Haunting Greg - Book 1, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Fifteen

The sleep that usually curses me is absent when I need it. For the first time ever, I yearn for the oblivion slumber will bring me; anything to release me from the prison my home has become. It doesn't matter what room I take refuge in…I can sense Greg constantly. He senses me too, but he does not come to find me. I think that only makes me love him more.

I watch him from afar, like a guardian angel. I guess if I was alive it would be classed as harassment, but who's going to quibble with a ghost? He is amiable and chatty for the benefit of Charlie and his parents and concerned and considerate towards his sullen daughter. However when he is alone he looks morose and sad. I ache to go to him, to beg him to forget what I said and that I'll stay with him forever, if he wants me too. But I don't.

His party is a success, as it should be. I linger, unseen, in a corner of the room and watch him and Olivia host the grand opening of their music studio. He delivers a dazzling speech; resplendent in his tuxedo, handsome and tanned, compared to everyone else in the room. His face is wreathed in smiles and perhaps, I am the only one who sees the sadness in his blue eyes. I seethe with jealousy when he dances with women guests and I cry guilty tears of relief when I watch him go upstairs to bed, alone, at the end of the evening.

I find no joy in watching Charlie and Lulu rekindle their intensifying relationship. Their love affair depresses me now. I have become the unseen watcher again since Olivia has gone back to London with Travis. I am the silent witness to Lulu sneaking down from Charlie's room early in the morning to prepare breakfast. The flush of her cheeks and the secret smile that plays on her mouth, makes me jealous and miserable.

Katy, however, intrigues me. Her clothes reflect the way I feel inside; black, maudlin and angry. She looks nothing like the girl in the photos on Greg's desk, yet if you study her there is a glimpse of the child she once was trying to shine through. She spends a lot of time in her room, sulking. It is the room I died in.

She is filled with anger; I can see it bubbling up inside her and I wish I could shake her and ask what is so terrible about her life? What makes her look at Greg, as if she hates him sometimes? Nothing he has done has made her life unbearable. She should be grateful she got him back, when she had believed him dead, especially since her mother has died. I want to tell her to be grateful for what she has, but she sits alone in the room that used to be mine and seethes. I know that, sooner or later, she is going to explode and I have no doubt it will be Greg who feels the full force of it.

I want to tell her that mothers die every day, all over the world. When I was her age my mother died…and so did I.

Sometimes, when I am sitting there with her, I try to recall what the turret room looked like when it was mine. It was Lilac, I'm sure, and my bed was less ostentatious and in a different part of the room. However, it is difficult remembering what it looked like; after all, I spent less years growing up in this room, than I have spent avoiding it in death.

My safe haven became the place my father murdered us. Now, if I try to picture it in my mind's eye, all I can see is Father charging through the door with his shotgun. His eyes were wild and crazed, and spittle flew from his lips as he ranted at Mother. I blink the image away shaking my head furiously. The memory frightens me…it always has. I never allow myself to remember that evening in its completion and I don't think I could if I tried.

Yet…there is a part of me that wants to know. Why was he so angry with Mother? What drove him to kill us?

In the early hours of each morning I slip into Greg's room, much like Lulu does Charlie's. But I am not there for clandestine sex whilst the rest of the household sleeps. I simply stand by Greg's bed and watch him in repose. I wonder if he is remembering the image I gave him in his dreams. Does he dream of a life where we are both alive and free to love one another? Or is he putting me behind him with every day that passes?

"Men move on, Gracie, they shrug it off and find someone else to love. Women never forget though, they always carry the loss with them. Oh Grace, when you're my age more pieces of your heart will belong to the men you have loved than to you."

My mother's words come back to haunt me now. I remember her voice gentle and tender as she tried to console me. I had been a sobbing fourteen year old; heartbroken because Adam Scott didn't love me anymore. She had stroked my hair and she’d talked of the boys she had loved in her youth whilst I cried into her lap.

The teenage puppy love I felt for Adam Scott was nothing compared to how I feel about Greg Fisher. I was foolish to think I loved him and I wasted time I couldn't afford to waste mooning over him. I have only ever loved one man I realise now and I have given him all of my heart. There are no pieces left for me, or anyone else.

"Oh, Mother," I whisper in the moonlight. "You got so many things wrong in the end."