by Kirsty Ferry
Elodie struggled a little with the latches – they were those old-fashioned ones that don’t make it easy for a person to open – and eventually managed to throw the window open. She leaned out, her hands on the sill and tried to see outside, her eyes straining to look into the far distance of a world where the sun was just beginning to rise. Just on their side of the lake she saw a figure moving erratically through the estate and towards the Faerie Bridge.
Elodie’s first thought was that it was a poacher, but when she squinted even more, the person didn’t look like your usual poacher type – it was a woman, for a start. Elodie could tell by the way she walked and the fact she had long, straight hair. It was a relatively tall, slim woman, who seemed to be wearing little more than shortie pyjamas and possibly carrying something with her, dragging it along behind her. Elodie’s heart jumped – she wondered if it was a rifle, but to be honest it looked more like a spade.
It was as if a lightning bolt struck her: ‘Cassie!’ She turned to the doorway and ran out after Alex.
‘Alex! Alex! Wait!’
He was just pushing the door shut and leaning rather heavily on it to make the latch catch, when Elodie came tearing down the stairs, her filmy white dress making her look like a spirit.
‘Wow!’ he said as she floated towards him. If one can float at the speed of light, because that did indeed appear to be the rate at which she approached. ‘Careful on the stairs!’ he warned as she stumbled down the last couple and he caught her just before she fell, then set her straight on her feet again.
‘Cassie’s out there. I’ve just seen her by the lake. I think she’s got a spade. She’s heading to the woods.’
He laughed. ‘Cassie? With a spade? What do you think she’s going to do? Batter a deer and drag it in for a venison breakfast?’
‘It’s not funny. Look, why is she wandering around at—’ She cast a look around, apparently for a clock, because she settled her gaze on the grandfather clock in the corner. ‘—three in the morning?’
‘Battering livestock for breakfast?’
But Elodie was in no mood for a joke. ‘Alex!’ She shook his arm from her and hurried past him. ‘I’m going after her.’
‘It won’t be Cassie. She’ll be tucked up in bed now.’
‘She’s not, I swear!’ Elodie pulled open the door and ran outside.
Alex was horrified. She couldn’t head out there in the middle of the night on her own. He knew she wouldn’t get very far for a start.
‘Elodie!’ he called after her and started to run.
She was out of breath before she’d even reached the ha-ha.
Damn her lungs. She hadn’t had a bad attack for several weeks, but tonight all the excitement and the smoke had brought yet another one on. So it wasn’t long before Alex caught up with her, then gently overtook her.
‘Alex!’ It was a pathetic little attempt at speech, more like a breathy gasp. She gave up running and steadied to a hurried walk, which was much better on the lungs but not very effective at keeping pace with Alex. She also wished she’d brought along that inhaler.
Just as Alex reached the lake, he stopped and looked across towards the oak tree that still lay there waiting to be chopped up for firewood.
‘Good God, Elodie, you’re right,’ he called over his shoulder. He pointed at the person on the other side of the lake. ‘That’s Cass, all right.’
Cassie was walking in a straight line. She didn’t look erratic anymore and she was heading directly for the oak tree, heedless of anything in her way.
‘It’s the ley line!’ Elodie said, incredulously. ‘Look! It’s like it’s pulling her.’
In fact, Cassie marched like a sleepwalker; tall and straight, her head facing forward and her arms out to the side. She dragged the spade as if it was a kite on a piece of string. If she’d been wearing a long white nightgown instead of her shorts, she would have doubled as the lady in Millais’ Somnambulist painting. Elodie had seen the portrait in the Bonham’s auction when Bolton Council sold it – and Delaware Art Museum was a little too far to travel to see it again. But when they had Cassie doing that in the garden, why did she even need a portrait?
‘Where the hell is she going?’ asked Alex. ‘She doesn’t look natural.’
‘We need to catch up with her.’ Elodie looked down the river at the Faerie Bridge. ‘You’ll have to run and get over the bridge, Alex. I can’t. I’m sorry.’
