Authors Note: This is the first draft and is raw at the moment - when I have completed all Parts I will start the editing process. (All critiques welcome) 

Anna and Lavinia arrived back at their house; it was a small terrace house in Greater Manchester with terracotta bricks and small white windows. It was surrounded by many other houses that all looked the same, same colour, same shape and the same white windows. 

Lavinia picked her sketch- book from the dashboard and followed Anna inside. Neither of them dared utter a word, Anna wasn't ready or able to speak to Lavinia so when she saw her red hair fly past her and up the stairs she did nothing to stop her.

 Lavinia sat at her small desk, she glanced around her room, it was sparse in comparison to her siblings even with them and most of their belongings gone. Lavinia didn't care for material possessions, not in the same way as Sam and Andy did but she did, however, care about her drawings, her pencil drawings. 

To her they were memories, memories she was so sure she'd lived, as well as filling her sketch-book, the drawings were plastered over every inch of her bedroom walls leaving only glimpses of the faded blue wall paper beneath. 

Lavinia opened an empty note book and stared ridged at her desk for a moment gaping at the blank page. She tried to gather the words, she wanted Doctor Charlton to understand, she wanted him to believe her, but more than that she wanted to tell him the truth, so she just began to write.

Dear Doctor Charlton,

You asked me to write it all down and I hope you understand when I say it is impossible to write down a whole life in just a few short pages. The best way I believe I can express myself is to tell you about the last five years of my life, because to understand everything you would require me to start at the beginning and that is traditionally where stories begin. 

This was not the beginning of my life, but it's the beginning of my last ever story and the last time I was truly myself. Just know when you're reading my words Doctor Charlton that everything I am telling you is the absolute truth.

My name was Lady Dolly Marxby and my story starts in 1913 when I was twenty years old. I had a some what big family with one brother and three sisters, Lord James or Jimmy as we liked to call him was the eldest at twenty-seven, my sister Lady Sarah twenty-five, and I also had two younger sisters, Lady Persephone but everyone called her Percy had just turned eighteen and my youngest sister, and favourite sister was little Lady Fay who was thirteen and it was on Fay's thirteen birthday when everything changed, for me at least. 

Jimmy and Sarah were recently married and both had accepted our parent's marital choices for them not that they had much of a choice in the matter. Our father Lord Marxby was a hard man and greedy with it, in his mind he wanted the family to thrive and marrying his children to the rich and well bred was a big part of that. We were commodities, he sold us and married us to the highest bidder at least that's what it felt like at the time. 

As the third in line I knew my turn was coming although I wasn't entirely ready for it. My parents would never match their children with someone who was not advantages to them in some way and the truth of the matter was our families fortune was almost all but depleted before Jimmy and Sarah were married. 

Thanks to investments in the estates and lucrative business ventures Papa's plan had worked sublimely. Already knowing the rest of his children and their forced matrimony would merely be a top up for his already large fortune.

Just as I predicted I was informed that Lord Niall would be attending Fay's birthday party and I would be sitting with him and like the dutiful daughter I was, I didn't utter a word and just nodded. Although I think my lack voice was mainly down to delayed shock or horror I had never been the sit-down and keep quiet type but while I was still stunned into my temporary silence I walked into the garden to find Fay.
Fay celebrated her birthday on the lawn in front of the big house, our home, it was called Marxby Manor and was situated on our families estate.

 She was all smiles and loved all the attention. It was wonderful seeing her this way as I sometimes feared she was slightly void of attention with four elder siblings, with three of them being sisters our personal dramas did sometimes take priority but, being the soft and kind soul that she was she never complained she just loved us all whole heartedly and we loved her. 

Fay's birthday party was a bit of an event, with guests from all over the county, all acceptable society people of course, but I was never really bothered with any of that, I was just enjoying spending time with my little sister and happily avoiding my parents and their plans for me.

I could see my mother leering at me from across the lawn so I'm sorry to say I ditched Fay and made a run for it but I could still hear her cat-like call as I ran from her.

"Fay dear, get you sister for me will you, she thinks I can't see her stalking about behind those bushes like some sort of animal," said my mother.

"Yes Mama," said Fay happily skipping across the grass to find me.

My mother was like an oil painting, now I look back on her I wonder why I didn't think she was more beautiful at the time. She had dark brown hair, and, all her daughters had inherited her thick glossy Russet mane, Jimmy , on the other hand was a fair brown just like my father. 

I could see my mother's red lips pursed and waiting for me, so before Fay had time to reach me I succumbed to my presumed torture and walked over to her as gracefully as she would deem appropriate. A girlish tomboy to my core I would much rather be outside in the garden than sitting inside drinking tea on fine china and talking about, what seemed to me, nothing, there always seemed to be something better to do.

