by A. L. Lester
His breathing was steady and very, very controlled. Matthew was watching him anxiously.
Lucy pressed closer to her left side and Walter made a little harrumphing noise under his breath, quiet enough that only Sylvia heard it.
“Now,” Robert said.
He read out the words on the page steadily and slowly…
“Power of the border
Gathered here between my hands.
Dissolve time and space
Reveal Anna Masters to us
Draw aside the fog of unseeing…”
As he did so the light flowing into him seemed to flow into the bowl of water. The nutmeg on the top swirled. The surface became glassy, like a window, or a mirror. Robert leaned forward and looked closely.
He beckoned them. “Look,” he said.
It was a big mixing bowl. One of Annie Beelock’s largest. The one she did the bread dough in. It was a clear two feet across.
In it, Sylvia could see a cloud of sparkling light.
She drew in a sharp breath and heard Lucy gasp beside her.
The cloud gradually resolved into a picture.
The picture was of Anna Masters.
Sylvia breathed extremely hard through a stabbing pain beneath her sternum.
“Anna!” she whispered.
The picture moved.
Anna’s head turned from looking at something they couldn’t see off to one side of the picture to face her as if she’d heard her.
It was a moving picture, Sylvia realised. Like a film. But in colour.
She glanced up at Robert. He was clearly still concentrating on getting the energy to flow toward the bowl, but he spared her a glance.
“That’s her?” he asked.
Sylvia nodded. “Yes!” Her voice was nothing more than a rasp in her throat. “That’s her.”
Robert took a breath and then another and somehow the picture became clearer. Sylvia could see that Anna was in the middle of a field. It was the clear spring dusk that had been common in France at that time of year. She could see stars faintly in the darkening sky. At the back of the picture, behind Anna, were two ambulances. She was seeing Anna and Sheila’s vehicles, Sylvia realised. In the mud. She could see another figure that looked like Sheila in the background of the image, beside the ambulances, futilely trying to rock the rear one of the pair out of the mud by pushing on the side. Anna turned back to her and said something that Sylvia couldn’t hear…there was sound, she realised belatedly. Sound! She could even hear the thud-crump of distant shells.
She saw Sheila’s mouth move as she replied to Anna, but Sylvia couldn’t hear what she said.
“Is this…are we watching what happened?” Lucy breathed beside her.
Again, Anna’s head swung round toward them. “Can you hear that, Sheila?” she shouted.
Sheila’s answer was indistinguishable as she looked over her shoulder at Anna.
Then Anna’s face changed. It was as if she was looking past them, behind them out of the picture. Her face paled and she looked frightened. “Gas!” she shouted. “Sheila! There’s gas coming. We need to run!”
She went back toward Sheila and pulled at her arm and pointed. Sheila looked toward them…through them…behind them? “That’s not normal gas!” she said. “Or it’s a new kind! Look! It’s got bits in it! It’s sparkling! Bloody hell! What’s Jerry got now?”
“We need to run,” Anna reiterated. “Come on! It’s our only chance. We can’t get mine out and we can’t get yours back past it.”
The road down to the railhead at Creil from the abbey was narrow and rutted. There had been no room to get the front ambulance out from behind the second one that was stuck, Sylvia remembered Sheila telling her. So, they’d started moving as fast as they could on foot across the adjacent farmland; or what remained of it.
Robert took another deep breath as the figures in the picture got smaller as they moved away from whatever viewpoint he was holding. The image flew after them and they grew larger again. Anna looked over her shoulder. “It’s getting closer, run faster!” she shouted. “Run, Sheila! Run!” She stumbled and fell. Sheila turned to go back and help her, but Anna waved her on. “I’m fine, keep going, don’t stop!”
Sylvia suddenly became aware of noises in the background. She could hear howling and baying. Like monstrous hounds, as if the sound were being carried to her from far away on the wind.
Anna could clearly hear it too.
