The Girl in the Scrapbook Carolyn Ruffles Copyright © 2018 Carolyn Ruffles All rights reserved The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. ISBN-13: 9781234567890 ISBN-10: 1477123456 To the amazing women in my family: my daughter, Alex; my mum, Sue; my sisters, Ros and Sara; finally, my grandmother, Nora, who was the inspiration for this novel. ‘What greater thing is there for human souls than to find they are joined for life – to be with each other in silent, unspeakable memories.’ George Eliot. Contents Title Page Copyright Untitled Prologue Chapter One Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 28 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Acknowledgements About The Author Books By This Author Acknowledgements Prologue I stand alone staring at the cold, starry sky. The night surrounds me and I can feel the silence humming, throbbing like a heartbeat. In this moment, I feel my smallness, my insignificance. I feel the world relentlessly spinning past as I watch, isolated, bereft, adrift. I have always felt a sense of otherness, of not belonging; the person on the edge of the crowd; the gate crasher at the party. Maybe it stems from being an only child but I have never felt it more keenly than now, in this time of abandonment. Overhead so many stars shine brightly, a glittering myriad, each in its place, each part of a greater pattern, the like of which is beyond human comprehension. Where is my place in life’s pattern? I so want to be a part of it all but I cannot find my way. I am lost, disconnected, standing alone … Yet still I cling on, still I hope to become a piece in the puzzle, to fit in, to feel that comfort of belonging. I am like a loose thread hanging from an unknown tapestry, slowly unravelling… Chapter One Emily - November 2016 It was quite a shock to see Molly again after such a long time. It had been five years; five years in which she had buried deep within her that yearning rootlessness, building up the surface layers, the perfect wife, the devoted mother. She had done a good job; she was content. This life, the present - it was enough, she told herself. But it was not enough. She had sensed it for a while, a slow, insidious creeping, simmering, building, and now here was the proof. Molly was back. Emily Conway sat staring into the fire on a grey November afternoon, a paperback book on her lap, struggling to subdue her restlessness. It seemed that, despite all the plans she had made with the confidence of youth, her life was not her own to act out as she wished after all. There were too many mysteries out there, waiting like dark intruders, waiting to send her tumbling down another, booby-trapped path and away from the route she had so carefully mapped out. ‘Now what?’ she had sighed, as Molly’s face had shimmered into her consciousness. There was no answer. There were never any answers. She knew her life was enviable. Upstairs, her beautiful, blond, blue-eyed cherub, her three-year-old son, Alex, was having his afternoon nap. Her husband Adam, a successful wine importer, was returning home after two days away this evening. When she had first met Adam, and described him to friends, they had laughed that he sounded far too good to be true, like an ad on a dating agency website. He was gorgeous; tall and athletic, blue-eyed, intelligent, great sense of humour. Tomorrow the two of them would be going to their favourite restaurant in the town of Bury St Edmunds where they lived to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. She had a lovely home on the outskirts of town – a four-bedroomed, modern brick house with a generous garden- and great friends who made her laugh on nights out and who didn’t switch off when she proudly described Alex’s latest achievement. So why did she feel that something was missing? She exhaled heavily once more. ‘I just feel that life is passing me by,’ she said to Molly who sat silently beside her. ‘I guess I need to do something or I’m going to go crazy.’ No reply. Molly never replied. Usually Emily spoke for her but today she could not think of a response and she lapsed back into a brooding silence. It was all about the secrets of the past, she knew. She had tried to unravel them before but with no success. Then she had tried to ignore them but that was not working either. Of course, the first secret was her own. Emily knew it was not cool to have an imaginary friend. That was why she kept it to herself, strictly private and jealously guarded like a guilty pleasure. She never mentioned Molly to anyone- not even her husband. It had not always been that way. Molly had been a presence in her life for as long as she could remember. One of her earliest memories was when she was lying in her new bed- she must have been about three or four years old- and she could not sleep. Her new duvet did not feel as worn and soft as her old one and the full moon was bathing her room in a ghostly glow. She had cried and cried to be allowed to go back downstairs with her parents but they would not be moved. Her parents were
