“Are you missing me?” Tom asked. “Because I’m missing you.”
“Yes, I’m missing you. Of course I’m missing you, although I think perhaps Billy is missing you more,” teased Holly.
“Has he started on the garden yet?” asked Tom.
“No, of course not. It may be lovely and sunny where you are, but here it’s bitterly cold and the ground is frozen. Billy says he can’t start work until the spring. By which point, you’ll be home and can help him yourself.”
“Hmm, speaking of coming home …” Tom said, and Holly didn’t like the tone of his voice. She knew he was about to impart bad news.
“You’re not going to be home by spring?” she gasped.
Tom laughed. “No, God, it’s not that bad. It’s just that the assignment here might last a little longer than we expected.”
“How long?” demanded Holly. Tom was due home early in December and Holly had already started counting down the days.
“Only a couple of weeks, but I will be home before Christmas. Although you might have to make do with a present from the duty-free shop,” confessed Tom.
Holly wanted to be angry with him but she remembered what her bereaved husband had said about hating the anchorman job he was going to take up in the New Year. She wasn’t about to push Tom to give up so quickly the work he obviously enjoyed.
“It had better be a very big bottle, then,” Holly told him. “And I mean perfume, not alcohol.”
“You’re amazing. Do you know that?”
Holly frowned, knowing she didn’t deserve his praise. “So why the delay? What’s happening?” she asked.
“Some of the guys in the crew are freelancers and they’ve pulled up stakes to follow a breaking news story. There’s been a mining disaster in the south and they’re going to cover the rescue operation. It means more work for the poor fools who’ve been left here, so it’s going to take a bit longer than we planned.”
“Don’t you wish you could have gone with them?” asked Holly. She had wanted to have a long talk with Tom about his career when he came home, but there was no harm planting some ideas now. The moondial might have its rules, but if she couldn’t keep Libby she would be damned if it would stop her helping Tom make some important decisions about his career.
“I’m tied into my contract, even if it is a temporary reassignment. I can’t go upsetting the studio now, can I?” Tom said submissively. It was clear that he had no idea where Holly was about to lead him.
“I can’t believe they can look at what you’ve been doing these last six months and still think it’s a good idea to stick you in a studio for the rest of your life.”
Tom laughed nervously. “You make it sound like I’m being sent to prison.”
“Isn’t that how you see it? I know you think you’re doing your duty and that it’s the right thing for us, but I can see how much you love what you’re doing now, even when it’s difficult, heartbreaking stuff you have to deal with. And I know you won’t say it, so I’ll say it for you. You were never meant to be an anchorman and I know you’re going to hate it.”
“Whoa, Holly, where did all of that come from?” interrupted Tom. He sounded shocked, but Holly noted that he hadn’t disagreed.
“I know we dismissed the idea of you being a freelancer. You felt obliged to take the anchorman job, but things change. Thanks to Sam at the gallery, I’m struggling to produce enough work to meet the demand: there’s our security. I know being away from home is tough on both of us, but what if you did six months on assignments and six months writing and researching? Doesn’t that sound better than sticking you in a suit and painting a smile on your face in front of the camera every day?”
When Holly finally paused for breath, Tom was silent on the other end of the phone. “I’m sorry,” she added. “It’s just I’ve been thinking about it and I wasn’t going to say anything until you were home, but there you go. I can’t keep my big mouth shut.”
“Or stop making plans,” Tom said quietly.
“Am I interfering?” moaned Holly. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry. I love you because you know me inside and out.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” whispered Holly.
“I know you’re right. The new job does feel like it would be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, but what about our other plans? What about a family?”
Holly had known this question would be coming. “I want you to be happy, Tom,” she said. “If we’re destined to have children, we will have children.” Holly was quite proud of the answer she gave. It was as truthful as she could make it.
“It’s no big deal,” argued Holly.
“No big deal? No big deal?” whispered Jocelyn with a suppressed screech that was just loud enough for one of the tea shop regulars to raise his head from his steaming bowl of soup and give them a curious look.
“The nurse said they’re waiting for more supplies. She’s going to ring me next week when they get more in.” Holly was trying to sound casual about the whole thing but even she had been a bit spooked when the nurse had told her that she couldn’t have her contraceptive injection. Jocelyn’s fears had been well-placed. Holly’s path was still leading her to an early grave; the battle with the moondial wasn’t over yet.
“I can’t believe you’re not taking this seriously. Isn’t there somewhere else you can go?” demanded Jocelyn.
“If it comes to it, I can go to a health center I used to go to in London. I’ll even go private if need be. And worst-case scenario, I simply won’t have sex with Tom,” Holly said chirpily.
Someone coughed and Holly and Jocelyn turned to face the old gent who had been slurping his soup. Holly blushed. So did he. “Sorry to disturb,” he said. “Could I have another bread roll?”
“Here,” Jocelyn told him gruffly, thumping down a bread roll onto the counter. She was in no mood to be pestered by customers.
The old gent returned happily to his seat and Jocelyn returned her attention to Holly. “I told you it wouldn’t be easy. Holly, you need to be so careful.”
