She seemed like she had it all. She was beautiful, rich, well-educated, jet-set, stylish, classy.
But she had an abusive father who used to berate verbally and alternately beat her mentally unstable mother.
This, Bella had witnessed.
He also verbally berated and sometimes slapped Bella.
She had a best friend who’d lost her joy for life and Bella worked for years trying to help her find it again and luckily succeeded, Fiona learned through the journals, that while she and Prentice were encouraging Dougal from close by, from a distance, Bella was also encouraging Annie.
Bella also had a husband who played around on her constantly, even once she’d walked in on him and another woman.
He’d also taunted her with her inability to give him children, something Bella yearned for to the point of despair.
And he’d not allowed them to settle down even though she wanted a home. They owned several properties but they never stayed in one long. They travelled around like nomads from party to party, yacht to yacht, ski resort to ski resort, event to event, incessantly.
Bella missed her mother who she adored and she had vivid, excruciating dreams, even after all these years, of finding her dead in the tub.
And last, but not least, Bella loved Prentice in a fierce, beautiful way that Fiona had to admit that even she hadn’t loved him.
And that love never, never died.
Ghostly tears were falling from her ghostly eyes at all Bella had endured (and it was never-ending, no wonder the woman clenched her fists, all that pain had to be unleashed somewhere) when Fiona sensed Prentice’s presence nearing the house.
She flipped shut the third journal (her ghostly abilities extended to super-fast reading which had been a boon) and carefully arranged them in the tidy pile in which Bella liked them.
Then Fiona dematerialized and materialized in the living room.
Prentice was standing stock-still staring at the rug.
He looked angry.
Oh for goodness sakes. What was he pissed off about now?
Then he took off his coat, flung it on the chair and stalked to the hallway.
Fiona followed him, worrying so much she was wringing her hands and shouting at him to leave Bella be. She needed her sleep. She had to get some rest for the wedding tomorrow. She didn’t sleep well and she was sleeping soundly now.
But, of course, he didn’t hear her. In fact, when he encountered Bella’s closed door, instead of knocking or, better yet, turning away, he walked right in.
Fiona followed and as she would have floated over the threshold, she disappeared and reappeared in her whatever-it-was place.
And there she remained, all night.
She’d tried to dematerialize and go back but she couldn’t. Her efforts exhausted her and, finally, she slept.
Opening her eyes, she saw the light coming through the silk tent.
She threw off the covers wondering again why she was bloody well there, hoping she wouldn’t be there long and terrified she’d be there for eternity.
She had to warn Bella that Prentice was angry.
She walked out of the flaps of the tent and instantly vaporized, returning to her home.
Returning to the guest suite in her home.
To be precise, the bedroom of the guest suite in her home.
She floated back, reeling at what she saw and nearly floated through the wall of the room (she tried not to float through walls, it gave her a spooked feeling, seeing insulation and floating through supports, it was creepy).