Chapter Seven #4
Leila opened the door, and they entered a large rectangular room that smelt strongly of damp, and dusty old fabrics. She switched on the lights. ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Ulysses, looking around keenly at the low ceiling, uneven white walls and wonky wooden floor. ‘This room is very old.’
‘Oh, I should think it dates back to when the theatre was built,’ said Leila. ‘I bet you’ll find some of these costumes do too!’
Pixie wasted no time in rifling through them.
She knew she would intuit when she touched something that had a connection to Nessa Blunt.
Emma and Leila stood chatting with Ulysses, but Pixie was now focused on her quest and heard nothing of their conversation.
She felt Nessa’s energy and sensed they were not alone.
‘Oh, it’s chilly in here,’ said Emma, folding her arms.
‘We’re in the bowels of the theatre,’ Ulysses repeated. ‘I don’t imagine it’s heated down here.’
But Pixie knew better.
Leila spied a motheaten fur stole on one of the rails and draped it over her shoulders on top of her faux fox coat. ‘I bet the heating has gone on the blink again,’ she said, giving an exasperated sigh. ‘Probably a dreaded air lock. These old buildings are frightfully difficult to maintain.’
Pixie moved swiftly through the rails of costumes.
She flicked past velvet breeches and brocaded jackets, silk dresses and satin shirts.
There were costumes for every type of play, from pirates to paupers, kings and queens to court jesters, flapper dresses to flared trousers.
She sensed nothing of interest among them.
She moved on to the shelves of cardboard boxes.
Her fingers lightly touched their labels: tights, brooches, tiaras, buttons, buckles, belts, garters, necklaces …
her fingers stopped there. Necklaces. She took the box down and lifted the lid.
Inside was a tangle of beads, fake diamonds and pearls.
She immediately seized upon the pearls with a jolt of excitement.
When she had seen Nessa Blunt the day before, she had been wearing a long string of pearls.
Pixie lifted it out. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled, and not from the cold.
She clutched the pearls in her fist, feeling ever more strongly a connection to Nessa.
She knew she would know.
‘I have what I’m looking for,’ she told the trio.
‘Thank God for that,’ said Leila emphatically, making for the corridor. ‘Now let’s go somewhere warm!’
‘What happens now?’ Emma asked.
‘I need to use that VIP room again,’ said Pixie. ‘I’ll link into Nessa’s energy with these pearls, and hopefully find out what it is that’s keeping her here. If I do my job well, I’ll use that information to encourage her to move on.’
‘It always works,’ said Ulysses confidently.
Pixie wasn’t so blasé. ‘Until it doesn’t,’ she added. ‘I can only do my best.’
Emma showed Pixie and Ulysses into the VIP room and then left them alone.
Ulysses locked the door so they couldn’t be disturbed and then looked around for the most comfortable chair; he knew he was likely to be there for at least a few hours.
He put his laptop on the low table and settled into the upholstered chair beside it to watch one of his favourite Ingrid Bergman movies.
‘Okay, Pix. This is it. Go back and finish what you started,’ said Ulysses, putting on his headphones.
Pixie nodded. She thought of Cavill, and a sliver of doubt slipped into her consciousness.
What if she didn’t draw him into her slide?
What then? What if Avril had got it wrong?
What if they both had? She smothered the doubt with the light of hope.
In order for it to work she had to believe it with all her heart.
Pixie knew Nessa was with them. The temperature had dropped, and she felt the spirit’s prickly energy upon her skin.
It was full of scorn. She knew Nessa was determined to defy her.
But Nessa didn’t know what Pixie was capable of.
As Pixie relaxed on the straight-backed wooden chair she had chosen, the sketchbook on her lap, the string of pearls resting gently in her hands, she felt a small sense of smugness, for Nessa had no idea that Pixie was going to travel back to when she was alive.
She couldn’t even imagine it. Timesliding was a powerful tool.
The only tool, perhaps, that might give Pixie the information she needed to outwit this most stubborn of spirits.
She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, focusing on the rise and fall of her chest. She imagined a silver chord coming out of her solar plexus and wrapping around the sketchbook and pearls, and then she put out the intention with as much clarity of thought as she could.
Take me to Cavill so that I can end what I have begun, and give me the information I need to settle the soul of Nessa Blunt.
With that thought, she felt herself slip out of her body. She saw the room, Ulysses watching his movie, and Nessa Blunt, standing in the corner in her string of pearls, watching her in bewilderment.
But then Pixie was a wisp of vapour, rising into the air and slipping through the veil of time, and Nessa the spirit could see her no more.