The Fog of War

by A. L. Lester

  Walter nodded. “She’ll be out all night with the dose I gave her,” he said.

  “I thought it was aspirin?”

  Walter shook his head. “And the rest,” he said. “I put some laudanum in the water she washed the aspirin down with. It’s the only thing that gives her any relief. These don’t happen often, but when they do…” He trailed off.

  Lucy sat down heavily at the table.

  Walter looked at her reassuringly. “She has three or four in a year. And she’ll be a bit pale and quiet tomorrow and back to normal the next day,” he said.

  He poured a cup of tea and pushed it across the table to her.

  “She’ll be fine, Lucy,” he said, sitting down opposite her.

  He’d been making himself a sandwich, she saw, now. He noticed her looking and stood up, got another plate, and divided it neatly in half. He pushed that across the table too. “Eat something,” he said. “You’ll feel better. It’s been a hell of an afternoon.”

  She took the plate gratefully. It was thick fresh white bread from the loaves Mary Barker had made yesterday, with slices of cheese, thickly spread with pickle.

  “I’m so pleased we found Mary,” she said, around a mouthful. Lucy had hired her as a housekeeper a few weeks ago and she’d taken on a great deal of the cooking as well.

  “She’s got a good hand with the bread,” Walter agreed around his own sandwich. “Not so good with pastry, though.”

  “I’m good with pastry!” Lucy said. She was rather enjoying learning to cook under Mary’s…and sometimes Walter’s supervision. She was burning things a lot less frequently now.

  Walter made a muffled chuckling noise. “You are that,” he said. Then his face became serious. “Are you all right?”

  Lucy was silent for a moment and then shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “No, I’m not.” She paused, eyes fixed to her plate. It was one of the ones with little roses round the rim. “I could move the power around. I did what Mr Curland said and pulled it in toward me from the light we could see, and then pushed it across to him. And it was easy. Extremely easy. So.”

  Walter nodded. “I could see it and feel it,” he said. “But it didn’t feel like I could move it around very much. It was like lifting a heavy weight. Not easy at all.”

  “Does that mean I’m one of them?” Lucy asked, looking up at him from her fascinating breadcrumbs. “A magician. Whatever they call themselves?”

  Walter shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not unless you want to be?” he said.

  Lucy shook her head vehemently. “No,” she said. “Definitely not. I don’t want that responsibility. It’s dangerous, isn’t it? We may have killed Anna today, whatever we’re trying to tell ourselves. I don’t understand how it works. How you can be in two times at once? Or link them together or whatever it was we did? But we did do it, because Anna disappeared back then. And she is probably lost forever because of it.” She pulled a face. “I just want Sylvia to be happy. I thought this would help. But it’s going to make it worse, isn’t it? She’s going to blame herself…in the same way I am. And that means she won’t be able to let it go. She won’t…” She trailed off.

  She had been going to say she won’t have time for me. But that was selfish and stupid, and she was a better person than that.

  Walter was looking at her sympathetically, and that was dreadful.

  “I thought we were getting somewhere,” she said, finally.

  Walter poured more tea. It was getting stewed.

  “You are getting somewhere,” he said. “It’s obvious, watching you both. You care a great deal for each other. And Sylvia…she’s a practical person. She isn’t going to sacrifice her chance of happiness in the present because of something gone and done with in the past.”

  Lucy shook her head. “Guilt though,” she said. “I feel so guilty. I’m sure she does, too.”

  Walter looked at her, eyes kind. He was nearly twenty years older than she, she remembered. “You can’t change what you’ve done,” he said. “And all this talk of loops in time…phenomena. Is that the right word?” Lucy nodded. “It had already happened. Three years ago. So, it had to happen today. She’d already disappeared, hadn’t she? So, whatever made her disappear had already happened.” He shook his head and pulled a face. “I don’t understand how it can be possible. But like I said before, if time is like a ribbon and loops round and round and touches in some places and you can see things or get through or make things happen…then we couldn’t have done anything else today. Because we’d already done it.”

