Master of the Scrolls

by Benjamin Ford

  Rachel stood behind her daughter, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, ‘Remember the prophecy? Mother knew what had to happen, just as James does… as you know what must happen!’

  ‘Yes Mother, I do know, I just don’t think I can marry Allan before Nana Turner’s funeral.’

  ‘Then you shall have your grandmother’s funeral first,’ said James, smiling at her. ‘I would not deprive you of that! And then we shall be together, finally!’

  Standing slightly apart from the group, Doctor Garrett looked from one to the other and then the next as though they were all mad. He looked at Louise, unsure that he had actually seen what he thought he had seen.

  ‘All right people, would one of you please tell me what the hell is happening?’

  *

  Three days after her death, Mary Turner was buried alongside her forebears at the consecrated graveyard within Ravenscreag Hall’s immense grounds, and most thought it a bit freaky that they were standing beside the graves of Victoria and James Trevayne.

  Though most of the inhabitants of the village wanted to offer their respects and attended the morning funeral service, held in the small church of Ravenscreag, the burial itself was a private family affair.

  Gloria and her parents were the last three mourners left at the graveside, and Gloria and her mother wiped away tears, staring not at Mary’s headstone but at Victoria’s. ‘I can’t believe that’s me in there,’ whispered Gloria, shivering slightly. ‘Everything that has happened seems like just a bad dream. It’s so surreal!’

  ‘That’s ironic darling, since this all started with a bad dream!’

  ‘I don’t know how things can be resolved though. I still don’t know where the locket is!’

  ‘When he spoke through Allan, James seemed quite adamant that you and he would be reunited,’ interjected Jeremy. ‘I think we should trust that he knows something we don’t!’

  Gloria hugged her parents. ‘Well, with the wedding this afternoon, I guess this is our time to say goodbye. I’m going to miss you both so much!’

  Rachel tearfully stroked her daughter’s hair. ‘I know, I shall miss you too, but at least I’ll be able to come here and talk to you though!’

  All three embraced for several long minutes before they decided they ought to prepare for the wedding.

  ‘You will look after Allan after I’m gone, won’t you? Try to explain things to him!’

  ‘We will, and he’ll have Susan and Daniel and Louise too!’

  Gloria sighed as they made their way back up to the house. ‘I wish I could say goodbye to them all!’

  As they walked past the woods bordering one side of the estate, none of them noticed eyes that observed from within the trees.

  *

  Later that afternoon, Jeremy proudly – sadly – walked his daughter down the aisle of the same church where the villagers had hours before celebrated the life of Mary Turner. The wedding was held behind closed doors – the villagers were not invited. Finally, Gloria came to rest beside Allan, who beamed at her happily, oblivious to her inner sadness that constantly threatened to overwhelm her.

  Allan had no memory of being taken over by James’s spirit, and Gloria thought it was probably for the best. He was aware of nothing, not even that James was gone from his consciousness. He had initially felt a momentary sense of ultimate loss as he realised how truly sentient in his subconscious the spirit of James Trevayne had actually been. Seconds after the spirit departed his mind however, all thoughts of James Trevayne vanished, leaving Allan with the peculiar sense that he had shifted a pernicious headache at long last He was just glad to be getting married to the woman he loved.

  Behind them, the guests were strangely silent, breath held as though waiting for something to happen, but Allan did not notice. He had eyes and ears only for the woman who stood beside him.

  Gloria heard nothing that the vicar was saying. There was nothing short of a roaring in her ears that in reality was her heart pounding with anxiety. She had to force herself to remain focused, not turn every two seconds to see if he was there, waiting for her, as he had promised he would be.

  Susan and Daniel sat in the front row on the right, holding hands tightly as they prepared themselves for what was to come.

  Louise sat next to an oddly silent George behind her parents, struggling to control her erratic breathing. She did not want to see her brother hurt, yet knew Gloria had no choice in what was to happen.

  Rachel clutched onto her husband’s arm as he came to sit beside her in the front row on the left. She was crying openly, making no effort to hide her sobs.

  Phil had been roped in as the Best Man – Allan would have preferred one of his own friends, but there had been no time to arrange that, and even though no one would explain to him why the wedding had to be held with such haste, he had not argued, and Phil was infinitely preferable to George. Phil stood beside Allan, not daring to look at Gloria.

  Everyone in the church knew what was coming except the vicar and Allan.

  Gloria barely heard a word that had been spoken so far, and it was only when she sensed Allan looking at her expectantly that she realised it was time for her to say I do.

  Or I don’t, she thought.

  She opened her mouth to speak.

  All of a sudden the door to the church was thrown open with a deafening crash that echoed all around. Everyone jumped, turning to see what the commotion was.

  Silhouetted in the doorway, black against the afternoon sun behind him, stood a man holding a small child in his arms. ‘I have come for you, Victoria.’

  Everyone knew it to be the voice of James Trevayne.

  Except Allan, who frowned at the stranger. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘I have come to claim back my wife from you,’ said the man, not moving from his position in the doorway. He reached out his free hand. ‘Come, Victoria my love, it is time for us to leave this place.’

