The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

sternly, the whole thing was taking on a surreal feel as sweet and sour battled in her mind like the ingredients of a cheap Chinese takeaway. Her earlier thoughts about insanity returned and slapped her soberingly in the face. “I really must stop talking to myself,” she told herself out loud.
    After her parents tragic deaths in a car crash, Amy had given up her own career without hesitation, and taken her in. Tough as they come, Amy and bereavement were already old chums, as Amy had suffered the loss of her husband five years earlier, had lost both brothers during the war, and her parents before this. Meli could only recall one occasion when she had seen her grandma’s big clear eyes fill up with tears. This had been when they sat together in the church, staring at the two sorrowful coffins laid side by side. Meli wouldn’t have even noticed this one slip, if not for the fact that Amy’s hand had been crushing her own so tortuously that her head snapped up and her mouth parted, ready to plead with her grandma to stop. But seeing the tears she had forced her lips closed, pinning them together between gritted teeth, holding back any cry for mercy, baffled by the sense of comfort she found in suffering the physical pain in silence, which was somehow so much easier to endure than its sister one of deep, emotional pain.
    Outside of this, Amy had succeeded in hiding her own personal agony over the loss of her only daughter behind her big heart and sweeping smile, making it her lifes ambition to keep Meli’s nightmarish demons at bay, and, under her protective wing, Meli had thrived. Whatever they lacked in material things, was more than made up for by the special love they shared and the elaborate and often nonsensical plans they dreamed up for the future, plans that Amy promised they would do as soon as she won the pools.
    Amy never did win the pools - and it wasn ’t until Meli was in her teens that she discovered that Amy had never done them, cash being too precious a commodity to waste on such trivia - but Meli had never held this against her. Meli smiled, alone as she was, as she recalled those years, years of carefree fantasising, when the excited child with her shining eyes and pigtails had flourished in the fairytale land Amy created, believing that anything was possible.
    When she was sixteen her whole world was turned topsy-turvy when she met Cal. Two years later they were married. Lost in the first flush of new love, and then becoming a mother, all those magnificent childhood fantasies were soon vanquished under piles of real life stinky nappies and teething babies. Soon, a whole new dream was evolving, a dream where she exchanged her lifestyle in the crush of old and new architecture, rising between the bronchial network of choked roads, for a new life in the country. In a place where the kids could roam free without fear that they would be flattened by an articulated lorry, or their little chests filled with poisonous pollution, and where she would have space to set up her own business. And throughout, Amy had been in the forefront, encouraging and sharing whatever her latest dream happened to be, not making adult/child promises, but as equals, helping her plan, giving her sound advise.
    Her breath jammed in her windpipe like the M3 on a bank holiday weekend. It was so ironic, so painful to contemplate that the fruition of her dream had only been possible because of Amy ’s death. Fate had a warped and ugly sense of humour at times.
    She exhaled, gently lowering her dark lashes as she arched back her slender neck, taking a moment to savour the warm glow of the sun on her face and throat, letting it wash over and through her entire body like a shot of good quality brandy. Amy would have adored it here; she would have been so proud that it was because of her Meli’s ambitions had been achieved. Amy wouldn’t have stood for her behaviour this past year, for wallowing in her mud-hole of self pity. The words she’d heard in the attic came back. Yes, it was true, she had made a career out of her mourning, prodding and slashing at the festering wound with a razorblade of bitterness and a face like the Angel of Death, a face that would have sent a diehard pack of double glazing salesmen running from a sure sale. All these thoughts were like a whirlwind in her mind, and her spirit was suddenly caught up in the wind and sent spinning into the sky. It was as though Amy was there, with her. Her nostrils