  Lucy felt tears welling up and she blinked them away. It was relief. What Walter said made perfect sense.

  “I still feel guilty, though,” she said. “And Sylvia will too.”

  Walter nodded. “I do as well. I liked Miss Masters a great deal. But she’s gone. Curland didn’t manage to bring her through. He didn’t even try, that I could feel. He had trouble holding the power.”

  Lucy nodded in agreement.

  “So, from that point of view, we didn’t make anything happen. It might be that we were just watching something that was already happening, and we didn’t do anything to cause it.” His words were careful. Clearly meant to comfort.

  She nodded again, thinking it all through. “Do you think she’s stuck in the border, then? In that shimmery energy that was rolling over her when we dropped the connection? Or do you think the creature got her?”

  Walter pulled another face. “I don’t know. But we combed that ground twice looking for her when we went back to get the ambulances in ‘seventeen. We didn’t find any trace of a fight or a body or anything. She was just…gone.” He took a few breaths. “So, I’d prefer to think she’s still alive somewhere, perhaps with these Frem that Curland and Webber told us about.”

  Lucy nodded. That was the best thing for which she could hope. The best thing she could try to convince herself of. It was cold comfort, but better than thinking Anna dead. And Walter’s theory about them having no choice but to try to look for Anna this afternoon because it had already happened three years ago, was steadying.

  “All right,” she said. “All right. I can live with that.” She looked over at Walter, solemn. “But will Sylvia?”

  Chapter 31

  Sylvia woke up the next morning with the dawn. The light was creeping round the bedroom curtains cautiously. In much the same way, she took care opening her eyes, testing to see whether it would bring the stabbing pain back to her head.

  She was fine. Nothing remained but the sensory memory of the pain, an empty space behind her brow and down into her cheek.

  She sighed. So tedious.

  She swung her legs out from under the covers and sat up, feet on the floor. Her head swam a little, but she was in one piece. She had her pyjamas on. Lucy must have helped her. She could vaguely remember Walter giving her some aspirin and a drink…laudanum? She’d have to have a word with him about that, she’d rather not have the stuff…and then nothing. Well, sleeping it off was always the best bet and she’d clearly done that.

  Time to face the day. And what she’d done.

  She arrived in the kitchen after a quick bath to find Mary making bread. She’d not quite got used to having servants in the house again.

  “Morning, Doctor,” the small woman said. “There’s tea and toast in the Morning Room. The girls cleared it all out yesterday and the day before and it’s all set up now. You’ll be having breakfast in there every day from now on, I expect.” She tilted her head to one side, watching Sylvia with bird-bright eyes.

  Sylvia briefly considered standing her ground and asserting her right to have her breakfast in her own kitchen if she chose, and then thought better of it.

  “Thank you so much, Mrs Barker,” she said. “I’m so grateful for everything you and the girls are doing to sort the house out. It’s been so neglected.”

  “You’re most welcome, Dr Marks,” she said. She smiled. “It’s a pleasure to work with Miss Lucy
to organise it all and it’s a real joy to set something this beautiful to rights again. Your father was a lovely man, but he did let it go in his last few years.” She paused. “Now go on and have your breakfast. Miss Lucy and Walter are in there already.”

  Sylvia nodded and tottered out of the kitchen door again and down the hall to the Morning Room. It wasn’t a large house as this sort of house went. But it had a drawing room and a dining room and a study. And a morning room. She put her hand on the brass knob and turned it, pushing the door open. She hadn’t been in here for months. She hadn’t even known that Lucy has set her minions to work in here.

  It was such a nice room. The wallpaper and carpet weren’t too faded…the curtains had been kept shut in all the unused parts of the house. It was small, done out in cheerful yellow and gold with pictures of exotic birds and trees on the wallpaper. The morning sun lit it beautifully. She winced a little at the brightness of it, her vision still tender.

