The Garden of Promises and Lies

by Paula Brackston

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” Flora promised as she headed back across the lawn.

  Harley mumbled something about tea not being quite what he had in mind and Xanthe found herself explaining the bricks and rubble they had to walk around on their way back into the house. She led them into the kitchen, pausing to release Pie, who bounded excitedly from person to person. Five minutes later coats had been slung over the backs of chairs and they were all sitting at the narrow wooden table sipping hot drinks, the fumes from Harley’s mug giving away the tot of whiskey he had persuaded Flora to add to his. A slightly stunned silence had descended until Harley said, “Well, lassie, it’s your story to tell.”

  She looked at Liam.

  “It’s quite a lot to swallow,” she said. “And to be honest, I’m not sure how to start.”

  “OK,” he said, glancing at Flora, “let me see if I’ve understood so far. Harley called me up, said you needed my help, met me at the door of the pub and brought me round here. He was gabbling on about some dangerous bastard…”

  “Aye, Fairfax,” Harley put in.

  “… and about how this guy was the one that started the fire.”

  Flora nodded. “Xanthe told me what she thinks happened. It’s a lot to get your head around, but once you do it sort of makes sense.”

  Liam went on, “And then Harley starts telling me this guy lived hundreds of years ago, and that’s where you have to go to sort him out. At which point I think I might have used some bad language…”

  “Understandable,” said Harley.

  “… but Harley insisted he hadn’t been drinking…”

  “Well, no more than usual,” he confirmed.

  “… and that the best way for me to believe him was to talk to you. To see the blind house, and to hear about the wedding dress and the time travel directly from you. Only he wasn’t completely sure you wanted to tell me.”

  Xanthe sipped her tea, frowning through the steam at Harley. “I wanted to show Mum. She had … has a right to know. This all affects her directly.”

  Harley looked sheepish but determined. “I’m sorry I took it upon myself, lassie, but I did it out of concern for your safety. You know that.”

  “I only wish you’d told us both sooner,” said Flora.

  Liam spooned more sugar into his tea. “Yes, if it was OK to keep us in the dark about all this … time traveling—wow, doesn’t sound any less crazy when I say it—if it was OK before, why tell us now? I mean, by the sound of it you’ve been managing without me,” he pointed out, a note of hurt to his words.

  Xanthe said, “That’s exactly what I’ve been telling Harley. He wanted me to share all this sooner, but I didn’t want anyone else taking risks. The found things sing to me; the people who call out for help call to me.”

  “You are the Spinner, lassie.”

  “A Spinner?” Liam needed clarification

  “That’s what we are called,” Xanthe told him. “We spin through time.”

  “Logical. I think.”

  “My point is, it’s for me to do,” she went on. “Only now…”

  “Now?” Liam waited.

  “Now Fairfax is reaching my time, my home. He’s threatening not just me but, well, anyone who matters to me. He said as much to my face, just a few short steps away from here, sitting at one of Gerri’s tables.”

  “He was that close?” Liam’s expression darkened. “That’s when you should have come and got me!”

  “He didn’t stay long. His position in the modern world is pretty weak, really. I mean, think about it, modern technology, the way everything works, he’d be like an innocent. And I got the impression it was a fleeting visit. Where he’s chosen to live—the early eighteen hundreds—from what I’ve found out he has money there, and some influence.”

  Flora asked, “And that’s the time you think he’s causing all this damage to the house? You think he’s doing it somehow from there? From then?”

  “Somehow, though don’t ask me how it all works. Which is why I need to go back to that time, which is when the wedding dress began. It’s connected to Fairfax and calling me back to deal with him. Not for my sake, but for the poor girl he’s supposed to be marrying.”

  “OK.” Liam rubbed his temples slowly. “Let’s say I get the whole time-traveling thing, which you might still be trying to convince me of if I hadn’t stood in that stone shed and watched you disappear and reappear … let’s go with that. And obviously this Fairfax is a…”

  “… dangerous bastard,” Harley put in.