“I know, honestly, Jocelyn. I do. I know that it’s one thing living with the guilt of choosing not to have Libby, but if I did accidentally get pregnant I don’t know what I would do. I couldn’t have an abortion, not when I’ve held her in my arms. So where would that leave me? I know how important this is,” Holly assured her.
Jocelyn nodded.
“There is one other problem this mess with my injection has created,” admitted Holly, biting her lip nervously.
Jocelyn looked at Holly and the puzzled look on her face deepened. Then the other shoe dropped, as did her mouth. “It’s the full moon tomorrow and you could still see Libby.”
Holly nodded and she bit down hard on her lip, the pain just enough to ward off tears. “I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said, preempting the question that she knew was on the tip of Jocelyn’s tongue. “I think I need you to persuade me not to visit Libby again. If I see her one more time, I swear I might not be able to go through with any of this.”
“Then you have two choices. Either you give the glass orb to me or you let me stay over with you. Or both.”
Holly suddenly realized that she couldn’t hand over the moondial box. She was so overwhelmed by a sense of possessiveness that it surprised her. “Technically that was three choices,” Holly argued.
Jocelyn raised an eyebrow in response but said nothing.
“I haven’t got a guest bed.”
“We can share your bed,” Jocelyn told her. Her steely resolve wasn’t going to be broken.
From behind them, the old gent coughed again. Holly blushed again.
“What do you want this time?” Jocelyn barked.
“I just wanted to pay the bill,” he replied meekly, handing Jocelyn the right money.
She looked down at the coins. “What, no tip?”
Jocelyn was in no mood to be argued with. She got her tip and she got h
er invitation to stay over with Holly on the night of the full moon.
It was late November and the night was bitterly cold, the sky crystal clear. There wasn’t a single cloud to offer any relief from the moon’s gaze and Holly felt its brooding eye bearing down on her even though she had every curtain and every blind in the house closed tightly and the lights blazing in every room to push away the moonbeams. Nevertheless, Holly sensed the moon reaching out to her, its light seeping through every crack and crevice in her self-made fortress.
Jocelyn had come prepared for their moondial vigil with shopping bags brimming with girls’ night essentials. They spent a pleasant enough evening munching through popcorn and chocolates and watching a DVD. Jocelyn had picked a comedy rather than a tearjerker. Laughter was the best medicine, she told Holly.
It was past midnight by the time they decided to call it a night and head upstairs to bed. It felt strange having Jocelyn stay over and Holly was a little self-conscious as she got into bed next to her. She had been alone for most of her life, and with Tom away she had adapted easily to sleeping on her own again. She couldn’t help feeling like Jocelyn was her prison guard even though she herself had been the one to request that she be kept under house arrest.
“Do you mind if I keep the light on?” Holly asked. She was looking toward the picture window and imagined the tendrils of moonlight reaching through the glass, through the folds of the curtain, stretching out toward her.
“Of course not. Do you think you’re ready for sleep?” Jocelyn asked.
Holly shrugged her shoulders. “I’ll give it a try, but I can already feel the moondial pulling me,” confessed Holly. “My legs are all jittery so I apologize now if I kick you in the night.”
“I’ve told you before, I’ve got the skin of a rhino. I doubt I’d feel a thing with one of your scrawny legs,” Jocelyn told her. She leaned over and tucked the duvet around Holly’s shoulders. “It’ll be morning before you know it.”
“I hope you’re right. I so want all of this to be over, but I’m scared it never will,” sighed Holly. The two women were now lying side by side, both staring up at the ceiling. “How am I going to live with the guilt?”
“You just do,” replied Jocelyn. She turned to look at Holly. “But don’t compare what you’re doing to what I did. Yes, I feel guilty, because I deserve to. I may not have held the gun to Harry’s head and pulled the trigger but I did load the bullets. I set out to make him suffer to the point that he couldn’t take any more.”
“But you were only turning the tables on him. If it had been the other way around, would Harry have felt guilty?”
“He was what he was, but he never consciously set out to end my life. I, on the other hand, knew what I was doing and where it was leading. But it’s different for you. You can’t torture yourself by believing you’re taking Libby’s life. You’re taking the potential of life, yes, but not life. It’s not the same,” insisted Jocelyn.
“It feels the same. Having seen Libby, having held her. It feels the same.”
The two women were quiet for a while and Holly began to think Jocelyn was drifting off to sleep but the old lady seemed determined to keep Holly’s mind occupied.
“Paul’s invited me over for Christmas,” Jocelyn chirped. “I’ll leave a few days before Christmas day and stay for about a week. It’s still early, but I think we’ve turned a corner.”
“You’re staying over at his house? That’s a big step.”
Jocelyn smiled sadly. “I’ll be staying in a nearby hotel. Like I said, it’s early.”
Holly felt anger welling up inside her but she held her tongue. She knew very little about Paul and in some ways he had been a victim of the moondial, too, but then she looked at Jocelyn. If only he knew what he had been missing all these years by shutting her out of his life.
“So tell me about this Mrs. Bronson,” Jocelyn continued when the silence that fell between them cried out to be filled. “Are you ready to hand over your sculpture yet?”