She leaned forward and tried to steady her breathing, and could have cried. Even after she had been diagnosed and ultimately hospitalised, Piers had flatly refused to give up the cigars. He said he had an image to maintain and that her terrible lungs were her fault for not going to the gym every day and keeping healthy like Sophia in marketing did. His cigars had made her condition ten times worse and she’d never really recovered.
‘What on earth are you sorry for? You’re not to blame.’ Suddenly, Alex put his hands around her waist and pulled her towards him; then he leaned down and kissed her, which kind of left her reeling a bit. If the kiss and the feel of his warm hands through the thin muslin hadn’t actually made her gasp out her last breath, it almost felt like it did.
‘But you know what?’ he said and stared out over the lake. ‘I don’t think even I can run fast enough.’
And with that, he let go of her waist and dived into the lake.
Colin Firth looked absolutely splendid swimming across that lake at Pemberley. But, to Elodie, Alex looked even better.
He crossed the water with a strong front-crawl and she just stood on the shore, in that half-light between moonset and sunrise, gaping at him. The man had technique, no doubt about it. And then when he emerged on the other side, he strode out onto the bank and his shirt – white, of course – was all un-tucked and glorious and Mr Darcy-like. He’d been in the rowing team at Oxford, she knew, so he was probably well-used to hurling himself into rivers.
‘My goodness.’ Elodie’s chest constricted again. But that time, it was definitely lust, not asthma. Alex had bare feet, just like her. Neither one of them had had time to put any shoes on before haring down here. She stood for a moment longer, staring at him as he picked up speed again and ran after Cassie; then she shook herself and headed towards the bridge. She would have to cross the water the old-fashioned way. Alex would reach Cassie first and she trusted he would find out what she was doing before Elodie got there.
But the man was like a dripping wet, white-clad, dark-haired magnet and she needed to get to him as soon as humanly possible.
It was lucky that the sky was clear and it was almost dawn. He would have lost Cassie in the woods had it been any darker.
As it was, the moon was giving him some light as well, enough to see glimpses of his sister through the trees at any rate. She was dragging a spade alongside her and he had no idea what she was doing; whether she was sleepwalking or whether it was something more sinister.
‘Cassie!’ His voice sounded loud in the night air and, despite the warmth of the evening, he shivered a little. The damp fabric of his shirt clung to him and the forest floor beneath his bare feet was soft where yesterday’s sun hadn’t quite managed to bake it hard through the canopy of leaves. Here and there, little scurrying noises and startled flaps came out of the undergrowth and he forced himself to keep his eyes on the path ahead. He didn’t want to lose sight of her. He swore as he stumbled over a branch and something sharp dug into the sole of his foot.
‘Cassie!’ He tried again, grimacing as he stubbed his toe on a stone that seemingly had been lying in wait for him. But Cassie, in contrast, was simply floating along, tall and straight, her head never changing direction. It was exactly as Elodie had said – as if the ley line itself was pulling her along it.
He knew that Cassie would soon break out into the clearing and she would be right next to the fallen oak tree. He wanted to reach her before she did that. The oak tree was right across the path – and if she was genuinely sleepwalking, who was to say she would divert and
go around the thing? He sensed more than simply a stubbed toe if she kept at it.
‘Cassandra!’
She paused for a moment and tilted her head a little, as if she had heard him. He ran faster; but then she was off again. She disappeared into a thicker part of the wood and he crashed through it, gaining on her.
He saw her in the clearing by the oak tree. His heart lurched as she approached the fallen giant.
Then she stopped, right beside it.
She looked at a spot in front of the tree, took hold of the spade and struck the ground.
Alex hurried over to her. ‘Cass! What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted.
Cassie looked towards him and he swore. She seemed completely different. Her eyes were blank – totally and utterly blank, glinting hazel in the moonlight instead of their usual chocolate brown.
Then, without speaking a word, without changing focus or acknowledging his presence in any other way, Alex’s baby sister raised the spade and aimed it straight at the side of his head.
