The Dream Weavers

by Barbara Erskine

  The house was empty, but there was a note on the kitchen table. Hope you had a good sleep. I’ll be back about 6 pm M x

  The plants were not in the compost box on the draining board, nor were they in the rubbish bin. There was no sign of them. Mark must have taken them. She felt a quick flash of anger. He had no right.

  The text from Heather came as a complete surprise. Are you at home and alone? Must see you urgently.

  The quiet tap at the side door only a few minutes after her reply was like something out of a spy movie. With a quick look back over her shoulder, Heather followed Bea into the kitchen and carefully closed the door behind them. ‘It’s Sandra Bedford.’

  ‘Oh no.’

  Bea’s weary response seemed to be all Heather needed to know.

  ‘So, she’s spoken to you?’

  ‘I think she’s stalking me.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Heather set her mouth grimly. ‘She’s stalking you all right. She appears to think you talk to demons! She’s got the newspaper cuttings about that awful place you went to over on the border to chase out a poltergeist.’

  ‘Oh God! Did she show them to you? I don’t know what I’ve done to make her so determined to damage me.’

  But she was being disingenuous there, Bea thought, ashamed. She knew all too well. She sat down at the table heavily and put her head in her hands. ‘What can I do? She’s already been to the dean.’

  Heather sighed. ‘She told me. Did he say anything to you?’

  ‘No, but he had a word with Mark.’

  ‘Bless him. He wouldn’t want to believe anything bad about anyone anyway. So Mark knows? He’s seen the cuttings?’

  Bea nodded. ‘I showed them to him when they first appeared.’

  ‘So, what are we going to do?’

  Bea smiled with relief. ‘You don’t know how much it cheers me up to know you’re still on my side.’

  Heather laughed. ‘It’s like being back at school! Sandra isn’t a classic bully, she’s the sneak who hides behind the lockers and then runs to the teacher pretending to be all innocence and only interested in the greater good!’

  ‘So, what can I do?’

  ‘Turn her into a toad?’

  Bea opened her mouth to retort, then fell suddenly silent. ‘You don’t think I’m a witch too?’

  Heather laughed again. She stood up and went to plug in Bea’s kettle. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ she said. ‘But if you are, you need to adopt a cloak of invisibility in future because she is out to get you. What we have to do is come up with a cunning plan.’

  Bea watched as Heather made tea and reached for the mug gratefully as it was pushed across the table towards her.

  ‘And that doesn’t include turning her into a toad,’ Heather added sternly, ‘tempting though that might be.’

  ‘You credit me with more talent than I have, alas,’ Bea said with a rueful grin.

  ‘Well, even if you can do such things, I expect there is a law against it by now. Animal welfare or something. So, we have the might of the Church on our side, in the shape of the dean and Chapter, but we also know they will never sack her for malfeasance or anything like that, so we are stuck with her.’

  ‘Do I gather you don’t like her either?’

  ‘Let’s say I’ve never warmed to her. Luckily I don’t normally see much of her, but today she sought me out deliberately to warn me about you and ask me what she should do. Naturally I said do nothing and she didn’t like that. I could see her little brain whirling with indignation and self-righteous zeal. So, you have to be careful. I wonder if she’s capable of standing up at matins and denouncing you from the floor of the house.’

  Bea gave a weary laugh. ‘I think you’re muddling the cathedral with the House of Commons.’

  ‘She threatened to go to see the bishop. No, it’s all right, I warned her off him as well.’ Heather sat forward, resting her chin on her folded hands. Bea hesitated and Heather nodded. ‘I won’t do anything, Bea, unless you ask me to. I promise.’

  ‘Even though you know it’s true?’

  She hadn’t meant to say it.

  Heather narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve been talking to demons in the cathedral?’

  ‘No.’ Or had she? Wasn’t Eadburh close to the demonic? ‘No, but I have been talking to, or perhaps praying with is a better way of putting it, the spirit of an old priest in the Stanbury Chapel. Sandra saw me, heard me speak out loud. That’s what has given rise to all this. You know how discreet I try to be, but I’ve been helping a family whose daughter has been very disturbed. I brought her to the cathedral to pray and Sandra saw us together and followed us. She keeps asking me about what I was doing.’

