The Lost Spirit: The Man in the Mirror

Copyright © 2013 by Victoria Harrison.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4836-6543-6

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4836-6544-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 07/03/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-056-3182

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

Orders@xlibrispublishing.co.uk

306994

Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my one true soul mate Thomas. You are with me always and forever. I love you with all my heart and one day we will be together again.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my mum Mary for her on-going support and love and I would like to thank my true friends (you know who you are) and I would like to thank my spiritual awakening to enable me to write this story. I would like to thank my spiritual guides in the spirit world for their loving support and wisdom which lights my way forward.

I would like to thank the one true love of my life Thomas my cat who died on 30th December 2011—you are in my heart always and forever.

I would like to thank my fans of my work as without them I wouldn’t have been able to live the life that I am now privileged to be living. I have found my true purpose in life and I love every moment of it, may the journey never end.

The journey of a lifetime begins here

Chapter One

It was a cold, winter November night and there was a definite chill in the air and a sign that winter was almost here. Lucy was sitting alone by the fire (which was a bog standard gas fire—which had no romantic quality to it at all). She had always had a dream of living in a quaint, little cottage which was steeped in history—however she had to make do with what she had at this moment in time, as her life had just been shattered into a million pieces and she was officially heart-broken. Up till now she had been happily married to her husband Tom and they were the perfect couple (as everybody had told them that at every opportune moment). Now she was sitting alone by the warmth of the fire, arranging her husband’s funeral (he had been killed in a freak, car accident) and now her world was as cold as the chilled November winds that were now beating against her windows.

There was much to arrange and she thought she had nobody to turn to at this moment in time. She was alone in her apartment in Notting Hill, London which was nice enough but she had to face the truth she only moved here because of her husband’s job. She loved her husband and would go to the end of the earth for him however she had become aware of one thing and that she Lucy Benjamin didn’t have a life of her own at all—she worked part-time in a supermarket and had no real friends of her own but apart from that she had little else going for her and life was a constant struggle. On the contrary Tom had everything including a good career in banking, a thriving social life and family close by. Lucy’s mum lives in France which was the last of the family she had left. She had grown up in the countryside of Kent and she loathed the rat race and concrete jungle of London—Tom had grown up in London and was used of it—she was not at all. In many ways they were chalk and cheese and she felt that she did most of the compromising in their relationship and life together however she had fallen in love with him at first sight and she had loved him ever since. She would keep the love she felt for him forever.

It was then that the telephone rang and she let the answer-machine pick it up, as she couldn’t face talking to anybody—it was the wiry voice of Tom’s mother, leaving the tenth message that day. She knew she couldn’t put if off indefinitely and maybe Tom’s mother could help with the funeral arrangements (they were in the same boat after all—they had both lost someone dear to them) but she couldn’t cope with anything at the moment. Getting up and breathing was way too much effort at the moment. The previous day had been the worst day of her life, as she had to identify her husband’s body as she was put down as the next of kin. She had spent the whole day in a state of shock—someone telephoned her, some people surrounded her throughout the day and even talked to her at some points but she couldn’t remember who they were or what they were saying as she was operating on autopilot. She went straight to bed as soon as the police had dropped her back to her apartment and had stayed there ever since and now she was sitting alone in front of the fire ignoring the telephone. She didn’t know what to do about any of this and she was struggling to cope with it all. She felt like she was losing control fast and she had lost the plot of her life, like she had fallen asleep and woken up in the wrong life. The whole of her world had just collapsed and she wished the floor would open up and swallow her up. It was now evening and she was snuggled down on the sofa with a thick duvet covering her fragile body—she had a box of tissues and had opened a bottle of wine and had a glass of wine sitting on the nest of tables beside her. She wouldn’t normally drink but she felt the occasion warranted it—she needed to get drunk, to forget, in order to numb the pain.

At 9.00pm when she had ignored the telephone again, the intercom buzzer went and whoever was at the door wasn’t giving up anytime soon. She answered the door to find Tom’s mother standing in the doorway. She didn’t have any idea how she looked as she hadn’t looked into a mirror for a while but coming suddenly face to face with Tom’s mother—she had a good idea of how she did look, as Tom’s mother’s face was ashen white and she looked distressed and old which was a quite a shock to her as Tom’s mother had always looked young and elegant and to see her in this state was very upsetting to say the least and it had unnerved her greatly, as, it had illuminated how she herself must look and she simply wasn’t ready for facing the cold, hard reality of her situation yet.

Tom’s mother had asked whether she could come into the apartment and Lucy led her into the living room in a cloud of daze. She offered her a glass of wine but Tom’s mother refused but she asked whether she could have a strong, cup of tea instead (good old blighty—a cup of tea cures all?). I don’t think you should be drinking either but she wasn’t listening to Mary (Toms’ mother) and went into the small kitchen and rustled up a cup of tea and some biscuits and put them on a tray which she placed on the coffee table in between them in the living room. Mary sat down in the armchair to the side of the sofa and Lucy got under the duvet again and resumed her drinking of the wine.

Mary asked about the funeral arrangements and what she could do to help, as, although they were devastated, there were things that needed to be done and they couldn’t be allowed to drift. It would also give them a much needed distraction and something to focus on as time was pressing upon them. Lucy wasn’t very responsive as she was in the first stages of grief which is shock and denial and didn’t want to face up to anything or do anything at this moment in time, as it would make it real and she simply didn’t have the energy to cope with anything. Therefore she told Mary to get on with the arrangements for the funeral, she knew she wasn’t being fair as the woman to her side had just lost her son and now she was being told to just get on with things but she didn’t have any choice she simply couldn’t handle anything at this moment in time. She felt she was in a slow motion film and she was on a different speed to everyone else. Mind you she had always felt like that, like she was different to everyone else, like she just didn’t fit in. Her whole life had been a bit of a blur with nothing significant happening to her at all, until now. Lucy had prayed all her life that something exciting would happen to her but never in her widest nightmares would she ever imagine something like this happening to her. Another thought had occurred to her, she had never really been on her own until now and this thought frightened her—she had either been at home with her parents or with Tom.

Her dad had died many years ago and as a result of this her mum couldn’t stand being in the family household anymore and had subsequently moved to France. How would she cope being on her own and who the bloody hell was she? She had lost herself along the way that was for sure.

After giving over the responsibilities of the funeral to Tom’s mother, Mary left at 10pm leaving Lucy alone to finish her wine. She didn’t even bother to get into bed that night, she fell asleep surrounded by the tea tray, two empty bottles of red wine and an array of tissues spread all over the place.

She awoke with a thumping headache which hurt like hell and when she was moving very clumsily around, she knocked over the bottle of red wine thankfully it was empty as the cream carpet would have been ruined. She went into the bathroom to get some headache tablets which she took with some ice cold water which set her teeth on edge and then in that instant she remembered the awful truth and she stood there motionless with her head thumping like a hammer against her skull. She turned to look at herself in the mirror and she didn’t even recognise the reflection staring back at her—it was if she was looking at a stranger for a number of reasons:

She looked like death warmed up.

She didn’t know who she was anymore.

She was in a state of grief and she felt as if a part of her had died too.

She didn’t know what would become of her now that she was all alone and would have to fend for her-self from now onwards.

While she was contemplating these matters, she became aware of a strange feeling that someone was watching her and if she didn’t know any better she could have sworn there was a pair of eyes staring right at her through the mirror and she was sure she saw a ripple of movement within the mirror in