  Allan took a step towards the man. ‘You’ve got the wrong church, mate. There’s no Victoria here!’

  Gloria laid a restraining hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry, Allan,’ she whispered. She could not look him in the eye, but knew she had to. She would not be able to live with herself otherwise. Taking a deep breath she looked up, and her heart sank when she saw the sadness in Allan’s eyes as he realised she was about to jilt him. ‘I belong with James. I am his wife.’

  ‘You’re his what?’ Allan’s voice growled with anger. His hands bunched into fists, but Gloria shook her head.

  ‘No Allan, don’t be angry, don’t be sad. Search your heart and your memories; I’m certain James would have left something for you. Time has finally caught up with me. This is my destiny. I have to go with him, to be with my husband and my daughter.’

  She kissed him on the lips as another question of outrage formed within him. She ran down the aisle and into the waiting arms of James and baby Elizabeth – not so little any more, for she had grown considerably. Husband and wife embraced and kissed, and then Gloria turned to face everyone in the church, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘Goodbye,’ she said, and then she and James walked calmly from the church.

  Allan angrily shook off Phil’s restraining hands and ran down the length of the church, intent on chasing after Gloria and the man to demand an explanation.

  He stopped in the doorway, and did not move for several long minutes, during which time everyone else in the church came to stand behind and beside him.

  Susan touched her son’s arm. ‘She had to go, darling. We will explain everything later; just trust me when I say she had no choice.’

  Louise hugged her brother. ‘She loves you, Allan; you know that, don’t you? It’s just, well, her destiny lies elsewhere.’

  Allan turned, and they were astounded to see a sad smile twitch the corners of his mouth, as though innermost secrets had been revealed to him. ‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘I’m sad to not be the one she marries, but I know where she’s gone, and why. I understand every
thing, and I know it will all be okay! I’ll be okay!’

  Somehow, he did not really think he would be all right, not without Gloria by his side; she was his linchpin to this life.

  Daniel patted his son on the back. ‘Well done Allan, brave heart! We are all here for you!’

  Rachel and Jeremy stood side by side, looking into the distance, smiling tearfully as they embraced. ‘Goodbye darling. Have a good life!’

  Of Gloria, James and Elizabeth, there was no sign.

  Epilogue

  A Destiny of Memories

  Present

  Victoria and James Trevayne stood outside the church in the village of Raven Cragg, basking in the golden glow of the late afternoon sunshine as it broke through the clouds. It was a good deal cooler than the weather they had just left behind, but they were grateful for the fact that it was at least not raining.

  Victoria took her daughter from her husband, kissing the girl with undisguised love. ‘I have missed you both terribly! And look at you, Elizabeth, grown up so quick!’ She turned to her husband. ‘How old is she now?’

  ‘Nearly a year and a half, my love’ he replied.

  ‘God, I’ve missed so much!’

  ‘There is plenty of time to catch up! We have the rest of our lives together.’

  ‘James, what happened? Why did I wake up in my own time? Where’s the locket?’

  James kissed his wife, removing the heart-shaped locket from around his neck, replacing it around her own neck where it properly belonged. He watched as Victoria clutched at the locket, as though some lost part of her soul had been restored.

  ‘Thank you! I’ve missed this too! So, what happened?’

  James sighed. ‘It is a lengthy tale, but one I shall tell you briefly as we walk to our new house!’

  ‘Our new house? Oh… I remember – Peter’s legacy!’

  James nodded. ‘Here, it is named Raven Cragg! Peter built it with his own two hands, with help from some locals, the same locals into whose trust he placed the continued care of the house, until the return of his rightful heir.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Us! But I am ahead in my tale!’

  James told how part of the collapsing ceiling had hit her and knocked her out before she could use the locket to take them as a family to her own time. Because she had never actually told James the exact date she came from, he had taken the locket from around her neck and used his own knowledge to take them all to the only other safe place he knew of, the same place he had taken the other locket. Those to whom he had entrusted the safeguarding of that locket he now entrusted with the safekeeping of the parchment he had removed from the completed manuscript. They had given him instructions on how to proceed to preserve the timeline, and he had returned her to her own time, where he had bandaged her and left her in her own bed to be discovered by Allan. Then he and Elizabeth had made their way here, to Ravenscreag Hall of the past, where James had prepared for the eventual arrival of his wife.

  ‘Tell me where you took the locket and parchment?’ asked Victoria.

  ‘To Avalon, just as you suggested, only I know now of course that it was Isabella who suggested it!’ He nodded at her surprised look. ‘Yes, it exists, outside of time, invisible in another realm of white light. More than that I cannot tell you, for I was not there long enough to know more!’

  White light!

  Victoria remembered something from her past about white light and realised she had drifted in and out of consciousness whilst in that place James called Avalon. She wondered fleetingly what it might look like, but the thought evaporated as they approached the house from the south. It came into view, and Victoria felt as though she was seeing it for the first time: there was no sense of decay, no aura of despair. She felt calm, even at the sight of the turret.