  There was a long moment of silence.

  ‘Tricky,’ Heather said at last.

  ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘I suppose you could cast a tiny spell on Sandra. Something to shut her up.’ Heather’s eyes were twinkling.

  People will call you a witch. Nesta’s words echoed at the back of Bea’s mind. That word I think implies evil and brings fear as much to your time as to mine.

  ‘Only joking.’ Heather noticed her expression. Her whisper got through and Bea smiled. ‘I’m not into spells,’ she said softly, ‘but I know someone who is. I’ll bear the idea in mind.’

  31

  Emma claimed to be too tired to do anything when Bea arrived to pick her up next morning. She reminded Bea of a Victorian heroine, flinging back her dishevelled blond hair, pressing her hand against her brow and throwing herself down in the chair nearest to the fire which was nothing but a bed of cold ash. Bea was quite pleased. She wanted the chance to talk to Simon alone and a walk seemed a good way of grabbing it without the possibility of being overheard.

  Emma watched them leave out of the corner of her eye; as soon as they had disappeared up the lane she leapt to her feet.

  ‘Duh?’ Felix had been glued to his phone.

  ‘I want to read Dad’s book.’ Emma had descended on the pile of manuscript that was now residing on the windowsill near his desk. She scooped it up and retired to the chair. ‘Don’t tell him, OK? I need to know what it is he was writing about that stirred everything up. I’m studying history, this counts as revision.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Felix shrugged his shoulders and went back to his phone, uninterested now that she appeared to be staying in one place.

  Emma flipped through the pages. There was a marker about halfway through and she turned to that bit, searching for the chapter heading, ‘The Offa’s Dyke Years’. Minutes later she was completely absorbed.

  ‘How is Emma doing?’ Bea pushed her hands into her pockets. In spite of the sunshine a lively breeze had got up and the air was sharp and ice-cold as they climbed higher up the lane.

  ‘Better. Much more self-possessed. But she’s exhausted. I think the whole thing has been a huge drain.’

  She put her hand gently on his arm. ‘Emma will be all right, Simon. This all takes a bit of getting used to, but now she has me to confide in I think it will be better. Up to now she has been hiding her experiences from everyone, but she’s a strong young woman. She will learn to manage it.’

  He gently removed his arm from her hand; she hadn’t realised she was still holding it and felt herself colour with embarrassment. ‘Sorry. I needed something solid to hold onto.’ She stepped away from him and, staring off into the distance, she folded her arms. Then she turned to face him again. ‘One of the reasons for coming up here this morning was that I want to distance myself from the cathedral. It makes sense to come here to the centre of the activities but for all sorts of other reasons I want to avoid taking Emma there; Ethelbert is an extra character in our lives we can do without at the moment.’

  ‘His is a gruesome story.’ He gave her a strangely intense look. ‘And that dreadful woman who is following you around doesn’t help matters.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘You should know that the kids and I are going over to Worcester to spend Easter Day
with Val and her friends. I think it would be good to get away from here for a bit. If they want, I’ll leave them there. They will be going back to school and exams soon anyway and by then Emma needs to have regained a bit of equilibrium.’

  ‘Point taken. I’m sure she has all the tools she needs. After that it will be up to her.’ She shivered. ‘Perhaps we should turn back. If she doesn’t want to talk to me today, I may as well go home.’

  *

  ‘Did you take the herbs from my room?’ Bea had finally cornered Mark in his study.

  He looked up from his desk, perplexed. ‘What herbs?’

  ‘The ones I had put into paper bags.’

  ‘The ones you said were poisonous? No, I haven’t touched them.’

  She caught her breath. ‘Are you sure?’

  He nodded. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve mislaid them. I must have thrown them away. I meant to check what they were first.’

