2: Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye Read Online Free Page A

an armful of bangles, a head filled with dreams? She was seventeen, just three years older than Honey is now. That seems way too young to be tied down to a man she didn’t love. I try to imagine Honey being paired off with some old bloke of thirty or forty, and shudder. It must have felt like the end of everything.
    Was there ever a romance, or was it just an alliance made for money, security, status? Did Clara’s parents arrange it all? And how did a girl like Clara fall in love with a gypsy, so much in love she couldn’t see a future without him?
    The bedroom door swings open and Summer comes in, her hair still pinned up from dance class, her ballet bag swinging.
    ‘Mum says tea’s ready in ten minutes,’ she says, then stops short as she sees me properly.
    Suddenly, I don’t feel like a beautiful 1920s girl any more, just a little kid caught doing something she shouldn’t.
    ‘What is all that, Skye?’ she asks. ‘Why are you wearing those creepy old clothes?’
    Just as it did earlier when Mum mentioned the possibility of selling Clara’s things, a strong feeling surfaces inside me.
    ‘They’re not creepy, just old,’ I say, and my eyes light on the old powder-blue birdcage with the twisty wire bars that now sits in the corner behind Summer’s bed. ‘Like your birdcage. Vintage chic, right?’
    ‘It’s different,’ Summer insists. ‘The birdcage is one thing, but don’t you think it’s a bit weird, actually wearing Clara’s things? I mean … she’s dead. It’s just too spooky.’
    I laugh. ‘I love vintage clothes. I wear old stuff all the time …’
    Summer raises an eyebrow. ‘That’s different. ClaraTravers killed herself,’ she huffs. ‘Please, Skye, take her things off. I don’t like it.’
    I pull off the cloche hat, and as I do I catch a glimpse of my reflection. For a moment I look defiant, determined – not like me at all. I blink, and the illusion is gone. The mirror just shows a smiley girl with wavy blonde hair, wearing a dress from long ago.
    I pull the crimson flapper dress over my head and fold it carefully back into the trunk, but I leave the white cotton petticoat, the bracelets. I pull on a jumper, twirl round in front of the mirror.
    It looks good, but Summer still seems troubled.
    ‘What?’ I say to her, trying to laugh it off. ‘You think Clara’s going to haunt me? Come on! I mean … seriously?’
    ‘No, of course not,’ Summer says. ‘But … well, maybe the stories are right, and her spirit does roam around Tanglewood? Looking for her lost love?’ I mean, don’t you think it was strange that last night we’d just been talking about Clara Travers, and then a few minutes later we went inside and all her things had turned up after almost a hundred years of being lost? On Halloween, as well!’
    ‘Hey, hey,’ I whisper. ‘That stuff was never lost, it was inthe attic the whole time. It’s just coincidence that Paddy started to clear the attic on Halloween. It doesn’t mean anything, Summer!’
    Summer sighs. ‘I don’t know. I don’t like it …’
    I try to shrug away her concern. There’s no way that anything genuinely spooky is going on.
    Like I said, I don’t believe in ghosts …

5
    I step outside, closing the door behind me softly, and the grass beneath my feet is studded with daisies and the air smells marshmallow sweet. I am wearing a blue velvet dress and little shoes with a button strap, and my wrists jangle with silver bracelets – shiny bright, like new.
    I slip out through the little picket gate with the mallow flowers arched on either side, and run into the woods, with the sun shining down through a canopy of green.
    I walk down through the trees, my heart beating fast, a soft flutter of excitement bubbling up inside. And then I smell woodsmoke, and looking down through the branches of the twisty hazel trees I can see four bow-top gypsy wagons in the clearing below.
    A woodfire smoulders nearby, a blackened kettle hanging