“Dogs!” she said to herself. Sheila was a long way in front of her now. “Sheila, someone’s got dogs. Keep running! Don’t stop!” she shouted. And she turned her back to her watchers and began to follow Sheila.
Robert’s breathing was stentorian now. “I can’t hold it much longer, Sylv,” he said in a strained voice. “I can try and pull her through, use the rest of the words, but I don’t know if it’ll work. And the creatures…they’re getting close.”
Sylvia was aware that she could still hear the howling and barking all around them. It didn’t seem to be in the image with Anna or in the room with them. Just…everywhere.
“Do it!” she said, coming to a decision. “Do it! It can’t make things worse for her, can it?”
Robert read out the last few lines…
“Come forth, Anna Masters
Summoned by this power I hold between my palms
I draw you to me over distance, over time, over worlds…” and as he did so, he made a sort of grabbing and twisting motion with the hand that wasn’t holding the book, as if he was trying to catch something. His breathing became even louder and the light around him and the bowl flared.
As it did so, Matthew made a choked off noise from his position kneeling on the floor beside Robert. He had his hand on his friend’s back, supporting him. Robert’s eyes were closed as he concentrated.
Sylvia looked at him. “What?” she said, sharply.
“What if this is what pulls her away?” Matthew asked. “What if us looking for her, now, is what makes her disappear, then?”
Sylvia stared at him, aghast.
“Shitfire!” Robert sat up straight and began to cough. There was a loud, ringing bang and the light and the sound of the dog-things stopped dead. The bang had been the bowl cracking in half.
The water flooded off the low table and all over Sylvia’s lap. It was cold and very unpleasant and she shoved herself back from the waterfall.
As she moved aside, ineffectually fending the water off with her hands, she heard Matthew say “Rob…” and looked up toward them.
Robert was limp in Matthew’s arms. Walter shot around the table from where he’d remained in his seat on the settee and helped Matthew ease him back into the armchair he’d been perched on. “Fainted,” he pronounced, after a brief examination. He began to rub Robert’s hands. “Come on now, Curland,” he said. “No need to make a fuss.”
“Bugger you and your fuss,” Robert muttered fuzzily, eyes still closed, his breathing shallow and distressed.
Walter snorted. “You’ll do,” he said, patting his arm and then rising and coming over to Sylvia. “Up you get,” he said, putting a hand under her elbow and steadying her as she got to her feet before he held a hand down to Lucy to haul her up. “Towel?” he said to Matthew.
Matthew shook himself and stood carefully. “Yes,” he said. “Hang on.”
Sylvia allowed herself to be guided back to the settee and sat down gingerly. Lucy sat next to her and began to mop at her trousers with the towel Matthew tossed to her from the kitchen door. He returned with a tray with glasses of water and Walter handed her one whilst Matthew gave one to Robert and subsided to his knees again by the other man’s armchair.
Lucy finished with Sylvia’s damp lap and then wiped off the table and began to dab at the red-patterned carpet.
“Leave it,” Matthew said. “Just put the towel down on it.”
“Most of it went on me,” Sylvia said.
Her voice sounded like it was made from ground rocks. She took another
sip of water.
Robert finally sat up. “Well,” he said, heavily. “That was exciting.”
Sylvia choked. “You think that what we just did…what we just did was what caused the whole thing? What caused her to disappear?” she said to Matthew.
He looked at her, biting his lip, not answering.
“She’s been gone three years,” Sylvia said. “Three years! This couldn’t have caused it. Could it?”
Robert shook his head. “I don’t know.”
His voice was low and slower than normal, the country vowels very noticeable. “I really don’t know.” He trailed off. “But…it seemed to me like when I tried to go closer to her, that’s when she said the gas cloud was getting closer. And she could hear us, couldn’t she? Or hear something. And hear the creatures.”
“What were they?” Walter asked. “It didn’t sound like dogs.”
