The Edge of Dark

by Pamela Hartshorne

  That was how this dream had felt too. A memory. But how could it be? She couldn’t remember a life that wasn’t hers. But it had been so vivid that it was waking that felt unreal and insubstantial. It was the here and now that felt like the dream.

  Roz’s heart was slamming hard and low against her ribs, every thud reverberating through her and booming in her ears. There was something she should know, something that was just out of reach, but the more she strained for it, the more elusive it became. She made herself breathe slowly instead, staring deliberately around her.

  The overhead light. Her iPod dock, its light glowing blue. The tub of hand cream by her bed. Her trousers, folded neatly and hung over the back of a chair. There was nothing of Jane’s world here, so why suddenly should this room seem strange and alien? She couldn’t shake the conviction that it would have felt more familiar to have woken in a chamber, in the feather bed she shared with her sulky sister, with a bolster under her head.

  The duvet which had seemed so light and insubstantial when she went to bed was now heavy. As heavy as the embroidered coverlet Jane slept under. Stifled, crushed by the weight of another world, Roz realized that her legs were tangled up in it and she panicked, snatching back the duvet and scrambling out of the bed, her breath coming in short, sharp little gasps.

  She sounded like Juliana on the verge of hysterics.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Roz, but her voice trembled in the silent room.

  In the bathroom she ran cold water over her hands and held them to her face for a long time. When she lowered them, she made herself look straight at her reflection in the mirror. ‘I am Roz Acclam,’ she said clearly, as she had done earlier that day. ‘I am not Jane.’

  The grey eyes that looked back at her were nothing like Jane’s hazel ones. Her hair was a rich chestnut colour, Jane’s a honeyed brown that fell straight and fine to her waist. They had nothing in common at all.

  ‘I have a career,’ Roz said out loud. ‘I have choices. I do not need to be married off to a man I do not know. I have a husband I chose for myself.’

  Nick. A longing for him gusted through her. His thin, intelligent face, the humorous eyes, the way his mouth quirked. He was lean, almost whippy, but more solid than he looked. Roz would have given anything right then to turn and burrow into him, to hold on to him and let him reassure her that it was all just a dream, that nothing was wrong, that the past had magically resolved itself and everything was as it had been before. When there had been no weird dreams of life in Elizabethan York. No murderous brothers. No Daniel.

  No bitterness or resentment. No crumbling certainties.

  Enough, Roz told herself as she padded into the kitchen and put on the kettle, not really wanting any tea but needing to do something normal, something real. If Jane could make the best of a marriage to a charmless stranger – the thought of Robert’s blank eyes set something twitching beneath Roz’s skin – then she could certainly survive a couple of strange dreams.

  She’d been feeling sorry for herself, that was all, but perhaps it was time to get a grip. These dreams of Jane seemed to be a weird way of her psyche reminding her that she was more fortunate than she had realized, Roz decided. Really? countered an inner voice, a prickle at the back of her mind, but Roz ignored it. Clearly she had been working herself up into a state and this latest dream of being betrothed to a stranger was obviously a reminder of how much she had loved Nick. How much she still did.

  Roz poured boiling water over a teabag and rummaged in a drawer for a teaspoon. She badly wanted to call Nick, but it wouldn’t be fair to wake him in the middle of the night. He would think it was an emergency, and Roz wasn’t the kind of person to ring because she’d had another bad dream. She’d already confessed to one earlier. She could picture how Nick would frown, listening to her; how he would carefully suggest that she wasn’t herself and should think about coming home.

  Fishing out the teabag, Roz dropped it in the bin with a clang. She was a little homesick, and yes, a little spooked, but she couldn’t go running back to London after a day. She had a job to do. Setting up the events programme at Holmwood House was her chance to make a name for herself. She had given up her existing clients for this. She couldn’t leave before she had started just because of a couple of dreams.

  What about that necklace? That pesky inner voice was back, scratching in her skull, undermining her best attempts to make sense of it all. How do you explain those burns?

