Revenge and Retribution (The Graham Saga)

by Anna Belfrage

  “Mr Melville can prove nothing – you just heard him admitting to never having witnessed Mrs Graham do anything, and you’ve heard Brother Matthew say how the child lies buried in the old country.” Minister Allerton sounded almost bored.

  “But we must ascertain beyond doubt, must we not?” Minister Macpherson said. “We can’t risk leaving a witch at large.”

  “A witch?” Matthew growled. “Are you calling my wife a witch?” He leaned forward, glaring at Minister Macpherson who leaned back as far as he could.

  “No, no,” he said, “I’m just saying it must be further investigated.”

  “It sounds preposterous,” Minister Allerton broke in. “Has anyone ever accused Mrs Graham of any untoward behaviour before?”

  “No,” Minister Walker said, “no, no one ever has.” He turned to where Simon was standing. “You have just accused your sister-in-law of dabbling with magic, of being a witch. Surely you have something you can bring forth to substantiate such a grievous accusation.”

  Simon looked as if he wanted to sink through the floor, eyes darting from Alex to the minister.

  “I’ve never said Alex is a witch – never! I have just said how she knows about these wee pictures.”

  “Is it she that paints them?” Minister Macpherson asked.

  “No.” Simon threw Alex a look. “I don’t think so. But she has used them, I swear she has!”

  “And I swear she hasn’t,” Matthew said, “and I will gladly put my sword up to the test, should it be needed.”

  Simon blanched. “You lie, Matthew, you lie and you know it!”

  “No, Mr Melville, it is you that lie, in a pathetic attempt to save your daughter from a punishment she justly deserves. Mayhap if you’d raised her better, this would never have happened,” Matthew said, with so much ice in his voice Simon took a step back from him.

  Minister Macpherson cleared his throat. “You have no proof then, Mr Melville? You can’t prove she’s used them, nor can you say it is she that paints them.”

  “I know she used them. I saw her ride out with the lad and return alone.”

  “And is there anyone to corroborate this?” Minister Macpherson pushed. Simon turned towards Joan. She was sitting hunched together on the bench, face hidden in her shaking hands.

  “No,” Simon replied after a couple of beats of silence. “I don’t think there is.”

  Matthew released some of the pressure on Alex’s hand.

  “Hmm,” Minister Walker said, looking Alex up and down.

  Minister Allerton drummed his fingers against the table, shaking his head from side to side. “Really, Minister Walker, to insinuate a man as upright and devout as Brother Matthew would countenance a witch as a wife… No, it stretches my mind. Besides, Mrs Graham doesn’t deny having seen a picture such as this before, does she? And you need only look at her to see how terrified she is of it.” He smiled in her direction.

  “Precisely,” Simon cut in. “And why would she be, unless she knows what it can do? She knows they lead to other times, gentlemen. She fears she might be dragged from this time to another if she comes too close. And how does she know? Because—”

  “Lies, Mr Melville, preposterous imaginings!” Matthew broke in, voice cracking with anger.

  Simon ignored him, raising his hand to point at Alex. “Because she doesn’t belong here, gentlemen. She comes from a future time!”

  “Simon,” Joan protested hollowly.

  No, Alex pleaded silently, please don’t do this Simon. Not to me, not to Matthew.

  “She’s a time traveller!” Simon screeched. “She brought them with her, these evil, wee things! It is her fault, aye? My daughter just found one—”

  “…and used it,” Mr Farrell thundered.

  “Exactly,” Minister Allerton agreed, causing Simon to deflate as quickly as a pricked balloon.

  Minister Walker turned very appraising eyes on Alex. “Is it true, Mrs Graham? Have you indeed fallen through time?” He sounded frightened.

  Alex shook her head, attempting an eye roll to show how ridiculous that concept was.

  “And yet your brother-in-law says you have,” Minister Macpherson said.

  Joan struggled to her feet. “He doesn’t—”

  “He’d say anything at the moment,” Matthew cut in. “Disgusting, lying lawyer.” He spat in the direction of Simon before looking Minister Walker fully in the eyes. “My wife is a God-fearing woman, a loyal companion and helpmeet. To insinuate she is something else is a lie – a blatant lie.”