“We’ve never seen one properly,” Matthew answered. “Only a silhouette. They’re…a bit like gargoyles. As big as a man. The Frem we met…Lin…said they were very fierce. You don’t want to meet one.”
Walter nodded. “What were they doing?”
“Lin, the Frem we met…and Marchant…said that they’re sort of watchdogs. They’re attracted to power…to the magic, I suppose. They stop people using it. The Frem authorised guardians to use substantial amounts of power to control them. People like us…we can’t. So, they stop people pulling energy from the border. They seem to turn up and make those noises when you do a working that needs a lot of effort.”
Robert’s voice was very tired.
“So…” Lucy’s voice was small and careful, “they came and began to make those noises because they could sense what we were doing? Pulling the energy and sending it to Mr Curland?”
Robert nodded. “Yes. That’s what we were told. And what we’ve found, as well, when we do anything like this. Not that we have, for a long while.”
“So,” Lucy went on. “Anna and Sheila could hear them too. So…” she thought hard, “…we made a window between then and now. And the creatures were in both places at once?”
Matthew and Robert both stared at her.
Robert swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “That’s about it.”
“So, we made a link between the two times. And Anna…Anna fell into the gap in the middle.” Lucy’s voice was very small and very steady.
Sylvia blinked tears out of her eyes and looked down at the floor.
Chapter 29
There wasn’t anything to stay at Webber’s for, after that. Sylvia liked them a great deal; but Robert was exhausted, and Matthew was hovering over him like a hen with one chick. Sylvia felt guilty having asked them for help and was failing to hold on to her own emotions with occasional tears seeping out unbidden once again.
The toll it took on both Robert and Matthew was obvious. But she’d known it would be onerous when she accepted their help.
“We’re fine,” Matthew had said, when she had voiced her thanks over the cup of tea he’d produced once they were all a bit less shocked. “Or we will be. Rob says there’s nothing connected or joined to him; he can’t feel your friend. He’s tired, that’s all. He’ll sleep it off and be right as rain in a day or two. Stop fussing, Sylvia.” He looked at her shrewdly over his teacup. “You knew it might not give you the result you wanted when we started.”
Sylvia shook her head, biting the inside of her cheeks to control herself. “I know,” she said. “I’m very stupid.”
Lucy, sat beside her again, made a soft, pained noise. “Not stupid, Sylvia,” she said. “Just hopeful. There’s nothing wrong with that. And Mr Curland has proved that it wasn’t shells, or Jerry, hasn’t he?”
She shivered against Sylvia’s side. “I could feel the energy, like Mr Curland said. It’s a very strange feeling, isn’t it? I did my best to try to move it from me to you,” she said, looking over the table at the man sat with his eyes closed in the armchair.
He opened his eyes and looked across at her. “Yes, I felt you doing it, Miss Hall-Bridges. It helped. Every little bit helped.” He glanced at Walter, a firm, solid presence on her other side, and nodded at him.
Walter shook his head. “I could see it,” he said. “But I didn’t think I was doing much with it.”
“Every bit helped,” Robert repeated.
“I need to get home and change,” Sylvia said. “I smell like a rice pudding.”
She’d got most of the nutmeg in her lap along with the water.
Rob gave a tired chuckle and Matthew rose to his feet as she did. Lucy and Walter followed her example.
“Yes, let’s get you home,” Lucy said. She put her arm around Sylvia’s shoulders and guided her toward the door. “Come along. You’re dripping.”
“In more ways than one,” Sylvia said, quietly. She was still intermittently weeping.
* * * *
At home, she went up to her room to wash and change. She splashed cold water on her face and hoped that would deal with the headache she could feel hovering. When she came back down, she found Lucy curled in the big armchair closest to the fire that she’d taken as her own over the last few weeks. There were rattling noises from the kitchen, she assumed being made by Walter.
“He’s making tea,” Lucy said, seeing the direction of her glance. “And getting some cake.”
Sylvia nodded. Cake sounded marvellous. She subsided on the settee, her legs going out from under her all at once.