  Liam nodded. “Yeah, that. The fire, the chimney … OK, that’s a given too, then. And he needs dealing with. What I don’t get is, why? Why is he bothering? I mean, he’s a time traveler, you say he’s pretty well set up in his own time … what’s he want from you?”

  “I think it’s the Spinners book,” Xanthe explained, daunted at the thought of how much Liam didn’t know about. How much she would have to try to help him understand. “It’s a book that contains all their wisdom and secrets.”

  “Aye.” Harley’s eyes brightened as he spoke of it. “’Tis a wondrous thing! Like an instruction manual for your time traveling, though a wee bit more cryptic.”

  Xanthe smiled. “Sadly. I wish it was more straightforward.”

  “Where did it come from?” Liam asked.

  “It was here, in with a bunch of old editions of poetry and local history. Part of Mr. Morris’s stock. I nearly chucked it out, before I knew what it was.”

  Flora beamed. “It was waiting for you!”

  “It does sort of feel like that.”

  Liam shrugged. “I’m sure it’s great, but, really? Fairfax is going to all this trouble for a book? If he’s already time traveling, isn’t that enough?”

  “Nothing is ever enough for Fairfax,” said Xanthe.

  Harley was quite indignant. “It’s not just any old book, laddie. Make no mistake, this would be powerful hoodoo in the wrong hands. And they don’t come much more wrong than yon Fairfax. Assuming, that is, he can read it.”

  “It’s in a foreign language?” Liam was confused.

  She put it as simply as she knew how. “You can only see what’s in it if you are a Spinner.”

  “Yes,” Flora confirmed, “I’ve seen it. It only shows me blank pages, but when Xanthe touches it, the stories start to appear! Because it only reveals itself to a Spinner.”

  “Or sometimes a trusted helper,” Harley piped up, unable to hide his glee at this fact, showing as it did how important he had been in helping Xanthe with her tasks.

  “So?” Liam shrugged again. “Isn’t that exactly what Fairfax is?”

  “Yes and no. There are different types. Different levels. For instance, he needs a special object to travel. An astrolabe.”

  “You’re going to tell me what that is, aren’t you?”

  “It’s a device for plotting the movement of planets and stars.”

  “Your astrological pocket watch, kinda thing,” Harley suggested.

  “Anyway,” Xanthe went on, “I don’t think it’s what it was made for that really matters. For some reason it works for Fairfax. No other astrolabe will do. Other Spinners, well, we can use lots of different objects, if they call to us. And I come home using something that’s precious to me and rooted in my own time,” she explained, taking her gold locket out from beneath her dress again and showing it to Liam. “Fairfax has his limitations.”

  “Though not,” Flora pointed out, “when it comes to destroying our home.”

  Xanthe reached over the table and squeezed her hand. “It’ll be OK, Mum. I promise.”

  “I might be missing something here,” Liam went on, “but if there’s a chance he wouldn’t even be able to use this … time traveler’s bible … why would Fairfax go to all this trouble, presumably risking his own neck when he came here … I mean, if he can’t see what’s written in it…?

  “… he’d need to make sure he had someone with him who could,” Harley said.
r />   Liam gave him a sharp look. “He’d need Xanthe?”

  For once, nobody spoke. Each was processing the importance of this fact. Each silently coming to realize now the true extent of the danger. At last, Liam voiced their collective fear.

  “So if you go back to where he’s well established and surrounded by people who would support him, if you try to get this gadget off him, chances are not only will he want to get that book from you, he’ll want to keep you there. Forever.”

  Xanthe shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “He’s tried before. I didn’t let him.”

  “He came close, hen,” Harley reminded her. “Which is why I’d feel a whole lot better if you took Liam with you when you go back again.”

  “Wow!” was all Liam could manage to say.

  “I agree,” said Flora. “If you must confront him, and I can see that you will, please don’t do it on your own, Xanthe, love. Not this time.”

