imagine myself receiving it. I see the paper, thick and expensive, with its yellow, green and blue letterhead in my hands.
Dear Rose Clare,
We are very happy to be able to offer you a place to study Law at Downing College next year…
But it isn’t quite as simple as that. I can’t go away if there’s no one here to look after Dad. If only he could have his health back then everything could go back to the way it should be… My eyes skim over the circle I’ve drawn on the table. Should I ask for his health? My eyes narrow as I hesitate over how I should frame my request. I don’t want to wish for something that cannot be.
My attention lingers over the west quadrant of the circle. What shall I wish for you, Dad? What do you need? I fill a little dish with water from a bottle. I place it in the West. I will wish for him to find closure; anything that might give him some peace.
I take a new match and I light the green candle. This one lights up easily and I take that as a good omen. In my mind’s eye - because you have to visualise the thing you want, you have to make it as real as real can be - I see Dad as I’d like to see him again; at peace with himself, smiling
A bright swathe of bleached light from the full moon falls across the table now, reminding me that there are energies afoot, that I have to be careful. I know full well what can happen when someone who has the knack and knows what they are doing, evokes magic. That’s why I don’t touch it. That and the fact that Dad would certainly be upset if he knew. Mum was as dear to him as life itself but he never got on with that side of her nature. He never understood it. For most of my life, I’ve kept well clear myself. I don’t
dabble
as our home-help Mrs P would put it. Or, as she more prosaically commented on one occasion, ‘conjure up spirits.’ But what does she know? I’ve come back to it tonight because I’m desperate. I let my head hang in my hands for a moment. I’ve got to be desperate if I’m back here doing this again, haven’t I?
No, I haven’t forgotten what happened the last time I tried it.