We'll Meet Again

"I had no idea this would be so popular," Jamie said, as he braked to join the end of what appeared to be a very long queue of cars.

"It is the anniversary of D Day today," I said. "It must be on a lot of people's minds."

Gran had told me a lot about the Second World War when I was a kid. She had been a child then, one of many to be shipped out of London and sent to live in the country. She may have been young, but her memories were vivid; especially when she referred to the diary she'd kept at the time. She had written on the backs of envelopes, scraps of paper and packaging - anything she could find; dating everything she wrote and stuffing it into her battered old suitcase, as if she had known it would be historically important some day.

As we waited in the traffic jam, my mind wandered back to the day I had shown up at Gran's house, and when she'd opened the door, she'd had tears in her eyes.

"What's the matter?" I'd asked, afraid of what the answer would be. "What's happened?"

"Nothing's happened, Tabitha, dear, I'm just being a sentimental old fool. Come in. Let me show you something."

I'd followed her through the hall into the kitchen. On the table was a battered old shoe box full of yellowing pieces of old paper; scissors, glue, and a shiny new scrap book.

"What is it?" I'd asked, wide eyed. I'd been eleven at the time, and especially fond of brand new scrap books and notebooks - they held such promise. I had the feeling that all those old papers would be very important and interesting.

"I decided it was time I sorted through all these things," Gran said, "organised them and put them into a proper book. It's my diary from during the war, when I was an evacuee."

"What's an evacuee?" I'd asked. We hadn't got to that part of history at school yet.

"During the war, they decided it wasn't safe for children to stay in London, because of the bombs, so they evacuated us and sent us to live in the country."

"Wow! How exciting!" I'd said. It had sounded like a holiday to me.

"I suppose it was, in a way," Gran had said, "but we didn't always appreciate it at the time. You see, our parents weren't allowed to come with us. We missed them, and worried about them being left behind somewhere that wasn't safe. And don't forget, the country was like an alien world to most of us who'd grown up in the city. Most of us had never seen a cow or a sheep - we thought milk and wool just came from the corner shop. So the local children were quite mean to us at first."

"How old were you when you went?" I asked, fingering a tissue thin piece of paper full of cramped, childish writing in pencil.

"I was a bit younger than you. I was sent with my brothers and sisters..."

"Great Uncle Tom and Great Auntie Rose?"

"Yes, and my other brother James, who you never met, and Betty, who I haven't seen for years myself. Our mum took us all down to the station - it was an adventure - until we worked out that she wasn't coming with us."

"That must have been scary."

"It was - and I didn't have anyone I could really talk to. Tom and Jim were boys; Rose was a lot younger than me and Betty was older. The people in the village were strangers, so I used to pour my heart out onto paper." She waved her hand at the mess on the table. "Now you're here, you can help."

I took off my coat, put my school satchel on the floor, rolled up my sleeves and sat down.

I'd learned more about the second world war that afternoon than I ever would in school. That someone I loved had grown up in the middle of it made it all that more real.

Gran had started her diary a few weeks before leaving London. The early entries were in a small exercise book. I'd flicked through it, picking up phrases here and there:

Dad's bought a thing called an Anderson Shelter. It's to stop us being hit by bombs.

It's cold and damp in the shelter. I wish I was indoors in bed. There are spiders in here. Rose is more scared of them than she is of the Germans.

I could hear a plane. I wanted to run and hide until Tom said, "It's all right, Maggie. It's one of ours."

Then she'd written about the journey.

We had to get on the train without Mummy. Rose wailed and wailed until Betty kicked her and told her to be quiet. The smell of soot made me feel sick. I was afraid I'd drop the little box with the gas mask in and lose it, and then I'd die if the Germans dropped gas on us, so I hung on to it very tight. A lot of the little kids were crying. The boys soon bucked up when a boy from their class got out a pack of playing cards and they started a game. Betty went to sleep. I got really bored. I didn't know how long it would take to get there or even where we were going.

I read on about how they'd arrived, exhausted and bewildered; how they'd been herded off the train onto a platform - they still didn't know where they were, for the name of the town had been painted out because nobody wanted the Germans to know where they were, either.

We had to get in pairs and walk to the village hall. The village smelt funny, kind of like cheese, and all the people talked funny. Some of the ladies seemed really nice but some people just stared at us.

I could barely imagine what it must have been like.

**

That afternoon awoke in me a fascination for that period of history; so when I'd heard about the 1940s extravaganza weekend not far from our new home, which was, incidentally, not far from the village Gran had been sent to. I wondered if any of the people who'd known her were still around and if so, whether they would come to the event. I wanted to see the exhibits of how people had lived and hear the band playing the music of the time.

Jamie, typical bloke, wanted to see the tanks and guns that would be on display. Before he'd set his heart on becoming a detective, there had been a brief period when he'd wanted to join the army, and he'd had a fondness for making Airfix models.

When we finally got through the gate it was like slipping into another world. Re-enactors looking like Captain Mainwaring from Dad's Army in his uniform and ladies in forties style summer dresses and sensible shoes mingled among crowds of people in modern attire - shorts and Star Wars T-shirts.