  Harley leaned forward on the table, the weight of his arms causing the wood to creak. “Listen to your mother, lassie. We’ve seen what this fella can do. Liam can help you.”

  Flora nodded. “I understand that you have to go, really I do, but … not alone.”

  “I’ve managed on my own so far,” she pointed out, but in truth her resistance to the idea was fading. Pie had traveled with her without suffering any ill effects. It wasn’t going to be easy taking Fairfax’s beloved astrolabe from him. And seeing Flora’s face now, the worry there, wanting to make up for the secrets and deception … “OK,” she said finally. “Yes, if it’ll put your mind at rest, Mum, Liam can come with me.”

  Liam made a small noise beside her and she realized that she had not actually asked him if he wanted to go with her.

  “Oh, Liam, I…”

  He stood up, taking his shearling coat from the back of his chair. “Xanthe, do you think I could have a word, in private?”

  “Of course,” she said, following him out of the kitchen and down the stairs. When they got to the back door he pulled it open and invited her to sit next to him on the step, so that they sat, side by side, gazing out at the darkened garden and the shadowy shapes of the ruined chimney on the lawn. There was no frost, but still the night air was cool, and Xanthe was not wearing a jacket. Liam took his sheepskin coat and wrapped it around both their shoulders, gently pulling her closer to him and keeping his arm tight around her waist. She could feel the warmth of him still in the woolen fleece inside the coat. After all the excitement of the evening, all the joy, in fact, of sharing her secret with those who mattered to her, it was good to feel calm for a moment, snug and safe.

  “I suppose it’s a lot to take in,” she said quietly. “Time travel. A murderous stalker.”

  “Actually, I’m kind of relieved.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah. Well, you’ve been quite secretive, on and off, and that gets a person thinking, you know. Wondering. What with trips away, and ex-boyfriends…”

  “Marcus? I promise you, I’m completely done with him.”

  “I wanted to think that, of course I did.”

  “So it’s a relief to find out I’ve been traveling to a distant time and am being pursued by a man who most recently made a large chunk of my house fall off?”

  “Well … now that you put it like that.”

  “You don’t have to come with me, you know.”

  “I know. I can stay here and just think about you being trapped in time a couple of hundred years ago with some lunatic.”

  “I can do this on my own.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “And it’s not as if it’s my idea, actually, you coming with me. It’d just make Mum feel better about me going, and I do owe her that, I think.”

  “I know you’re not asking me for you.”

  “I don’t want you to feel pushed into it.”

  “The way you’ve been pushed into asking me?” he replied.

  She found she had nothing to say to that. For a moment they sat as they were, a distant ambulance siren striking a discordant note in their tense little silence. She felt wearied by having to make difficult choices yet again. How could she be sure Liam would be safe with her? How did she know taking him would even be the right thing to do, assuming he agreed to go at all? Did she have the right to ask him in the first place?

  As if sensing her confusion, her doubt, he turned and nuzzled her hair, kissing her ear softly.

  Xanthe allowed herself to relax and let her guard down just the smallest bit.

  “This is a great jacket,” she said. “Super cozy.”

  “It’s nicer with you in it.”

  “It’s a nice place to be.”

  He paused and then said, “I tell you what wouldn’t be nice; you not being here. Not nice at all.”

  She pulled away a little and turned to study his face. His expression was, for once, serious, and she saw in it such genuine affection that it pulled at her heart.

  “You’d have to wear breeches,” she told him. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “And fulfill a lifelong secret ambition,” he insisted, hugging her close again.

