The Layton Prophecy

by Tatiana March

  I fetched my coat and dashed down the street. I could no longer recall how I’d fallen into trading friendly insults with Professor Maitland. He wasn’t a bad sort. He lived nearby and wheeled himself in and out, unless the weather was foul. Then he drove over, and parked in one of the four disabled bays by the front entrance. He struck me as a lonely man, but content with his lot in life. Not someone you’d need to feel sorry for.

  When I got to the Radcliffe Camera, I climbed the stairs to the second floor reading room, where Hansards were kept in an open stack. I stopped at the enquiry desk to explain my errand.

  “If you’d rung up, I’d have gotten them ready for you,” the elderly man in a yellowing polyester shirt told me.

  “I’ll remember next time,” I said, a polite lie. He clearly didn’t understand the appeal of leaving the storage areas and spending time in the reading rooms. There were people about. In the closed stacks, it was just silence, and rows and rows of books.

  I glanced at the reading stations as I walked across the circular room under the domed glass ceiling, and my legs almost buckled. Miles was there, sitting at a table, surrounded by books, some of them wedged open. He didn’t look up, despite the tapping of my shoes against the floor. A shaft of light from high up fell over him, and the dust particles floating in the air gave him an oddly medieval look.

  The urge to go and slide my fingers into his hair was almost unbearable. I tried to think of how many clauses in the Library Code of Conduct that would violate. Resolutely, I marched on until I reached the Hansards. One of the dates on the professor’s list was missing. I spotted a discarded pile on an empty table and went to rifle through them.

  When I straightened, I caught Miles staring at me, his face in a frown that seemed to reflect some internal struggle. A hollow sense of impending disaster fell over me. I couldn’t understand why he might be angry with me. He knew that I worked there. I hadn’t been stalking him. I was only doing my job. I gave him a brief nod and hurried away, stopping to check out the Hansards at the desk.

  After the unexpected encounter, the boost I’d got from my earlier banter with Professor Maitland faded. That was how I’d always been, my confidence ebbing and flowing as events buffeted me.

  I delivered the Hansards to the professor and went off to the closed stacks. Hours crawled by, until the clock approached five. A few minutes before the hour, I began to panic. We hadn’t agreed where to meet. I’d suggested the main entrance, but Miles had said he’d meet me inside.

  Inside where?

  Was I supposed to go and find him at the Radcliffe Camera?

  Just when I decided to sneak off home and never see him again, I heard footsteps. June’s sturdy silhouette appeared at the end of the shadowed aisle.

  “Someone’s asking for you at the enquiry desk,” she called out.

  “Oh?” I dropped the book I’d been about to shelf.

  “Take your time,” June told me. “The rest of us would appreciate a few extra minutes of looking at him.”

  I didn’t come out until ten minutes past the hour.

  He’d kept me waiting at the Royal Goat. I felt compelled to even things out.

  Back to contents

  Chapter Ten

  Miles surveyed me across the small table as I poured tea into a mug through a wire mesh strainer. I don’t know if he noticed how unsteady my hands were. I tried to cover up the fact by pretending that the tea wasn’t running freely, and the pot needed shaking to stir the leaves inside.

  The café was on the second floor and gave a view over the narrow street outside. People were hurrying home from work, jostling past each other. Most of the tables were occupied, but despite the crowd, there was a sense of privacy, since the seating was crammed into tiny alcoves.

  “I don’t know how to say this gently, so I’m not even going to try.” Miles took a long sip from his coffee and lowered the mug. He looked strong and solid, completely in charge of the situation. He wore the usual jeans, teamed with a white button-down shirt and gray jacket in herringbone tweed.

  I finished with the teapot and waited for him to speak again.

  He pursed his lips measured me with his gaze. The silence went on so long, I wanted to scream. “I can’t get involved with you,” he said finally. Then he picked up his heavy stoneware mug and took another sip. His eyes held steady on mine. I was the first one to look away.

  “Why did you kiss me?” I said into my tea.

  “Why does a man kiss a woman?”

