Shani Struthers - 44 Gilmore Street

“You’re doing well, go on.” Again it was Theo gently cajoling.

“Lately, in the last month or so, I’ve been getting… I don’t know what you’d call them, waking dreams I suppose, not even that, flashbacks or… snapshots. Yeah that’s it, snapshots describes them better. There’s always a woman in them, me I presume. I’m standing in a kitchen. There are dishes in the sink and the weather’s miserable with grey skies and rain. It’s always dark too. Not pitch black, I don’t mean that. It’s like one of those energy saving bulbs has been switched on but never quite gets to full brightness. There’s a smell in the kitchen too. Damp or mould or something. It’s very run down. The smell, it settles deep inside you, makes you feel unclean, contaminated even. These snapshots are as vivid as the dreams.”

Ellie kept shaking her head whilst recounting, clearly perplexed by the whole dream/snapshot scenario. She wasn’t the only one. So was Ruby.

“It does sounds interesting,” she conceded, “but we don’t really deal with reincarnation cases, if that’s what this is. We deal with grounded spirits, with the business of moving them to the light.”

“The light?”

“It’s what we call home, where your soul goes when you’ve passed.”

“How do you know we’re supposed to go there?”

Ruby had been asked this question countless times. “Because sometimes we can see the light too, albeit in the distance, and, when a spirit walks towards it, the cares they’ve accrued during the life they’ve just lived fade. There’s only relief on their faces, and joy. That can’t be wrong can it?”

Theo joined in. “If you want a more technical explanation, spirit is energy and the bodies we walk around in are merely a receptacle for that energy. The light is the source of all universal energy, it’s all-powerful, we come from it and we go back to it. In simple terms, we’re spirits on a human journey, we have the freedom to make decisions, to explore, to follow certain paths and to find out what holds value and what doesn’t. It’s a learning process. And when that journey comes to an end, we continue onwards.”

“Except some spirits don’t get that?” enquired Ellie.

“A lot of spirits don’t get that.”

“Cash!” Ruby admonished.

“Well, they don’t. That’s why you’re so busy!”

Ruby shot him a warning look. Some things needed much more careful explanation than he was sometimes prepared to give. “Spirits can remain grounded that’s true. A fear of the unknown is a very human fear and it can easily become ingrained. Our line of work involves communicating with the spirit to show that there isn’t anything to be afraid of, certainly not the fire and brimstone of ancient teaching. In the light, love and understanding await.”

“Even for serial killers?”

“Even for them. But I don’t think they get away with it, that’s not what I mean. I’m certain there’s rehabilitation on the other side. A spirit needs to know what harm he or she has caused. They need to realise the consequences of their actions, feel what emotions they’ve invoked in others, whether that be terror, despair or horror, and experience it too, every last bit of it in order to understand, to feel remorse and to evolve.”

Theo nodded in agreement. “It’s a case of learn from the past, then let it go. In the spirit world, dear girl, the only way is up.”

Ellie had finished her coffee and was sitting back in her chair.

“Sorry,” apologised Ruby. “What we’re saying, it’s complicated.”

“I’ve got the gist of it. It’s what you’re not saying that concerns me.”

“What we’re not saying?” Ruby was confused, what did she mean?

Ellie leaned forward, looking earnest. “You’re talking as if we never come back. That when we die, that’s it, we move to another dimension.”

“If fear doesn’t ground us,” Cash pointed out.

“If fear doesn’t ground us,” Ellie echoed. “But I don’t agree. Ever since this happened, I’ve been finding out all about reincarnation. I never realised there were so many books on it, a load on the ‘net too. There are countless people who swear they’ve lived before, case after case that’s been documented. Yeah, I get it, we die, we go somewhere for a while, a resting place maybe, but a lot of us come back and it’s here we come back to.”

As it seemed everyone was waiting for her to speak, Ruby did. “We’re not in the business of dealing with reincarnation, Ellie,” she reiterated. “I really think you’d be better off contacting someone who specialises in that field.”

“Can you recommend anyone?”

“Erm… no, I can’t. Theo, what about you?”

Theo shook her head. “But our colleague Ness might know someone, we can ask her. And if she does, you can trust her word, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. There are a lot of charlatans out there, people you want to avoid.”

And didn’t they know it – they’d even been called charlatans themselves on occasion. Thank goodness it was only on occasion though. In their line of business, customer satisfaction was everything.

Despite an offer to find relevant contacts, Ellie seemed dissatisfied.

“I haven’t told you what my friend said to me. Aren’t you interested?”

Theo’s voice was wary. “Does this friend have psychic abilities?”

“It looks like it. And when I say friend, I mean friend of a friend. I don’t really know her. It happened we were all out for a drink one evening, that’s when I was told what she could do. By taking hold of your hand, this woman, Katharine, can tune into your past life. She gets images in her mind; sometimes they’re strong, sometimes not. With me they were strong.”

How convenient.

Theo cottoned on to her cynicism – the look on her face told Ruby she needed to be more open-minded. The irony of which was not lost on her.

“So what images did she see?” Ruby asked, bowing to Theo’s wishes.

“She saw the sink with the dishes in it, the one I’ve been seeing in dreams afterwards. She heard music too, playing in the background. She said the music comforted me. She couldn’t quite get a handle on the exact song but she thought it was something old, Elvis perhaps or The Beatles.”

“That dates it then doesn’t it?” said Cash. “To the fifties or sixties.”

Theo shrugged her shoulders. “Not necessarily, Cash. People still listen to Elvis and The Beatles nowadays, plenty of people. Your mother for one.”

“True,” Cash agreed.

“If we’re trying to date this past life, perhaps clothes might give us more of an insight,” Theo suggested kindly. “Could she see what you were wearing?”

Ellie leaned her head to one side. She was pretty, Ruby realised – surprised it had taken her this long to notice. “She did mention clothes, but they were plain, nothing out of the ordinary, a blouse and a skirt.”

“No beehive hair or platform shoes?” suggested Cash.

Ellie smiled shyly at him. “No.”

“More’s the pity,” Theo commented.

“It’s what I was feeling she was most concerned with, Katharine I mean. She said I was really upset, but not only that, frightened and angry too, very angry. She said I felt crushed by my emotions.”

“Did she have any idea why you felt that way?”

“No, sorry… it’s Theo isn’t it? I like your pink hair by the way, it’s cool.” Theo smiled her thanks – her choice of hair colour was certainly more interesting than the grey it should be. “No, she didn’t. She dropped my hand after that, tried to make light of it, said whatever had happened it was over and not to worry, to be glad that it was. And to be honest I didn’t worry about it. I thought what she’d said was interesting but nothing more than that. I got on with my night out, made the most of it. But then the dreams started, the snapshots and… well, you know the rest.”