Six months passed and Summer was on the verge of giving up. Dorothea knew that Skye was alive; after all, he would one day become Storm’s father. So she made sure Summer did not lose all hope.
Knowing what she did about Dorothea galvanised Summer into renewed hope, and they spread their search further south.
The be-whiskered old man who sat on the crumbling old wall that surrounded the well-tended garden on the outskirts of Vichy regarded them with some curiosity as they alighted from their car and approached him. Dorothea and Reynard let Summer do all the talking as usual.
‘Bonjour Monsieur,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘I am looking for my son. We were separated during the war. He’d be about eight now.’
‘I am not certain I can help, mademoiselle,’ the man replied. ‘I am new to these parts.’
‘My son is named Skye,’ Summer persisted. ‘He was five when he was lost to me, some miles from here. We were in Orléans at the time.’
The man’s eyes lit up. ‘Orléans you say? How long ago was this?’
Summer shrugged. ‘About three years ago. He has blond hair and eyes of a curious amber colour, just like his father’s.’
The man clambered off the stone wall. ‘I think you had best come with me,’ he muttered.
He led them into the shabby cottage and asked them to wait in the living room while he went to speak with a young woman whom they could see in the adjacent kitchen. They could not hear what was being said, but the woman seemed angry.
‘No, Papa, you cannot let them take him!’
Summer clutched Dorothea’s hand as she heard those words, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.
‘But Ingrid, they have described him perfectly. If he should recognise her then we shall know. We both knew there might come a day when his parents would come looking for him.’
The woman bust into tears and ran from the kitchen, past the three visitors and fled into the garden. The old man came back into the living room. ‘You must forgive my daughter. We lived just outside Orléans during the war. We found the little boy wandering around in the fields near our house. Ingrid asked around, but no one knew who he was, so we took him in and looked after him. I told my daughter that one day the boy’s mother would come looking for him, but she didn’t believe me. We have only lived here for a couple of years – Ingrid wanted to start a new life away from the bad memories.’
Summer clenched her fists, but sensing what must be going through her mind, Dorothea gently restrained her. It was clear to them both that Ingrid had made no inquiries in Orléans to see if anyone knew who the boy was, otherwise one of those inhabitants would surely have remembered.
The man asked them to wait down in the living room while he went up the stairs, returning minutes later holding the hand of a rather nervous looking blond haired boy.
Dorothea took one look at him and saw Storm in his face.
Reynard took one look at him and saw Benjamin in his eyes.
Summer took one look at him and saw her son. She burst into tears of happiness, falling to her knees on the stone floor. She held open her arms. ‘Skye… come to mama darling.’
The boy stood there for a few moments, clearly unsure what to do. He looked up at the old man searchingly. ‘Do I know this lady, Uncle?’
‘Do you not recognise her?’
The boy faced Summer once more. ‘I think so. She looks familiar.’ He looked past Summer at Reynard and Dorothea. They too seemed somehow familiar. He frowned, his young face scrunched up as he racked his brain to remember. He could picture joy in the woman’s face. He could see her pressing her face close to his, laughing and joking with him as they played in the fields. He screwed his face tighter still. He could hear her singing lullabies to him as she tucked him into bed. He could hear her gently scolding him as he made mischief around the house.
He opened his eyes wide and ran to her. ‘Mama!’ he cried aloud though his own tears as he threw himself into her arms. ‘Oh Mama, you have come for me at last!’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Life was chaotic with two little mischief makers running riot around the Château Clétiàn, but no one minded. It felt fantastic to be home once more, and the sounds of laughter and children’s feet stampeding around the upper floor brought joy and vitality to those who lived there.
Nevertheless, Dorothea knew their days at the château were numbered. There was not a lot of money and the estate was just too expensive to run. She and Reynard talked at great length about it and decided to sell all the paintings that had been in the secret chamber – all save Trinity, which was to remain in the chamber to await discovery in the future. She also sold a large amount of her jewellery, keeping only the amethyst amulet and pendant, safe in the knowledge that the ring would one day find its way into a London antique shop.
She watched the world go by with great interest, witnessing first hand all sorts of historical events she had only seen in documentaries.
Having been told quite coldly by Hartmann that she should get on with her life and not waste whatever opportunities came her way by waiting for his unlikely release, Eleanor did just that. She and Leonora married identical twins and gave birth to daughters on the same day, half a world apart. Five years later, Eleanor had another daughter, but her happiness was tempered by the discovery that Hartmann had been granted his freedom a few years earlier. It had been a long time coming, and Eleanor had given up hope of him ever being released. He had spent those years looking for her, hoping to rekindle their love, and now he had finally come back into her life, against her better judgement she began an affair with him. Two years later, she abandoned her family and started a new life with Hartmann in Australia.
Every day, Dorothea had a sense of deja-vu, which constantly unsettled her. She found it ever more difficult to suppress her desire to return through the painting to her own time, to face the wrath of Diocletian. But she knew she dared not.
Still harbouring ever-present yearnings for Nathan, and still fuelled by a never ceasing desire to be with Spiridon, she was nevertheless deeply in love with her husband, and vowed not to follow her mother’s example.