  “Mrs Melville?” Minister Walker said. “You were about to say something?”

  Joan looked at Alex, at her brother. She licked her lips, waving away Simon when he tried to steady her. “Alexandra Lind is not a witch,” she said. “I don’t know—” She broke off, throwing Simon an agonised look. “I’m not sure why my husband—”

  “Joan,” Simon groaned, “please, Joan.” He held out his hands to her.

  Joan backed away. “…why he is speaking such untruths.” She turned to look at the ministers. “I dare say he’s distraught, mayhap even out of his wits what with Lucy and…” Her voice wobbled. She took a deep breath. “Alex is my most beloved good sister. I have known her for most of our lives, and I will gladly swear on anything – everything – that she has never performed magic. Not in any way, aye?”

  For a long time, Minister Walker studied Alex before nodding towards the Bible.

  “Will you place your hand on the Holy Writ and swear that you have never practised any type of magic?”

  Alex took a step towards the table, bringing her far too close to the painting. Still, she managed to put her trembling hand on the worn leather covers.

  “I swear I have never practised magic.”

  *

  Several things happened at once. Simon uncovered the painting, Matthew threw himself after Alex who was helplessly propelled towards it, and Lucy rose to her feet. She watched with fascination as Alex was dragged towards the painting, and this time the sounds Lucy heard were louder than ever before. Her aunt’s face contorted itself in despair, her uncle was gripping his wife around her waist, trying to pull her free, but the painting tugged and tugged, dragging a frantic Alex towards it. Alejandra, it roared, and Lucy blinked. The Voice was calling her daughter home, but the daughter didn’t want to go. Lucy vacillated for some seconds. Hands closed on her arm.

  “For the love of God, daughter, if you can, do something!” Joan pleaded. “Please, Lucy, save her!”

  *

  Alex’s eyes rolled back into her head. She was no longer here; she couldn’t feel her body or the pressure of Matthew’s arms around her. All she could see was a whirling, beckoning maelstrom of colour, and, winking in the distance, home. Not the home she wanted, nor the people she truly loved, but home nonetheless, and the whirlwind tightened its grip round her head to the point that she thought it might burst. Something screamed – an extended high-pitched howl that had her brain writhing. Alexandra Ruth scurried away to hide from all of this in the deepest reaches of her mind.

  *

  Lucy held the broken picture in her trembling hands. It had screamed in agony when she snapped the frame, and from the expression on the faces around her, they had heard it too. On the floor, Matthew was cradling an unconscious Alex, and Minister Allerton kneeled beside him, with Joan hovering uncertainly behind her brother’s back.

  I should have burnt it, Lucy thought, I should have done as Da said. Carefully, she fitted the broken pieces of frame together, staring down at the reassembled picture. No more noise, she reflected, no calling voices, nothing. A white spot – she had never really seen it before, hidden in the depths of all that blue. The spot shimmered, it pulsed like a living heart, and light poured out: bright white light that made Lucy laugh out loud at the sheer beauty of it.

  She didn’t hear the voice calling out behind her – of course she didn’t – and in any case, it was too late. Lucy Jones allowed herself to fall into the open ga
tes of time.

  *

  Inside her skull, Alex was reeling. Where was she? She saw pinpricks of light that burst into stars; she waded through a thick sludge of freezing darkness; she heard Isaac calling for her – a man’s voice, not a child’s – she even saw him, in jeans and an unbuttoned shirt with a marten brush in his hands.

  Her brain stretched like a narrow tightrope between this time and that time. Below her gurgled an inky blackness. Isaac…she could hear him, but where was the other man, the man with beautiful eyes and a hand that braided itself so hard around her own? Matthew…yes, she sighed with relief, his name was Matthew. There was his voice, a thin, barely audible sound at first.

  “Come back,” she heard. “Come back to me.”

  In her head, Alex slid her bare foot onto the tightrope and began the dangerous walk across the abyss. She could smell him now, the fear that hung like a sour top note over the fragrance that was purely his, of wood smoke and freshly cut peat, of water murmuring over a pebbled bed. She drew in a shaky breath, and he filled her lungs. She groped for his hand and she could feel his pulse, his beat drumming loudly into her. His heart under her ear, her heart under his hand… Alex opened her eyes to stare into the hazel eyes above her face.

