What You Wish For

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Chapter One

Carrie Preston looked at her reflection in the mirror and sighed. She honestly didn't know why she was going to all this trouble, getting herself made up and doing her hair just so. Her Aunt Imelda was not two weeks dead, surely she deserved to look a little downtrodden. But if course, that wasn't the Preston way.

No matter what was happening in your life, whether your husband had just left you, your business had collapsed or your child had died, the show must go on. Heaven forbid any Preston appear in public showing visible signs of distress.

Carrie hated her family and yet, for an easy life when she was around them, she played along.

Aunt Imelda hadn't been like that. She was the black sheep of the family, the renegade who was whispered about behind closed doors. She had been a free spirit, free with her men (scandalous!) free with her money (hence always poor) but most importantly to Carrie, she had also been free with her love and affection, something Carrie got precious little of from her parents.

She hadn't been allowed to see Imelda until she was seven years old when for some unknown reason, her mother finally took the children to see their aunt. Carrie never did understand why they were suddenly introduced to this relative who they had never heard of before, but she was ever so glad of it.

Today was the reading of her will and Carrie had been told she had to be there, meaning she was mentioned in the will. She knew her aunt had no money so she wasn't expecting to leave the solicitors office with new found wealth, but she was hoping that Imelda had left her something of sentimental importance, like her hand written recipe books. God, how she had loved those things, scribbling new recipes on each page as she found them or made them up. Many contained ingredients that weren't exactly legal but Carrie wasn't planing on using them for reference, rather as something to remember her aunt by.

As she looked at herself in the mirror, she felt like a hypocrite, for though she claimed to despise her superficial family, here she was, dressed in Christian Dior, wearing probably around ten thousand pounds in diamonds, with flawless make up and smelling like Channel No5.

Imelda would have turned up with no makeup, in her long, flowing, hand made skirts, her wooden beaded jewellery and smelling of incense. Carrie could only wish for such bravery.

She looked up to the ceiling, where she imagined her aunt would be looking down upon her from.

"Sorry, Imm, maybe next time," she apologised.

Carrie didn't really believe in ghosts, or souls or an afterlife. Of course she didn't exactly disbelief either, but what mattered here was that Imelda believed in all that kind of stuff and if she could be watching events on earth wherever she was, then she surely would be, and probably having a right good laugh at her prissy baby sisters family.

"Wish me luck," she told the ceiling as she slipped her makeup into her handbag, just in case she needed any touch ups while she was out. Her mother hadn't been pleased when she'd cried at the funeral and hadn't brought extra makeup with which to repair the damage.

She had started talking to her aunt the day after she died, just trying to say goodbye really since she hadn't made it to the hospital in time, but it had comforted her to do so and ever since she had aimed the odd comment at her aunt, hoping that somehow she could hear her.