‘No, I don’t see it. I don’t see it at all.’ Heather swallowed hard. ‘All I know is that Mark and Bea are concerned for your welfare. You are letting this,’ she paused, looking back at the box on the floor, ‘this obsession, get inside your head. There are people you can talk to, Sandra. Kind, wise people who can help you.’
Sandra nodded slowly. ‘But when I asked for help, they didn’t, did they? And now I can see that’s because you would all rather believe Beatrice than me.’ She gave a small bitter laugh. ‘The demons are clever.’ She stood up. ‘Please go away, Heather. I would hate you to get involved in all this. You are a good person. You are not part of it. Leave me to sort it all out.’ She moved towards Heather, standing over her menacingly, far too close in the small room. Heather scrambled to her feet and backed towards the door. ‘Sandra—’
Sandra smiled. ‘No. The time for talking is over. Please go.’ The house was suddenly incredibly cold.
With every ounce of dignity she could muster, Heather turned and walked out of the room. She couldn’t wait to get out of there, but on the front doorstep she turned. ‘Are you sure—’
‘I’m sure.’ Sandra was right on her heels and Heather flinched. The final words Sandra shouted after her as she hurried away down the pavement left her reeling with shock.
‘I fled.’ Heather followed Mark into his study and threw herself down on the sofa. ‘Oh God, Mark. That woman is evil! There is no other word for it. I’m sorry. I don’t think I helped at all. All I’ve done is warn her that Bea is on to her. Where is Bea?’ Her hands were actually shaking.
‘She’s gone up to see Emma.’ Mark pulled his chair away from his desk and spun it round to sit down opposite her. ‘Tell me exactly what happened.’
Heather described her visit. She swallowed hard, shuddering. ‘She used to be a professional psychic, for God’s sake!’
Mark sighed. ‘I’m not all that surprised. I thought at first she was probably a typical nosy parker, but Bea was beginning to sense the power. That woman knows what she is doing.’
‘As I left, she shouted something after me, Mark.’ To her embarrassment Heather felt a tear roll down her cheek. ‘She said that when Emma and Bea next dream about the past the demons that possess them will win and they will be stuck in the past forever and only she could have saved them, but maybe it would be better if they were trapped there and burned at the stake as the witches they had become. That was the only way to destroy demons.’
Mark sighed. ‘I don’t know much about the Anglo-Saxons but I don’t think witch burning was one of their hobbies. Shall we say a prayer together, Heather, and then I will ring Bea and warn her what’s going on.’
After Heather left he headed out into the hall, then stopped in his tracks. There was something moving round in the kitchen. He heard the scrape of a chair leg on the tiles, then the rustle of paper and a door softly closing. He crept towards the door and listened. Silence. The kitchen was empty. He tiptoed round the room, and paused by the fridge. Taking a deep breath he opened the door. For a split second he thought there was something in there. The slightest movement, a pair of eyes, the whisk of a tail disappearing between the packages and pots, but then it had gone. The fridge was neat and tidy and empty of wildlife. He made the sign of the cross and closed the door firmly. What was it Bea had done to scare the woman away? She had laughed.
‘She’s still asleep.’ Simon had waited for Bea, sitting on the wall outside in the hazy spring sunlight. ‘What are we going to do?’
Bea had been planning her strategy as she drove over. ‘I think we should wake her and talk. Have you spoken to her mother today?’
He grimaced. ‘Not usefully, no.’
She sat down beside him and let out a sigh. ‘Oh dear.’
‘Indeed. I think, I hope, I have made her realise how catastrophic it would be to escalate all this beyond the family.’
Bea looked up at the bedroom window. She didn’t dare tell him how far the situation had already escalated. ‘Can I go up and wake her?’
He nodded. ‘If you think that’s a good idea. I’ll wait here.’
The room was shadowed, the curtains half drawn and Emma was lying across the bed. She had pushed the duvet onto the floor. ‘Em?’ Bea sat down on the edge of the bed and put her hand on Emma’s arm. ‘Em, wake up.’