There were wartime jeeps, transports and ambulances parked on every corner and makeshift market stalls displaying packets of soap, tobacco and gum - I recognised some of them. Gran had not only kept her journals, but also a collection of old wrappers, which I'd helped stick in her scrapbook.

There was plenty to do - we learned to jive, how to "make do and mend", and what "digging for victory" had all been about. We sang along with wartime songs, looked inside an Anderson shelter - I could see how it might have been cold and wet and full of spiders.

By late afternoon, my feet were aching and the chance to sit in the driving seat of a field ambulance seemed too good to miss, if just to get the weight off my feet for a moment or two. In all the excitement, I'd forgotten the effect that the handling of old things can have on me if I'm not careful. I didn't engage my psychic protection before climbing in to the vehicle and placing my hands on the wheel.

"For God's sake, drive!" came an urgent voice in my ear. Startled, I turned to see a young woman in 40s costume sitting in the passenger seat. Her dark hair was tied back, and her lips were bright red, standing out in her otherwise pale face. "We have to get out of here before anyone sees us! Go!"

I took her for one of the re-enactors. Were we actually allowed to drive these things? That surprised me. "Come on! Don't just sit there! Start her up!" the woman urged me. It must be okay, then, I thought, and felt for the ignition.

"I can't start it," I said. "The key is gone."

"What?" The woman sounded horrified. "We'll have to run for it, then! Come on!" She leapt out of the vehicle and set off along the path as if being chased by the hounds of hell. I clambered out, and started to follow - and that was when I noticed nobody was even looking at her. A few people were looking at me quite oddly.

"Where are you going?" Jamie asked.

"That woman told me to follow her," I said.

"What woman?"

I looked again. The woman had vanished. I sighed. "Sorry," I said to Jamie, taking his arm and steering him away from the crowd. "I thought I was getting pulled into some re-enactment thing; but if you can't see her then she must have been a spirit attached to the vehicle."

"A haunted ambulance?" Jamie said, raising an eyebrow. "That's a new one."

"I expect she was an imprint," I said. Imprints are echoes, often of traumatic events, which play over and over. If that's what she'd been, the woman hadn't even been talking to me; wouldn't even have been aware of me. I'd picked up her urgent pleas to whoever had driven the ambulance back in the day. I didn't like to think about what might have become of her. I shivered, in spite of the summer sunshine.

"Come on." Jamie said. "Let's go and finish the rest of the picnic."

We found a nice spot where we could watch people pass by, and polished off the cake. I finished the wine and lay back to soak up the sun.

I was just drifting off when I heard a voice in my ear. "I thought I told you to follow me! Where did you go?"

I opened one eye. The woman I'd seen in the ambulance was kneeling beside me. Not an imprint, then, but an actual spirit wanting to communicate with me. But why? "What do you want?" I asked.

Jamie looked at me, but made no comment. He's used to me talking apparently to thin air. He knows that to me, it's not thin air, but a being he cannot see.

"You're the first person who's taken any notice of me in ages. All those others, the ones in the funny clothes - they all ignore me."

"They can't see you," I explained. "They're not being rude. Who are you?"

"My name is Elizabeth," she said. "I need to find Marvin. I don't know where he is. He might be in danger."

"Why? What happened? Do you know where you are?"

"In Somerset, of course," she said. "Marvin is from Missouri, but he's stationed in the village. He's a doctor at the field hospital. I'm not supposed to be keeping company with him. My parents will kill me if they find out." I thought it best not to mention that it wouldn't matter, since she was plainly already dead. "He'll be in trouble, too, for borrowing the ambulance to drive me; but I insisted. I had something to tell him and I didn't want to do it where we might be overheard. When I told him, he said he needed to think, and he got out and walked off into the woods."

"And never came back?"

"No. I was scared - there was talk of a German prisoner of war who'd escaped and was on the loose in the area. I didn't know what to do. I had to walk back to the village, leave the ambulance where it was, because I didn't know how to drive. I still don't know what happened to Marvin."

Finding missing people; that's what we do. Admittedly, our customers are usually alive and able to pay us for the service; but money isn't the only reason we do it - although it helps.

"I'll see what I can do," I said, "if you tell me a bit more about Marvin - his full name, when and where he was born, as much about his army record as you can." I took out a notebook and pen.

Elizabeth was more than happy to oblige, and I scribbled down everything she told me. "You know where to find me, when I've had a chance to find all this?" I checked with her.

"Oh, yes," she said. "I know who you are, now."

I didn't see her again that day, and I was careful not to touch any more vehicles or artifacts. One assignment from the spirit world was enough for one day. Especially as this one was bugging me, slightly. While we in the living world often lose contact with people and cannot know if they are alive or dead, the spirit world is different. My concept of it, as taught by my gran, was that the beings there can go anywhere, see anybody and find out anything, should they want to. Elizabeth should have been able to find Marvin for herself if there had been something between them, which my instincts were telling me was the case. She'd loved him, which meant that whichever one passed first would be there to meet the other when they followed. He could still be alive - but spirits can usually latch on to the energy signature of people they love, even if the love was never returned. So why did Elizabeth need me to research what happened to this guy? The living people needed me to find the dead - the dead shouldn't need me to find the living.