  “I can pull the curtains,” Lucy said, rising without a greeting. Sylvia couldn’t see either of them properly, only in silhouette, it was so bright. She blinked and they came into focus as Lucy twitched the curtain across to block the most glaring of the sunlight.

  They both looked tired.

  “Morning,” Sylvia said. “Sorry about yesterday. Very silly of me.”

  Walter shook his head, pouring her some tea. “Don’t apologise, Sylvia. You can’t help headaches.”

  Lucy passed her the toast as she sat down. “Eat something,” she said. “You missed supper.”

  “Because someone drugged me,” Sylvia said, looking accusingly at Walter.

  He waved his hand. “You needed drugging,” he said. “You know it gets unbearable when it starts that quickly. You were already nearly delirious.”

  Lucy nodded. “You weren’t making much sense,” she said. “It looked awful. Walter says they happen every few months. I’m so sorry, Sylvia.”

  Sylvia shook her head. “It’s just one of those things. I should have expected it, I suppose. They usually happen when I’m very tired or get upset. So…”

  Lucy pulled a face. “Walter and I were talking about it last night,” she said. “I was terribly upset, too. But Walter…” she glanced over at him, “…Walter thinks that it had already happened. We didn’t cause her to disappear. That was my worry. But he thinks…” She trailed off. “Oh, you explain it, Walter!” she said. “I’ve lost track again. It’s like knitting. I keep getting all the threads tangled up.”

  Walter smiled at her and then looked solemnly at Sylvia across the table. Sylvia couldn’t really meet anyone’s eye, so she bent her head and made a great performance of buttering her toast. It was cold, but she didn’t care.

  “Do you remember me describing time as a ribbon?” Walter asked her. “And the ribbon looping, so two places sometimes touched?”

  Sylvia nodded.

  “Well, I think…we think…” He looked over at Lucy, who also nodded. “We think that’s what happened yesterday. So, whatever happened…we didn’t have a choice really, whatever we did or didn’t do, Anna was going to disappear because she already had.”

  He stopped.

  Sylvia thought about it. It sounded so simple, put like that. We didn’t have a choice.

  “But we did have a choice,” she said. “I could have said no, said I didn’t want to try after all.”

  “Yes,” said Lucy gently. “You could have said that. But something would still have happened to make Anna disappear. Because she already had.”

  Sylvia put her elbows on the table either side of her plate and rested her face in her hands. She was thinking frantically. Her face was hot.

  “None of it makes sense,” she said, furiously, finally.

  Walter sighed. “No,” he said. “No. It doesn’t.” She looked up to see him gathering his plate and cup and getting up. “I’ve got to go and change a dressing,” he said. “Mark Potter asked if I could do it first thing while his daughter is out. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  He left, quietly shutting the door behind him. The morning sunlight lit the room, reflected by the cheerful yellow tones of the decoration. Her mother had decorated this, she thought absently. Or was it her grandmother?”

  It left her alone with Lucy.

  Lucy was eyeing her sympathetically from across the table. Sylvia couldn’t bear it. “Stop it!” she said. “Stop looking at me like that!”

  Lucy blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I just…Sylvia. Please. Please don’t tie yourself up in guilt like this. It’s not your fault. Or our fault…we went along with you. It was a long shot anyway, that it would work, wasn’t it?”

  She paused, looking at Sylvia as if Sylvia had all the answers. Everyone was always looking at Sylvia as if she should have all the answers and Sylvia was suddenly, abruptly, sick of it.

  “Stop it,” Sylvia said, snapping at her. “Stop it. Stop trying to make me feel better! I had to do something! Knowing that she might still be out there somewhere, what did anyone expect me to do? Leave her there hanging between worlds in a cloud of sparkles? Knowing what we know?”

  Lucy flinched back. “Sylvia…”

  “No!” Sylvia spoke over her, voice raised. “I’m so sick of it all. Of spending half my time missing her and now…wondering if I could have stopped it, if I could somehow get her back…and then the rest of the time wanting to be able to let her go so that I can enjoy the time I have with you. I’m sick of it, do you hear? I just want to let her go and move on!