Emma made a small grunting noise and moved away fretfully.
‘Em, can you hear me?’
‘Go away!’
In her dream, Emma looked back over her shoulder at the four horsemen who were escorting Eadburh along the riverbank. The water rippled and glittered in the sunlight over the stony shallows they passed. One of the king’s bodyguard had ridden up beside her and pointed ahead. She could see the squat stone-built tower of the little church now, and the cluster of thatched buildings round it in a loop of the river.
As they rode through the gates and into the central yard she slid from the horse and looked round. ‘Ask where he is,’ she commanded.
The warrior nearest her dismounted and handed his reins to his companion. He shouted across at a young man in a homespun robe who was sweeping up the wisps of hay blown from the newly built stack in the corner. The air was full of the sweetness of its scent.
They waited while he scurried away. Eadburh looked round at the tidy buildings, the solid little church with its stone walls, arched windows and door and heather-thatched roof. The place seemed deserted.
When the young man returned, she felt her heart sink. She could tell from his face that Elisedd would not see her. He spoke to the man beside her in soft courteous tones, keeping his eyes shyly on the ground, knotting his fingers together nervously. She could make out some of the words. ‘The lady cannot be who she says she is.’ He bit his lips frantically, his face red with embarrassment. ‘The lady would be many summers older than this young person. Princess Eadburh is a queen now, with children of her own, living far away.’
Emma gave a cry of anger. ‘I’m not! I’m who I say I am. I am Eadburh. I have to see him.’ She dodged past the outstretched hand of the armed man beside her, heading for the door in the largest of the buildings from where she could see several faces peering at the scene. He was there, wearing a simple dark long woollen tunic. She could see him. She recognised him. ‘Elise!’
They caught her before she reached him.
‘Elise! I’m Eadburh! I have looked for you for so long; I have searched for you—’
As he gazed at her, she saw the recognition in his eyes, the hunger and then the denial and disbelief. ‘No. No, you can’t be. I would know you.’ He crossed himself. ‘You cannot be her. You are an imposter. A shape-changer. A cunning woman. A witch!’ He stared at her eyes for a second more then he turned away, ducked back inside the building and the door closed with a bang.
She stood there, distraught, unable to move, and then at last fell to her knees in the cobbled yard. ‘Elise!’ she called again. She buried her face in her hands, sobbing. ‘You have to talk to me. You have to.’
They surrounded her, the brothers of the monastery, the king’s escort, the farmworkers, and now several women appeared, sisters from the community and lay women. Someone helped her to her feet, someone else guided her across the cobbles back to the horses and she felt herself lifted onto the saddle. All around her they were talking and whispering and making the sign against the evil eye, and over and over again she heard the word ‘witch’.
She couldn’t fight them all. Slumped helplessly forward over the horse’s withers, not even reaching for the reins, she let them lead the animal back the way they had come, leaving the clas and Elisedd behind them.
When she saw Bea waiting for her, she slid from the saddle in tears and threw herself into her arms. ‘He didn’t recognise me,’ she cried. ‘He didn’t want to see me.’
Bea rocked her gently. ‘Wake up, sweetheart. Wake up. You’ve had a bad dream, that’s all. Everything will be all right.’ She looked up as Simon appeared in the doorway.
>
‘What’s happened?’ He gazed down in horror at his daughter as she sat up in bed, her face sodden with tears.
‘She’s all right. She had a nightmare. Give us a few minutes.’
He backed away unhappily and slowly retraced his steps downstairs.
She had surrounded them with the circle of protection, whispered the prayer, taken off her cross and fastened it round Emma’s neck. In her bag downstairs she had herbs to burn to cleanse the place, crystals to place around the cottage as Meryn had taught her. And she had his support, she knew that, whatever he had said about her coping alone.
It was a long time before Emma stopped sniffing and groped for a tissue. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘There is nothing to be sorry for.’
‘I was so sure he would recognise me.’ She was still half in the dream.
‘He would have expected to see a middle-aged woman, the same age as himself, and instead he saw a beautiful young lady in a scarlet dress.’