I was curious by now. Could Marvin be hiding from her? She'd told me that he'd gone off and left her when she'd told him whatever she'd needed to tell him. Perhaps he'd been angry enough to abandon her and leave her in danger. That didn't make sense, either. One thing Gran had always impressed on me was that pretty much everything that people fall out with each other about in the living world, doesn't matter on the other side. Spirits, having seen the bigger picture, are much more forgiving; much more insightful. When they've reviewed their life, every mistake they made and how their actions affected others, they'll seek out those they wronged and those who wronged them and put it right.

Even heinous crimes like murder and deliberate cruelty are forgiven when the victim realises that it was all part of their life plan, and the perpetrator, far from being their enemy, is a loving friend who agreed to take on that role to help a soul grow.

So no, Marvin wouldn't be hiding.

I was curious, anyway - there was a story here. Had Elizabeth got back to the village safely? Had Marvin been killed by the escaped prisoner? What had Elizabeth told him? There would be records on the Internet I could look up - births and deaths, army records. They might answer some of my questions, but by no means all of them. I should have asked Elizabeth for more information about herself, so I could find out whether she had died that night or made it home and lived a long and happy life.

There are plenty of websites that list army service records and it was simply a case of scrolling down them looking for anything about Marvin Wilder. It was time consuming, but eventually, I found him. It had to be him; he'd been posted to our area. He hadn't died here. He had requested a transfer; it had been granted - they'd sent him to Yorkshire, and at the end of the war, he'd returned to Missouri and lived to be ninety.

The next time I saw Elizabeth it was the usual way - appearing at the end of my bed in the middle of the night. "Marvin was fine," I said. "I've had time to think about this - whatever happened between you, it can't matter now you're both there, can it?"

"Actually, it doesn't. It's James Wilder you need to look up."

"So why didn't you say that to me before? I went on this wild goose chase looking for Marvin, and all the time it was James you wanted to know about?" I sighed. "Okay. Tell me about James. Who is he? Marvin's brother? Was he in the army, too?"

"He's Marvin's son."

"Born in Missouri?"

"Born in Bristol."

"I need a date." She told me.

"He's still alive?"

"Yes."

"You want me to talk to this guy?"

"Only if you want to. You just need to know about him."

"I need to know about him?"

"When you find him, you'll understand." She faded away.

I lay awake for some time. It made a little more sense now. I was beginning to piece together the story. Elizabeth had survived that night too. She must have done, in order to give birth to Marvin's son. That would be what she'd had to tell Marvin that night. He hadn't reacted well to the prospect of impending fatherhood. He'd done his best to put as much distance between himself and Elizabeth and his unborn child as he possibly could. The rat had abandoned her - and being a single mother in the 1940s was much harder than it would be now. But why was is so important for me to know about it? Did Elizabeth want me to tell James she hadn't wanted to give him up for adoption or something like that? Why hadn't she said so in the first place?

There was nothing I could do about it at three in the morning, so I tried to shut it out of my mind; but really couldn't, and I decided lying there trying to sleep was a waste of time. I wondered if Gran had ever come across Marvin while she was here and mentioned him in her journal. I had inherited the journal, along with Gran's crystal ball and Tarot cards. My mother knew I'd helped with the cutting and pasting, and thought it appropriate for me to have it. I'd faithfully taken it with me every time I moved house and gave it pride of place on a bookshelf, but I had never actually read it since those days at Gran's kitchen table.

I got up and went to the lounge. I found the scrapbook, settled on the sofa and began to read.

We are living with the Hogg family. They are quite nice but I miss my mum. We are on a farm, which is quite nice although I am a bit scared of the cows in the field we have to walk through to get to school. They are huge and they stare at me. I'm sure they know that we had roast beef for dinner last Sunday.

Mrs Hogg is big and round and likes cooking. There are chickens so we get eggs for breakfast every day which is better than London where Mum can never get them. Mr Hogg is out on the farm most of the time so we don't see much of him. He has very big hands and wears wellies indoors. My mum would never allow that!

They have two daughters, Edwina and Emily. Edwina is the oldest, she's seventeen and she hates us because she has to share a room with Emily when before they had their own rooms. She's always making eyes at the young men.

Emily is different. She is my age and has beautiful, curly, flaxen hair. We all have straight, black hair in my family so I think Emily is beautiful. I think she is going to be my best friend.

I turned the page and tried to imagine Gran as a young girl. It was difficult. She'd always been old, for as long as I could remember.

I hate the children who live here, apart from Emily. They jeer at us and call us names. Tom and Jim are always fighting with the local boys. Tom got in trouble yesterday because he came home with a black eye. It wasn't his fault, but Mrs Hogg still told him off for fighting. Emily tried to stick up for him but Mrs Hogg wouldn't listen.

We play pretend games where the local children are always the enemy. Sometimes they are the Germans, or they might be Red Indians, or bandits. Emily is an Indian or a German who is good and changed sides and she can tell us how to fight them. Today we saw Ella Bray, the sister of Percy, who gave Tom the black eye, on her own and so we kidnapped her, Jim and Tom and Rose and Emily and me. Betty didn't play because she was sucking up to Edwina.

We grabbed Ella and tied her to a tree with an old bit of rope we found. She wailed and snivelled but we didn't care. We danced around the tree and told her that we were going to leave her there and that wolves would come in the night and eat her. Then we went home for tea and left her there.

