Again that odd sense that her voice had not carried as far as it should have.
Claire began to make her way around the edge of the moat, grimacing as her boots sank in the sucking mud. Finally she found a shallow causeway that looked crossable. Slowly, gingerly, she walked out into the warm water, feeling her gumboots begin to fill, but she plodded on. When one of her boots sank into the mud and stuck fast, she cursed, tugging at it and balancing on her other leg. All of a sudden it came free with a horrible sucking sound, and she lost her balance, staggering forward. Before she could stop herself she fell, landing on the ground on the other side of the moat.
But where she expected to land on rock hard earth her hands touched grass. Soft, sweet, green grass.
She thought she must have passed out. Because this was a dream? An hallucination. A fantasy straight out of Hollywood.
Slowly she lifted her gaze from the grass—so green it hurt her eyes—and up the slope that was stretching in front of her. There was a long sweep of garden. An orchard to her left and borders of perennials. Lavender grew around her in big untrimmed shrubs, the spikes heavy with bees.
Horses stood in a railed yard, their tails swishing at the flies, and a couple of men were unloading a wagon, while a girl with a white apron was carrying a bucket awkwardly toward the rear of the house.
Still stunned, lying frozen upon the grass, Claire stared up at the homestead. A moment ago it had been a ruin but now curtains fluttered from the open windows and smoke rose from the chimneys and a door banged shut as someone strode across the verandah.
Claire shook her head. No. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t true.
A man was striding down the front steps. He was dark haired and wearing a brown jacket, riding breeches and boots. He moved with such an air of authority that Claire knew who it was without seeing his face.
Niall McEwen.
A moment ago she had been too frozen to move, but now she dug her fingers harder into the soft green grass beneath her and pushed herself up. The scent of the lavender, the sounds of life about her, the utter impossibility of it all, made her head spin as if she were drunk. Claire swayed, trying to catch her breath, trying to keep her grip on the shifting reality about her, as she stood waist deep in lavender.
Just as Niall McEwen turned his head in her direction.
His body went rigid. His chin lifted. He quickened his step. In a moment he’d be running.
Terror ripped through her.
She stumbled backwards. Water washed over the heels of her boots and, as they sank a little into the mud of the causeway, the scene in front of her faded. Like a photo that has been overexposed, Niall was still moving toward her but there was no sound and she knew he would never reach her. She backed another step and into the hole that had claimed her boot previously, toppling into a pool of water. Her head went under.
Helen! The voice was in her head, a cry of anguish and need. When she surfaced and pulled herself out onto the mud, she was spluttering and choking. Her wet hair hung in her eyes and she pushed it away with a trembling hand and turned back toward the homestead.
It stood drunkenly above her, a ruin baking in the sun. No garden, no horses, and certainly no Niall McEwen. Nothing but bare ground and warped timbers and a harsh blue sky.
He was gaining on her. She tried to scream but the sound was breathless and barely louder than the other night noises. She ran to the side, toward the garden, where finished flower stalks rose starkly. She’d insisted on tidying them herself and now she would never finish.
He reached for her arm but at the same moment Moppet ran between his feet and tripped him. The dog yelped, the man cursed, and Helen ran on. Before her was the lillypond. Would he follow her in? He couldn’t swim, she knew that much, one of the few things he’d told her. He was afraid of water.
Perhaps she could save herself after all?
By the time Claire had showered and changed daylight was fading. Sunset was a glorious crimson and orange affair, and Claire sat on her verandah and watched it, a glass of cooled wine in her hand, the dog at her feet.
He had forgiven her for shutting him up earlier and now seemed content to rest by her side, following her with his eyes whenever she moved, clearly intent on attaching himself to her.
Her own eyes continually drifted to the old homestead, as if she expected any moment it might transform itself. She had no explanation for what had happened. If it was an hallucination it was a pretty good one, but she knew it wasn’t a dream. She wanted to discuss it logically, but who would listen to her? Gabe? He might, or he might just ring for the doctor.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of it had been the sense of familiarity. Her daydream had already shown her what to expect and when she stood in the lavender it had not seemed foreign at all. And he had not seemed a stranger.
But still her rational mind argued, needing proof.
Claire got up abruptly and hurried out to the door, the dog trotting along behind her. She came back with the box from the museum and set it down on the kitchen table, pouring herself another glass of crisp white wine.
A quick search found mostly junk. There was a photo album, however, and she eased it out and opened it up, expecting great things. She found disappointment. The first photo had been eaten away by mildew, the faces unrecognizable. The next page was worse. Claire turned another page and then another, but it was all the same. The damage to the album had been extensive and irreversible. Even a master restorer could do nothing with this mess, there was simply nothing to restore.
Claire had come to the end of the album. The last photo. And it was undamaged. She stared down at it. A man in a high white collar, his handsome face stern and still, a lock of dark hair falling over his brow. His gaze was intense but it was also faintly amused, as if he knew the effect he had on those around him—especially women.
Claire shivered.
It was him. The man she’d seen.