Emma stared at her. ‘How do you know what he saw?’
‘Because I’m looking at her now.’
‘But the dress?’
‘You told me about the dress before, remember?’
‘Was I really there? In the monastery?’
Bea gave a small shrug. ‘I think you might have been.’
‘He was very handsome. But so old. His hair was going grey.’
Bea smiled sadly. ‘He wasn’t a young man any more, certainly. And you gave him a real shock. He didn’t know where you had come from.’
‘They thought I was a witch.’
‘The more so if you have now disappeared right in front of their eyes. Sweetheart, you can’t, you mustn’t try and go back. You do know that, don’t you?’ Better to say it now straight away. Make sure she understood the danger. ‘This is an important part of your training. You have to learn when to say no, this is not right. This is not something I should do.’
‘But it was exciting!’
‘It made you very miserable.’
‘Only because he didn’t understand. If I can explain to him—’
‘But you can’t explain, Emma.’ She caught both Emma’s hands in hers and pulled the girl to face her. ‘Don’t you understand? You can’t explain this to anyone, then or now. Even we don’t understand what’s happening here. This has to be kept a secret.’
Emma held her gaze and Bea saw the defiance there, but then slowly it faded. The girl gave a reluctant shrug. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Good. Because it’s vitally important you remember this. Now, we need to go downstairs and speak to your dad. Come down as soon as you’ve washed your face.’
Somehow she managed to persuade Simon to wait calmly; they made tea and sat at the kitchen table until at last Emma appeared. She was very pale, but sat down with them without protest.
‘My darling, we have to decide what we are going to do over the next week or so.’ Simon pushed a mug of tea towards her. ‘Decisions have to be made about school and exams. They are vital too, Emma, you are too intelligent not to realise that, and you have to speak to your mother because she is very anxious.’
Val was not answering the phone so Emma rang Felix instead.
‘Hi, Sis. Are you prepared for the onslaught?’ He sounded quite cheery.
‘I can’t get through to her.’
‘Ah.’ There was a significant pause. ‘You don’t know, then?’
‘What?’
‘I thought she’d spoken to Dad. She’s on her way to you. She was incandescent, I believe the word is, after she spoke to him earlier, so she leapt into the car and she’s on her way. She said it would take three and a half hours at this time of day, and I bet she doesn’t stop unless it’s to top up with coffee every half hour. She’s coming to collect you and bring you back, and to be honest, Sis, you’d better come otherwise it will be awful for Dad and probably Bea too. She seems to have it in her head that Bea is some kind of Satanic abuser.’
Emma handed the phone to her father. ‘You’d better speak to him.’ Tears were pouring down her cheeks again.
Bea reached over to put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘It’ll be OK,’ she whispered.
Emma shook her head. ‘It won’t.’
They watched as Simon stood up and put the phone to his ear. As he listened to his son’s impassioned plea, he walked through the sitting room to stand outside on the terrace, looking across the valley.
When the call ended, he sat down on the wall without a word, deep in thought.
‘Can I come and stay with you?’ Emma whispered to Bea.
‘No, sweetheart, I don’t think so. Not at this point.’ Even without Simon’s confirmation of the way it had gone, Bea had gathered the gist of the conversation. ‘We have to agree to whatever your mum and dad decide is best for now. Until your exams are over. It may be we can arrange something for the summer holidays.’ They had followed Simon outside.
‘I hate my mother!’ Emma’s anguished cry pierced her father’s introspection. He looked up. ‘She means well, Em. She’s worried about your future. It’s very hard for her to understand what has been going on. To be honest, it’s hard for everyone to understand.’ He glanced at Bea.
Bea exhaled sharply. ‘Even me. We can put all this on hold, Emma. It’s up to you. You can stop all this happening, now, and you would find that much easier to do if you went back to London, I promise you.’
‘But I can’t leave him. I have to explain. I have to make him understand.’
‘Him?’ Simon’s fists were clenched on his knees, his knuckles white. ‘Who is this him?’
‘Elisedd, of course.’