"You father and I want you to sit with Lord Niall at luncheon," said The Countess.

"I know, Papa told me" I didn't snap at her exactly for reiterating Papa's message and telling me things I already knew about and had been worrying about for the past hour but deep down I knew my mother was making sure I wasn't going to sit somewhere else and try and escape the clutches of their plan. I quickly plastered a smile on my face and nodded at my mother with gritted teeth.

I gazed at my mother and sighed, as beautiful as Mama was and as loving as Papa might be there was no conflicting with their paths for us, in their mind their choices for us were the only path we would ever see, and that thought, it grasped me tight and sometimes I lost my breath just at the thought of it, at the thought of the claustrophobia of it all.

Fay was lucky really the sun burned down upon us although it was shining just for her, just for her day not a cloud in the sky. Of course, before I knew it I was sat next to Lord Niall listening to him prattle on about shooting and hunting, I never was capable of paying attention when I was bored so I nodded and smiled as I had promised myself I would but, my mind was elsewhere and if my mind was else -where my ears were certainly not on the job in hand. 

He was everything you would expect from a young Lord, quite dapper really, and for some I suppose adequately handsome, I know Percy thought so but for me I had always required a little more than adequate from life even if I didn't quite know what that was going to be.

~

"Lavinia!" George Gregory shouted up the stairs breaking her concentration.

Lavinia had always had problems connecting with her family but not with George, Lavinia and George had a sort of understanding. Lavinia flew down the stairs at George's command; frustrating Anna who could never understand why she would fight her on everything but she would move heaven and earth for George. George and Anna were sitting silently in the living room and at once Lavinia knew she was being rugby tackled into a quizzical confrontation.

"How did it go today, with Doctor Charlton?" Said George raising his eyebrows at Lavinia.

"Fine," said Lavinia looking at her feet while her thick hair flopped over her face.

George couldn't help but smile at his beautiful daughter, hiding her face as if it was evidence, he knew all her tricks but they just made him love her all the more.

"There she's told you, all's well and good," said George clapping his hands as he got up from his chair and wrapping one arm round Lavinia and squeezed her tightly and with affection.

Lavinia smiled and even let out a slight laugh at George, his attempts at keeping Anna from interrogating Lavinia were admirable but pointless; Anna was a bit of a raging bull when it came to getting what she wanted and a sweet and soft-hearted man like George wasn't going to stand in her way, how they had ever ended up together had always bemused Lavinia.

Anna raised her eyebrows at Lavinia as if to signal her final warning before the loud shrills and exasperating hand gestures began so Lavinia fed her enough information to keep the peace over dinner and to keep poor George's ears from ringing throughout the night.

"He asked me to write down what I remember," said Lavinia.

"How ludicrous," said Anna but she was quickly shot down by one of George's 'not now' glances so on this rare occasion she rained her exceedingly long neck in.

"From your past life?" Continued George who encouraged Lavinia to continue but with a considerable amount of trepidation.

George was the only member of the Gregory family who spoke of past lives like it was a casual everyday thing. In reality, in the reality of their house at least it was the taboo subject, the unmentionable thing, that elephant in the room, if only for the fact that usually, if it did get brought up Anna would fly off the handle calling Lavinia an actress and a liar and that was on a good day.

 Despite whom she believed her family to be Lavinia could not help but love George, he was always in her corner and fought for her no matter what the personal cost to himself she couldn't deny that she loved him like a father if not more than her own.

Lavinia couldn't help but be amused by his beige cardigan and George's altogether lack of style, but today he seemed to be exceeding himself.

"Something funny madam?" Said George grinning at his favourite child, although he would never say the words out loud he knew deep down that it was the truth.

"I see you're sporting another item from your hideous cardigan collection George" said Lavinia.

George put his arm round Lavinia again and guided her towards their kitchen table, Anna stood dumb struck staring at them both she couldn't help but wonder how George could tame her so easily when to her it seemed that Lavinia was just a wild thing that needed caging.

"So we are okay about this are we George, her writing about these delusions?" Said Anna her tone reaching the upper variations of her shill range.

"You said she had to go to the therapist Anna and she's gone. For once my love will you give the girl a break" said George. 

He gave Lavinia a cheeky wink when Anna glanced the other way. Lavinia grinned back at George thankful for his never ending support but as she smiled at George beams of love for him shining from her chest, Lavinia felt a wave of guilt fall over her and noticed Anna was pale, uncharacteristically so and had quickly withdrawn herself from the conversation and this was not for the first time. Making her wonder the state of their marriage and the damage her troubled presence in the family might have caused.

The posting schedule for The Girl Who Fell Out of The Ocean is every Wednesday and Sunday!

The Girl Who Fell Out of the Ocean is Book 1 in The Ghostly Saga