Later on, Mrs Bray came round and told us all off. Someone heard Ella screaming and let her go, and of course she went straight home and ratted on us.

I am writing this in bed even though it's early, because we're being punished.

Gran had been rather a naughty child, by the sound of it. I chuckled to myself as I read on.

Tom and Jim don't want Rose to play with us any more. "She's a baby, and we don't need babies and girls in our gang," Jim said.

I said, "I'm a girl. Does that mean I can't play with you either?"

He said, "No - we need you, you know things."

We're allowed to play out in the fields at the weekends as long as we are back by dusk. It is such fun! We climb trees and paddle in rivers. Tom tries to catch little fish but can never quite do it.

The reason they let me play with them is because I know where the local children are, even when we can't see them. I know when Percy and his gang are hiding behind the hedge so they never take us by surprise. Or I know before we go out to play that they have gone to the stream to fish, and so we'll go to the village green instead and play without them bothering us. I am never wrong.

The family psychic gift was manifesting even then. As I continued to read, though, it became clear Gran's gift did not meet with approval from everyone.

I hate Sundays here, because we have to go to church and Sunday School. I don't mind the church service - I believe in God and I like the hymns and the building is beautiful, especially the windows, but I hate Sunday School. The verger who teaches us is horrible. One time he was teaching us about talents and not wasting them, and he asked the class what they thought their talents were. I said mine was seeing spirits and being able to talk to them. I believe that is a gift God gave me.

The verger didn't agree. His face went a funny shade of purple, and he came up to me, grabbed me by the hair, pulled me in front of the class and started shouting at me. He said I was a child of the Devil and had a demon in me. He hit me several times with a ruler to beat the demon out of me, and then prayed over me loudly, asking God to remove the evil spirit from me. Then when everyone else went home in the sunshine, I had to stay behind for an hour, copying out bits of the Bible about it being a sin to consult oracles and to talk to dead people.

I really thought my gift would have gone after all that - but when I looked up from my writing the gypsy lady I often see was there. She whispered to me that the verger was wrong and I was right - God really had given me my gift. If He hadn't, she said, I wouldn't be able to see her anymore. If I still had my gift after all those prayers then God must be fine with it.

I don't mention my gift to anybody at church anymore; but sometimes the vicar or the verger have heard something, like when Violet asked me if her sweetheart abroad was safe and I said he was, he hadn't been allowed to write to her because they didn't want the Germans to steal the letters and find out where our troops were. He came home on leave and told her that was true but I got a beating on Sunday for listening to evil spirits. I don't get it. Violet was really upset, and I made her feel better, and what I said was true, so how could that be evil? God must have wanted Violet to feel better. The Devil wouldn't care.

Now I have to stay behind every week and copy out verses and the verger puts his hands on my head and says all these prayers. He is creepy and I don't like it.

The news from the sweethearts abroad wasn't always so reassuring, as Gran found out when Violet introduced her to her best friend, Marian.

I was walking along the path when Violet grabbed me. She was quite rough and I didn't like it. "Come with me," she said.

She took me to a barn where another girl was sitting on a hay bale. "This is Marian," Violet said.

"Hello," I said, feeling shy. Marian was quite beautiful, with black hair and white skin. She was very thin.

"This is the kid I told you about," Violet said. "Maggie. The one who told me Fred was all right."

"She's just a kid," Marian said.

"I know - but she was absolutely right. She'll be able to tell you where Percy is." Then she turned to me and said, "Sit down."

I sat, and Marian handed me a battered metal biscuit tin. I didn't know why at first, and just stared at it. "You simple or something?" Marian said. "Go on, open it."

I opened it. It was full of letters, there was also a locket and a tie-pin. "Is that Percy's?" I asked. Marian said it was so I asked if I could hold it. She said I could.

"I want to know where he is, what he's doing and if he still loves me," she said.

When I picked the pin up, all sorts of impressions rushed into my head all at once. France. Marching feet. A rough blanket and a lumpy pillow. A young soldier kissing a picture of Marian before going to sleep. Percy, I supposed. Rain, mud, loud bangs. I started to shiver. It was horrible, and I couldn't really see what Percy is doing but I suppose if he kisses her picture it means he loves her.

I looked up to tell her that and I saw the same soldier standing in front of me. There was a big blood stain on the front of his uniform and he was looking at Marian with very sad eyes.

Then he seemed to notice me. "You can see me, can't you, Kid?"

I nodded.

"Tell Marian I love her, but I'm sorry. Jerry was a bloody good shot."

I gasped.

"What are you gawking at?" Marian demanded. "Are you sure you're not simple?"

"I can see him," I said, in a small voice.

"Who?" Marian asked, and I wondered if she was the one who was simple.

"Percy, of course."

"So does he love me?"

"Yes," I told her. "Very much."

"When is he coming back?" Marian wanted to know. Percy was shaking his head, sadly.

"He isn't," I said. "Someone called Jerry shot him and he died."

"Shut up," Marian said. "Shut up, you evil little witch!" She shoved me and I fell off the hay bale and grazed my elbow. "Get out of here, you little..."

