Life Shift Read Online Free

faint.”

    The woman’s face relaxed a little.  

    “Can I bring you a glass of water?”

    “No I’m… I’m… fine. I’ll get going.”

    Christine felt the woman looking as she picked up her gym bag and resumed walking down the road.

    By the time she got to her house she felt sick. Unlocking the door she entered the house and ran up the stairs, just reaching the toilet in time before the nausea overwhelmed her.

    Afterwards exhausted she lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. What had happened? Who was that girl?  

    She thought again about what had happened when she came home Tuesday evening. And then that incident with Matt on Wednesday. What had he said? “Are you seeing her yet?” Was this connected?

    No don’t be stupid, she said to herself. Some strange child comes up to you on the street to play a practical joke that’s all. And on Tuesday   your eyes just played tricks on you. And Matt… well that was just something random and odd, maybe he’d been feeling unwell or something that day.

    There is no connection, she said to herself again, more firmly this time. Apart from maybe her own tiredness – tiredness today from the gym, tiredness in the week from work. Her mind was doing strange things because she was exhausted.

    But what if it was something else? What if she was seeing things because she was unwell? Christine tried to ignore that thought but it refused to go. Damien's grandmother had once started to see things and to have strange conversations with people who were not there. They had taken her to the hospital for tests and a tumour had been discovered. What if what was happening to her was the same?

    She turned over and buried her head in her pillow. Not now. She couldn’t be ill.  

    Should she tell Damien?  

    No. I’ll see if anything else happens, she said to herself. She didn’t want to worry him. In fact he would be terrified. He had loved his grandmother. The thought of something like that happening to someone else he loved was already one of his worse fears. It would be too much for him.

    I won’t tell him, she decided. But she would talk to her mother about it and see what she thought.

    Having decided on the next course of action Christine began to feel a little better. She got up from the bed and began to run the bath for a post-gym soak. But unbidden the image of the little girl looking up at her came into mind. That face. Where had she seen it before? It was so familiar.

  CHAPTER FOUR

    She managed to arrange to see her mother the next day by getting herself and Damien invited for Sunday lunch. In the car on the way over she thought about how she was going to broach the subject and, more importantly, how she was going to broach it without Damien knowing.

    As it happened her mother gave her the perfect opportunity. When she opened the door Christine and Damien could both see that she had been crying.

    “Mum what’s wrong?” asked Christine at once.

    “I need to speak to you,” whispered her mother, darting a glance at Damien.

    “Damien, can you go in the living room?” said Christine, taking her mother by the arm, “We’ll go in the bedroom.”

    “Sure,” said Damien, looking relieved not to have to get involved. He walked into the living room and Christine heard her father say hello.

    She and her mother walked into her parent’s bedroom, across the hall from the living room. Her parents had moved into the bungalow three years ago. Christine still found it strange visiting her parents here. She missed her old childhood home. This house was too new and had no associations with her childhood.   Her old house, in contrast, had resonated with them. But her parents had grown tired of the old house when the children had moved out. Every room had seemed empty without the children’s voices.   Their lives seemed emptier too. Maybe if there had been grandchildren it would have been different for them. But that hadn’t happened and so the two of them