‘I have it on good authority that he’s out there! A highwayman, a murderous, treacherous bastard. Ben. They say the villain is called Ben, but the devil alone knows his surname. He attacked my daughter, forced himself upon her. Broke into my property. He murdered my son. The dog must die! Hang him – hang him from the highest branch on the oak tree. Let them all see him! Let everyone who travels on the drovers’ roads be warned!’
Lucy huddled in the shadows, sitting at the bottom of the staircase, ramming her fist in her mouth. It was her fault, all her fault. She had told Papa in a moment of spite about Ben – about kind, dark-eyed Ben who had left silver pennies for her by the Faerie Bridge and who loved her sister.
‘I have seen them together!’ she had yelled, the day her sister had found her rummaging in her jewellery case, looking for the pretty locket. Georgiana had been angry, so very angry. More furious than Lucy had ever seen her before. Georgiana had grabbed Lucy’s arm and thrown her out into the corridor, screaming at her for being an awful child and a nuisance and a blackmailer and how she wished the faeries would come and take her away.
Lucy had run downstairs and burst into her father’s study. ‘Georgiana is in love with a highwayman! He’s called Ben and he lied to me about the silver pennies. But I knew, I knew he was a liar and he was kissing Georgiana and I found them and she hit me. She hit me Papa, and I did nothing wrong.’ She had stood in front of him shouting all sorts of things about Ben and Georgiana, spilling out everything she knew and making up things she didn’t.
‘And she has a locket and she won’t let me see it!’ Her voice had risen to a crescendo at that point, furious that Georgiana would never, ever let her look at it. ‘And all I wanted to do was see it! And she won’t let me!’
To Lucy, that was the worst, the absolute worst of it. It was such a pretty trinket, and all she wanted to do was look at it and maybe wear it for a party. Her Papa hadn’t thought that though. He had thought it was much, much worse that Georgiana was kissing Ben. It was as if the locket wasn’t important at all and it was the most important thing ever.
Lucy had stood before her Papa, her fingers digging into her palm so they made little crescent moon shapes and her head had begun to pound with anger and all he could do was start shouting about Ben and how they had to kill him.
Lucy, huddled on the stairs now, caught a little sob in her throat and rammed her fist further into her mouth. She bit down hard and she tasted blood. She didn’t want kind, dark-eyed Ben to hang from a tree until he was dead. That’s what they did to bad people and he wasn’t a bad person. She was worse, much, much worse. He was good and happy and kind and he made Georgiana happy.
Lucy was a horrible person.
‘It’s all my fault,’ she whispered around her fist. ‘It’s all my fault.’
She squeezed her eyes shut and clung to the newel post as the study door slammed open and she heard her father and a dozen other men thunder out and demand their horses be brought around immediately.
‘It’s all my fault. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you.’
Chapter Nineteen
Once Elodie was on the other side of the Faerie Bridge, she paused, trying to get a handle on where everyone would be. She could almost feel the energy of that ley line pulsing away and, like Horace the spaniel scenting a rabbit, she lifted her face to the wind and peered through the pre-dawn woods.
She started walking as quickly as she dared towards the fallen oak tree. The energy was leading her to the clearing, tugging her along in Cassie’s wake and she only wished she could go faster.
When she finally made it there, with her breath rasping in her chest, Cassie was digging industriously away at a hole in the ground and Alex was lying sprawled out beside her.
‘Alex!’ Elodie yelled, only it came out more like the noise of a deflating accordion. Dropping down beside him, she turned his head towards her. There was a graze just above his brow and a trail of blood, warm and sticky, running down his face and staining his white collar. He grumbled softly as she touched him and his eyes opened and focussed on her.
‘Oh, my God!’ She turned a furious gaze towards the dark-haired girl and demanded an answer. ‘Cassandra Aldrich! What’s happened?’ But Cassie was apparently completely oblivious to her presence.
‘Elodie?’ Alex’s voice sounded faint, but he was sitting up. ‘You look like a ghost in that dress.’ He laughed weakly. ‘Glad it’s you.’ He dropped his head briefly into his hands and then looked back up at her.
‘Yes, of course it’s me. Are you okay? Can you see me? Just one of me?’