  Roz put a hand to her throat and peered into the shiny surface of the kettle. The burning sensation had gone while she was asleep, and the ugly marks had vanished.

  Psychosomatic, she told herself firmly.

  ‘I miss you,’ Nick had said before he rang off earlier. In spite of the angry words they had thrown at each other like stones before she left, in spite of their stilted conversation and the gap that seemed to yawn between them lately, he was missing her, and that knowledge had warmed Roz as she got ready for bed.

  Perhaps that was why she had dreamt of a betrothal.

  Perhaps that was all it was.

  The greyness had lifted the next morning when Roz set off for Micklegate. The brighter light through the blinds she’d forgotten to close had woken her early and in spite of her broken night, she showered in a positive mood. It felt as if she had passed some kind of test. Determined to make up for her hysteria over the necklace, Roz had dressed carefully in her best suit, the one she had hidden from Nick when she took it home from the sales the year before. Her money was her own, but still, she felt sick when she thought about how much it had cost, and she’d known Nick wouldn’t have thought it was worth it. It did wonders for Roz’s confidence, though, and if ever she needed a boost it was that morning. She smoothed down the skirt before she left, and had an incongruous flash of memory, of nervously smoothing her new red gown while she waited for the Holmwoods to arrive.

  Roz shook it aside, irritated. Dreams were supposed to fade in the morning, not stay crystal clear in your mind. Besides, she had no time for dreaming today. She was going to impress everyone at the Holmwood Foundation with her professionalism.

  She pulled the door behind her with a snap and stepped out into a bright morning. The dampness that had clung oppressively to everything the day before had vanished, blown away by a wind that pushed billowing clouds busily across a pale September sky and shadows swooping across the street in a flicker of light and shade. The air was cooler, sharper, with the unmistakable damp bark and dead leaf smell of autumn. For a moment Roz could swear she smelt woodsmoke, and she looked along St Andrewgate, half expecting to see smoke drifting up from the tenements before she shook herself in exasperation.

  There were no tenements. There were no jettied houses leaning in across the street, no morning fires being stoked. There were apartment blocks and Georgian buildings, all no doubt centrally heated.

  Reluctant to lose her good mood, Roz turned determinedly and walked along the street. She was already regretting wearing her favourite polka-dot heels. They looked good with the suit, but they weren’t the most practical for walking across a city, especially not one with as many cobbles as York. But she didn’t want to go back and change. She wanted to get to Holmwood House early and spend some time getting a feel for the place on her own before the meeting she had arranged with Adrian Holmwood and the rest of the team. Pinched toes were a small price to pay for looking professional and appearing in charge.

  At the end of the street, vans were queuing behind a truck parked half on, half off the pavement, its back doors open. For most of the day the city centre was pedestrianized, Adrian had told Roz, which meant that all deliveries had to be done first thing in the morning, but the streets were so narrow that one wide lorry could bring the rest of the traffic to a standstill.

  Hesitating before she crossed the road into King’s Square, Roz smiled in recognition of the church she could glimpse between the vans. It was good to see the familiar squat stone tower of Holy Trinity again, illuminated in a brief b
urst of light before the sun was blotted out by another cloud racing by. She glanced at her watch. She had plenty of time. She would step into the church on her way past and breathe in the long-remembered smell of the nave with its worn floor, she decided as she dodged between the vehicles, but when she reached the other side she faltered, looking around in disbelief. For the church had gone. In its place were benches and litter bins and pigeons clustering in the hope of crumbs. Disquiet prickled over Roz’s skin, raising the tiny hairs on her arms and at the back of her neck.

  She had been so sure there was a church here. She could picture it exactly, with the stubby tower and the odd, asymmetrical walls. She had seen it, just now.

  And she remembered it, remembered the smell of new wood when the pews were put in, and the drone of Sir Thomas’s sermons, which went on and on while Juliana shifted restlessly and whispered her discontent no matter how firmly Jane tried to shush her. She remembered the carvings on the rood screen, and the window her grandfather’s father had paid for, with St Lawrence and his gridiron and Christ and St Cuthbert. That had been a long time ago, of course, when everyone had belonged to the old religion –

  ‘No,’ said Roz out loud, her voice shaky, and an elderly women tugging a tartan shopping trolley cast her a curious glance as she passed.

