John looked up at Hackleworth's smiling face. There was no antipathy in his bland features.
The document was cryptic, but John had learned to translate the opaque language of the law after Sarah's death. He was signing to acknowledge the receipt of the bequest, which he could claim by going to the address at the bottom of the paper.
He stared at the address in shock as he realised what the document meant.
The address was familiar to him. He had spent the most intense, unforgettable summer of his life there.
And he'd been mistaken about having to go to the address to claim the bequest. The address was the bequest.
Ash had left him the cottage.
Nine
Evie,
I saw them again in my dreams last night. A writhing dark mass of tiny insects, that's what they look like. At least, that's how my mind interprets the attackers. They have been waging war against me for nearly thirty years, and now, they smell victory. Three decades is a heartbeat to their mistress. Still, for all her power, she couldn't take John. My son John, your grandfather. Gosh, I must seem unspeakably ancient to you. I can't tell you how proud I am of your grandfather. I never knew how hard it would be, not telling him who we are. But we share our secrets only with life partners, and with our female successors. That rule has kept us safe for centuries.
I'm getting ahead of myself again. And I'm rambling. I don't know how much of my mental fogginess is due to the natural ravages of old age, and how much is the result of the curse beginning its final assault.
I'm buying a precious few minutes every day to write these letters. A few minutes of clarity. The price is a more rapid crumbling of my remaining defences. If I can finish telling you what you need to know, it will be a price worth paying.
When I was a little older than you, I found out who my mother really was. It happened shortly after my monthly cycle first began. I was fourteen.
We lived in Surbiton in the nineteen-fifties. Father was a bank clerk. Mother cooked, cleaned, looked after my brother Michael and me, and wore pearls in the daytime.
My dreams were the first sign that something was happening. Night after night, I woke up with my hair sticking to my face, my bedclothes twisted around me, as images from my dreams floated away like soap bubbles. I was no prude, Evie, but I was shocked by my nocturnal imaginings. They were awfully disturbing, and there was no one I could talk to.
I certainly didn't consider approaching my mother. I would never have guessed she was the only person I could truly confide in. Until I had a daughter of my own, of course. Sadly, that has been my cross to bear. After your grandfather was born, I was unable to have any more children. It was a cruel blow. I was so excited when John and Sarah announced they were expecting. Terrible to admit, but I was crushed when the baby was a boy. I know I'm speaking of your father, but I will not lie to you about how I felt. Naturally, I came to love Harry in the way only grandparents can. When he found a girlfriend—far too young—and sprung his news upon us, I think he expected me to be angry. His face was a picture when I squealed with excitement. And when you were born—a girl—I cried for a week. Finally, a girl. All would be well.
But I see I have digressed. Back to my mother, silhouetted by the landing light outside my bedroom in nineteen-fifties suburbia.
"Get dressed, Mae," she said. "There's something I need to show you."
This was a time before children questioned their parents. I did as I was told. Downstairs, we both swaddled ourselves in coats, scarves, gloves, and hats. It was midwinter.
The wooded area she took me to was a ten-minute walk away. It overlooked the Thames. If you climbed one of the oaks, you could see Hampton Court Palace Golf Club. When mother led me between the trees, the only sound was the brittle crunch of our wellingtons breaking through the crust of the snow.
Mother stopped in front of an old oak, its frosted branches hanging low. My breath clouded in front of me.
"I was nearly sixteen when it began," she said. "I thought it would be the same with you. I haven't prepared. Perhaps one can never prepare for this."
Her voice was different. It wasn't just the way a voice changes when reflected off ice and snow. I knew not to interrupt. Questions would come later.
She removed her glove, reached out, and touched the bark.
"The roots of this oak spread as deep and as broad as the branches above. We see the trunk, the branches and the leaves. But a hidden world sustains them. Without that world, they cannot exist. Do you understand?"
My voice sounded shrill and weak compared to hers. "Yes," I answered. "I think so."
She turned then, and smiled. Her face had changed. She was still my mother, but… it's hard to explain. Imagine looking at your own mother and seeing not only her, but a line of female ancestors reflected in her face.
Mother spoke again, her voice still full of power.
"Mae, it's time you learned who, and what, you are. My own mother took me away to teach me. We spent hours every night on the border of the Blurred Lands. She woke me before I had rested sufficiently so that I could more easily enter the Between. We don't have that luxury. London is dangerous now, and I cannot leave. You must learn here."
Evie, if you're bewildered by this, imagine how I felt. My mother had always kept her own counsel. A little withdrawn, but not cold. Now I saw the whole woman, and it was simultaneously the most frightened, and the most excited, I'd ever been. I saw the past and the future in her. We members of the Three come as close as humans can to experiencing time like the noones.
Ah, the noones. You need to know about them, too. And the Wardens. So much to tell you. I cannot write much more today. Let me leave you with an image that often returns to me in dreams.
Mother sang a low, soft, note, full of hidden harmonies. It was not a beautiful sound, nor was it ugly. But the breath caught in my throat, and my mind stilled.
She lifted her arms, and a shadow passed between us and the moon.