I scrambled to me feet and ran for it. I didn't understand. I only told her the truth, and he loved her - that was what she wanted to know. Violet came after me. "You weren't supposed to say something like that, you silly little cow," she scolded.

"What was I supposed to do? Lie? I saw him and that's what he said."

"Oh, go home, you stupid child. I won't be asking you anything anymore."

That is fine by me. It causes too much trouble. I expect I'll get beaten and prayed over on Sunday again, now. I set out for the farm. I kicked a pebble on the path and hit the telegraph boy's bicycle. He glared at me as he rode past towards Ham Farm, where I knew Percy's family lived. When he turned into their lane, I knew what he was going there to deliver. I ran the rest of the way home.

If Gran had held out any hope that she would be vindicated when the news broke, she was to be sorely disappointed. As I read the entries for the next few days, she reported reactions that almost seemed to blame her for Percy's death, as if she had pulled the trigger herself, and not some anonymous German soldier.

It was worst, as Gran had expected, at church the following Sunday.

I was relieved to hear the verger was ill and that Sunday School was cancelled, but it was horrible just the same. Marian was sitting at the end of a pew and she kicked me when I walked past. I could feel everyone's eyes boring into the back of my head all through the service. I couldn't wait for it to be over so I could go home.

Everyone filed out of the church as usual, lining up to shake hands with the vicar. I always try to sneak past because he frightens me with his loud, booming voice and big, meaty hands. Usually, I can do that while he is talking to somebody else, but not today. I thought I was safe as he was talking to Mrs Withers about her lumbago but he saw me, and stopped talking to her and shouted after me.

"Not so fast, young lady. I want a word with you. Go and wait in the vestry."

I started to tell him that Mrs Hogg had Sunday dinner ready and it would get cold, but Mrs Hogg herself gave me a push back into the vestry. "Go on, now. Do as the vicar says. I'll keep your dinner warm."

The vestry was cold and damp and smelled musty. I sat there for what seemed like ages while the vicar talked to all the old ladies about their lumbago and their gardens. Eventually, the vicar came in and closed the door behind him. "I've been hearing stories about you," he said. "You have been engaging in - " and he said some big word.

"I don't know what that is," I said.

"Communicating with the dead!" he yelled at me, putting his sweaty face inches from mine. "An activity which is expressly forbidden by Holy Scripture!"

"Oh," I said.

"You are a child," he went on, "and as such I feel inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, as I can only assume that you received no proper Christian instruction before you came here. Perhaps with that instruction, we can make a decent Christian out of you. You will report to me or the verger for daily classes until we are both convinced that you are truly following the Christian Path."

In other words, Sunday School every single day.

The following entries spoke of months of torture, having to sit in the chilly vestry while the other children played out in the sun. Sessions with the vicar were merely boring, except for the times when he shouted at her for mis-remembering a Bible verse. Gran quickly worked out that her best strategy was to memorise the verses, deny any spirit contact, and pretend to be a good Christian girl, as he saw it.

That might have worked, except for the fact that half her punishment was presided over by the verger, who had different criteria for measuring good behaviour. He would ask her to touch him.

"The vicar doesn't make me do this," I said. I don't like what he asks me to do. It doesn't seem right to me.

"We all have our different methods, child," he said. "If you want to be a good Christian and not go to Hell, then you must do as your elders tell you. That means not telling the vicar, or Mrs Hogg, or anybody else what we do here, because if you do, Jesus will know and He will send you straight to Hell."

I was too frightened of him to say that I really didn't think Jesus would do anything of the sort. I am more afraid of what the verger will do to me than of Jesus, who my instincts tell me probably doesn't like the verger much, either. The verger will beat me, and never agree that these daily classes should end. So I have to do what he says so he will tell the vicar I am a good Christian now.

I hate him, though. He smells nasty and I have to hold my breath so I don't be sick.

The vicar told me that he thinks I'm okay now but that the verger thinks I need more instruction. I'm not sure he will ever let me off.

Sometimes, when I am sitting in the fields, I see more young soldiers like Percy. They want me to give messages to their families, but I don't want to do it. It's not my place to tell a mother her son has been killed, and if I say anything, it might get back to the vicar or the verger and I will never be free of them. For the first time in my life, I have started running away from spirits.

I shuddered as I read this, knowing that the verger was probably never held accountable to what he'd done to my Gran, and, I presumed, any number of other children he'd taught. Also, I felt sad at the thought of Gran actually running away from spirits, feeling unable to pass their messages on. I wondered if her vocation as a medium had arisen from a feeling that she needed to make up for that time.

The diary continued with accounts of people in the village staring at her and her siblings and whispering behind their backs.

They call us "filthy gypsies". Although my brothers and sisters don't have the gift...

I knew my Great-Aunt Rose had it - so I guessed that it hadn't manifested in her yet.

...they shout it after all of us. It's as if what I can do has tainted everybody. It's kind of true, anyway. My grandmother was born in a caravan but married a "country person" and after that lived in a house. We do have gypsy blood in our veins and we have always been taught to be proud of it; but at times like this it is hard. We know that gypsies are not filthy at all - they are very clean, at least, my ancestors were. They kept their caravan spotless. There is no point telling the people this, though. They won't listen. We just have to take it.