  “Matthew.” She raised a hand to touch him. Tears hung from his eyelashes; they seeped out of the corners of his eyes and ran down his cheeks.

  “Oh God,” he whispered, crushing her even harder to him. “My beloved heart.”

  *

  Minister Allerton had kept a cool head throughout the havoc, and after ensuring the trampled canvas was burnt to ashes, he surveyed the scene before him dispassionately.

  Simon Melville had sunk down to sit, his face hidden in his hands, and from the way his shoulders were heaving, the minister surmised he was weeping. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? His only daughter gone, his brother-in-law forever lost to him. The implacable look that Matthew threw in Simon’s direction only confirmed that never would he forgive Simon for putting his wife through these last minutes of sheer terror.

  As to Joan Melville, the poor woman was shaking as an aspen leaf, her gaunt features tinged an unhealthy grey. Thankfully, Kate Jones was standing beside her, one arm slipped around Mrs Melville’s waist to hold her upright as she gently led her towards a nearby bench. Joan Melville wasn’t weeping. She was staring straight ahead, those large, luminous eyes of her blank and unfocused.

  Minister Allerton drummed his fingers against his thigh, his eyes stuck on Alex who was still hiding against her husband’s chest. Something was not entirely right there. Not that he suspected Alex Graham of practising black arts, but still… He scrolled back through the recent proceedings, and there it was again: a niggling something. The way Matthew’s face had shuttered at the word time traveller, and how Alex had hunched when Simon said that, her eyes wide with…surprise? No, not surprise, nor confusion. Julian drummed his fingers against the tabletop. Betrayal, he nodded, that was it. She had looked at Simon with the eyes of someone who finds her deepest secrets betrayed.

  Julian attempted a silent laugh. Ridiculous all of it. People weren’t swallowed into the maw of time. It was all a flight of fancy – except that Lucy Jones had disintegrated into nothingness, and not a trace remained of her.

  Chapter 27

  For days afterwards, Alex barely functioned. Julian had offered them to stay with him, explaining sweepingly to his daughters that Mrs Graham had been struck by sudden illness and had to be allowed to rest before they began the long ride back home. Matthew and Alex spent almost all their time in Julian’s little attic room. All Alex seemed to do was sleep, but it was a restless sleep, and Matthew sat like a guardian angel by her side, snatching sleep when he could. Repeatedly, he woke her to ensure she wasn’t slipping away from him through her dreams, and every time the waking came a little bit easier, even if there was a long frightening moment when she would look at him blankly, blinking when he called her name. It drove shards through his heart, as did those instants when her eyes dulled into an opaque blue, her features whitening with remembered fear.

  “If…” Alex let her head fall back and made an appreciative noise when he dragged the brush through her tangled hair.

  “If?” Matthew prompted, exchanging the brush for his fingers, sinking them all the way into her multi-coloured hair: brown mostly, but here and there greys and bronzes and from her temple that white tendril that she’d had for years now.

  “I’ll die,” she said. “If I’m ever pulled back, I won’t survive.” It came out so cracked he could barely hear her. She turned anguished eyes in his direction. “You know, right? You know that should something like that happen, I’ll die thinking of you.”

  “Shush.” He placed a finger over her mouth. “You will never leave me.”

  “If Lucy hadn’t snapped the frame, you wouldn’t have been able to hold me,” Alex said in a weak voice. “It was dragging me towards it, and I would have disappeared, no matter how hard you held on.”

  “So you must never come close to such again,” Matthew replied with a calm he didn’t feel. No crossroads, no wee pictures, no thunderstorms… He felt himself bowing with the burden of keeping her safe from the rifts in time.

  Alex rolled towards him and nestled against him. “No, I suppose I had better not.” She patted at his chest. “Go to see Simon, Matthew. Simon and Joan, they need you.” He shook his head, but she didn’t see, almost asleep against his shoulder. “What he did to me, to us… How could he? But she’ll die soon,” she mumbled, “and they’ve lost their only child.”

