by Sandra Heath
“You’re right there,” she murmured, turning up her jacket collar to gaze at the lonely landscape of autumn-tinted orchards, ditches, and scattered farms. She was pale and drawn, and there were shadows under her eyes. Her glance moved to the rising land about half a mile inland, where a beautiful old manor house stood next to a church. Then her lips parted as through the misty gloom of the dying day she caught a glimpse of Oriental domes and turrets just over the hill. “Hey, look at that!” she pointed.
Andrew followed her finger and nodded. “Bevincote,” he said. “Some people say it outdoes the Brighton Pavilion.”
“Maybe we can take a look at it before we go back. Is it open to the public?”
“I think so. In fact, I’m sure so. It’s one of the well-known stately homes.”
A dog howled on one of the farms, and Chrissie turned sharply toward the sound. Then she gave a nervous laugh. “Thank God I don’t believe in werewolves,” she murmured.
“Werewolves? What on earth made you think of that! It’s only a farm dog,” Andrew replied.
She shrugged. “I don’t know why I thought of it. It just seemed appropriate, that’s all.”
“Look, werewolves are the last thing I want to think about when it’s getting dark and I’m in the middle of nowhere like this! It makes me think of that movie. What was it called? An American Werewolf in London? Or was it in England! Whatever its name, there’s that scene on the moors when the two guys hear howling and start to run back to the village. That’s what I feel like doing now.”
“I’ll bet when you were a kid you used to hide behind the sofa when the spooky bits came on TV,” Chrissie said with a faint smile.
“I’ll let you into a secret, I still do when you’re not around to hold my hand.” Andrew grinned at her, then turned to search along the embankment until he saw the ruined chapel. “Well, are you ready?” he asked gently.
Chrissie hesitated. “I guess so,” she said after a moment.
“We don’t have to go,” he ventured, for he was desperately afraid she was pinning her hopes upon the impossible. They’d listened to the recording Summer had left; God, how they’d listened! And since the funeral they’d still been sitting up nights, getting emotional on too much brandy, and playing the wretched thing over and over again until by rights it should have been worn out. Now, at last, they’d plucked up the courage to put Summer’s story to the test.
He came around the car to take Chrissie’s cold hand. “I want you to be absolutely certain before we go one step farther,” he said.
“Summer said she’d leave our names, Andrew, and I believe her.”
“And I’m equally sure she believed it when she made that recording and left the note, but the mind is a complex thing, and—”
“I’m not interested in what science has to say, Andrew. If my kid sister said she experienced all those things, then she did.”
“What if there aren’t any names?” he said, looking concernedly into her eyes.
“There will be.”
He didn’t say anything more, but he hoped to God she was right, for if those three damned words weren’t anywhere to be found, the only conclusion to be drawn would be that Summer killed herself for nothing.
Holding hands, they went up the steps that had been cut into the embankment, and at the top they both hunched deeper into their jackets because the wind off the estuary was raw.
Chrissie paused for a moment. “She was here, I can just feel it,” she said.
“All I feel is bloody cold,” Andrew replied, looking at the desolate expanse of channels, rocks, sandbanks, and pools. Navigation lights were beginning to twinkle in the haze, and on the far side of the water a brightly lit train ran along the main track, its metallic rattle carrying clearly on the breeze. Downstream he could make out the motorway suspension bridge that crossed the river, but the second motorway crossing farther downstream beyond it was lost in the gathering gloom of the autumn evening.
They hurried on toward the chapel and stepped thankfully inside out of the cold. The musty smell of old stone was strong as Chrissie immediately began to glance around, but it was too dark. She turned anxiously to Andrew. “Did you bring the flashlight? Oh, God, please don’t tell me you forgot!”
“It’s here.” He took it out and switched it on. The beam of bright light swung wildly over the walls until he held it steady. “Right, let’s be methodical about this. We’ll start over here by the door, and work our way around.”
“Okay.”
He did as he said, but began at the other side of the door from the place Summer had carved her message. Slowly, the light moved to and fro over the old stones, but as the seconds ticked fruitlessly by, Chrissie’s spirits began to drop. She crossed her fingers behind her back and whispered to herself. “Don’t let me down, Summer Stanway, don’t let me down.”
“Chrissie, it’s me, Summer, I really am here in the past, and I’m happy,”
The faint whisper made Chrissie freeze. Then she heard it again.
“Chrissie, it’s me, Summer, I really am here in the past, and I’m happy.”
Chrissie caught Andrew’s arm. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Summer’s voice.”
He looked uneasily at her. “Look, sweetheart, I’m going along with this, but if you’re going to start hearing things ...”
Chrissie hardly heard him. “It’s almost as if the stone itself has recorded her,” she murmured, beginning to smile.
“Which is more than it’s done with any visual message,” he declared, still shining the flashlight methodically over the wall.
“It’s here somewhere,” Chrissie replied, suddenly confident that all was going to be well.
Andrew’s search had almost returned to the door, and just as he became sure Chrissie was going to be deeply disappointed, suddenly the three words seemed to leap into the beam of light. He stared at them. “It’s here, Chrissie!” he cried incredulously. “Dear God above, it’s actually here!”
Tears sprang to Chrissie’s eyes as she stared at the carving caught in the beam of light. “Look at it, Andrew, it’s old, it can’t possibly have been done recently.”
“I can’t argue,” he replied.
“My sister, who was laid to rest only a week or so ago, was alive here in 1807, just as she promised she would be! She went back to be with Brand! Oh, Andrew!”
Laughing and crying at the same time, Chrissie flung her arms so happily around Andrew that he dropped the flashlight. It struck the uneven floor and went out, leaving only the gathering shadows of the October day.
Far beyond Chrissie’s present-day gladness, Summer’s whisper still echoed through the ancient stonework. “Chrissie, it’s me, Summer. I really am here in the past, and I’m happy, happy, happy...
Copyright © 1997 by Sandra Heath
Originally published by Signet (ISBN 9780451186522)
Electronically published in 2015 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
http://www.RegencyReads.com
Electronic sales: [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
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