Life Swap

Doubts and Anger

"I didn't have any church friends until you turned up." Louise commented, after I had asked her the question, curious about her life away from Redstone, which I had known nothing about before I arrived in Olivia's place. "I think that is why we changed congregations...because my parents wanted me to make friends with some more local girls, ones that they approved of...but I had only just met Felicity...and then you were here..."

"Like magic?" I suggested, as we watched the twins going mental on their swings. It was the Thursday. Caroline had insisted on a quiet day after our London trip, so we had been home all alone on the Wednesday, but she had invited Louise over for a play the next day, after much nagging from the twins and me. Once the twins knew that I wanted to see Louise, they wanted to see her too. And Caroline surrendered, complaining that we were ganging up on her, which we shamelessly were.

"No...not in my case...being at Redstone doesn't seem to impress people and Mummy really likes to impress people." She said, and I gave her hand a squeeze. "I mean, girls like Gemma aren't necessarily wrong...when they call Deepdene girls snobs...most of the girls at church are at private schools...and their parents don't exactly welcome people like us...if it was magic at all, it was yours...not mine?"

"But Auntie Sheila didn't care?" I suggested, thinking about it. "About you being at Redstone I mean?"

"No...she seems to like Mummy...she is now trying to get me a scholarship."

"I never had a clue that your family were so religious?"

"Because if I talked about it, everyone would hate me...you know that?"

"I wouldn't have hated you?"

"Says the girl who hid the fact that she liked lessons because she didn't want to be teased or laughed at?" Louise pointed out, and I squeezed again, understanding a bit more. She was quite right, of course. Redstone was not at all academic, and I was always a little nervous about being the odd one out. Even when all sorts of mayhem were going on around me, I tried to keep my head down and do the work the teachers were trying to teach, unlike most people. But I kept it quiet because I really did not want to be teased, or worse. "You haven't actually said much about Tuesday yet?"

"Because I am not sure what happened on Tuesday? I still have the memories of two people in my head, but no more shadows...and I am still Olivia?" I sighed, crunching along the shingle path in my wellies. "I don't know what to think anymore...it is driving me insane! I have been thinking about nothing else ever since, but I still don't understand it?"

"Something did occur to me...but you will probably think it is mad..."

"No, I won't...not when we are starting off from a magical Dream Stone?" I laughed, almost despite myself, because there was nothing funny about my situation, but I doubted that Louise could say anything that I would dismiss as crazy.

"Okay...you said Grace, Chloe and Auntie Caroline all made wishes after you, right?"

"Yes...the girls together, and then Caroline? Charles didn't bother, because he stayed with me?"

"So...what did they wish for? I mean, they were hardly likely to be wishing for Kelly/Olivia to come on back, were they?" Louise suggested, and she was right, of course. My sweet sisters could have wished for a micropig or a rabbit, but they could also have wished for something to do with me. I knew, all of a sudden, that the three of us had been through a lot together. Grace and Chloe had lost their dad to cancer, and when I was dragged into their lives, they not only had to relive it all again, because the memory was so very fresh for Olivia, but they had to deal with her anger. And I knew the twins so well. They were so sweet, so full of love, and like their mother, they wanted to heal Olivia, so my transformation had thrilled them all, as much as my accidents and episodes had distressed them. "What if their wishes confused the Stone? Diluted what you were trying to do...or something?"