by A. L. Lester
Lucy knew she and Dr Marks had been friendly. That must have been why Dr Marks was so upset.
Looking back, that was the moment it had begun for her. She’d found herself seeking out Dr Marks in her off duty. Not to impose herself upon the other woman, but just to be within her orbit. At the next table at dinner time, that sort of thing. It comforted her to know that Dr Marks was around.
As time went on, Lucy’d gradually relaxed into her role as an orderly at the hospital. She’d been young. Very young…the rules said VAD nurses needed to be over twenty-three for overseas service, but Mama had known a woman who’d known a woman and after a very intimidating interview with a very fearsome lady…much like Dr Marks actually…Lucy had been accepted. Mama had not been happy, exactly. But she’d said that Lucy was sensible and twenty-one and she hoped she knew what she was doing.
The other ladies had been exceedingly kind. Lucy was glad of it. She spent quite a bit of her first few weeks crying quietly in hidden corners of the abbey, appalled at the mutilations and the quiet stoicism of one or another patient she’d been asked to take care of.
Behind everything, every waking moment, every sleeping one, like the bass line of a symphony, was the constant sound of the guns. The Nivelle push started not long after she got there…not long before Miss Masters disappeared…and looking back now, it was a long, intolerable blur of exhaustion and other people’s pain and blood that somehow one simply had to tolerate, because there was no alternative.
That was how she’d met Orderly Kennett, actually. In the middle of the night, when she was taking a break from sitting with a young man who was in desperate pain. She was weeping into her apron in a dark corner, hands pressed over her ears, and he had loomed out of the shadows to sit beside her.
“All right, Miss?” he’d said quietly, pulling out his ubiquitous pipe and starting to stuff it.
She’d wiped her face and pulled herself together.
“Perfectly, thank you,” she’d replied. And then after a little pause. “Well. Not really. But you know. Thank you for asking.”
He’d offered her a clean handkerchief…hers was a sodden mess by then…and got his pipe going whilst she’d mopped herself up.
Then he’d said, “Anything in particular? Or just the usual?”
She’d sniffed a watery laugh, “Just the usual, I think. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”
“It does get better,” he’d said quietly. “You do get used to it. Or at least, better at pretending you’re used to it.”
She nodded. “Is that what you do?”
He nodded, puffing assiduously. “I joined the army when I was sixteen. I served in the Transvaal, in the war. I got exceptionally good at pretending.”
She folded the hanky and handed it back to him. “Thank you,” she said.
He took it and shoved it into a pocket of his uniform. “You’ll be all right, Miss,” he said. “Just keep going. You’re doing fine.”
And they’d sat in companionable silence on the wall in the night, listening to the guns and kicking their heels against the bricks until it was time to go back inside.
Her pash on Sylvia had crept up on her slowly, she supposed. She’d known it was there, but it wasn’t relevant to the work at Royaumont, it was simply inconvenient. She kept it under control, never spoke about it to anyone, and was as discreet as she could be in her desire to make sure Dr Marks was well.
She treasured the moments she got Sylvia to herself, the odd tea-break, or a late supper when they had been working together. And gradually their friendship had grown. It wasn’t until she’d landed here in Bradfield in the autumn that her crush had grown into a deeper, more mature feeling. She’d hoped…she’d hoped perhaps, when she came back after Christmas…after the day Sylvia allowed Lucy to brush her hair. She’d hoped perhaps Sylvia felt the same way.
But it was clear now, wasn’t it? Sylvia was still in love with Anna Masters and there was no hope for Lucy.
Well, it was down to Lucy to help Sylvia be happy. So, if Sylvia wanted Anna, and Anna might still be alive, Lucy would do everything she could to help.
Part 3: Spring 1920
Chapter 23
Sylvia dreamt. Not that she didn’t dream usually. But this time, she woke, bolt upright and with her covers thrown back, already thinking that someone was knocking on the door of her room to fetch her for an emergency surgery.