Since Marian, none of the village girls ask me about their sweethearts anymore as they are afraid of what I might tell them. That suits me fine.

My brothers and Rose and me all stick together. It's not much different from when we were called city kids when we first arrived. The locals were never going to accept us. Betty doesn't like it, though. She doesn't want to associate with us at all. I heard her telling another girl at school that she isn't related to us, she just got lumbered with the same billet. We don't talk to her and she ignores us.

It was exciting today because some American soldiers came. They are living up at the Manor House where their hospital is but they come into the village sometimes. There is going to be a dance in the village hall to welcome them. We aren't allowed to go but Edwina and Betty are going, as they are older than us. Dances are a bit boring so I don't mind. Emily said Marian was going, too, which seems a bit off so soon after Percy was killed.

On the next page, Gran had stuck a programme for the dance, which presumably my great-aunt Betty had discarded after the event. It was a single sheet of yellowing paper which was basically a list of dances in old-fashioned typeface. After each dance, someone had pencilled in a man's name. I counted Hank, Robbie, Jim, Dwight, Teddy and... Marvin. So Marvin went to the dance. The evidence suggested that he had actually danced the foxtrot with my great-aunt.

I had met my great-aunt Rose many times. She, along with Gran's brothers' wives, were the ones who would occasionally show up at family gatherings and want to know if I was "courting" yet. We weren't particularly close, though. I suspect because Rose had the gift and so Mum would have lumped her in with Gran as being completely loopy; and one loopy relative was more than enough for us kids to be exposed to on a regular basis.

Great-aunt Betty, on the other hand, I had never met. Gran mentioned her as a presence during their childhood, but as adults, they hadn't kept in touch. Gran would never tell me why. I guessed the seeds must have been sown when she disowned the rest of her family.

I felt tired, now, so I put a marker in the diary and went back to bed.

**

We had a busy week. Five missing cats, a photograph that kept falling off the shelf – although that turned out to be more to do with heavy lorries driving past the house than any spirit activity – a will with ambiguous terms and a child talking to herself – the mother didn't want to believe her daughter was crazy, and indeed, she isn't, just able to see her favourite aunt who'd died in a road accident a month before.

Much as I love the work I do now, I miss going out for a drink after work with colleagues, or with my best friend, Jess. Jess is pregnant now and wouldn't be drinking anyway. It's no surprise, really as she's always said she wanted a big family, because she missed out being an only child (despite being around me, and my sister Caroline, who were hardly a good advertisement for sisterly love); but still a bit weird if I'm honest.

Jamie and I do pop down to the pub after work sometimes and it's nice, but since nobody else there talks to us yet we might as well just crack open a bottle of wine at home.

When we want to go on holiday it's going to be tricky, too. A four hundred mile round trip to drop our cat Thumbelina off with someone who knows her, or leaving her in kennels with strangers. Living over the shop, we don't really have neighbours. Most of the other places are short-term rents full of students and people who come and go and keep themselves to themselves while they are here.

It would be nice to get to know some people and become part of the community but difficult to crack when you don't work regularly with other people. I look out for social clubs and the like in the local paper, but so far, nothing really appeals.

A psychic development group would be useful, but if there is one, it doesn't advertise itself. I wonder about starting one, but wonder about the sort of people I'd have to manage if I did. Jamie says I should start one and charge people a subscription fee and make it part of our business, but that seems greedy to me.

I expect we'll fit in in time, and in the mean time, I have Jamie and I can talk to my old friends on Skype and Facebook.

The up side of having a sparse social life is having time to read. I was getting really into Gran's journal of her evacuation time. I'd read it as a child but reading it again as an adult, I understand so much more. Also, now I knew that Marvin had indeed been around, I hoped I might find out something about him and Elizabeth. As I read on, it became suddenly clearer.

Betty is being a pain. One minute she doesn't want to know us and the next she's begging me to lie for her. She wants to go into the village to meet up with one of the American soldiers, but we're not supposed to go out after dark and Mrs Hogg always goes on about how immoral and unchristian the American soldiers are, so she'd be very angry with Betty if she knew what Betty was doing.

Betty wanted me to say that she was helping some little boy with his homework.

“Why should I?” I said to her. “I'm not your sister, remember, just some crazy person you got lumbered with in the billet.”

I was strongly reminded of myself and Caroline in their exchanges.

“I'm sorry I said that,” Betty said. “I didn't mean it.”

“Yes, you did,” I said. “Or why say it? Why should I lie for you? I'll be the one who gets in trouble when they find out.”

“Marvin gets chocolate sent from home,” Betty said, looking at me sideways, “even though he doesn't like it much – so he gives it all to me. If you do this, I'll share it with you.”

Chocolate. CHOCOLATE!!!!! I love chocolate and we never get it since this beastly war started. I said I'd do it.

I sat bolt upright. Betty was seeing Marvin. Betty is short for Elizabeth. The spirit I'd seen was my great aunt! Why hadn't she said so? Perhaps this was less about Marvin and more about why Gran and her older sister had lost touch. I carried on reading, alert now for clues.

Betty is acting really strange lately. I think she might be ill. Or it might be a broken heart, because the last time she went to meet Marvin, he didn't turn up.

Soon I realised I was reading about the day Betty's ghost had shown me.