  I glanced up. “Why do you answer a question with another question?”

  Despite the calm exterior, the rigid set of his jaw revealed tension. “Perhaps because I don’t have an answer to the first question.”

  “But you know that you don’t want to get involved with me?”

  “I didn’t say want,” he countered. “I said I can’t.”

  My mind flashed back to his fraught expression in the library. He’d worn the look of a man who covets something he can’t have, because the price to pay would be too high.

  “Are you trying to tell me that you’re not free?” I asked.

  His mouth clamped into a stern line. “There’s no one else, if that’s what you mean.” He picked up a packet of sugar from the steel bowl on the table, tore one end open and stirred the contents into his coffee. “I’ve never been married or engaged, or lived with a woman. I guess you could say I’m an introvert. I don’t trust people easily. I don’t have many friends. I don’t like to talk about emotions.” He drawled out the word, as if the mere idea unsettled him.

  If he was trying to confuse me, he was doing an excellent job. I reached for my coat on the empty seat beside me. “I see,” I said. “In that case, I won’t take any more of your time.” I wanted to get up and rush out, but the handle of my canvas bag was trapped by a chair leg. Bending upside down, I yanked at it. Tears of humiliation welled in my eyes. I desperately needed to leave. Either that, or dive under the table, and hide there until I had my feelings under control.

  “Alexandra.” It came on a soft murmur, and sounded much too close.

  My head snapped up, colliding with the sharp corner of the table. I bit out a curse and remained in my hunched position, my face averted, shielded from his eyes.

  A hand curled over my shoulder, heavy and warm. “Are you all right?” Miles asked, his voice full of concern.

  “No,” I said.

  He must have gotten up while I squatted beneath the tabletop, and now stood by my seat. I straightened to face him. At least I could pretend that my eyes were moist because of the pain from the blow. Miles gestured at me to move over. Scrambling past my bag on the floor, I scooted along to the empty seat next to the wall and dumped my coat over my knees.

  He sat beside me and leaned closer. “Where does it hurt?”

  In my heart, you fool. “Never mind,” I said, turning away. “It will pass.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound callous when I said I can’t get involved with you.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” I attempted to ignore him by staring at the wall.

  “It is for your own protection,” he said.

  I managed a bitter laugh. “Why is it that when people do something unpleasant, they always tell you it’s for your own good?”

  “Look at me, Alexandra.”

  “Why should I?”

  He slid his hand along my neck beneath my hair and held it there, until I turned to face him. “I believe in the Layton Prophecy, in the remote possibility that it could be a source of evil.” He spoke in all earnestness. “Love is meant to be your doom. If we become lovers, I might put you in danger.”

  “Love and marriage, that’s her doom,” I quoted, a sense of rebellion making me bold. “A couple of kisses hardly make a marriage.”

  “I want to avoid any chance of the prophecy being triggered.” His hand behind my neck made a small, caressing motion. “Even curses adapt with times. These days, people enter into relationships without being married. Any roma
ntic attachment might be enough to put you in danger.”

  I frowned at him, trying to hold on to my anger, trying to resist the warmth that flowed into me from where his fingers rubbed my skin. “That’s mumbo-jumbo. Curses aren’t real. Once chance in a million, you said, and even that’s an exaggeration. If you don’t want to get involved with me, why don’t you just tell me so?”

  He shifted his hand to my cheek and smoothed the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. “Because that would be lying.”

  My sharp intake of breath sounded like a sob. “But surely, you can control the situation. You could take care not to do anything that might put my life in danger.”

  “It’s not that simple.” He sighed and withdrew his hand with a gentle sweep along the edge of my jaw. “It doesn’t have to be me exposing you to harm. It could be any situation you’re in because of me. You could be on a flight to South Africa to meet me, or crossing the road in Layton Village to talk me, or driving too fast because you’re in a hurry to reach me. I simply can’t take the risk that I’ll cause the prophecy to pass.”

