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Pixie and Ulysses took the elevator to the second floor.

Every one of the thirty-six bedrooms was different, as Pixie discovered when she left hers to find Ulysses in his.

Pixie’s room was papered with graceful hummingbirds and pink beebalms, while Ulysses’ depicted peacocks perching on the delicate branches of a magnolia tree.

She flopped onto the sumptuous bed with a sigh.

Ulysses, who was hanging up his clothes, even though he was only staying for a couple of nights, knew what she was going to say from the woeful tone of her sigh.

‘You’re going to have to slide, aren’t you? ’ he said.

Pixie put her hands behind her head and pulled a face. ‘I really don’t want to. I don’t think, after the last time, that I have the energy.’

‘Of course you do,’ Ulysses said encouragingly. ‘You need to move on from the past and from Cavill Pengower. In fact, here’s an idea, Pix – you need to fall in love with someone living . The best way to get over a love affair is to have another one.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘Of course, because mine are just affairs.’

She laughed. ‘You wait. One day someone will break your heart and then you’ll know what it’s like to suffer in love.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t think I’m cut out for love. I’d rather avoid it, to be honest. You’re not exactly giving it a good review, are you.’

‘If suffering is the price I have to pay for loving Cavill, and being loved in return, I am happy to pay it ten times over. I’d rather love and lose than go through life with a cold heart.’

‘Oh, Pix. You’re so dramatic. There’s more to life than love.’

‘That’s where we differ. You see, I think life is all about love. That’s what we’re here for.’

‘Then I’m in the wrong place.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re just sleeping. Someone will wake you up eventually and then you’ll realise what you’ve been missing. What you’ve been hiding from.’

‘You concentrate on what you’re here to do, Pixie, and leave my heart, or lack of one, to me.’ From the serious expression on his face, Pixie knew to change the subject.

‘This Lester person is a real linguini,’ she said, using the word they had coined for an earthbound spirit who lingered and refused to move on.

‘He’s not going anywhere and he’s not talking to me, either.

God knows what’s keeping him here, but he has no intention of leaving and he’s bent on creating havoc.

I wish people wouldn’t play with Ouija boards when they know nothing about them.

Mucking about with the paranormal is a dangerous game.

If I don’t move Lester on, he’s going to destroy this place.

Alma Aldershoff has no idea what she’s unleashed. ’

Ulysses took his leather washbag into the bathroom and she watched him lining up his cosmetics and creams in tidy rows. ‘I think a new slide will do you good,’ he shouted. ‘Consider it a holiday. You slide back to when this was a private house, preferably in summertime, and swan about in luxury.’

‘That’s all very well if I slip into the body of a wealthy lady, but what if I slip into the body of a kitchen maid?’

‘Or an old maid!’ He chuckled.

‘By the law of attraction, I will slip into the body of someone with a close match to my own vibration. That’s what I’ve learnt so far about timesliding.

It is, of course, a work in progress and I’m still learning.

So, old women are out, as are men. Of course, an object will link me to a person, but if they don’t match me vibrationally I’ll slip into the body of someone close to them.

My point being that even if Alma Aldershoff gives me something of Lester’s, I won’t slip into him. That’s just not possible.’

‘That’s a shame. Wouldn’t it be interesting to discover what it’s like to be a man?’

‘Perhaps. I’d come back and understand you better!’ She laughed at the thought.

He emerged from the bathroom and looked at her fondly. ‘You know, if you were telling anyone else about this, they’d think you were crazy and put you away.’

‘I know, which is why you’re the only person I can tell.’

‘I’d love to time travel. I’d like to slip into the body of someone really hot!’

‘You don’t need to time travel for that,’ she replied with a grin.

‘Just think of the mischief I could get up to.’

‘You get up to enough mischief here. Anyway, you’d have to be careful. You can’t change the future and you have to be mindful of the person you’ve taken over. You can’t leave them in a mess when you slide back. You have to have as little impact on the past as possible.’

‘But you fell in love, Pix. If that isn’t impacting the past, what is?’

‘I know. I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it. I’m not saying I’m especially good at this. It’s a learning curve. Which is why I’m scared of sliding again.’

‘Why? Because you might fall in love?’

‘No, that will never happen,’ she retorted firmly. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever fall in love again, in the past or the future. I’m just scared of finding myself in a situation where I’ll want to change things but can’t.’

‘You see, that’s what I find hard to digest. You go back into the past, which doesn’t exist any more. Everyone is dead. And yet, they’re all going about their business not realising that where you come from, they no longer exist.’

‘That’s the paradox of time,’ said Pixie. ‘If there is infinity, there is no past and no future, only the eternal present, which means everything is happening all at once.’

Ulysses shook his head and closed his suitcase. ‘Okay, Pix, my head is spinning now. Enough of time and space talk. What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t want to, but the only way I’m going to get rid of Lester is to slide back and find out what happened in the past that is preventing him from accepting his death and moving on.’

‘Good. Then that’s settled. Let’s go downstairs and have dinner, I’m ravenous!’