Betty was really snappy with me because I asked when Marvin was going to get more chocolate. She said she didn't know. I said there was no point in keeping her secret for her if I wasn't getting any more chocolate. She called me a selfish cow and went out.

I didn't really mean what I said. I wasn't going to tell on her - but it got really late and she wasn't back and everyone was worried. They thought there was a German paratrooper on the loose and they thought he might have killed Betty, or something. They were going to send out a search party anyway but they gathered us all together and demanded to know if any of us had any idea where Betty had been going. Mrs Hogg said that Betty wasn't in trouble and we wouldn't be in trouble either if we knew anything. So I told her.

I was worried about Betty even though she'd said mean things to me. I was mean to her, too, I know that. I prayed that she would be all right and she was - they found her walking back to the village. She wasn't hurt but she was very upset. Marvin had gone off and left her. I don't think he is a very nice man.

The entry a few days later threw a good deal of light on things.

I had just fallen asleep when a lot of shouting woke me. Mrs Hogg and Betty were arguing. I was curious and snuck out onto the landing to listen.

"How could you?" Mrs Hogg demanded. "What is your mother going to think of me, letting this happen?"

Let what happen? I wanted to know, so I kept listening.

"It hardly matters, does it?" Betty said. It sounded as if she was crying.

"It does to me," Mrs Hogg said. "I always prided myself on running a Christian household, until you lot came. First we have your sister doing the Devil's work and now this!"

"I'm not responsible for what Maggie does."

"Maybe not, but you are responsible for the mess you're in now."

"It's not my fault Marvin got shipped out, is it? It's not my fault he doesn't reply to my letters."

"Fact remains, you should not have done what you did before you were certain he'd stand by you."

What has Betty done? It must be something really bad - and whatever it was, Marvin must have been in on it.

"What are you going to do then?" Betty said. "Throw me out? Send me back to London? That's not very Christian. Jesus wouldn't have thrown me out. He didn't throw Mary Magdelene out, did He?"

"I will choose to ignore your taking the Lord's name in vain. No, Elizabeth, I am not sending you back to London. That's no place for a woman in your condition. You'll stay here. I'm sure we can find someone to adopt the baby and your mother need never know about it."

"I want to keep it."

"You can't."

I was mystified. What baby were they talking about? I haven't seen any babies. Had Betty and Marvin found one out in the woods somewhere? What had they done with it? Surely rescuing a baby from the woods wasn't a bad thing to do? I wondered if I would be allowed to adopt it. I looked after that baby lamb, so I'm getting good at looking after things.

When Betty came up, I asked her if I could see the baby she'd found and if I could adopt it.

She said I was stupid and didn't know anything.

They were talking about James Wilder, Marvin's son. He was my distant cousin, and until now, I'd never known he existed. I needed to find out more about him.

It didn't take me long to find his birth records online. He was born in a hospital in Bristol in 1945, a few weeks after the war ended. Marvin Wilder was listed as his father and my great-aunt Betty as his mother. Gran's journal didn't mention that at all - although she did write about leaving the farm to go back home.

I didn't know I could be so happy and so sad at the same time. I am happy that the war is over and it's safe to go home, and I will see my parents again soon. I am happy I will never see the verger again and will be among people who believe in the spirits. However. I am sad to be leaving the farm. I will miss Mr and Mrs Hogg and Emily and I will miss the animals and the countryside. I will even miss Betty. She is going to stay here. I don't know if I will be able to come back and visit. The train is expensive.

Gran wrote her final entry when she was back in London.

London is a mess. It's not like I remember. There are piles of rubble where buildings used to be, but at least our house is still there. Mum cried a lot when we got back. I don't know if that is because we'd come back or because Betty hadn't. She won't talk about Betty at all. Mum is obviously very angry at Betty for staying in the country because whenever I mention Betty I am told that she is no longer a member of this family because she has brought shame on us. I asked why but Mum said I was too young to know about such things.

One good thing that has come out of it is that, as the oldest girl, I now have Betty's room and don't have to share with the others.

I am back at school with all my old friends. On the first morning I was pleased to see Doreen. She didn't come with us to the country as her mum and dad didn't want to be parted from her. I'd missed sitting by Doreen in lessons and having a giggle.

"It's good to have you back," she said. "It's been lonely here without you. What was it like in the country?"

I started to tell her, everything. She listened with wide eyes.

"Margaret Kilpatrick!" The teacher's voice was sharp and shrill. I looked up. "Stop talking to yourself and pay attention to me!"

"I wasn't talking to myself, I was talking to..." I turned back to Doreen but she wasn't there.

The teacher went on to say that we were going to have two minutes silence because Doreen Walker and her family were in their shelter when there was a direct hit on it and they all died.

Doreen still comes to school and sits next to me, but I can only talk to her when nobody else is around.

I smiled to myself. It reminded me of my own school days. I put the journal away, but I couldn't forget the stories. I knew I had to go to the Remembrance Day service. Not at the church near our home but in the church in the village Gran was evacuated to. It seemed fitting.

Jamie wasn't so sure. "It's not that far," I said. "Only about ten miles, and I'll bet there's a really nice country pub there we can have lunch in."

"Are the ghosts telling you to do this?" he asked.