  Ignoring her, Roz stumbled over to one of the benches and slumped onto it. Her pulse was roaring in her ears and she dropped her head onto her knees. She wasn’t dreaming now. She was wide awake and fear tumbled queasily in her stomach. What was happening to her? There was no way she should be able to remember what she remembered so clearly.

  Breathing carefully, she lifted her head and made herself look around. The space was called King’s Square, she knew that much, but it wasn’t a square so much as a roughly triangular space. It was completely the wrong shape for a church. Which meant her imagination was working overtime. There was no church here, and never had been.

  Shakily, she got to her feet, and it was only then that she noticed the raised platform area at one end of the space. When she went over, she found some grave slabs laid amongst the paving stones.

  Grave slabs from a churchyard.

  Gnawing at her bottom lip, Roz stared down at them.

  Perhaps she had come here as a small child? Had she seen the church then? This could all be some weird recovered memory from her past. But it didn’t look as if anything had been demolished recently. The grave slabs were worn and the paving well established.

  Which meant . . . what?

  Nothing, Roz told herself fiercely. It means nothing.

  Chapter Six

  She had to get on. Her earlier confidence was shaky now and Roz struggled to recover her positive mood. Enough with the ghostly churches, she decided, and drawing a deep breath, she made herself walk straight across the square, through the wall of the church, across the nave, right under her grandfather’s window and out the other side, where she let it out unevenly.

  A cluster of tourists were blocking the way at the top of the Shambles. Roz had to sidestep round them. She could hear the guide explaining that in the Middle Ages the street had been known as the Flesh Shambles, where meat had once been sold and where the great hooks that the butchers had used to hang their carcasses could still be seen at some of the windows. The street itself seemed to be clamouring for her attention, and the air was suddenly thick and sickly with the smell of raw meat. Against her will, Roz turned her head to glance down the street, and when the scene wavered alarmingly, she had to jerk her eyes away. Her heart was pounding and she stumbled away in panic, lurching over the cobbles on her heels, past the greedy suck of the street, careless of the tourists she jostled or the tuts of disapproval.

  Finding herself in a market by a blessedly modern stall selling camouflage jackets, second-hand books and plastic pet toys, Roz made herself stop and take deep breaths. This was getting ridiculous. She couldn’t keep letting her imagination get the better of her, and she couldn’t turn up at Holmwood House in this kind of state either, not after yesterday’s scene with the necklace. Her neck throbbed at the memory.

  She found a coffee bar and ordered a latte, and drank it at a table until her pulse steadied and she could think rationally again. The dreams had been easy enough to explain away, but that memory of the church had been in broad daylight, when she was wide awake. Roz cradled her coffee between her hands. The cup was chunky, mass-produced, reassuringly modern. Outside the window, passers-by talked into mobile phones and wove between another queue of vans. They wore trousers and short skirts and jackets, not doublets or ruffs. It was now.

  There would be a logical explanation, she told herself. There had to be. But in the meantime, she couldn’t tell anyone what was happening, least of all anyone at the Holmwood Foundation. After yesterday’s incident with the necklace, Helen had clearly already written her off as neurotic and attention-seeking, and Roz didn’t want any suggestion that she wasn’t capable of doing the job she had come to do.

  ‘Morning!’ Roz had her brightest smile at the ready as she put her head around the office door. Helen was there behind her computer, sitting rigid and typing with sharp little pecks on the keyboard.

  ‘Good morning,’ she returned coldly, unable to resist a glance at the clock. She had been at her desk since a quarter to eight, and she was disappointed to see that it was only just nine. Roz looked the type to swan in after ten at the earliest. That was when Sir Adrian arrived, of course, but it was different for him, Helen thought loyally. He was the director of the Foundation. Roz was just a floozie brought up from London because she could flick her hair back and simper effectively.

