by C F Dunn
“They didn’t find what they were looking for. They let me go.”
“Just like that?”
“No – there were… conditions.”
“I don’t understand. Why let you go, when you could reveal what they did to you? Why not just… just kill you? Surely they wouldn’t set you free, knowing you could break the conditions they laid on you?”
“Who said the conditions were theirs?”
“What could you possibly…?”
“Emma, there are things I know that they never wish revealed. I’ve had lifetimes to accumulate secrets. They don’t know how, of course, just that I had acquired information which they wouldn’t want to become public knowledge. Let’s just say that should I disappear, certain details would be released. During my… sojourn with them, I was eventually able to persuade them that, while I lived and my family remained untouched, the information is secure.”
“So, will they come looking for us? Are we safe?”
He exhaled, a deep, slow breath, and then looked down at me. “For now.”
It was late and the house slept. Matthew adjusted his position so the length of him stretched from my head to my feet, my bare toes curling into his. Raised on one elbow, he lowered his lips and kissed my exposed shoulder in a gesture of such intimacy it made my heart sing. Resting his arm around my waist, he let his fingers gently caress my swelling stomach.
“I cannot begin to describe how I have missed you all,” he said. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you through.”
“You let them take you when you could have escaped.” I had replayed that moment over and over until it invaded my sleep and haunted me there, too. I hadn’t meant the accusation to creep into my voice, but it was there nonetheless, the legacy of months of grief and uncertainty, like a mother scolding the child she’s just rescued from the path of a car.
“I couldn’t risk them capturing you or the children. What is my life compared with yours?”
Theo was tucked up in Archie’s old cot in the bedroom next to ours, but it had taken days for Rosie to accept the separation. Neither of us had the heart to insist she went to the room she had chosen to share with her brother until she felt secure enough to let her father out of her sight. We had left her sitting reading cross-legged by the fire, where she had propped his portrait against a chair leg. The flames reflected off the painting, making his eyes come alive in the light. This was the first time we had been alone since his return.
“Henry and I think we know what happened to you that night William attacked – or partly, at least.” Bending my head back to look at him, I caught the frown that crossed his face.
“Go on,” he said.
“The lights Nathaniel describe as being torches – they weren’t. It was aurora, and when William stabbed you, by whatever fluke or miracle, the geomagnetic energy passed down the blade and earthed in you. What we haven’t fathomed is why that should have resulted in your extended life.”
“Aurora?” Matthew’s hand ceased stroking my stomach. He lay back on the pillow and contemplated the richly patterned plasterwork of the peeling ceiling. In the quiet minutes that followed, in which nothing else stirred except the fine hair of his arm that twitched under my breath, he turned his eyes in on himself, interrogating. “Do you remember,” he said slowly, “that when they captured me, they used Tasers – repeatedly?”
I shuddered and nodded.
“The shocks didn’t subdue me as they’d hoped; they energized me. It was agony, but I fed off them.”
“But… but you fell to the ground. I saw you!”
“Because that’s what they expected me to do. I had to give them what they wanted so they wouldn’t come after you. But it also gave me insight into my own condition, something I could work on through all those dark hours alone.”
I wriggled over to face him. “You absorbed the energy, just like you do when you look at the sun?”
“Yes, although I hadn’t realized it until then, in the same way you don’t think about breathing. I’ve always thought that the source of my long life is in my blood.”
“There has to be a genetic component.”
“There is, but there’s more to it than that, and you’ve just supplied the final link in the chain.” He sat up, his face becoming animated. “The clue is my heart. You’ve noted how regularly it beats – it neither falters nor quickens but remains the same?”
“Yes – always.”
“And that my temperature never fluctuates and I feel neither extremes of temperature.”
“Of course.”
“I can run as fast as a sprinter, for longer, and I’m as strong as the strongest man.”
I nodded vigorously. “Your skin tingles and you heal instantly… and… and you have tiny lights in your eyes sometimes, like flames, like the sun.”
They were burning now as he leant towards me, barely restrained excitement energizing the air around him. “Well, what if the energy kick-started a process in my heart – like a reciprocating engine – a self-repairing organ? A self-perpetuating, biological machine using the sun, rather than food, as its source of energy?”
“Henry and I thought that the sun might be a source of energy, but he didn’t know how that would manifest itself in practice. Could it do that?”
He leapt out of bed, grabbing his clothes folded next to mine on the chair and started dressing. “Why not? Electrical currents send messages to cells to regenerate – salamanders do it if they lose a limb, lizards can regrow a tail, even the human liver and our skin can repair themselves – but in me it is enhanced as everything else is: instantaneous cyclical regeneration and repair.” His sweater had left his hair awry, his eyes so bright I could hardly look at them. “I am not superhuman, Emma. I’m just operating at an optimum level of human capacity.” His voice dropped as if addressing himself and he pulled at his lip, thinking, a sock forgotten in his hand. “Perhaps I might finally have an answer, but I need access to a laboratory, and will have to recreate the data we had on E.V.E…”
“But it was destroyed!”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, the hardware was destroyed and the information stored on it, but the data itself is very much…”
“Alive and kicking?”