She woke properly as the frigid air registered through her pyjamas. She was home. No-one was knocking on her door…the door to her rooms or the front door below her bedroom window. She was home in Bradfield.
She drew in a deep, shuddering breath and shook herself mentally.
She’d been dreaming about Anna.
She pulled the blankets and the quilt back up over her legs and propped herself against the pillows, arms around her drawn-up legs, resting her chin on her knees.
Anna had been lost, in the dream. Lost and distraught, calling out for Sylvia.
She let out another breath, forcing herself to breathe in again steadily after each forced exhalation. She would not let this run away with itself. She would not. There was no need for it. She could investigate her theory about Anna’s loss without becoming hysterical.
It had been a couple of weeks since her emotional outburst and all three of them had been very carefully avoiding talking about it since, Sylvia out of embarrassment and Lucy and Walter presumably out of tact. She’d been ignoring the whole thing, as if not thinking about it would make it go away. But it wouldn’t. She knew that and her dream-state clearly knew that too.
She just needed to make a list, that was all. A list of things she knew. And a list of things she needed to know. And then she could make a list of how to find out what she needed to know, start at the top and work her way down.
Simple.
So, so simple.
And so, so difficult.
She sat there until the first birds began to chit outside her window and then in the early morning dark, she shrugged on her dressing gown and slippers and padded down to the kitchen to rattle up the range and put the kettle on.
* * * *
Lucy found her there an hour later, staring at her notebook, third or fourth cup of tea cold on the table beside her.
Lucy made a vague dissatisfied huffing noise when she realised the teapot was empty and pulled the kettle on again before coming over to Sylvia and nudging her shoulder with her hip.
“What are you up to?” she said, in the chirpy early morning tones of someone completely unnatural. It was so early the newly acquired staff hadn’t even arrived yet.
Sylvia sat up and rubbed her hands over her face.
“Oh,” she said. “Lists. I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep and I thought if I wrote it all down…the things about Anna and that chap Marchant and what happened up at Webbers whilst you and Walt were away over Christmas…all of it, perhaps it would make more sense.”
Lucy leaned forward against her shoulder and leafed through some of the pages of Sylvia’s spikey scribble, frowning. She was very warm even through the long cardigan she had belted round her waist, cosy, and comforting. Sylvia drew a breath. Lucy smelled of the new perfume her Mama had given her for Christmas, Tabac-something, vaguely tobacco-like, but sweet, light, and just so…Lucy. She wanted…Sylvia shut her eyes for a moment. She couldn’t afford to want. She had to find Anna.
Then the object of her affections spoke. “So, this is what you know about Anna?” Lucy ran her finger down the page. “Mostly the things Sheila said. A cloud of little lights. Voices. Howling and wailing.” She turned the page. “And this is what you know from what you learned at Webbers…the shimmery wall thing they call the border. Mr Marchant appearing from nowhere, with his story of being a prisoner and jumping through time.”
Sylvia nodded, leaning against Lucy’s warm side, letting her take a little of her weight. She was so tired. It had been a very disturbed night.
“And…” She turned the page agai
n. “…And these are your conclusions about what might have happened, and what you need to find out?”
Sylvia nodded again. “Yes, that’s about it. I thought if I got it out of my head and onto the page, it might make more sense. Or at least, I’d be able to stop thinking about it in the small hours.”
Lucy nodded. “Well. If you’ve written it all down, we can work through it logically, can’t we? Step by step. And…” she put her hand on Sylvia’s arm, “…and if there is a chance that Anna is in this between-world you told us about, stuck in the magic shimmer, or in Marchant’s other world…if it really exists, and isn’t some stupid story…we can see what we can do to get her back.”
There was a little pause.
The kettle was rumbling to a boil.
Sylvia found her handkerchief in the pocket of her dressing gown and blew her nose.
“Thank you, Lucy,” she said, quietly. “I feel as if I’m losing my mind.”
Lucy patted her arm again. “You are not losing your mind,” she said, firmly. “Let’s have some breakfast. Are you going to have a bath?”