  He gave her a long, studied look. He didn’t believe that any more than she did. He gave a troubled sigh. ‘Would you consider coming to church over Easter,’ he said after a moment. ‘You like the Tenebrae service, don’t you, and it wouldn’t be in the cathedral.’

  Bea returned his gaze. ‘Are you wheedling?’

  He smiled boyishly. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘Then shouldn’t you be asking me to come to the Easter Day service here, in front of the dean and the bishop and the whole congregation, so Sandra can see me and witness that I am not struck down by a bolt of lightning?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I should.’

  ‘I will come to both of them. I’ll make a point of it.’ She saw the relief in his face and felt guilty. ‘I’m so sorry I’ve been putting you into such an awkward position. I enjoy going to services, Mark. You know I do.’

  That was the truth. Later, back in her own space upstairs, Bea stood looking out of her window down into the garden thinking about their conversation as she watched a blackbird perched on the edge of their little fountain, splashing happily in the spray. Her feelings about the Church of England were complex; she loved the beauty of the services, the music and the liturgy, the 1662 prayer book for its tradition and spirituality, the modern forms for their simplicity and modernity. And she appreciated other forms of worship too. Catholics and Methodists; synagogues and mosques and gurdwara. Each had its own truth and intense sincerity. But her own beliefs were tied up inextricably with her own experience, her inner knowledge that there was far more in heaven and earth than was addressed in an orthodox service of any belief. Her prayers were addressed to a non-denominational god and mediated through the spirit of a long-departed priest who sat in a tiny chapel in a Christian cathedral. Tricky.

  She turned back towards the table in the centre of the room and picked up the small silk-wrapped bundle that contained her stone. Prince Elisedd. What had happened to him after he left Mercia? She was not going to ask Nesta, who was obviously inclined to play power games; she was going to go and find out for herself.

  Cloud hung low over the mountains; the rocks were slick with rain and the grass tangled wet across her path. Bea looked round in panic, not recognising anything. Where was she? She could hear nothing but water. Rain poured down round her and the angry thundering of a river in spate was a background to the low rumble of thunder echoing around the countryside. A sudden fork of lightning lit up the endless emptiness of the scene.

  ‘So, you think you don’t need me?’ The woman’s voice in her ear was very close; she could feel breath on her neck. She froze, not daring to move. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Do you have to ask?’ Another shaft of lightning cracked like a whiplash amongst the rocks and for that split second she saw the face near her, staring past her into the distance. The rain on the woman’s face turned the skin to the semblance of alabaster.

  ‘Nesta?’ she whispered. The word was lost in the cacophony of the elements.

  ‘Welcome to the kingdom of the sons of Vortigern,’ Nesta’s voice was as harsh as the cry of the raven that seemed to follow her.

  ‘Is this where Elisedd lives?’ Bea struggled to make herself heard, her voice almost inaudible as she cried out into the rain. ‘Where?’ She didn’t dare move. She felt she was perched on the edge of a precipice and a step would pitch her out into endless darkness. ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘Are any of us still alive?’ The reply was mocking. ‘Are you not wandering in the place of the dead?’

  ‘Stop it!’ Suddenly Bea was angry. ‘This is my vision! Why are you taunting me? I thought we were allies.’

  She clutched at her collar, trying to find her cross. It wasn’t there. In her rising panic she turned round, flailing out into the darkness. Then she heard a voice, a second voice, almost drowned out by the tumult of the elements.

  ‘Bea? Bea!’

  Her own name cut sharply across the raging noises in her head and Bea opened her eyes to total, shocking silence. She was out of breath and shaking as she looked blankly round the room, not recognising where she was. She heard herself give a little whimper. ‘Are you all right, darling? Here. Give that to me.’ Mark was kneeling on the floor beside her and took the stone out of her unresisting fingers. He looked down at it with distaste and put it down on the table, then he took Bea’s hands in his. ‘You’re freezing. Come downstairs and let me get you something hot to drink.’

  She found she was staring at him. She knew who he was, of course she did, and yet he seemed out of place.

  Out of time.