Niall McEwen was alive. He lived in a place that could be reached through a moat of water that surrounded the homestead. He existed in the past, but he also existed in the here and now, and only Claire knew it.
Only Claire could reach him.
But that was madness, impossible! Wasn’t it?
There was only one way to prove it. She had to go back there and do what she’d done earlier. She had to cross the causeway and step onto the island where the homestead was. She had to go and face her fears.
The knock on her door almost gave her a heart attack.
Gabe’s smile faded when he saw her face. “What’s happened?”
Claire knew she could tell him. She could burden him with everything and he would help her, look after her, as he had before. Or she could solve her problems herself and come to him as an equal partner.
“I had a headache. It’s gone now.”
He appeared to accept her word.
“I didn’t expect to see you tonight, Gabe.”
By now he’d taken in the box from the museum and the photo album. She closed it before he could see Niall McEwen, some sense of self-preservation driving her.
“You were talking about Helen,” he said. “I thought you might like to see the picture of her that belonged to my grandfather.”
“Oh. Yes, thank you.” She found a glass and poured him some of her white wine. “How did he come by Helen’s photo anyway?”
It was just idle conversation but Gabe seemed to find the question awkward. “Belonged to an uncle of his, a cousin of Niall McEwen’s, who worked as Niall’s foreman. He was fond of Helen, and when she vanished . . .” He shrugged. “He kept the photo.”
They sat down in the lounge and Claire tucked her feet up under herself. She remembered how, after she’d left hospital, she always sat so straight and formally, feet together on the floor, hands clasped in her lap. Gabe teased her, gently, and gradually she’d learned to relax.
She realized Gabe was talking about his grandfather again.
“He believed ther
e were places in the world where the veil between our time and the past was thinner, more able to be breeched. The valley was one of them, according to him.”
Claire tried not to let him see how much his words had affected her. Thankfully the room was dimly lit with candles, her preferred form of lighting.
“Why did he think that?”
“He was told things and he saw things himself, things he shouldn’t have been able to see. His belief was that the past and the present ran at different speeds. For instance, whereas a hundred years might have gone by here in the present, only a day might have gone by in the past.”
Claire took a gulp of her wine, her fingers trembling.
“You haven’t been down there again, have you, Claire? To the homestead?” And, when she didn’t answer, “It’s not safe. Promise me you won’t go alone.”
“You worry too much about me, Gabe. You shouldn’t have to worry about me. I feel as if I’ve become a weight around your neck.”
He stood up and crossed to her, taking her wine glass from her hand and setting it down. She looked up at him.
“Claire, I’ve been in love with you since I first saw you. I wanted to wait until you were . . . better, so that you could be sure about your future, but now I think I’ve waited too long.”
She went into his arms. It seemed foolish to deny herself any longer. Gabe’s mouth closed on hers. His body felt familiar against hers, but only because this was Gabe. And he showed her how he felt with every touch, every caress, every stroke. For the first time in her life Claire knew what it was to be with the man she loved, and who loved her.
The water was chill against her thighs as she waded deeper. Her skirts dragged about her and she was gasping for air. He stood on the bank, watching her, his face full of fury.
For a moment she thought it would be all right. She almost believed she was safe. But then he stepped down into the pond, the water rising over his boots and up his legs, and she knew.
Stumbling, trying to hurry, she moved toward the far bank. Her foot slipped and she went under. The murky water closed over her head, and suddenly everything was quiet. Like a church. She couldn’t breath, her lungs were bursting, but she couldn’t seem to find the surface.
The next moment she rose up from the water, gasping and spluttering, crying out. But when she opened her eyes she was somewhere else. He was gone, the valley was gone, and when she turned back to the homestead, it was nothing more than a derelict ruin.
Claire opened her eyes, confused. She’d fallen asleep in Gabe’s arms, content and happy. Now the sound of the dog barking was sharp and clear in the night, and for a moment she felt as if it was all still a dream. That she was Helen, running for her life, coming through Gabe’s grandfather’s thin veil in time.
And then reality clicked in and Claire eased herself out of bed, careful not to wake Gabe, and took her clothes into the lounge. She dressed, then went out onto the verandah. The sky was a marvel, full of starlight, and beneath it the empty reservoir echoed with the intermittent sound of barking. Something small and white was bobbing about, just outside the moat.
Somehow the dog had escaped the house while she slept and was now running back and forth outside the ring of water.
A terrible sense of excitement, of anticipation, gripped her. As if she had been waiting for this moment for a very long time. And at the same time fear flooded through her body, striping every nerve to a new state of anxiety.
The air was like warm silk against her skin, heavy. She plodded along in her gumboots, her gaze fixed on the homestead, the occasional flash of lightning and rumble of thunder warning of an approaching storm.
The dog had noticed her at last and came running toward her. Jumping up, paws scrabbling at her legs and whimpering a greeting. She reached down to pet him, ruffling the thick, curly coat.
“Where did you come from, boy?”
The dog looked up at her, his eyes gleaming darkly, his tongue lolling. He knew a secret and he wasn’t telling.
“Be like that then,” Claire murmured.