  ‘The original house Peter built has been extended, partly demolished and rebuilt over the years. Peter brought stones from Neville Manor to build part of it. They now reside up there.’ He pointed to the turret, and suddenly, like an exorcism, the ghosts of her past were finally laid to rest, and all Gloria had left were her memories.

  *

  Time passed rapidly at the newly renamed Ravenscreag Hall: Victoria started her writing again, fulfilling her destiny as the author Ria Neville by rewriting Isabella’s The Master of the Scrolls from memory – and making up the ending that she had never managed to get around to reading. She had no way of knowing if she had written it correctly, but it mattered not, since what she had written was what she would read in the future. The manuscript was placed in the library, which over the years she filled with many more books, including Isabella’s other two novels, which were published in 1865, and all Ria Neville’s other novels. There it gathered dust, lying all but forgotten.

  Time speeded up for both James and Victoria, as they were finally able to put the past behind them and live their lives at last.

  Events passed in a jumbled blur, both joyous and heart breaking. The painting of the portrait, just after Elizabeth’s fifth birthday, followed by Robert Stewart’s heinous attempted rape of Elizabeth, and James’s foul murder, witnessed by Victoria. The public hanging of Robert Stewart after his confession of guilt, blaming James and Victoria for his madness since it was they who had stolen the house from his family – an accusation refuted by his father. Elizabeth’s marriage to Eugene Mortimer, followed by the subsequent birth of their daughter, Mary, and now Mary’s looming wedding to Angus Turner.

  A lot of what she was living she remembered from her life as Gloria, having been told stories of family history from various sources, and she knew that the day of Mary’s twenty-first birthday, three days before the wedding, was the day she, Victoria Trevayne, would finally join her husband.

  On that day, Victoria made a present of the locket, which had not left her neck since the day James restored it to her. She sat her granddaughter down and told her the story of her life. She was not sure whether Mary would believe her to begin with, but directed her to the library where she would find the hidebound book.

  She knew how her family story would ultimately end and so that afternoon, with the sun beaming through the window of the turret room, where she had often sat writing in peace, Victoria Trevayne lay down on the bed, closed her weary old eyes, and let go of life.

  Destiny was fulfilled.

  Past

  Allan Barncroft tossed and turned in his bed feverishly, exactly one year to the day after Gloria had disappeared from his life.

  He awoke with a start, drenched in sweat. He clambered wearily from the soaked bed and stripped naked, heading for the bathroom where he stood beneath the refreshing shower.

  The dreams were returning, and he had no idea why, nor what they meant. James Trevayne had been on his mind for some weeks now, plaguing his thoughts both at night and during the day. Sometimes Peter Neville replaced James in the dreams, calmly informing Allan that everything was going to be all right.

  Then there were his constant thoughts of Gloria, happy with her husband and child wherever they were – whenever they were.

  He had told himself it was due to the approaching anniversary, but some inner voice warned of something else about to happen.

  The past year had been quite eventful. Following the aborted wedding, he and the others had sat down at Ravenscreag Hall and talked through everything that had happened. Much of it was still a blur to Allan, but he now vividly recalled James having been in his mind, and he knew Gloria was meant to be with him.

  Rachel had taken him up to see the portrait in Mary’s room, and whilst up there they discovered the manuscript of The Master of the Scrolls. Neither of them knew where it had come from, though Allan had a vague recollection of James leaving it there before he went to the church to claim back Gloria.

  He read the book, and knew it to be truth rather than fiction, as unbelievable as it all was.

  Turning the final page, he found the slit in the back cover and wondered what might have been hidden within. He w
ould never know.

  After the expulsion of Sir Henry’s vengeful spirit, George’s love for Louise evaporated; it seemed it had all been Sir Henry’s way of getting close to Gloria to exact his revenge. Louise was comforted by Phil, whom Allan thought a much more suitable boyfriend anyway, and along with Susan, Daniel, Rachel and Jeremy, the pair had helped Allan understand everything that had happened, helped him cope with the depression that threatened to overwhelm him as the year progressed.

  He missed Gloria terribly, and felt totally bereft without her.

  Three months ago, The Master of the Scrolls was published as Gloria’s final novel, inscribed with a message that it was inspired by the life of Isabella Neville, and that though parts of it were true, it was up to the reader to decide which parts.

  Gloria Schofield was officially listed as a missing person, having jilted her husband-to-be at the altar. No one knew where she was; no one knew who the man was.

  The Master of the Scrolls went to number one, where it stayed for two months; it was Gloria Schofield’s biggest bestseller.

  When the dreams started, Allan thought he was going mad, for the James Trevayne in these dreams was older and married to Victoria rather than the younger version married to Isabella, and Allan then witnessed James’s murder at the hands of Phil’s great-grandfather.

  He dreamed of the ghostly figure that walked the grounds of Ravenscreag Hall, awaiting his beloved to join him. He dreamed of Victoria as she awaited her own passing, so she might be reunited with her true love, and he dreamed of her on her deathbed, reunited at last with her husband.

  He dreamed of Peter Neville, beckoning to him, telling him the time had come to join the others.

  Shortly after the first anniversary of Gloria’s disappearance, Allan Barncroft died of a broken heart in the house they had once shared, a look of abstract contentment on his face.