  *

  “I don’t know how she can be so willing to forgive,” Matthew said to Julian, nursing a generous brandy in his hands. “It was Simon’s unsubstantiated accusations that put her so at risk.”

  Julian Allerton nodded, sipping at his own glass.

  “Look at her! Weak as a mewling kitten, she walks dazed through her days, incapable of much more than feeding herself! She doesn’t talk much, not even with me, and at night…” Matthew shuddered and downed the rest of his brandy in one gulp. “She dreams, Julian, she weeps and wakes, but isn’t awake, and then she dreams again, and it is violent and restless. You should hear her—” He snapped his mouth shut before he said too much.

  “But she’s right.” Julian topped up their pewter cups. “Joan and Simon have need of you. Simon may have acted wrongfully, but they’ve lost their only child, and Ruth says how Joan has taken to her bed, refusing food. She is not long for this world, and she’s your sister, is she not?”

  “Aye, she is that.” Matthew dragged a hand through his hair and got to his feet, swaying with exhaustion and too much drink. “Ruth is with her, and that’s good.”

  “Ruth is seventeen in two weeks, too young to be left to handle this on her own, and, from what I understand, Simon is so filled with despair he is no help, no help at all.”

  Matthew sighed profoundly. He had no wish to leave Alex, not even for a minute, but he couldn’t very well ignore his sister in her last hours on earth. “I’ll go and see her tomorrow.”

  *

  Upstairs, Alex was struggling to keep afloat on the surface of a dream-filled sleep. She didn’t want to sink down into those swirling mists. She tried to remain in a dozing state where she at least knew who and where she was.

  She turned on the bed, feeling the rope bottom give. That brought her up to the reassuring surface again. Yes, this was Matthew’s time, and the bed stood in Julian’s house, and someone had to tighten the rope frame because the middle was sagging. She tried to blink herself awake, but she was too tired after endless nights of vivid, frightening dreams. She sank into the black of her subconscious.

  Isaac was there, and he smiled at her, beckoning her to come close, to return to them. No, she didn’t want to, and Isaac’s eyes stared reproachfully at her, inches from her own. She got the distinct impression she was lying in a bed, and people were hovering around her, eyes on things that beeped and thumped, monitoring her
every thought.

  Leave him, Isaac whispered, come back to me, to me, Mama. Am I not owed for all these years?

  Alex twisted in anguish, and all around her the future life took horrifying shape: TVs that hung flat and embedded on the walls, computers that were called tablets and were run by touch, electrical light that poured from fixtures in the roof.

  It’s just a dream, Isaac went on. None of that life you think you’ve led is true. A dream, Mama, that has encapsulated you for years while we’ve sat waiting at your side.

  No, Alex moaned, no, it isn’t a dream! Not my Matthew, not my sons and daughters.

  A dream, Isaac repeated, his dark eyes suddenly cold and hard. A dream, your life is a dream, he whispered, laughing gratingly.

  “No!” Alex shrieked out loud, was awake for a moment with her heart in her mouth and then was dragged inexorably back under.

  “Alex?” Hands holding, shaking gently, lips that brushed her forehead. “Alex, my heart.”

  A dream, a dream, nothing but a dream. He doesn’t exist, this man of yours. Isaac giggled maliciously.

  But he did. Alex struggled back into the light, and the man holding her was solid under her hands, his concerned eyes a gold-flecked green in the light of the candle he had lit.

  “Matthew?”

  “Aye, Matthew, that’s me, lass.”

  Alex struggled to sit, her sweat-drenched shift sticking to her skin. Matthew handed her a mug of cider, helping her to hold it steady. She blinked, trying to clear her mind of the fragmented images of Isaac. Jesus, I’m going insane, she thought. She drained the mug and with trembling hands began to undo the laces of her chemise.

  “Let me,” Matthew said. He got her out of the sopping garment, and found a towel to pat her dry with, sitting with her shivering, naked body on his lap. She curled into him, her arms tight around his neck, and he ran his warm hands up and down her bare skin, crooning her name in a hoarse, breaking voice.

  “I’m not sure,” she groaned. “Are you for real? Or are you the dream?”