  “I see.” I wanted to ask him what would happen later, when it was all over, when he’d achieved whatever he was hoping to achieve to break the prophecy. If he came back to England, could there be anything between us then?

  But I didn’t dare to ask, as I didn’t want to hear the wrong answer.

  Miles shrugged, almost as if he wanted to physically shake off the small lapse of control that had him talking about emotions. He retreated behind his normal efficient and purposeful front. He glanced at his watch. “I need to go in five minutes. I have an appointment at the Randolph Hotel.”

  I gestured toward the street beyond the window. “It’s just a block from here.”

  “I know.” He reached across the seats, wrapped one arm around my shoulders and gave me a friendly squeeze. “Will you be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I muttered, my body stiffening against the contact. “I’ll stay a bit longer, finish my tea, wait for the traffic to die down.”

  He nodded, then rose to his feet and picked up his battered briefcase from the floor and propped it on the table. He loomed big and solid in front of me, his restless fingers fiddling with a buckle on the old fashioned tan leather satchel.

  “Did you want to give me the papers from the Layton Archives?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I’ll leave them on the table in Rose Cottage for you.”

  There was an uncharacteristic awkwardness in the way he stood there, intending to go, but not quite managing to depart.

  “When do you expect to be back from South Africa?” I asked, achingly aware that this might be the last time we saw each other. “Or are you going straight back to the States?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked down at his briefcase for a few more seconds before lifting his gaze to me. “You understand that it’s not just me you can’t get involved with?” he asked, his voice tight. “You can’t get involved with any man until we know where we stand with the prophecy.”

  A wave of confidence flooded me, and I met his stare. “I believe that’s none of your business,” I said in a perfectly calm tone.

  His face furrowed with the deepest scowl I’d yet seen from him. He opened his mouth to say something, and then he clamped it shut again. Snatching up his briefcase, he whirled, stalked to the top of the stairs, and descended out of sight. I watched the street through the window until I saw him appear. His shoulders were rigid and his hands were clenched into fists—both of them, not just the one curled around the handle of the leather briefcase.

  ****

  I moped for a few more minutes in the café, gathering myself before I headed out to the Park and Ride, where I’d left my car. When I got to the apartment, I occupied myself with laundry and ironing. I didn’t call Aunt Rosemary. Ignoring the niggling guilt, I disconnected the landline and switched off my mobile. I knew she’d worry when I didn’t call, but her sympathy would have yanked the plug from the pit of turmoil inside me that I was fighting so hard to contain.

  That night, sleep eluded me, leaving me tired and irritable. The next day at work, hours crawled by, minute by minute. In the evening, I spent ten minutes reviewing the telephone numbers scribbled in my address book. Eventually, I shoved them away with a frustrated sigh. It didn’t make sense to have a sordid romp with someone I didn’t truly care about, just for the sake of defying Miles.

  On Friday, I was meant to finish at eight, but it was quiet in the library and June let me leave a few minutes after seven. The rush hour had already finished. I made it to Layton Village by half past nine. I went to Rose Cottage first, so I could pull myself together before facing the inquisitive eyes of Aunt Rosemary.

  I almost stumbled over a large pair of muddy hiking boots that cluttered the hall. In the living room, newspapers lined the coffee table. I rushed upstairs. Clothes hung over the back of the bedroom chair. Heart pounding, I peeked into the bathroom. On the glass shelf beneath the mirror, a razor and a shaving brush flanked a bar of soap.

  When I stormed outside, I spotted the AVIS car down the road. The turquoise bodywork glinted in the circle of light from the streetlamp above. Chaos reigned in my mind. I was sure Miles had said he was flying out today, but by now if would be too late to get to Heathrow, even for an overnight flight. He must have changed his plans. My chest tightened as I realized I’d almost walked in on him.

  Holding my breath, I tiptoed back inside to collect my bag, having dropped on the hallway floor. Then I rang the doorbell of Mill Cottage to alert Aunt Rosemary to my arrival, and used my key to let myself in.

