The Last Daughter

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘She felt as though she was falling, far, far down through the dark, so far that she thought she would never again step out into the light. And when she did, she was in a different place, in a different time.’

  A dark magic, Ginevra had said. A wild imagining. The power to move through time.

  I shivered. I was not prone to wild imaginings myself, and, sitting here with the dog twitching as he chased rabbits in his sleep, and the evening sun shining through the high windows illuminating the gold and red of the Lovell arms on the wall, I felt so content that I did not think I could wish for, or imagine, a better life. I had no need to try to bend the power of the treasure for my own gain.

  I thought it would be best to lodge the lodestar somewhere safe, but the question was where I could put it where it would not be either lost or stolen again. It was a pity that the priest did not want it, but he saw it as a heathen object corrupting the faith. I could not give it to Mr Fiske to preserve without inviting question. It was difficult to know what to do.

  In the end I decided to keep the stone with me and vowed to take better care of it. It had been my talisman since Ginevra had given it to me and I must become its protector. I would find a thin gold chain to fit through the hole on the arrow’s shaft and I would wear it around my neck like a pendant. That way both the stone and I would always be safe.

  Chapter 15

  Serena

  Minster Lovell, Present Day

  ‘This feels slightly clandestine for some reason,’ Serena said, as she, Jack and Luna went through the little picket gate at the corner of the bridge and entered the water meadows. The morning was finer and brighter than the previous day; little white clouds chased across the sky in a brisk breeze and the sun rippled over the river. ‘I think it’s because whenever I escape from the pub, I breathe a little easier.’

  She thought about the copy of The Lovell Lodestar crumbling to ash in the grate that morning. She was sure that Eve had deliberately taken it from the shelf the previous night. She hadn’t forgotten the odd expression in the landlady’s eyes as she had looked up at her from the stairs. The way that the book had been lying in the fire had been so blatant, and Eve had specifically directed her to that table. But why she should have burned the book was both odd and inexplicable.

  ‘I know it sounds a bit far-fetched,’ she said, ‘but sometimes it feels as though there’s something strange about the pub.’ She shuddered. ‘I’m the least fey of people normally but it feels unfriendly to me.’

  ‘I feel it too,’ Jack said. ‘Perhaps it’s just that Eve seems to have such an unhealthy interest in… just about everything, really. It’s rather intrusive but also…’ He hesitated. ‘Inimical, somehow.’ He gave a shrug as though sloughing off the feeling. ‘Shall we walk along the river?’

  They started along the path through the meadow. Jack’s stride was slightly longer than Serena’s and she dropped back a little, which gave her a perfect view of his broad shoulders and ruffled dark hair. He stopped and turned, waiting for her to catch him up and Serena hoped he hadn’t seen her staring.

  The dry, dead leaves of the previous year crunched beneath their boots, the whole scene lit in shades of bronze and gold from the rising spring sun. Luna dashed about checking out all the sniffs, kicking up her paws in the leaves.

  ‘Does she ever swim?’ Serena asked, looking at the peaceful curve of the river. ‘Most Labs like water.’

  ‘She loves it,’ Jack said. ‘One time when I was wild swimming here, she came in with me but I think she was puzzled as to what I was doing in the water. She definitely saw it as her domain.’

  Jack, Serena realised, was waiting for her to indicate whether she wanted to talk about Caitlin or not. He wasn’t going to force the topic. She felt a rush of gratitude at his thoughtfulness.

  ‘This may sound a bit left-field,’ she said, ‘but bear with me. I wanted to ask you – do you know anything about your family history? I mean – you’re called Lovell and you lived in the village here for years. Do you know if you’re descended from the Lovell family?’

  Jack laughed. ‘Dad always swore we were,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know what evidence he has for that. As far as I know, until a few generations back, our family came from the east coast of Scotland, a tiny place called Lunan Bay. I think it was my great-grandparents who moved south and Dad chose to live here because of the name, but as to the precise connection…’ He looked around. ‘It’s true that I do love it here. I grew up here and it feels like it’s in my blood somehow.’

  Serena smiled at the unembarrassed warmth in his words. Jack, she was beginning to see, was completely comfortable with who he was. It was refreshing.