She waved her hand in front of his face and was gratified when he drew back a little from her flailing fingers. ‘Yes, I can. Just one of you. Please stop it.’
‘What happened?’
‘Cassie hit me.’ He raised his hand and touched his temple. ‘Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch.’ He stared at his fingers as if he couldn’t quite believe all that blood was his. ‘She caught me a glancing blow as they say. I ducked. Thank God for martial arts training.’
‘Why did she do that?’ Elodie said heatedly. ‘Cassie!’
Cassie didn’t pause. She didn’t even blink. She just kept digging.
Elodie couldn’t bear it. Alex was sitting on the ground in his damp clothes with blood running down his face and Cassie was completely ignoring him. What the hell was wrong with the woman?
Furious, she scrambled to her feet and raised her hand. She drew her arm back as far as she could and slapped Cassie hard across the face. Just about as hard as she had slapped Alex on Prom Night.
Cassie faltered in her digging, but she didn’t even look around. She kept staring at the hole in the ground and mechanically throwing shovelfuls of earth to one side.
Elodie swore then; very loudly and very roundly. The wheezy bit at the end of the word and the consumptive cough kind of diluted the impact, but at least she felt better for doing it.
Thud; thud; thud.
No response; only the steady drop of earth on the ever-increasing pile Cassie was creating.
‘This is ridiculous.’ Elodie swore again. Instead of hitting the girl and knocking her to the ground like a skittle, which was what she really wanted to do, she tried to catch the shovel as it came up towards her. Cassie, however, shouldered her out of the way and Elodie ended up wobbling and sitting down hard near Alex again. This time, as her bottom hit the ground and she exhaled suddenly, she sounded more like a bagpipe tuning up.
Thud; thud; thud.
‘Well at least she didn’t hit you. You don’t sound very healthy, Elodie.’
‘You don’t look very healthy.’ She peered at him and took his face in her hands, running her thumb over the cut and wiping the blood on her dress. Alex flinched but didn’t stop her. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ she said. ‘I think it’s mainly just a nasty graze. As you said, thank God for martial arts. She might have killed you.’
They both stared at Cassie frowning.
‘It’s not her,’ said Alex. ‘She’d never attack either of us.’
Cassie made them jump by suddenly throwing the spade down with a clatter and kneeling down, peering into the hole she had been working on.
It was eerily silent. Elodie couldn’t hear anything but her own heart thumping and she started to shake.
Alex’s arm crept around her shoulder and, slightly damp though it was, she was grateful for its warmth.
Cassie turned around, ever so slowly, and finally focused on them. Her face was deathly white and her eyes were swimmy and scared. Elodie had seen many, many creepy things before, but this had to be one of the creepiest.
‘Oh, thank goodness. There you are!’ The voice that came out of Cassie was nothing like her own. It was a soft, sad little voice with extremely clear enunciation. ‘It’s all my fault. I’m sorry. I love you.’
It sounded exactly like Lucy’s voice had done, when the little girl gleefully brought Ben’s silver penny to Georgiana in the attic, so many years ago. Delilah’s words drifted into Elodie’s mind again: Lucy had never been quite as rational as a normal child …
Then Cassie closed her eyes, pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them and dropped her chin into her chest. Her shoulders started to shake and she began to sob.
There followed one of those moments where one doesn’t quite know what to do. Alex wanted, more than anything, to stay with Elodie and continue sitting with his arm around her.
He wanted to pull her closer and protect her. She sounded terrible and didn’t look that much better. God knew, his own head was pounding and his temple was throbbing and it was only now, despite what he’d told Elodie, that he’d stopped really seeing two of everything.
But then there was his sister, all hunched up and crying. And yes, it hadn’t been much fun ducking out of the way of a rogue shovel; but was it any different to when he’d pushed her off the Faerie Bridge years ago? He’d been in a temper and she’d landed awkwardly in the water and broken her arm. And it didn’t look as if Cassie had done this deliberately – it didn’t look like that at all. She’d even apologised, sort of. Hadn’t she?