  She tried desperately to focus her thoughts, her gaze going past him, round the room, towards the window where a benevolent blue sky hung gently behind small white clouds.

  ‘The storm has gone.’ She heard her own voice, strangely flat and without resonance.

  ‘Yes, my darling, the storm has gone.’ After a moment’s hesitation Mark put his arm round her shoulder and pulled her against him. He held her like that, close, until he began to feel some warmth coming back to her body.

  ‘Where were you?’ he asked at last.

  She closed her eyes. ‘The place of the dead,’ she murmured.

  His arms tightened round her. ‘Christ be with us,’ he whispered, ‘Christ within us, Christ behind us, Christ before us.’ He glanced round the room. Was there something there? An atmosphere, a lurking demonic presence? ‘Can you stand up?’ He spoke more loudly now. ‘Let’s go downstairs.’

  ‘She isn’t here.’ Bea responded to his change of tone.

  ‘She?’

  ‘Nesta. She is there in the mountains. In the rain.’ She straightened a little and he moved back so she could stand up. As she struggled to find her feet there was a small chink of metal as her cross fell at her feet. They both looked down at it. ‘The chain broke.’ She was staring at it blankly. ‘That’s why I couldn’t find it.’

  Mark stooped and picked it up. ‘We’ll find you a new chain,’ he said. His mouth was dry.

  She held out her hand to take it and stood looking down at it as it lay on her palm. She had not gone into her meditation seeking to see Nesta again. The woman had sneaked in under her radar and come between her and her goal, to find Elisedd. She felt a sudden visceral fear. Her quest was becoming dangerous; she had met someone who could with ease slip past her safeguards, someone who knew how to move between the worlds, who worshipped the ancient and powerful gods who had ruled this land long before Christianity arrived on the shores of Albion and who might even now be here in the room with them, watching. She looked up, unaware that Mark was watching as her gaze flitted from one corner of the room to another.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked gently. ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Nothing!’ she jumped guiltily. ‘I’m still feeling a bit shaky. You shouldn’t have woken me like that, Mark!’

  ‘Sweetheart, you were shouting.’

  ‘Shouting?’ Her gaze came back abruptly to his face. ‘I wasn’t!’

  ‘Yes, you were. You sounded so frightened. What was I supposed to
do? Stand and watch?’

  She could feel her heart beginning to pound again, her breath struggling in her chest. Closing her fist around the cross, she swallowed hard. ‘No. Thank you for being here.’

  ‘Please stop this, Bea.’

  ‘I don’t think I can.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘This is something I have to finish, Mark. I have to find out where Emma fits in. Until I do that she might be in danger.’ She saw his face and hastily rephrased her comment. ‘From herself. She has run out into the countryside twice now, Mark. She is frantically looking for something, but she doesn’t know what, or who she is looking for, and he isn’t there any more.’

  ‘So, she is looking for someone.’

  ‘Yes, she’s looking for someone.’

  ‘And you know who.’

  She nodded.

  ‘And Simon knows what is happening?’

  ‘Yes, we discussed it this morning.’

  ‘And he’s happy with this situation?’

  ‘No, he’s not happy, but the situation is as it is. He knows it’s probably his own reading and research that has stirred up this swarm of bees—’ She stopped abruptly. Bees. Somehow bees were central to this story.

  ‘And how does my nun fit in?’

  She had forgotten that Mark too was involved in this strange conundrum. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Has she reappeared?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  He sighed. It was his turn to walk over to the window and stare out as though seeking inspiration in the garden. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I am going to do nothing for a bit while I think. My dream, my meditation, took me to a horrible place just now. The kingdom of the sons of Vortigern. I suppose it was somewhere in Wales, but it seemed more like some Arthur Rackham-type version of what hell would be. I don’t want to go there again. I have grown over-confident and that leads to carelessness.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘I will come to you for help, Mark, I promise, and in the meantime, please, hold me in your prayers. I will follow you down, my love, but first I have to cleanse this room and light some incense.’ She saw him hesitate, saw him frown, but he nodded slowly and turned back to the door.