It was a tawny owl. As I watched it glide, another owl passed overhead, then another. They settled on the branches of the oak. At ground level, another movement attracted my attention. Three foxes were sitting there, one cleaning its paws. A few feet from them, but paying the other animals no attention, two badgers had ambled into position. Other creatures followed until, within a minute of my mother's summoning, she was at the centre of a circle whose perimeter was made up of dozens of nocturnal animals. The moonlight flickered as it fell onto the scene, and I looked up. A thousand moths flew above and, beyond them, a cloud of bats drew spirals.
"Mae," said my mother. "The world doesn't quite work the way you think it does."
Well. The only possible response to that was an expression that hadn't yet been coined, more's the pity.
No shit.
Ten
When his stomach growled at ten o'clock the next morning, John realised he hadn't eaten since lunchtime the previous day. He peeled a banana and ate it in front of the computer. Despite two hours of searching before bed and another hour after breakfast, John had turned up no information about Ashleigh Zanash. The name had returned no results. He tried alternative spellings, used Ash instead of Ashleigh, but eventually conceded defeat.
He also searched for Stinder Hackleworth and wasn't surprised to find nothing about them either. If their office was anything to go by, they didn't even own a typewriter, let alone a computer. Noone House also drew a blank.
John considered the little he knew. At the age of twenty, he and Ashleigh Zanash had embarked upon a brief affair. A fling. A passionate, unforgettable fling, but a fling nonetheless. He remembered the exact shade of her green eyes, so dark, they sometimes seemed black. He remembered the way her copper-tinged fair hair fell across her face. He remembered how he'd been aroused by Ash before he'd even spoken to her - she'd come up behind him and, on tiptoe, her breasts pushed lightly against his back, said, "If I asked you to come home with me, would you do it?"
And, of course, he rememb
ered the sex, of which there had been a great deal. The various encounters had blurred into each other and faded over the years into a melange of fingers struggling with buttons, sweat-slick skin, and the sound she'd made as she pulled him into her.
What he couldn't recall was anything useful, such as what she did for a living, any friends she might have had, which part of the country she came from, whether she owned or rented the cottage.
His memory shied away from their final encounter, the night he broke up with her.
Over the course of five weeks, thirty-two years ago, Ash and John had spent seven nights together. They had never seen each other since.
Why would she leave him the cottage? The bequest made no sense. They were nothing to each other now. Nothing.
John shook his head, spotting the signs that he was trying to deceive himself. The way he'd been utterly consumed by their relationship still frightened him if he was honest. And—even if it had not been the underlying cause—it had been the catalyst for his breakdown.
He turned off the computer. He needed to talk to another human being, not lose himself in disturbing memories.
A year ago, Augustus had installed an answerphone in Bonneville's, so John was treated to an acerbic and mischievous message.
"This is Augustus Bonneville. I have more important things to do than answering the telephone, such as reading, drinking tea, and thinking. If this is an emergency, for goodness sake, call someone else. I'm hopeless in a crisis. By all means, leave a message. I occasionally remember to listen to them."
If Augustus wasn't answering the phone at ten thirty on a Saturday morning, it meant the shop was closed.
"Shit."
John was a pragmatic man. He enjoyed breaking problems down into manageable chunks before taking a methodical approach to solving them. But this wasn't trying to get a sliver of magnet into a toothpick for a vanish, or finding a way to make a pound coin float. All the logic in the world couldn't help him work out how a filing cabinet could pull its contents from thin air, or how knocking four times on a door could transport him from the third floor of a building to the lobby below. As for the creatures in the Charleston, and the fact he couldn't speak of them… how was he supposed to explain that? And now, the bequest from Ash. What was it that came in threes? Good things? Bad things? Buses?
He picked up a picture taken at Harry's wedding in Los Angeles. Sarah was laughing, her head thrown back, and John's expression was one of surprised devotion. He remembered that expression.
He was struggling to keep his attention focused on anything.
Breathe. Just breathe.
The cottage would be worth some money. A detached property just outside Bristol with a wood on its doorstep? He didn't even need to go there. He could put it all in the hands of an estate agent.
That was one reason not to go. But there was another reason. A reason he was avoiding thinking about.
He hadn't been back to Bristol since his breakdown.
Suddenly decisive, he shut down the computer.
A walk on the common, lunch and a pint in the pub, maybe the cinema in the afternoon. That would clear his mind. Tomorrow, he could call the estate agent and put the sale in motion. That just left his disturbed mental state to deal with.
As John picked up his keys, he heard quick, light footsteps coming up the path. He opened the door as the doorbell rang.
A woman in tight jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, her long blonde hair tied back, jumped and took her finger off the bell.
"Helen."
"John." Helen stepped forward and hugged him. "Coming to see me?"
"No, no, er, just off for a walk."
John realised how he must look. He had slept badly and hadn't shaved for two days. He patted his unbrushed hair flat. "Sorry," he said. "Three years since Sarah…"
Helen interrupted, smiling. "Of course, of course, that's why I'm here. Three years. I wanted to see how you were holding up."
