A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 3)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Unlike the other hundred times I've convinced myself of it, there's a lot of substance to my conclusion that I'm dead. Firstly, despite the state I was in moments ago, I feel like a spring chicken who's just injected a litre of adrenaline directly into my heart. Secondly, there's a lot of white. A crazy, incomprehensible amount of white. More white than ever before, even after everything I've seen.

Thirdly, my parents are here.

Not as flickers in a memory, or as bright lights, or faceless voices. As people. Heads, arms, legs, bodies. People. As I glance down, I realise I'm people too. Heads, arms, legs, a body. Nothing like my previous visits to this realm.

The space between Mum, Dad and me is nothing. A hundred yards at most. They're the most real they've ever looked because they are. They're real. They're dressed in the clothes they died in. Dad wears the suede jacket I've turned into my own over the past twelve years, a white t-shirt, and fitted jeans. Mum wears a similar pair of jeans, but with a pale blue jumper pulled over them.

As my eyes adjust to the brightness around us, I realise I was wrong. It's not white everywhere. It's not white at all. We're on earth, except we can't be because we're not at a beach in West Wales. We're in Ireland, in our back garden.

I stand on the concrete patio, while my parents stand on the grass a few feet away. It's all so normal. I half expect them to ask me what I want for dinner this evening. I try to find words, any word will do, but I can't speak. There's a warmth blanketing me, and despite the sun blaring in the sky, that's not its source.

There's nothing euphoric about this, nothing amazing, nothing extraordinary. Somehow, though, it's perfect. Nothing has ever felt more right. Dad's green eyes melt into my own, as Mum's blue ones do the exact same. Before anything can be said, there's a swooshing sound behind me.

"Felix?"

I spin around to face the patio doors, and it's her. It's Annabel, except she's different. I can't say how, I can't figure it out, but she's not the same. She wears the same outfit I'm used to seeing her dressed in, has the same face, the same hair, same hands, same everything. But she's different.

As recognition floods her face, she bounds towards me like a goddamn newborn lamb, and she's pulled me into a hug before I can even blink, except I don't even register the need to blink because my sister has never felt as real as she does right now. Her skin is warm as her cheek presses against my neck, but it's not because of her energy, or because I imagine it as warm, but because it is.

Her face is soft, and her hair brushes against my bare arms as it tickles my nerve endings. The feeling of her arms around me is so real, so vivid that I suddenly forget what it used to feel like when it wasn't, when she was just concentrated energy shaped into a human form. I hug her back, and I swear I'm never going to let go, but I have no say in the matter. Too soon--much too soon--Annabel releases me.

I hadn't realised, but my parents have stepped forward. The four of us are on the patio with little space separating us. Within seconds, Mum closes the space completely as she pulls me into a hug even tighter than Annabel's. Her hair smells of something sweet, something familiar, but I can't dwell on it for long because another pair of arms are around me.

As Dad joins the hug, I don't know why this is what I notice of all things, but I'm taller than him. Not by much, definitely less than an inch, but I'm taller. Annabel joins this whole messy embrace, and I swear I'm about to cry like some little bitch.

I don't know how long we stay like that, but when we break ourselves free, I realise no one else has bothered trying to fight back their tears. Dad gestures for the four of us to sit on the warm, dry grass, and Mum spends the whole trip over to it on her tip-toes as she tries to tidy my hair.