  ‘I don’t think Francis Lovell had any children,’ she said. ‘But perhaps you’re descended from another branch of the family.’

  ‘Francis?’ Jack said. ‘The one they tell all the legends about?’

  ‘That’s him,’ Serena said. ‘Francis, Lord Lovell, was a bit of a crush of mine when I was a teenager,’ she admitted. ‘I had a huge thing for Richard III and was obsessed by the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. Francis was Richard’s close friend and I found his story fascinating.’

  ‘Did he die at Bosworth Field with Richard?’ Jack asked.

  ‘No,’ Serena said. ‘I think he raised a rebellion against Henry VII after Richard died. He wanted to restore the Yorkist monarchy. He disappeared after the Battle of Stoke Field.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jack said. ‘There’s the old story that he hid out here at Minster Lovell, isn’t there? And that they found his body years later.’ He shook his head. ‘Rebellion was a risky business, that’s for sure.’ He glanced at her. ‘What about the Princes? What’s your theory?’

  Serena smiled. ‘Does it catch your journalistic interest? It would be one hell of a mystery to solve, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Especially following on from the recent discovery of Richard III’s remains in the car park in Leicester,’ Jack agreed. ‘There’s a lot of interest in that sort of thing at the moment.’ He smiled at her. ‘I suppose you think Richard was innocent of the boys’ murder? I’ve read The Daughter of Time,’ he added. ‘I have to say I found it pretty compelling.’

  ‘You’re just humouring me,’ Serena said. ‘Neutrals find the passion that Richard evokes completely baffling.’

  ‘No one likes a miscarriage of justice,’ Jack said mildly. ‘Killing your nephews is a heinous crime to be accused of.’

  It was certainly that, Serena thought. There was something so disturbing about the disappearance and death of a child or a teenager, all that innocence and promise snuffed out like a blown candle. She gave a shudder and Jack saw it and stopped.

  ‘A bit too close to home?’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. So many things must remind you of Caitlin.’

  ‘They do,’ Serena said, ‘and yet the really important bits – the bits I want to remember – just won’t come to me. It’s incredibly frustrating.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Jack asked and she nodded. He drove his hands into the pockets of his coat and they walked on, side by side, whilst Serena tried to work out where to start.

  ‘I told you last night that I came here wanting to recover the memories I’ve lost of the night Caitlin vanished,’ she said. ‘It’s really important to me – I feel I owe it to Caitlin, and it might help the police investigation. Also, I think that sometimes, for my own sanity, I need to remember what the hell happened so I can get on with my life. There’s no closure. It’s like a puzzle I’ve never solved. I’ve tried to ignore it and that hasn’t really worked so I’ve only got this one option left. It’s a case of remember, or go mad.’

  ‘That sounds a bit extreme,’ Jack said, ‘though I do hear what you’re saying. And I get that you feel you owe it to Caitlin even though it wasn’t your fault. You do know that, don’t you, Serena?’ He spoke emphatically. ‘Whatever happened to Caitlin, it was not your fault.’

  ‘I don’t even know that, though, do I?
’ Serena was horrified to feel the tears spring in her eyes. She rubbed them away fiercely. ‘If I can’t remember,’ she said, hating the wobble in her voice, ‘how do I know I didn’t do something, even accidentally, to hurt her or drive her away—’ Her voice broke as she finally expressed the fear she’d kept hidden so long. ‘When the police were talking about finding Caitlin’s body,’ she said, ‘I could see that they thought someone might have killed her accidentally and tried to hide her body out of fear at what they’d done. I know they thought it might be me…’ She turned away as tears stung her eyes again. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I just wish I could say it wasn’t me and know it was true.’

  She heard Jack swear under his breath. ‘Serena. Stop this.’ He pulled her into his arms, his touch as gentle as his tone had been rough. ‘You know you didn’t hurt Caitlin,’ he said. ‘I know you didn’t hurt her. No one, knowing you, would imagine it for a second. Now, believe it.’