‘And you expect your mother to understand that? That you are besotted with a twelve-hundred-year-old man!’
Emma smiled. ‘Don’t be silly, Dad.’
Simon looked at Bea in despair. ‘You have to talk some sense into her.’
‘No! She doesn’t,’ Emma retorted. ‘Don’t you understand, Dad, this is real. I’m not making it up! I’m talking about a real person.’
‘And you have to respect that person’s wishes,’ Bea put in sternly. ‘And he does not want to see you, Emma. Not at the moment, perhaps never. And you are bound by your honour as a healer and a traveller between the worlds to respect that.’
Emma looked at her, stunned. ‘A healer? Me?’
‘Yes, a healer. You may not choose to use your gifts of healing, but that’s what this is all about. You are not toying with the affections of some boy from school, you are dealing with very real adult pain and anguish, pain so dreadful it has lasted many lifetimes, and you have to respect that. If you can’t do that, you and I are finished. I can’t teach you any more.’
There was a long silence. Emma walked away from them and stood staring out across the valley as her father had done earlier. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last.
It was grudging but Bea thought it was sincere. ‘So am I. We will get there, Emma. But not now, OK?’ She hated herself for speaking so sharply but it seemed to be the only way to get through to her.
Emma nodded. She couldn’t trust herself to speak.
39
They used to come to this forest sometimes when she was a child, Bea and her mother and her father. It had been a wild, special place, full of magic; a place where she could imagine fairies and elves and all kinds of woodland sprites and trees that whispered and talked high above her head as she hid amongst the bushes playing hide and seek with her father, while her mother found a clearing where she could spread out the rug and unpack the picnic basket.
Bea pulled into the car park and peered through the windscreen. There were a few other cars there, but not many, and the woodland tracks leading off into the distance were empty of people. She opened the door and stepped out. Only a few minutes’ walk along the track and she was out of sight of the cars and alone in a forest that had been there since the days of Offa, probably centuries before him. This would have been the kind of place Nesta was born and bro
ught up, the place she would have learned her magic. She stopped and looked round. A narrow path led off to her right, winding off amongst the bushes. A huge branch had fallen from one of the oak trees in the winter gales and lay across the clearing in front of her. She paused and then quietly she sat down on it and waited. The birds came first, a nuthatch peering at her with beady eyes from the trunk of an ash tree, a thrush calling from the top of a tree, and then a robin, head to one side, hopping closer, wondering if she had brought crumbs. Nesta was standing by the trunk of the oak, half in shadow as she waited, swathed in a shawl the colour of lichen.
‘I need to talk to you,’ Bea said quietly. ‘I knew you would be here.’
Nesta moved towards her and sat down on the branch beside her. Her weight did not register as she moved closer, the unfurling leaves motionless in the still air. Close to she had an uncomfortably powerful energy field, cool and green and nebulous.
‘You never told me. In your wanderings, did you ever find Elisedd?’
Nesta smiled. ‘Eadburh was not the only one to dream. In his heart, at night when he was not at his prayers, sometimes Abad Elisedd dared to wonder where she was and if she was still alive. He heard stories from time to time, even from the seclusion of the prayer desk. He heard of the murder of Beorhtric from the lay brothers who had it from a pedlar; he heard of her exile from a pilgrim come to the shrine of St Tysilio from far away Canterbury. And then came a mendicant friar who brought the bones of a selection of saints to sell to the abbot, with a story about her death. Elisedd did not believe that the bones of a sheep had somehow transformed into the sacred relics of a holy man, but he could not dismiss the possibility that Eadburh was dead. How would he ever know the truth?’ There was a long pause. ‘My own wanderings took me to the clas as the spring sunlight filtered across the land and the shadows of the mountains shortened, and I made my confession to the Abad Elisedd. As I knelt before him, I let slip that once I had known the daughter of Offa and that in my dreams I saw her, now an abbess, safe in a convent in the northern forests of the empire. I may have hinted that she too had yearned for her only love, whom she believed dead, murdered by her father.’
The Dream Weavers Page 39