Sylvia shook her head. “I’ll have one tonight. If you’ve had one the water will be cold now.”
Lucy’s hair was wet. She looked guilty. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I keep forgetting it’s not a geyser like at home.”
Sylvia shook her head again as she stood. “Don’t worry, it’s fine.” She smiled at Lucy. “Go on, you start making toast and I’ll go and put some clothes on. We can see if Mr Curland and Mr Webber are at church and if they’re not we can visit the farm after lunch.”
* * * *
The farmhouse was warm and comfortable after the cool, slightly damp church, although the vicar had kept it short in deference to the weather. The smell of roasting beef filled the kitchen where they sat around the table with cups of tea.
“I need some help,” Sylvia launched into her dilemma. “Since Christmas, I’ve been thinking about my friend Anna and how she disappeared in France…” She told them the story.
It was a shame Mr Marchant had left, she thought as she spoke. It would have been helpful to have his insight into what might have happened. However, she supposed she could write to him if she needed to and it seemed as if Robert and Matthew had learned a lot from him before he finally recovered enough to leave.
“I think…it does sound like it might have been something from beyond the border,” Matthew ventured, cautiously. “The lights. The voices. That’s what we experienced, wasn’t it, Rob?”
Robert nodded and spoke, country accent soft. “Yes, it sounds very like. And there was no trace of a body, you say?”
Sylvia shook her head. “None at all. And there’d been no shelling at all in that area that day.”
Both men looked grim. There was a whole generation of people who had a shared experience that meant no further explanation of those sort of words was necessary, Sylvia thought.
She held her mug of tea in both hands. “I’m deeply sorry to bring this to you. I know you both probably want to forget about the whole thing. But combined with what Arthur told me before he died and what I witnessed him doing…and then what you and Marchant told me…” She pulled a face. “It’s sending me batty, Robert.”
She had a great deal of time for Robert Curland. He was a steady, stalwart sort of person. He was the sort of person who could cut another man’s throat to save the life of his lover and then run three miles covered in blood to get a doctor to save the same person.
Also, he could manipulate the power. Magic. Whatever it was called.
Robert pulled a face back at her. “Well, it does sound batty, no doubt about it,” he said. “But the whole thing is batty, isn’t it?”
Matthew nodded. “Completely unbelievable,” he said. “I’m still not sure I believe it and I’ve witnessed all of it.”
“Can you help?” Lucy asked. “Can you help Sylvia find out if Anna is still alive?”
The two men exchanged glances. It was a wordless conversation that conveyed a lot of content in not much time.
“I don’t want to use the power,” Robert said, eventually. “Not if I don’t have to. I don’t like it, it’s not safe. It killed Arthur and it nearly killed Matty, and Marchant. We don’t know enough about it.” He paused. “Those things that make the wailing noises that your friend heard in the cloud? They’re deadly.” He glanced over at Webber again. “But…you can have the books to look through if you’d like them? And see if they make any more sense to you than we got out of them? I can run you through what we found out from them and you can come and talk to me with questions and the like.”
Sylvia thought. There wasn’t any decision to make really. “Yes,” she said. “Yes please.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “I just need to know,” she said.
Lucy patted her hand. “We’ll find out, don’t worry,” she said, reassuringly. “We’ll work it out, Sylvia. And if we can find her, we will.” She looked very severely at Sylvia’s friends. “You’ll help, of course? If it comes to it?”
“Yes, of course we will,” Matthew’s voice was firm. “Of course.”
“But not to experiment,” Robert said. “Experimenting when you don’t know what you’re doing is deadly. You only have to look at Arthur to know that.”
Sylvia nodded. “Yes, absolutely. And I’m not asking that of you. I just need to know more.”
Robert nodded and patted her hand as he stood. “I’ll get the books for you now and you can take them home. Don’t fret, Sylvia. You’ll get to the bottom of it. You’re the cleverest person I know, man or woman, and if anyone can put it together you can. I wish I’d thought to come to you at the beginning when I realised what was making Matty so poorly. You’d have had it sorted in a jiffy.”