Lucy watched her carefully. “All right?” she asked.
“Not really,” Sylvia ran her hands over her face, trying to rub some feeling back into her cheeks. She felt numb all over.
“Do you think that we caused it?” she asked, finally. “Caused the cloud that they thought was gas? Caused Anna to disappear?” The stabbing pain under her sternum was back again.
Lucy was quiet for what seemed like a long while. The crackle of the fire was a familiar comfort in the background, as was Walter clattering the teapot and plates.
“I think it’s a possibility,” she said, finally. “From what we saw.”
Walter came in with the tea-tray. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, putting the things down on the table. “I could feel a bit what was going on…I could see the light going from you to him, Lucy. And feel it. It was fizzy. Really peculiar.”
“Does that mean we could do the things he does?” Lucy asked. Her voice was exceedingly small again. She took the teacup Walter held out to her but didn’t uncurl from the chair.
Walter shook his head. “Maybe?” He handed a cup to Sylvia. “Maybe? With practice. But I don’t want to, do you?” He sat down in his own chair. “Those things we could hear…they sounded like they’d kill you without thinking.”
Sylvia stifled a noise of distress. What if that was what had happened to Anna?
He looked over at her apologetically. “Sorry, Sylvia,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, don’t apologise,” she said. “It’s the truth. And if that’s what happened…then that’s what happened. I was the one who pushed to find out, wasn’t I? And if the finding out actually caused it, well, I have to live with that, don’t I? Facts are facts.”
She rubbed her hands over her face. The headache wasn’t going away.
“It’s very confusing,” Lucy said. “How something we did today could have also happened three years ago. I don’t understand it at all.”
“Well. If people can use this magic to travel through time, I suppose it makes sense,” Walter said, finally. “If time is like a ribbon…and…and you can loop the ribbon so that two bits touch.” He took a mouthful of tea. “Amazing really.” He looked over at Sylvia. “I can see why the older Webber went a bit doolally over it, can’t you? Being able to go back and correct your mistakes, that sort of thing.”
He stared into space. “For some people, that would be something worth making happen.”
Sylvia’s headache was starting to affect her vision. She rested her elbows on he
r knees and her face in her palms and said, “This though…I thought I was doing the right thing.” Her voice echoed in her ears from behind her hands. “And it turns out that, it was the wrong thing and caused it all to happen. I killed her.”
There was a short, pungent silence, broken only by the visceral throb of her head.
She was conscious of the sound of Lucy moving and then the settee dipping beside her as she sat down. Lucy’s arm fell warm across her shoulders and pulled her in tightly. “Shhh,” she said, tucking the crown of Sylvia’s head under her chin. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Sylvia burrowed her face into the warm, soft skin where Lucy’s neck and shoulder joined and kept her eyes shut. The pain in her head was almost a living thing, battering on her skull to get out.
“My face is melting,” she muttered.
“Have you taken anything for it?” Walter asked quietly from across the room.
Sylvia shook her head, feeling her brain rattling to-and-fro inside her skull as she did so.
“I’ll get some aspirin. You should go and lie down.” He knew how bad her head could get. She heard him standing up. “Take her upstairs, Lucy. I’ll bring something up for her to take.”
It was all a blur after that. Lucy helping her upstairs. Not being able to see anything on her right-hand side…it was like a curtain had come down, she knew things were there, her brain was trying to make up for it, but there was just this absence where she knew she should be able to see things. The unpleasant sharp taste in her mouth.
Lucy helped her out of her clothes and into her pyjamas and tucked her under the covers. The blessedly cool pillow under her cheek. Lucy drawing the curtains. Walter helping her to half sit up and swallow two aspirin and a glass of water.
And then lying in blessed dark and quiet, Lucy sat on the side of the bed holding her hand and very gently stroking her temples.
Chapter 30
“She’s sleeping,” Lucy said to Walter as she joined him in the kitchen an hour or so later.