In the end, she persuaded Reynard the time had come to sell the château and move to England. He had been reluctant at first, but Summer had agreed it was the best idea she had heard, and so it came to pass that the Château Clétiàn and all its lands finally passed out of the Clayton family’s control.
Summer and Skye moved on to a new life not far from the Clayton family, and Skye married a girl called Daisy; in 1959, they became parents to a son, whom they named Storm.
Reynard died in 1961, leaving Dorothea inconsolable. She had now lost all the men she had ever loved and was quite alone, although she had her friends around to help her to overcome her grief.
She had Summer, always a source of inspiration who saw the best in every situation, however bad it might appear, forever popping in to see how Dorothea was coping.
She also had Dino, who told her constantly that she was lucky to have spent so many happy years with his father.
And she had Justine Constantine, whom her son had fallen in love with.
When Dino introduced her to his fiancée, Dorothea’s sense of grief was replaced with an ever-increasing sense of dread as she realised events were beginning to spiral towards their inevitable conclusion.
Through Justine, whom Dino finally married in 1969, Dorothea met Constance and Leo, and their close friendship was forged.
Leo was Constantine, Spiridon’s brother. Though she had not seen him in Constantinople, Dorothea somehow instinctively recognised him the moment she met him. Unfortunately, Dino’s first meeting with Justine’s cousin at their wedding awakened the long dormant spirit of Diocletian.
When Leo was found murdered shortly after his twenty-first birthday, Dorothea knew the abomination within her son had perpetrated the crime, but she could say and do nothing. She also knew that Constantine would eventually take residence in Justine’s body, but t
hat Justine was safe at least until after the birth of Nola.
Following his daughter’s birth, Dino seemed to lose interest in his wife, spending an inordinate amount of time abroad. When he issued divorce papers – which Justine wasted no time in signing – Constantine knew it was safe to return.
Dorothea helped Justine understand what was happening to her. In a way, it was a relief. Justine had thought she was going mad, but it still unsettled her to think she was sharing her body with the spirit of a man who by her reckoning should be dead.
When the derelict building in a narrow lane off Regent Street came on the market, Dorothea snapped it up, purchasing it under an assumed name. When she bought it, she visited only once and made her way to the cellar where she buried the amulet, and then wandered around the building for a few minutes, reminiscing about what it would one day become. She knew exactly when to sell it on, and to whom.
Over the years, Dorothea watched everyone she had known from her life as Eudora grow up and live their own lives exactly as she remembered.
She watched Skye and Daisy drift apart, leaving Skye to bring up Storm alone, and she watched Constance marry Michael Bosporus and bear two children, Nathan – her godson – and Cassie.
She watched Eudora grow up from a distance, sending her the amethyst pendant anonymously as an eighteenth birthday presence.
She watched her granddaughter grow up, closer to her father than was preferable, and she watched her son drift back into Justine’s life.
Dino apparently committed suicide by jumping off Beachy Head, but his body was never recovered. Dorothea knew that having discovered Constantine’s return, Dino faked the suicide.
Then Justine was murdered, her death followed all too swiftly by that of Isadora and Gaia, and then Constance’s death signified the beginning of the end for Dorothea.
And finally, the fateful day arrived at last.
* * *
She stood in the doorway of the hotel room, Nathan slightly behind her, watching as the painting burned. She could see the body of her granddaughter lying on the floor, a pool of blood collecting beside her head. She felt great sadness for Nola, who should have had a better life than this. ‘Oh, Dino, you fool,’ she said finally. ‘You blind stupid fool; don’t you know what you’ve done?’
Recognising his mother’s voice, Dino turned, horrified to see Nathan Bosporus right behind her as she stepped into the room.
There was a look of sadness in Dorothea’s face. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you know who Spiridon is?’
Dino frowned, the gun still waving in a threatening manner. He had just killed his daughter, on top of all the other blood that was on his hands; what did the death of his mother by his hand matter now? ‘What do you mean, Mother? Stop talking in riddles!’
‘Look at me, Dino. Look at me as closely as you were looking at the portrait. Take a good, long hard look at me. Look beyond the white hair and wrinkles and age. See me as a young woman. Look hard, and tell me who I am. Tell me, who do you see?’
Dino stared and in a moment of startling clarity, the layers of age rolled back from his mother’s face and she was no longer Dorothea Clayton. ‘Oh my God,’ he whispered as he realised the truth.
Dorothea faced her son, a sad gleam of satisfaction in her eyes.
Dino – Diocletian – sank to his knees beside his daughter’s blood splattered body. The gun fell from his hand as he shook his head uncomprehendingly. ‘No,’ he gasped, looking into his mother’s eyes fearfully. ‘It cannot be!’ But he knew what he feared to be true was real. He only had to look into her eyes to see she was more than merely his mother.
Dorothea laughed without humour. ‘Oh but it is, my darling son!’
Hovering anxiously near the burning painting, wondering whether perhaps he should extinguish the flames, Nathan stared at Dorothea uncertainly. He failed to notice it before, however there was a peculiar familiarity to her voice. Grabbing a fire extinguisher from its wall mounting by the door, he put out the flames as they licked at the curtains, and believing the fire was out, returned his gaze to Dorothea and Dino, who still cowered on the floor before his mother.