Sylvia managed a watery facsimile of her usual smile. “Thank you, Robert. I do appreciate you saying that. Thank you very much.”
Chapter 24
Lucy had liked Curland and Webber. They weren’t what she’d expected friends of Sylvia’s to be like, but thinking about it, that Sylvia counted farmers and farm workers among her friends was no surprise at all.
The books they had been loaned were old. One was probably from the eighteenth century and the green one seemed like it might be even older. That was the one written in all sorts of different hands and languages. Lucy was fascinated by it.
“Look,” Sylvia said, poring over the book in her lap that evening. “Is this Burmese?”
She perched her glasses on her nose more firmly as Lucy looked over her shoulder. “Perhaps?” Lucy said doubtfully. She had no idea.
“I wonder if I could find someone to translate it?” Sylvia said vaguely. “There’s a Burmese doctor at the School for Tropical Medicine in London. We could write.”
“Is that wise?” Lucy said. “I don’t think involving other people is very sensible, really.”
Sylvia shook her head, disagreeing and agreeing at the same time. “Well, quite. But that means we’re stuck with what we can do ourselves.”
She continued leafing through the book on her lap and sighed. “I don’t think this is going to help us much. Their translations are interesting though.”
Lucy had taken the translations book. Curland and Webber had written out the things they’d managed to make sense of in a third notebook. There was a long piece that had been in a kind of code in the brown book, about the energy initiates seemed to call the border, and some sort of disgusting creature that sucked the life out of people that the writer called hollows. Lucy was not keen to meet one, at the same time as being transfixed by the whole story. It didn’t make any mention of the disappearing and reappearing people though, so she made a mental note to come back to it later and kept flicking forward through the pages.
After a while…“Mr Webber has written that these are spells,” she announced in a disbelieving tone. “Spells. Magic spells.”
Walter made a huffing noise around his pipe. He was reading through the eighteenth-century jou
rnal, carefully, a slow page at a time. “Well, I suppose that’s what you’d call it, wouldn’t you? If you didn’t know the people who use it call it something different? Whatever they call it…power, energy, pulling, the border. It’s magic, really. Or it looks like magic.” He sighed and looked over at Sylvia. “I wish you hadn’t found out about this, Sylvia. I’m having trouble wrapping my mind round the fact it even exists.”
“Wait ‘til you get to the bit about the elves,” Sylvia said, somewhat grimly. “That’s really unbelievable.”
Lucy stared at her. “What?”
“I expect they’ve written it down in there.” Sylvia nodded at the book on Lucy’s lap. “Mr Curland and Mr Webber were visited by some sort of elf-creature from the other world, the ones who were keeping Marchant locked up. Not exactly elves. But like enough to make it a reasonable word to use. It’s like a fairy story.” She twisted her mouth unhappily. “I wish I didn’t know about it, either.”
“None of it’s very helpful, really,” Lucy said. “Not so far.”
“It’s the bits that we haven’t come across in writing,” Sylvia said. “Arthur Webber telling me he’d been visited by people from the future. The cloud of sparkles and the howling and singing that seems to go with it. Marchant going from his hotel in France to the elf-world and then the farm and jumping a block of time. None of that is written down anywhere.” She banged the green book shut on her lap and thumped it with frustration. “I wanted a formula. I know there isn’t one. But that was what I wanted.”
She tipped her head back against the cushion of the settee and closed her eyes with a sigh large enough to stir the curtains.
Walter and Lucy looked at her in silence for a moment. What could one say? Lucy thought. It wasn’t as if this was any more than a vague thought of Sylvia’s, brought up by the happenings at Webbers. Those things had happened, there was no denying it. So, her idea that Anna had been taken or slipped through a crack to somewhere else, or…or…whatever, wasn’t completely unreasonable. But what was there to be done about it, three years after the fact?