  * * *

  Harley went home and Flora, still slightly drained from her journey to the past, went to bed. Liam and Xanthe stayed up long into the night making plans for their trip. She found a notebook and they made a careful list of everything they might need. This time there would be no room for mistakes and no possibility of playing things by ear. They would have a meticulously thought-through strategy and stick to it. One of the most important aspects of this was their cover. Two young people could not simply appear with no family, background, or status. If Xanthe was to find her way into the Wilcox family and befriend the bride-to-be in order to get at Fairfax whilst enjoying the safety of that friendship, she would have to be persona grata. That meant a plausible background, possible connections, and a reasonable grasp of the etiquette of the day. Xanthe was confident she could behave accordingly, having had to modify her mannerisms and speech and body language when visiting the seventeenth century. She also had a fair grasp of history, learned through growing up in the antiques trade. Liam, on the other hand, had far less knowledge and experience to build on, and precious little time to do anything about it. They decided he would have to affect a taciturn and moody personality, not given to speaking unless absolutely necessary. This in itself would be a stretch. While they continued their plans, Xanthe dragged him into the sitting room and put historical dramas on the TV, hoping that he would pick up some of the cadences of the way people talked and their formal, reserved manners. She also searched the internet for a song or two that was popular at the time, knowing that young ladies were expected to be accomplished. If she and Liam could sing at least something it would be a great help. At last she settled on a song from The Doctor and the Apothecary by Storace, who had been a contemporary of Mozart. She printed out the music and lyrics and showed it to Liam.

  “‘The Sailor’s Lullaby’? Really?” He was not convinced.

  “Trust me, we don’t want anything contentious. Nothing bawdy, nothing maudlin, nothing too moralistic—this is ideal. It’s short, so we can both memorize it. And look at the key and the tune. I should be able to sing it well enough, and you can figure it out on whatever keyboard we’re faced with.”

  There was no time to go in search of a keyboard or fetch one of Liam’s guitars, so they practiced a cappella until they had a reasonable grasp of the thing. It was nearly two in the morning when Liam called a halt, insisting they get some sleep. There was a lot to do in the morning before they could leave. And a great deal depended on the success of their journey. They needed to be rested. They needed to be at their best.

  * * *

  She knew what she had to do. Since her conversation with Mistress Flyte a plan had begun to take shape in her mind, and the more she thought about it, the more she believed it could work. She would not return to Bradford as some lowly traveling minstrel, who after all would have no
place in smart Regency society. Instead, with the help of Mistress Flyte, she would present herself as the daughter of a well-to-do family, newly arrived in the area, who also happened to be a particularly accomplished singer. She would find a way to engineer an encounter with the young Wilcox girl and befriend her. That way she could get close to Fairfax but have the protection of the very family he planned to marry into. To be convincing she would need more clothes and more money. She knew there was not much by way of suitable coins among the shop stock, so she would have to find something to sell. It had to be easily transportable and of obvious value, but could not, of course, have anything about it that made it obvious it had originated in an era after the one she was visiting. To make matters more complicated, it must not be too near the time she was going to or it wouldn’t make the journey with her. She was still uncertain how much latitude she had regarding the date of things, but she knew two versions of an object could not exist side by side. She unlocked the glass display cabinet in the corner of the shop and searched for suitable items. There was a nice pair of silver berry spoons, probably late Georgian, so the date was about right. She held them to test the weight. It was good quality silver, hallmarked with an anchor, meaning it had originated in Bristol. She ran her thumb over the indented designs, beautifully worked, depicting small bunches of blackberries and their leaves. It was a start. Further hunting yielded a silver snuff box, quite plain but in good condition, and an eighteen-inch gold chain. The necklace was most likely twentieth century, but the link was an old style known as Byzantine and there was nothing to say when it had been made. It was heavy, and would certainly fetch a good price. With mounting guilt at how much she was taking from the shop, she added a plain gold band and a pretty cameo to her haul. She needed something to put them all in. She took a handful of tissue paper off the walnut desk that served as their counter and wrapped the precious pieces into a secure bundle. Her leather and canvas satchel had served the purpose well for the seventeenth century but would not do now. She cast her eye about the shop, delighted to find a carpetbag with a brass clasp. She had a vague memory of Flora having bought it at an auction a few weeks back.