She picked the dog up and tucked his firm little body under her arm. He felt warm and solid, and comforting. The water of the moat sloshed against the toes of her boots, then up around her ankles, her calves. Did she really want to do this? She knew that some part of her did, some part of her was hungering to see the past again, to understand what it all meant. The rest of her was just plain terrified.
The water had evaporated even more since yesterday and soon there wouldn’t be a moat at all. What would happen then? Would the past spill into the present like an unstoppable tide?
Claire moved out onto the causeway, the dog still clasped in her arms. The little animal seemed quite content to remain with her, quietly, trusting her, and besides, he was a companion on this strangest of journeys.
Claire thought she might manage to cross this time without getting wet feet, but the water was just deep enough to slosh over the tops of her boots and run down inside. With a grimace she found her way to the shallow water on the far side and took one step out and onto the bare desolate ground of the island.
It happened the other way around this time.
The over exposed picture began to come into focus, quickly gaining color and definition. It was night time here just as it was in the present, but there was a sense of life, of movement, all about her. The scent of lavender was strong in the air and she realized that once again she was standing among the thick bushes. An owl hooted and something snuffled in the flowerbeds, small feet running swiftly. The little dog whimpered in her arms and she hushed it, gently holding its muzzle so it couldn’t bark.
She was back.
Claire moved forward, along the path that wound through the fragrant garden and up toward the homestead. Above her the same storm she’d just left behind—or was it a different one?—was rattling the heavens. That sense of waiting sent shivers across her skin. The homestead was in darkness but it wasn’t deserted, it wasn’t empty.
It was waiting.
Waiting for her?
A candle flickered in one of the windows, as if someone was still up, but there was no sound. She stepped onward, reaching out her hand toward the verandah post, to touch, to feel.
“It’s you. You’ve come back.”
The voice came out of the shadows before her. Claire stood, frozen, as he stepped toward her, his face a pale blur beneath his dark hair. The dog struggled, sensing that something was very wrong, but Claire held on to it.
“Where did you go?” There was something threatening in his voice. “Everyone has been searching for you, Helen. They’re blaming Niall.”
Because this wasn’t Niall. As if a shattered window suddenly began to reform in her mind, bit by bit, she saw the truth. This man was Maurice, Niall’s cousin and his foreman, and she’d been stupid enough to spend one night in his bed. She’d done it in revenge for all the women Niall betrayed her with, but this man would not accept that. He’d always been jealous of Niall and one night made her his. He threatened to tell Niall, to blackmail her, he threatened to make her life a misery if she did not give him what he wanted.
So she was leaving him, and Niall.
“Helen?” he groaned. “You know if I can’t have you then no one can.”
“Yes. I am Helen.” Her voice was a whisper.
The dog struggled again and he noticed it for the first time. “Moppet?” he said angrily. “You came back for Moppet?”
Of course, this was Moppet, her dog. “I could never leave Moppet.”
Her placing her dog above him seemed to infuriate him even more. “Where have you been? Tell me the truth.”
“Through time,” she said, and laughed.
His features went hard, and suddenly he was no longer handsome.
Fear streaked through her, and Claire turned and ran. Back down the path, back toward the line of water that separated his world from hers. But just like before he came after her, the thump of his boots on the path, his br
eathing heavy and gaining.
His hand closed on her shoulder, fingers pressing hard into her skin, imprinting themselves upon her. He pulled her around and into the hard grasp of his arms. Moppet leapt to the ground and Claire was dragged into his chest, aware of the faint scent of cigars and leather.
She’d returned to the past only to die here . . .
“Claire!”
Faint, desperate, a voice she knew like her own heart.
She began to fight Maurice. A flash of lightning showed his face and the determination to finish what he’d started all those years ago—or was it only an hour or two?
“Let her go!”
Suddenly Gabe was ripping her out of Maurice’s grip, knocking him backwards so that he fell heavily into the shrubs. Claire was gasping, stumbling into his arms, and Moppet was barking wildly. The little dog had been barking all along, she realized, but she’d been too occupied to really hear his cries for help.
“Come on,” Gabe said, voice rising against the growl of thunder.
And then Gabe was leading her through the water of the moat and the past was fading away behind her. A moment later they were standing on the baked surface of the reservoir, lightning and thunder creating havoc around them.
“He’ll be able to come into the present,” Claire said, wild eyed, shaking uncontrollably. “The moat is drying up and soon he’ll come.”
Gabe reached down to pick up Moppet and put the dog into her arms. A big fat drop of rain plopped onto the ground beside them. And then another.
She turned her face upwards in amazement and joy. The drops were falling faster now, painful against her skin, but wonderful too.
“No, he won’t,” Gabe said confidently.
Later, as they sat on the verandah and watched the world through a curtain of rain, Gabe told her his story, which was her story, too.
“My grandfather had a photo of you. It belonged to his uncle Maurice. There was something secretive about the man, and my grandfather always had a suspicion it was to do with Helen. When Maurice died he told my grandfather that he and Helen had been lovers and that he’d tried to kill her, but she’d vanished. Just . . . vanished.”
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