As if aware that the smile was wrong, Helen scowled, then frowned, before settling on a neutral expression. She and her partner Fiona had been friends with John and Sarah since they'd moved in eight years ago. Helen was twenty years younger than John, but looked younger still. She and Fiona jogged together most mornings before six, and he had rarely seen them eat anything other than salad and grilled vegetables. As Sarah had told the pair of them one night at dinner, if it weren't for the fact that they were happy to come over and get shit-faced with their neighbours now and then, they'd be insufferable.
"I'm, I'm…" John didn't know what he was, so he stopped speaking.
"You need someone to talk to," said Helen. John was surprised at her directness. Although Helen was a GP, John had always avoided the subject of his health with her. They were friends, not doctor and patient. But, after Sarah's death, Helen had offered her help, insisting he could call her day or night. It was time he took her up on the offer. If she recommended a specialist, he would see one. His dread of mental health practitioners was not only illogical, but embarrassing for someone who prided himself on being rational.
"Yes," John admitted, "you're probably right." He thought of the events of the past two days. "In fact, you're definitely right. I need you."
"Oh," she said, "you're too late, I'm afraid. I'm spoken for. And I'm gay. Double whammy."
Helen had always teased John and Sarah that were she ever to consider experimenting with heterosexuality, she'd give John a go. Sarah had found it hilarious. John too. Maybe she was trying to put him at ease, but her flirting jarred today.
"Yes," he said. "I seem to have missed the boat somewhat."
"Somewhat?" she said.
She tilted her head. "You're really not all right, are you? Come on, let's have a coffee."
She started walking while she spoke, and John followed.
"Fiona's at work despite the fact we both took the week off. A big case, apparently. Why the law should be more important than yoga, circuit training, watching old films, and having sex is a mystery, but there you go. She needs to sort out her priorities."
She turned left at the end of the path. John stopped in confusion. Helen's house was the other direction.
"Oh," she said, "I'm in the middle of cleaning. Floor's wet. Let's chill at the coffee shop and admire the yummy mummies."
"Lead on." Helen took his arm. Since when had she ever done any cleaning? Helen had often held forth on the fact that anyone earning over a certain amount was morally required to hire a cleaner in order to stimulate the local economy.
In the coffee shop, on the comfy settees and with a large mug of tea in front of him, John relaxed a little. Helen was an excellent doctor. She would know how to help.
"Right, Mr Aviemore," she said, stirring another sugar into her latte. For someone so committed to a healthy lifestyle, five sugars seemed excessive, as did the massive slab of flapjack she devoured in a few quick bites. "What's up?"
John looked around the coffee shop. It was half-full, and the speakers dotted around the ceiling played music at a volume loud enough to blend individual conversations into a homogeneous murmur.
"I'm going to tell you what happened on Tuesday night, but there's a problem," he began.
"What kind of problem?"
He explained how he'd been unable to talk to Augustus. "It wasn't that I didn't want to. It was more like my own brain was sabotaging me. Every time I opened my mouth to describe the evening, I said something different. Things got even weirder yesterday when I went to the solicitors."
"Right," she said, her manner now serious. "The disconnect between what you intend to say and what you actually say is rare, but I've read about it."
John put down the mug. "You have?"
"It can happen when recalling traumatic events the brain wants to suppress. Would you describe the events of that evening as traumatic?"
"Yes," he said.
"And yesterday? Was that traumatic too?"
"No. Just bizarre."
"Good. Start
with yesterday. Then we'll talk about Tuesday night."
"Fine." John hesitated. Helen might not be so keen on inviting him over for dinner parties after hearing about magic doors, enchanted filing cabinets, and music that caused erections.
She leaned over and put a hand on his.
"Whatever you tell me is in confidence, John. I'm unshockable, and it will not affect our friendship. I know the prevailing wisdom is that men are better at compartmentalism than women, but when I file away something in a mental box, it stays there. Take your time."
He told her about the letter and the visit to Stinder Hackleworth, leaving nothing out. When he reached the part about knocking on the door and ending up back outside, she showed no more surprise than she had when he'd described the building.
John waited for her to respond. A waiter came over with more coffee, tea, and a second flapjack for Helen. After he left, she leaned forward.
"Don't stop. Now that you've told me something you think I might not believe, carry on. Tell me about Tuesday evening. Don't think about it, just talk. Start when you first arrived at the hotel. Did you go to the restaurant? To the toilet? Straight to the room where you were going to perform?"
He told her about going to Marco's office, and the manager's uncharacteristic nervousness. He described following him to the Bloomsbury Suite, the doors opening, the black candles. Then he talked about the audience. This time, there was no breakdown of communication between his brain and his mouth. Liberated, he almost gabbled as he described the red-haired woman and her bald companion. He told her about the enormous man opposite and his tiny female partner, who'd thrown dust in his face. Then he spoke about the impossible creatures emerging from the shadows, the dream that night, and the lack of certainty about when the evening ended, and the dream began.
He told her everything.
By this time, Helen was on her third latte. She sipped it, the froth clinging to her upper lip. When John pointed it out, she licked it off suggestively without breaking eye contact. It was every bit as disconcerting as any of the creatures in his dream. Completely out of character, too. After the last few days, John could only conclude that he'd imagined it. What the hell was happening to him?
The Blurred Lands Page 4