"No. I just think I should be there."

"Okay," he said.

It was a pretty church, high up, with a view across a lush-looking valley. The service was the standard Remembrance Day format I remembered from my days in the Brownies. Two minutes silence, the Last Post. Still gives me the chills.

Afterwards the vicar invited us for coffee and biscuits in the hall behind the church. I know Jamie was anxious to go and get lunch, but I had one of my strong feelings that we should accept the invitation, even though we didn't know anyone and it was bound to feel awkward.

Jamie soon got chatting to someone - a lady of a certain age who I swear was batting her eyelashes at him. She asked him what he did for a living - he told her he was a detective and she started telling how much she loved watching Hercule Poirot on TV. He listened patiently while I went to get two coffees. I smiled at the white-haired man who was serving. "I haven't seen you around here before," he said. "New in town, are you?"

"Yes," I said. "You could say so. We recently moved from London."

"I hope you don't mind me saying," he said, "but you're the spitting image of my mother. When she was young, I mean."

"Oh, shut up, Dad," the woman beside him said, rolling her eyes. She was a little older than me, I'd guess. She was pretty, with a kind of sparkle about her and a friendly smile.

"I'll take it as a compliment," I said. "Guys usually think their mothers are beautiful. Is she still alive?"

"Oh, no," the man said. "She passed away a few years ago. She was from London, too, you know."

Normally, I might have smiled indulgently and commented that London was a big place, but after the last few weeks, a different thought came to me. "You're not... James Wilder, by any chance, are you?" He stared at me. So did his daughter.

"Why, yes," he said, "although most people call me Jim."

"Your mum had a sister called Maggie, didn't she?"

"Are you psychic or something?" the daughter asked.

"Actually, yes," I said. "I'm Maggie's grand-daughter. Tabitha Drake." I held out my hand. Jim shook it firmly, despite the astonished look on his face.

"Mum said it runs in our family," Jim said. "Being psychic. She wasn't, but her sister Maggie was quite remarkable, she said."

"She was," I said, proudly.

"I'm about as psychic as a brick myself, but Alice here has her moments."

"You're really psychic?" Alice asked. "I don't think I've ever met a genuine psychic before."

"Yes, I really am. Listen, how much do you know about your dad's family?"

"His mum was thrown out by her mum for being pregnant by some guy who'd gone to America," Alice said. "They were sticklers for morality, apparently - it was the gypsy tradition, I think. She brought shame on the family. So she lodged with the people she stayed with as an evacuee. They pretended Dad was a war orphan they were looking after."

"That's right," Jim said, "and there was never another child. I was the only one, and I knew I must have cousins out there, but Mum would never talk about them."

"I'd be happy to fill you in," I said.

"Dinner tomorrow night?" he asked.

"I'd love to," I said with a smile. I knew then it had not been about Betty finding her long lost love, but about me and my long lost cousins finding each other. I knew this was going to be the start of a long friendship.

Check out the two Tabitha Drake novels:

Death and Faxes

Several women have been found murdered - it looks like the work of a ruthless serial killer. Psychic medium Maggie Flynn is one of the resources DI Jamie Swan has come to value in such cases - but Maggie is dead, leaving him with only the telephone number of the woman she saw as her successor, her granddaughter, Tabitha Drake.

Tabitha, grief-stricken by Maggie's death and suffering a crisis of confidence in her ability, wants nothing to do with solving murder cases. She wants to hold on to her job and find Mr Right (not necessarily in that order); so when DI Swan first contacts her, she refuses to get involved.

The ghosts of the victims have other ideas. They are anxious for the killer to be caught and for names to be cleared - and they won't leave Tabitha alone. It isn't long before Tabitha is drawn in so deeply that her own life is on the line.

Amazon Reviews

"A quirky idea to combine genuine new age knowledge with the detective genre, reads well too :)"

"Fast paced, entertaining and gripping. A real page turner."

"Do yourself a favor and give this new author a try!!!! Recently finished this wonderful novel and am already impatient to start the second."

Paperback - CreateSpace or Amazon 

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle (Where you can use the "Look Inside" function and read the first few pages for free!)

Glastonbury Swan

Every few weeks, there is a mysterious death in Glastonbury. They seem completely unrelated - an apparent suicide, a hit and run, a drug overdose, a magic act which goes horribly wrong - but is that what the killer wants people to think?

The police are certainly convinced - but one of the victims is communicating to medium Tabitha Drake that the deaths are linked.

Who is killing all these people and why? 

This is what Tabitha has to figure out - before it is too late to save someone very dear to her.

Amazon Reviews

"Not so much a who dunnit as a who’s doing it as the first person narrative switches back and forth between sleuth and villain building interweaving layers of clues and misdirections as the trail of deaths unfolds. The characters are rounded and so very human and the well researched backdrop of quirky Somerset mysticism and folklore adds a depth of colour to the whole."

"Really enjoyed reading this book. Have read the first one and am now waiting eagerly for her third book."

"This is a fab, fun read - I found myself hooked! The author creates a great setting and blends the supernatural elements into the narrative well. The characters are refreshingly human and I love the genuine Glastonbury Town feel."

Paperback CreateSpace or Amazon

E-book Amazon Kindle