My shopping trolley is humming its merry tune as its wheels roll over the paving slabs. Wednesday is when I do my big shop, few cars hurtling goodness knows where, so crossing by the roundabout is made easy.
The Forest and Vale’s car park is busy, people loading suitcases into their boots. Other than that, Pickering is reasonably quiet; except, there’s music wafting across from the direction of the playing fields.
Probably, something to do with the school sports day, I tell myself, remembering my days as a kiddie – ah, old age, now all we’re good at is recalling the past.
Just as I reach the other side of the road, fairground music fills my head, making me turn towards the playing fields and not the shops.
The young man cutting the field ignores me as I drag my trolley across his neatly cut grass, my only focus is on the area clouded with mist that’s oozing memories from my childhood. The hazy patch lures me in, where a carousel waltz causes my head to swoon, like I’d drank a cocktail or two too many.
Handsome young men tip their caps in salute. They wear black waistcoats over white shirts, sleeves rolled above their elbows and red scarves around their necks. I wave back, as they continue assembling the tracks ready for the swirling thrilling buckets that spin round and pin us back against the padded seat with its magical force. I feel welcome, like I belong and then my eyes fall on the tiny tent tucked between the dodgems and the rifle range. Now I know why I am here, she would be ready to read my palm, and this time I will not be scared.
She hasn’t aged and nor have I according to the hand-mirror she holds in front of me.
‘Your life panned out as I said it would, hasn’t it Edith?’
I didn’t question how she knew my name, why should I? She knows more about me than I do. ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘every detail.’
Nodding, she reached across the table and unfurled my left hand, tracing the lines on my young, plump palm. ‘Now,’ she whispered, ‘it is time for your next adventure.’
‘Yes, and I’m not afraid.’
‘There is no need for fear.’
‘But I was the last time.’
‘I know, silly little thing you were, but look what you achieved, beautiful children, grandchildren and I see, great grandchildren. That is success Edith, now you can put your feet up.’
‘But I don’t want to put my feet up.’
David, the man mowing the grass saw the old lady pulling her shopping trolley across the park and turned his machine round. Something wasn’t right. It was just a hunch, but nevertheless, he switched off the engine and listened to her voice.
She was holding her hand out and talking to what looked like a patch of mist. Not the first time he’d seen swirls of white in Pickering, and this haze had that strange aura about it.
He climbed down from his machine, wiped his hands along the side of his overalls and strode towards the elderly lady, who was nodding to whatever lay hidden inside the grey-white swirl.
‘You all right?’ he asked, but she was concentrating on the mist, so he decided to walk round and enter it from a different angle.
Through the swirls he could see she wasn’t old at all, but in her late teens and listening to a shape that was forming as he moved closer towards the cloud of mist.
The apparition held the hand of the young woman, and was tracing lines with a gnarled, very long finger across the palm.
Unafraid, David stepped into the hazy cloud, swept up the young lady in his arms and carried her out of the mist. Behind his back he could hear the cackle of an old crone, but in his arms was a beautiful young woman, who was smiling at him, but whispering, ‘thank you’ towards the disappearing, swirling cloud of magic.
(c) 2024 Pat Barnett.