  Serena allowed herself to remain in his embrace for a moment, her head against his shoulder, his arms about her. It was immensely comforting.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, after a moment, reluctantly stepping back and rummaging in the pocket of her jeans for a tissue. ‘I needed a bit of tough love there.’

  ‘Any time,’ Jack said, with a lop-sided grin.

  Luna, who had tired of waiting for them and had splashed off to paddle in the river, now came bounding back towards them, threading through the ruined stones of the hall with the skill of a slalom skier. A moorhen whistled on the river and the sun dipped behind a cloud.

  Without warning, Serena was back in the moment eleven years before when she had trailed across the dry field from the dovecote, the grass cutting her bare feet, the July heat beating down on her. She could feel the pent-up irritation of her awkward seventeen-year-old self, jealous of her twin sister, knowing they were growing apart because of Caitlin’s romance with Leo and she felt left behind, unwanted and dull, her life empty and childish and boring in comparison to her sister’s.

  She’d been feeling miserable and lonely but then someone had come… In her mind’s eye she could see a dog racing towards her and behind it the figure of a boy…

  Luna stopped at her feet, panting, gazing up, and Serena turned to look at Jack.

  ‘Are you OK?’ He touched her arm lightly, looking concerned. ‘Serena? What is it?’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Serena said blankly. ‘It was you.’ She realised that she was shaking. ‘It was you I met in the ruins that afternoon, the day that Caitlin died,’ she said. ‘I knew there had been someone but I couldn’t remember who it was. Then when I saw you again yesterday it felt strange, as though I’d missed a step in our relationship and now, I realise why.’ She stopped for breath. ‘That’s what I meant last night when I said that I was trying to remember things, and seeing you seemed to help.’

  There was a flash of emotion in Jack’s eyes. He gave her a wry smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was me you met.’

  ‘You had your dog with you,’ Serena said, reaching down to pat Luna whilst the Labrador looked up at her, sides heaving, eyes bright. ‘He was a spaniel, wasn’t he? Loki? He ran towards me and I looked up and you were there wearing a black-and-green rugby shirt and jeans.’ She closed her eyes, the images coming thick and fast now. ‘And your hair was wet… You told me you’d been swimming, further upriver, not where Leo and Caitlin were, but beyond the dovecote. You’d seen me come out and followed me back to the hall.’

  There was a tension in Jack’s shoulders. ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he said. ‘You looked sad.’

  ‘I was in a miserable mood that afternoon,’ Serena said. Another burst of memories returned to her and with them another rush of emotion. She sat down abruptly on the jutting masonry of a ruined wall.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Oh God, I was so rude to you, wasn’t I, telling you to leave me alone! I was jealous of Caitlin and I didn’t want to talk.’

  ‘I thought you were sweet,’ Jack said. He sat down beside her, Luna flopping down at his feet. ‘Yeah, you were grumpy as hell, but with good cause. Everyone always made such a fuss of Caitlin, how pretty she was, how popular. I wanted you to see…’ He stopped. ‘You were a person in your own right,’ he said fiercely. ‘You didn’t need to be in her shadow. You were special.’

  Serena pressed her hands to her hot cheeks, barely hearing his words through her embarrassment. ‘You kissed me that afternoon. It was my first proper kiss! I was scared it would be awkward but it wasn’t, it was lovely – you were lovely…’ She stopped. ‘Why do I feel self-conscious now, eleven years later? That’s bizarre.’

  ‘You’re reliving the experience,’ Jack said. His eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘Actually, it’s really cute. Do you remember what happened next?’

  ‘No, not yet.’ Serena risked a glance at him. ‘We didn’t… Did we? I mean… Oh God, tell me we didn’t. No, of course we didn’t. Not with the dog there.’ She spoke in a rush. ‘All I can remember is a lovely warm feeling’ – she pressed a hand to her stomach – ‘so I guess whatever did happen, it was really nice.’

  ‘We sat and chatted,’ Jack said. ‘Over there.’ He nodded towards the archway into the hall. ‘We talked for ages,’ he said, ‘not about anything in particular, about our families, and studying, and what we planned to do in the future. We were just kids really. Both of us. It wasn’t like Caitlin and Leo – all intense and heavy. I don’t think either of us were mature enough for that. But it was terribly sweet.’