He blinked once. “Ah. So you know.”
Wrapping my arms around my knees, I grinned. “Henry worked it out. He’s not your son for nothing. When were you going to tell me?”
“When I had conclusive evidence that you were the common factor. I was on the verge of it when we had to flee. Your discovery about the aurora, though, has clarified matters somewhat. I know what I need to do to move the research on. I must speak to Henry.” The second sock went on and he reached for his shoes.
“At this time of night?”
A sheepish grin replaced the look of utter determination. He let the shoe drop with a thud to the floor. “I suppose I’ve waited this long, it could wait until morning.”
“I think Pat would appreciate not being disturbed as much as Henry will want to work with you again. Tell me, Matthew, now that you know, will you try to find a way of changing back?”
He came and sat on the edge of the bed, avoiding my eyes. “I… don’t think that will be necessary. Tell me,” he said, “could you still love me if I changed?”
I was about to ask him what he meant, but a tiny fluttering in my womb caught me off guard and his face lit as he felt it. He laid his hand over my stomach, his expression softening.
“What better way to start afresh than this new life, here?” Removing the covers, he touched his lips to my stomach, then tucked the duvet around me again to exclude the chill night air.
“Matthew, if it’s a girl, can we call her Eleanor, after Nanna?”
He considered for a moment. “Perfect choice. We don’t have to worry about confusing the issue with Ellie any more. And if he’s a boy?”
“I’d like to call him Nathaniel, after the man who led me to you.”
* * *
Those first few days were like the echo of a dream. We stayed close, frequently touching, seeking reassurance, confirming our identity and our solidity as a family – slipping back into each other’s skin. We toured the house and grounds, seeing it with fresh eyes and new hope, while Rosie and Puppy darted around us and Theo watched from Matthew’s arms, rumbling his throaty laugh.
We had walked to the crest of the shallow hill, from which he surveyed the redundant fields of the manor leading to those his family had once held, and the remains of his former home. Lark song pierced the blue of the sky and the spring breeze had lost its edge, bringing with it warmth and the promise of summer.
“It’s a long time since I farmed this land.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
He let Theo down to trot after his sister, and crouched, digging his fingers into the soil. “The farm has been long-neglected, but the earth is good and has a fine tilth. We could do worse than make a living from it. What do you want to do, Emma? Sell up and move on – we can go anywhere – or stay here?”
“Is that what you need to do, Matthew?”
He lifted the soil and inhaled, then let the seeds of earth run through his fingers. He stood and brushed his hands free of the last grains, looking around him. “I have spent so many years running away. Perhaps it’s time I stopped.”
“And so have I – one way or another. I think this is the first time I’ve ever felt truly at peace – inside and out. I’m content here, Matthew. I’m happy to put down roots and call this home.”
“It’s where we came from, after all,” he smiled. “If tested, our isotopes would show us to be local folk. Where better to bring up our children?”
“What about Henry and the rest of the family?”
“I’ve been discussing with Pat and Henry the idea of converting one of the barns into a home for them. We’ve even spotted a good place where he could have an observatory free from light pollution. As for the others, they will be welcome, of course, but perhaps I need to let them go and find their own way, make their own lives. They can always visit, or we can go to them. When we are certain it’s safe, I’ll contact them.”
We returned to the walled garden and he stood, hands on hips, surveying the rear wing and church roof to his left and, swivelling on his heel to his right, the barns with their light stone glowing in the spring sun.
“There’s everything we need here to get the farm up and running again.”
“You are joking, aren’t you?” I said. “With what – exactly?”
“True, there is much work to be done,” he said, looking around us at the dilapidated structures, “but we’ll take it one step at a time. Meanwhile,” he grinned, a little of my Matthew resurfacing, “the diamond should get us started. Until then we have much to be getting on with. I can see how much you’ve already achieved. I never wanted you to be in a situation of need, Emma; I didn’t expect George Redgrave to betray us.”
“After centuries of building up your businesses – all your lands, stocks and shares – you’ve lost everything.”
“Everything?” He looked puzzled. “Emma, my love, I have all that I ever wanted – I have you and my children; I have my liberty and my faith. What more is there?”
As much as I applauded his sentiment – and shared it – there were certain practicalities to address. “Well, the roof needs mending, for a start. The diamond won’t do all this, will it?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “It’ll certainly get us on the right track. I’m grateful for Levi’s help. I never thought I would need to call on him.”
“It makes a change, you know.”
“What does?”
“You being in receipt of someone else’s help; since I’ve known you, it’s always been the other way around. I expect he was happy to be able to repay some of the kindness you showed him.”
Matthew looked rather abashed. “Levi is a worthy man. Anyway,” he went on, giving my tummy a playful pat, “since we are going to need a little extra in the forthcoming months and years, it’s a good thing I set something aside. Come with me.” And pulling me to my feet from the hump of masonry that served as a resting place, he tugged the spade from the potato patch and led me to the church wall and the yew tree that stood close by. Between the tree and where the memorial window to his family rose in the golden stone above us, he thrust the spade into the matted grass.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed, both laughing and slightly exasperated. “Can’t it wait?”