“I’ve practically finished. I don’t have a kiln here, so I’ve had to send the top section off to be fired. It’ll be back in a couple of days. Then I’ve just got to put the two pieces back together, and with a few finishing touches it’ll be ready.”
“I can’t wait to see it. I know it’s going to be beautiful.”
“I’m quite pleased with it, if I do say so myself. There’s a part of me in that sculpture that I never thought could have existed.”
“So do you think Mrs. Bronson will like it even though it’s not what she’s expecting?”
Holly shrugged beneath the bedclothes. “I couldn’t care less. I like it and I’m proud of it.”
“You don’t want to give it up, do you?”
Holly smiled ruefully. How did this woman get to know her so well? she thought. “No, I don’t, especially not to Mrs. Bronson. Now if it was someone like you, then I would.”
Jocelyn laughed to hide her embarrassment. “I couldn’t fit the scaled version in my little flat, let alone the proper one.”
“You know what I mean,” Holly said softly.
Jocelyn blushed. “Yes, I do. Now get some sleep; it’s getting late.”
“Yes, Jocelyn,” replied Holly like a dutiful child.
It was just after six in the morning and as Holly slipped out of bed, careful not to wake the softly snoring Jocelyn, she knew that sunrise was still over an hour away. Her need to see Libby consumed her and she could think of nothing else as she crept downstairs in her pajamas. She picked up the wooden box and stumbled through the pitch blackness toward the moondial, ignoring the overgrowth that scratched at her bare feet.
The orb clattered in the box as Holly grabbed hold of it in a trembling panic and slipped it into the brass claws. She could barely see the orb as it rattled into place, but she waited impatiently for the first spark of life from its core.
As the blackness of night closed in around her, she looked up desperately into the sky and it was only then that she realized why it was so dark. The full moon hadn’t waited for her, it had floated away and taken Libby along with it.
Every muscle in Holly’s body shuddered, and she lashed out at the moondial, hitting her fists against its uncompromising surface. She barely noticed the light from the kitchen window that reached out toward her or the blanket that was wrapped around her shoulders along with a firm pair of arms.
“It’s all right,” soothed Jocelyn. “Come in the house. It’s going to be all right.”
“It’s won,” sobbed Holly. “The moondial has won.”
“I wish that were true, but it isn’t over yet, Holly. You’ve got the hardest battles yet to face,” replied Jocelyn. “Now come away.”
As Holly let Jocelyn lead her back into the house, she thought about what Jocelyn had said. For the first time, Holly realized that the battle she was facing wasn’t with the moondial at all; it was a battle with herself. There were still choices to be made.
Two weeks before Christmas, Holly invited Mrs. Bronson to the gatehouse to officially accept the piece before she set about organizing the tricky process of arranging for its installation at her client’s country pile. She had known it would be a difficult meeting so she had also asked Sam Peterson to be there. She had a feeling that she would need someone to help fight in her corner.
She had been right to worry about the visit, not least because she hadn’t been in the best of moods to deal with the spoiled excuse for a mother anyway. Holly had other things on her mind. Her dream of Libby had plagued her since the night of the full moon and she deeply regretted giving up her last chance to see her daughter.
Holly’s determination to save her own life had been seriously dented ever since, and the thought of taking that last step to erase Libby from the future made her feel sick to her stomach—so much so that she hadn’t made another appointment for her contraceptive injection. She knew she was taking a huge risk, but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted to keep that connection open, especia
lly now that she was about to give up the only physical connection to Libby, the sculpture she had made in her image. Time was running out and by the end of the month Libby would be gone and so would the sculpture. Her only comfort lay in the thought of Tom coming home and of course the secret hope that Mrs. Bronson would refuse to take the sculpture.
“She said what?” Tom gasped. Holly might not be able to see his face but she knew he was staring openmouthed at the telephone.
“Mrs. Bronson said she’s going to sue me for every penny I’ve got,” Holly replied glumly. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a large glass of red wine that had already been refilled once. It was late afternoon but the weak December sunshine had already been beaten away by the descending winter’s night.
“Can she do that? What does the contract say?”
“Oh, she could sue me,” Holly assured him. “Sam’s taken her back to the train station and I’m hoping he’s going to use his best negotiating skills to get me out of this mess.”
“So what exactly could she do?”
“Well, worst case is that I’d have to return all the money she’s paid me so far and then there would be some compensation, too. How much, I don’t know.”
“So if that’s worst case, what other options are there?” Tom asked hopefully.
“I suppose she might demand that I remake the sculpture the way I was supposed to,” mumbled Holly like a naughty schoolchild. That was one option she really didn’t want to contemplate. She would refuse point-blank to create something that she didn’t believe in. And she certainly wasn’t going to dismantle the work she’d already completed, not when it included an image of Libby.
Tom laughed. “I can’t believe she didn’t fall in love with it. Fair enough, it wasn’t what she was expecting. You did change the concept, but it was only for the better. What was there not to like?”
Holly had sent Tom a photograph of the finished article and although she knew he was biased, there really was no reason why any normal person wouldn’t love it. “I don’t think she liked the focus being on the child and not the mother. Besides, she said the mother looked like she had a man’s body.”
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