  She had another over-the-top outfit on too, Helen noted sourly. A short skirt in a mock tweed and a matching boxy jacket with an extravagant pea pod brooch on the lapel. And – good grief! – high heels covered in polka dots. All very well in some glossy magazine, but totally inappropriate for York, unlike her own sensible flatties.

  ‘Did you walk here in those shoes?’

  ‘I did,’ Roz said. ‘They’re not exactly practical for the cobbles, are they?’

  Helen had been about to say precisely the same thing. You’d think Roz would be embarrassed at wearing such ridiculously impractical shoes, but no, she was smiling as if inviting Helen to join her in the joke. She swivelled one foot backwards and forwards to show off the shoe. ‘You’ve got to admit they’re gorgeous, though, aren’t they?’

  Helen had no intention of getting into girlish chats about shoes with the likes of Roz Acclam.

  ‘You won’t be able to wear them in the restored rooms,’ she said dourly. ‘Heels ruin the floors.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Roz, and Helen was pleased to see some of the glossy confidence fade from her face. ‘Oh well, I’ll take them off then.’ She held up a briefcase and her coat, the one missing the button that was secreted in Helen’s drawer. ‘I’m just going to dump my stuff in my office, and then I thought I’d go round the house again and familiarize myself with the rooms.’

  ‘There’s a meeting at half past ten,’ Helen reminded her sharply, drilling a finger into the diary where Sir Adrian had marked the time.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ said Roz, coolness creeping into her voice. ‘I think an hour and a half ought to be more than sufficient. The meeting’s in Adrian’s office, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sir Adrian’s office.’

  Roz didn’t even bother to acknowledge the correction. She just smiled slightly as she turned to go, and Helen eyed her with dislike.

  She couldn’t bear Roz’s lack of respect, that awful smug certainty that she was Sir Adrian’s equal instead of an employee like everyone else. She didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed about that appalling scene she had made the day before. What a hoo-ha about the necklace! Helen hadn’t been able to believe the way she had carried on. Sir Adrian, of course, had fussed over her as if Roz really was burnt instead of just demanding attention.

  ‘How are your burns today?’ she asked s
nidely, letting her eyes rest on Roz’s unblemished neck, and at last had the satisfaction of seeing that oh-so-cool expression tighten.

  But instead of stuttering an apology for the ridiculous fuss she had made, all Roz said was, ‘Fine, thank you,’ and walked out before Helen had the chance to say any more.

  She shouldn’t let Helen get to her. Roz stomped through the Great Hall of Holmwood House, barely noticing its splendour, and up the stairs to her office, too irritated to remember how uneasy the room had made her the day before. Throwing her briefcase onto her desk, she dropped into the high-backed executive chair, pushed it away from the desk, and swivelled three hundred and sixty degrees. She had always wanted a chair like this, an office like this. She should be raring to get going on the next challenge, not grinding her teeth because of a jealous PA. It wasn’t Roz’s fault that Helen was in love with her boss. That much had been obvious, and just as obvious was the fact that Adrian was oblivious to her feelings. She should feel sorry for Helen, Roz told herself, not exasperated. Still, lovelorn or not, it wouldn’t have killed Helen to be a bit friendlier, would it?

  It was quiet up in the attics. Nobody else was around yet – apart from Helen working virtuously next door, of course – and Micklegate with the cars rumbling over the cobbles and people on the pavements seemed very far away. Roz wriggled her shoulders, feeling suddenly isolated and vulnerable.

  Vulnerable? Where had that word come from? Roz frowned at her briefcase. She wasn’t vulnerable. She was perfectly safe up here on her own.

  But she stopped swinging the chair around and found herself sitting very still instead, only her eyes darting around the room. The walls looked back at her, painted plain white, and yet somehow secretive and sly, as if they knew something she didn’t. Outside, the morning breeze had grown more aggressive and was banging officiously at the dormer windows. Inside, the silence was dense, spongy. Roz felt as if she could push her hand through it.

  She could hear her own breathing, not quite steady. The burning sensation was back around her neck.