“I learned long ago not to place all my eggs in one basket.” He continued to dig, fighting roots, until we heard a hollow thud. “There are some things,” he said, leaning into the hollowed-out ground, taking hold, and heaving, “that cannot be left to chance. One is the status of your soul. The other –” he braced his legs and pulled, loosening clumps of soil that slipped from the lid of a large, rectangular object – “is the security of your family.” Brushing soil from the surface, he revealed an iron-bound box with distinctive wooden panels of seventeenth-century motifs. He ran his hand over it, his expression gentle. “My mother’s marriage chest.” From his pocket he took the old toothed key that had been in the case, and worked the lock. After a few attempts it gave way, and he undid the hasp. Leaning the lid against the tree, he parted layers of protective cloth. “This,” he said, “will see us through.” Inside the trunk, musty with age, oiled cloths disguised uneven-shaped objects. He parted one. A gilded edge winked. “My father wanted me to take them to keep safe. I couldn’t carry everything, so in time-honoured tradition I buried the rest here until such time as I needed them. It’s pre-Commonwealth – some of it from the fifteenth century and my great-grandfather’s time – so will fetch quite a bit.”
“‘Divers goodes’?” I asked.
“Indeed.” He looked around us. “I’ve come home,” he said, “in more ways than one.” He closed the lid of the trunk, and secured the rusty hasp, grunting as the rough edge skinned his hand. He inspected the grazed knuckle.
“Matthew – you’re bleeding!” He held his hand to the light and watched a bead of blood slowly trace its way down his wrist, the scrape only gradually healing, then disappearing. He wiped the blood with his thumb, leaving a smear, seemingly mesmerized.
“I noticed the changes in the days after my capture. The bruises took longer to heal; I felt hunger for the first time in four centuries. And then, when they began to experiment on me, they could find nothing that set me apart from the rest of the human race except, perhaps, for the anomaly in my blood. That’s the other reason why they were willing to let me go.”
“You… you’ve changed?”
“Possibly.”
I swallowed. Took stock. Drew breath. “It’s what you always wanted.”
“And what you didn’t.”
It was true. I bent my head, recalling the anxiety I had always felt at the thought of him no longer walking the Earth, but succumbing to age and disease like the rest of us and returning to the dust from which we are all born. I felt the beginning of tears, and averted my face.
“Emma?”
But these were no tears of regret, but of relief and sheer joy. Death no longer held me in thrall. “It has never been about your strength or your endurability; it’s always been about you, Matthew, and what lies in here…” and I touched his temple, “and here…” I laid my fingers against his heart. “I don’t believe in fairy-tale endings, just you and me doing the best we can for our family, together.”
He took my hand in his, tracing the lines on my palm. “Whatever the future holds, however long our lives might be, we will spend it together.” He raised his face to the sun. “I don’t know whether the changes will be permanent, but for now, it seems,” he said, looking down at me and smiling, “I am merely human, after all.”
THE END…
… IS JUST THE BEGINNING.
Author’s Notes
Sitting alone on a rise of land overlooking the gentle fields of Rutland stands the remains
of the deserted village of Martinsthorpe. Once the site of a medieval manor, the original building was replaced by a grand house in the seventeenth century, imposing itself on the landscape where it could be seen for miles around. It didn’t last. Within a hundred years, it too was demolished, leaving all but the stable block to act as a modest farmhouse on which I based Joan Seaton’s Old Manor farm. All around the site the rumpled land betrays the extent of the buildings and the village that once surrounded it. To the east is the new expanse of Rutland Water and to the south-west the land rolls away in swathes of wheat and grass to where a long absent manor once stood. This was my New Hall, where the Lynes built their manor only a few miles from their Seaton cousins. It wasn’t difficult to imagine. All around this rich landscape lie the remains of the past.
Not all is fiction, however. The manor at Martinsthorpe was held by the de Montfort family, the Fieldings, and the Sextons, and although Matthew’s family is entirely fictitious, Emma’s is not, and her cousins, the de Eresbys, have roots that stretch into the distant past. Most fiction has a smattering of truth and there is much still buried in the soils of Lincolnshire and Rutland yet to be discovered.
The Secret of the Journal series is about continuity and change, persecution and acceptance. Like most stories, a strand of truth lies woven through it in the fears and hopes of the characters, and the names and places in which they live. History lies embedded in every one of us. We are the legacy of the past and the ancestors of the future. What happened once can happen again and it is our knowledge of the past and our determination to make a better future that can change the outcome for our children.
You can visit the site of the old manor if you take the road from Brooke and find the half-concealed entrance to the hedged track. Then leave your car and walk the modest distance down the green-edged lane. At the end, you’ll find a board explaining the site and a single stone building standing alone among the ragged humps and bumps which is all that remains of the manor. And if you’re lucky, you might put up lithe-limbed hares that will dart and bounce over the rumpled slopes, leaving you alone to contemplate the past.