Chapter Nine

Waking up the next day, Jo felt terrible, her back ached, her head ached from all the crying she'd done last night and she knew she was stuck with having a child she hadn't planned on all alone.

 After a cold shower she dragged herself into the kitchen to make some breakfast, ignoring the broken sink spouting water all over the floor

As she ate her thoughts turned to her dead family and she resolved to go out to the graveyard to visit them, she hadn't been out there since she'd met that bastard Jamieson and she felt like she'd been neglecting their memory

 Standing in front of her twin sister's grave she wept to think of what she'd lost, she knew had Jasmine lived she'd have seen straight through Jamieson and would have warned her off before she made such a stupid mistake  

 From there her thoughts turned to her father, he'd been such a good father and as she grieved his loss anew she grieved at the thought that her baby would be deprived of a father's guidance through it's life

 Eventually her tears ran dry, wiping her eyes she turned and went to find a bench to sit on

She didn't want to go home, it was a dump and a reminder of how hard life was now, she preferred to stay here, as close as she could get to her lost family 

 As night fell she continued reading, ignoring the two kids who'd dared each other to see if the ghosts came out

 In fact, Jo was so caught up in her book that she failed to notice when the strange fog began seeping out from the various graves...

Until that is, she heard a strange spooky sound and looking up she saw, not just the eerie fog, but a tiny orangey-red ghost...

Her heart almost stopped in shock, surely this couldn't be real?  That couldn't be her baby sister, could it?  She'd thought her family were at rest, yet it seemed Josie's ghost was haunting the graveyard, had she somehow stopped her from moving on?  And what about the rest of them?  Were they here too? 

Suddenly terrified that her whole family would emerge from their graves to reproach her for living or for not doing better with her life, Jo fled home

Grabbing some leftovers from the fridge, she sat down to think  

 "I'm such a failure, I've made such a mess of my life since they died, and now I was too afraid to face their spirits....

"What am I going to do?"

  Getting up the next morning Jo was determined to make an improvement in her home, the kitchen was so disgusting she could hardly bear the thought of cooking in there

 The sink was her first priority, nothing would get cleaned until that was working, so she struggled with it until she finally managed to stop it spouting water and got it to work again

 Having done that she realised that she was due today and she didn't have anywhere to put the baby when it arrived so she headed off to the consignment store to see if they had anything 

 Explaining her need to the shop assistant she was relieved to find they had one in stock, it was a pretty grotty one, but it would just have to do

 By the time she got home again with the cot she was feeling hungry, so she grabbed some more leftovers from the fridge  

 However before she could finish them her contractions began

Her labour was long and agonising and she didn't want to go to the hospital so she just rode them out 

 Eventually it was over and she had a baby boy who she decided to call him Joshua after her lost brother 

 Once she'd fed him, she put him into the crib she'd bought that day 

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Joshua's traits at birth are Loner and Couch Potato