  “Why do I have to throw years and years and years into wishing she was still here and searching for her, when all I want to do is be here with you?”

  There was a ringing silence as they both listened to what she’d said.

  Lucy opened her mouth and drew a breath to speak.

  Sylvia stood up and held out her hand, palm facing her. “No,” she said. “No. I just…I’m going to go and look at the asparagus bed. I need some fresh air. I’ll be back later.”

  She turned and left the room, grabbed an old coat from the mud room beside the back door, shoved her feet into her gumboots, and exited into the courtyard and thence up the slope to the walled garden.

  She strode fast, anger at herself and grief for Anna pushing her along. She had on someone else’s gumboots. Her father’s? They rattled on her feet, slipping as she walked.

  The garden was empty, the girls not yet at work. The hot houses along the back wall were closed up tight against the night-time April cold and a slight frost still lay over the quiescent beds. Everything was still paused for the winter, not quite growing yet.

  She sat down on the wall in front of the potting shed and wrapped the coat around her against the chill. She breathed in and out steadily, the air cold in her lungs as she drew it in and then pluming like smoke as she breathed out. In and out, nice and steadily. That’s it, Sylvia, she thought. Get a grip. Pull yourself together. Nothing’s changed. You’ve spent three years knowing Anna is dead. You’re falling in love with Lucy, for God’s sake. Just because you got a wild idea in your head that you might be able to rescue Anna, doesn’t change either of those things.

  She could feel tears gathering in her eyes. Bloody hell, not again. Well, she’d have a snivel about it now and get it over with. She sniffed, still vaguely trying to hold back the sobs she could feel rising, unable to quite let go. She’d done nothing but cry these last few days. Ridiculous.

  She shut her eyes and breathed into it, allowing herself to feel the loss and abandonment and sheer pressure she’d felt when Anna had gone missing three years ago. She hadn’t had the chance to let herself then. They’d been in the middle of the Nivelle Offensive, and the hospital had been full to overflowing. There had been weeks at a time where she’d barely slept, gas-gangrene case after gas-gangrene case on her operating table. She’d pushed all her feelings down and buried them under the demands of necessity.

  It appeared that they hadn’t disappeared, just simmered below the s
urface for all this time.

  She gave in to it and let the pain in her chest rise and fill her, allowing the tears to run unchecked down her face. She thought about Anna as she hadn’t allowed herself to do for years. Seeing her in the bowl of water yesterday had flipped a switch somehow.

  That had been Anna-the-bold…not scared of anything, working out what was needed and making it happen, telling Sheila to leave her, to run.

  But Sylvia also had memories of Anna the comedian, telling off-colour stories about a patient’s medical condition that had them both in paroxysms of laughter; and Anna the lover, soft and warm in her bed. The time she and Anna had spent together, the quiet time snatched between the pressures of hospital life were what she missed most.

  She let all the memories well up with the tears. She kept the things that made her smile. Gently let the things that caused her pain fly like small, soft birds released from unfurled fingers. Anna was gone. Sylvia needed to accept that. To let her go.

  Anna would be furious with Sylvia. She should accept that, too. Anna would tell her to get on and live her life, not moon about after a dead woman. She’d say ‘You’ve got a good one there. She’s been sweet on you for years. Don’t let her slip through your fingers, Sylv!’ And she’d laugh as she said it. She’d never been one for letting things that should be done and dusted hold her back.

  Gradually, the pain leached out with the tears.

  The fingers of the sun were coming over the wall of the garden, burning off the late frost.

  She rummaged through the pockets of the coat and produced a reasonably clean hanky, left there by some long-ago guest come shooting with her father. She used it to mop herself up. Her face felt hot and swollen and her eyes were raw and gravelled. She blew her nose loudly and very satisfyingly and sighed.

  Well, that was that.

  She felt better for it. Clean.

  No doubt it would come back again, in waves. Grief usually did. But she was well enough versed in the process to know that now, at least, she’d begun it.

  Chapter 32