  She didn’t rush out to greet me, but she never did if she was at her computer. Aunt Rosemary had a small private income, which supported her modest lifestyle. She chose not to work, but she took on all kinds of projects, immersing herself in them.

  Voices drifted from the living room. I halted outside, staying out of sight.

  “You can’t possibly think the Eskimo Woman is more accurate than Nostradamus,” Aunt Rosemary said in a belligerent tone.

  “Nostradamus is nonsense,” Miles replied. “His predictions are ramblings that could mean anything.”

  “He was forced to make things obscure to avoid being persecuted.”

  “That’s just an excuse.”

  I peered through the open doorway. They were sitting by the fireplace. A log smoldered in the grate. Aunt Rosemary was shifting through a stack of papers. Miles balanced a laptop on his knees.

  I cleared my throat. Both threw me a quick, careless glance of someone totally absorbed in something mesmerizing, not wanting to be disturbed.

  “Hello Alexandra,” Aunt Rosemary said absently. “You’re early.”

  “My boss let me leave at seven.” I tried to keep my voice steady.

  Miles spoke without looking up from the computer screen. “Hi, honey. I’ll be with you in a minute.” He seemed completely at ease, not confused or contrite, or anything at all, except busy.

  “Have you eaten anything?” Aunt Rosemary asked. “There’s a casserole in the oven. It should still be hot.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “You cooked?”

  “No.” She shuffled the pages. “Miles cooked.”

  “We’ll just finish this. You don’t mind waiting a few minutes, do you?” Miles said with another glance at me.

  “What time is your flight?” I asked. “It’s a three-hour drive to Heathrow.”

  For the first time since I’d made my presence known, he gave me his full attention. “Change of plan. I’m not flying out until Sunday.”

  “Oh.” My heart lurched. “I didn’t know you had a flexible ticket.”

  “I didn’t. I had to buy a new one.”

  “Don’t you have things to do?” Aunt Rosemary held two sheets of paper in the air, comparing them. “You’re distracting us.”

  I stepped into the room. “Can I help?”

  “Eat some stew,” Aunt Rosemary said. “The man has j
ust told you he forked out nearly a thousand pounds to spend the weekend with you. The least you could do is taste his stew and praise his cooking.”

  I shook my head, feeling lost. “I’m not hungry. I was going to just have a cup of coffee and an early night.”

  “Good.” Miles raked a bold gaze over me. “I like the idea of an early night. But you might want to eat something now, so you won’t get hungry later.”

  “Fine,” I replied, spiraling deeper and deeper into confusion. “I’ll go and have some stew.” I whirled on my heels and headed out of the room.

  “Can you make some coffee?” Aunt Rosemary called after me. “And bring the chocolate biscuits.”

  In the kitchen, I found a pair of padded mittens in a drawer and pulled the casserole dish from the oven. The food was already cooling. Chunks of chicken, with carrots, onions, broccoli and potatoes. Simple hearty fare, the kind that can be cooked in a cauldron over a campfire. I heaped some on a plate and sat down. It tasted good. I ate mechanically, carefully stopping my thoughts from kaleidoscoping into all kinds of weird patterns.

  “Did you put the coffee on?” Aunt Rosemary shouted from the living room.

  “In a minute,” I called back.

  After I finished, I stacked the dirty plate on top of others already waiting in the sink. When I heard footsteps, I didn’t turn, but carried on filling the jug for the coffee machine. I didn’t realize it was Miles, until I felt him nuzzling my neck.

  Lucky thing the jug was made from unbreakable glass.

  “Sorry,” Miles said, his hands circling my waist. “I startled you.”

  “That’s a bit of an understatement.” I fished the jug from the sink and began to fill it again.

  “Rosemary can do that,” he said impatiently. “Let’s go next door.”

  “Stop it.” My shoulders went rigid.

  His hands fell away from me. “I didn’t mean to ignore you when you came in,” he said, sounding contrite. “We were in the middle of something, and I wanted to get it finished, to give us more time tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant...” The air left my lungs in an angry whoosh. “You laid down the rules. Play by them.”