  ‘I remember it all now,’ Serena said. ‘You’re right – I wanted to be like Caitlin, so glamorous and grown up. I was always running after her, calling for her to wait for me to catch up, and I was the elder twin! Yet at the same time the way she behaved scared me. I knew she and Leo were sleeping together and that they were totally wrapped up in each other. I didn’t want her to get hurt – I wanted to protect her but I didn’t know how.’

  She glanced up at Jack but the sun was in her eyes and she couldn’t see his expression. ‘I do remember that you made me see I didn’t have to be the same as Caitlin,’ she said. ‘I don’t recall the precise conversation, but I do remember the feeling it gave me, the confidence and the sense of being myself. It’s just a pity it all got swept away with everything else when she disappeared.’

  Jack squeezed her hand gently and let her go. ‘I’m glad you’ve remembered,’ he said.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Serena said. ‘Maybe not straight away, but when we had dinner last night?’

  Jack shrugged. He looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘I did think about it,’ he said. ‘But I knew you’d forgotten everything about that day, and I didn’t know if it would help or just make things worse if I started telling you what had happened. It felt as though it would be better for you to recover the memories naturally.’ He looked at her. ‘If I made a bad call, I apologise. I wasn’t deliberately trying to deceive you.’

  ‘I understand,’ Serena said, ‘and for what it’s worth, I don’t think it was a bad call. I keep getting little flashes of things that happened. We had some sort of fizzy drink, I think…’

  Jack was smiling easily now. ‘I shared my homemade lemonade with you,’ he said. ‘My grandmother had made it—’

  ‘The bubbles went up my nose and we laughed when I sneezed!’ Serena said. She took a breath, feeling a little light-headed. The rush of memories – the sweetness of them and the recovery of a part of her past – overwhelmed her for a moment. She hadn’t expected anything she remembered to be positive and was taken aback to feel tears sting her eyes for a moment.

  ‘It was very simple and easy, being with you,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘I remember talking about the future. You said you wanted to study abroad – in Holland somewhere…’

  ‘Delft,’ Jack said. He pulled a face. ‘I thought at that stage I might study architecture,’ he said, ‘but I changed my mind.’

  ‘You walked me back to the manor,’ Serena said, ‘and kissed me again, an
d asked if you could see me the next day. And the next time I saw you I’d forgotten everything that had happened between us.’ She pressed her hands to her cheeks again, feeling oddly upset even though it had all happened so long ago. ‘Oh, Jack, I’m sorry! You must have thought I was horrible when I just dropped you—’

  ‘At first I thought you were just too upset to want to see anyone,’ Jack said. He looked away, across the fields towards the river. ‘I heard on the grapevine that you were ill but I didn’t realise that you’d got dissociative amnesia. I kept hoping that, somehow, you’d come and see me and that together we’d sort out the whole horrible nightmare – find Caitlin, somehow, and put matters right. It was stupid because of course there was nothing we could do, but I remember thinking that if only I could talk to you everything would be all right. It wouldn’t have been, of course…’ He stopped and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Perhaps because we’d had that one perfect afternoon, I sort of idealised it afterwards when everything went so painfully wrong.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Serena said again. Impulsively she took his hand. ‘It was lovely, wasn’t it?’ She smiled a little ruefully. ‘I had a terrible crush on you, you know, and when you finally took notice of me it was like a dream. I can’t believe I forgot it.’

  Jack’s lips twitched. ‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘That you had a crush on me, I mean. I always saw myself as so awkward and nerdy, and you were…’ He shook his head, turning her hand over between his. ‘I really liked you,’ he said softly.

  His gaze lifted to hers and Serena wondered, irresistibly, what it would be like to kiss him now, now that they were both grown up and, she thought, probably a great deal better co-ordinated than they had been that summer afternoon eleven years before.

  ‘Hold that thought,’ Jack said, as though she had spoken. ‘I’ve just seen Zoe over by the buttery door.’ He gestured to a figure in a fuchsia pink waterproof jacket and the ubiquitous rucksack. ‘She’s waving at us. Do you mind giving her the chance to apologise?’