‘Will one of you please tell me what’s going on?’ he demanded.
Dorothea turned her attention to Nathan, smiling. ‘It’s time for the truth,’ she said. ‘My son has finally recognised me. Do you recognise me too?’
Nathan was still shocked to find that his uncle was still alive, having apparently faked his suicide eighteen months ago for some hitherto unknown nefarious reason. On top of all the recent deaths, Nathan wanted to know what Dino had been up to, but he could not focus his thoughts into a cohesive question, and he now had Dorothea asking for more concentration. His head was beginning to hurt as much as his heart.
Dorothea stepped closer to him and reached out a bony old hand. Despite the age of the hand, when it touched his cheek, Nathan felt a bolt of electricity jolt through his body. He looked up and stared into the eyes of the old woman, his jaw slack with recognition. ‘Eudora?’
Still smiling, she nodded. ‘Yes, Nathan, it’s me. I have just jumped through that painting, and because my foolish son has burnt it, I couldn’t get back. It is a passage to another time. I first found myself in Constantinople, right at the beginning of this painting’s history.’
Diocletian growled ominously. ‘So, it was you I saw with Spiridon!’
Dorothea turned to him. ‘Yes, that was me. I was trapped there while I completed my task.’
‘What task?’
Dorothea ignored the question. ‘I had but a single night of passion with your father back then.’
Diocletian choked. ‘What the hell are you talking about, old woman?’
‘Dino, if you are still in there with this monster, your father is Spiridon. It is a secret I have carried all these years.’
‘You lie!’
‘No, I do not! You sought to destroy Spiridon’s soul by trapping it in this painting, Diocletian, but you failed. You failed because part of your memory was hidden before you left Atlantis.’
‘You know of Atlantis?’
‘Of course I do. I am Queen Theodora. You have been the instrument of your own demise, Diocletian. By imprisoning Spiridon in the painting, you set in motion a chain of events that led to this point. You are only here in this lifetime, in the body of my son, because Spiridon was able to take me back to the time when it all began. The Great Visionary of Old Byzantium deceived you. The six Power Jewels of Atlantis will enable Spiridon to leave his prison.’
Diocletian laughed cruelly. ‘But the painting is destroyed.’
‘Not quite. Spiridon will face his fears and conquer them, and he will make good his escape.’
* * *
Within the painting, Spiridon heard Dorothea’s words and knew he had to act with more swiftness than the wind.
When Eudora left the painting back in 1568, she had left her three Power Jewels behind, as Spiridon had instructed. While she was out of the painting he had taken them forward in time to the very end of the painting’s existence, and there he had left them, thrown onto the very precipice of reality, not quite in the real world, yet not fully in the painting’s realm.
There, on the threshold of existence, the jewels had remained, unfettered by the laws of causality and relativity.
And there they still were.
He could see them through the smoke, refracting the glittering light from the flames, which exploded all around, signalling the end of the portrait. Diocletian, having been severely misled, did not yet realise the flames would not travel through time, and therefore would not wipe Spiridon from existence as he believed they would.
Spiridon reached into the flames to retrieve the Power Jewels, but snatched his hands back as his robes smouldered and his hands blistered. He was so close to possessing all six, so close to having the power to defeat Diocletian and end his tyranny, that he also had within his grasp the power to return to Atlantis and f
ree his Queen.
Yet he could not fulfil his goal, for the entire time of his entrapment within the painting, he had been terrified of the flames.
Face your fear! You can do this! You know what to do. Be brave and be bold!
Bracing himself he thrust his hands into the flames, grabbed hold of the three Power Jewels, and then launched himself through the flames.
* * *
‘Dorothea… is all this true… are you really Eudora?’ gasped Nathan, shocked beyond belief. Everything he had heard was impossible. How could a painting be a portal through time?
Suddenly a figure burst through the flames as they flickered back to life, eating the remaining fragments of canvas where once there had been a beautiful painting. He landed on his feet, panting slightly.
‘No!’ shrieked Diocletian in fury. ‘No… it is not possible.’
Spiridon turned to face his nemesis. ‘It’s more than possible, Diocletian… it’s inevitable!’
As Spiridon raised both hands above his head, pinnacles of purple pulsed on both forearms, two fingers and at his throat, growing in radiance until six beams of light shot out, enveloping Diocletian in their power.
Diocletian could not move. He could not speak. He screamed in silent fury, and then faded from view.
‘Where’s he gone?’ gasped Nathan.
‘Back to Atlantis, where he will be securely locked away for his crimes,’ Dorothea sighed. ‘To all intents and purposes, my son died when Diocletian’s spirit was awakened. It’s better that people continue to believe he committed suicide last year!’
‘What about Eudora?’ Nathan added.
‘Everything will be as it should be,’ intoned Spiridon. More purple light radiated out of the pieces of jewellery he wore, enveloping both Dorothea and him in a fiery aura, and when it finally diminished they were gone, leaving Nathan standing quite alone with only the bodies of Nola, and Dino’s henchmen, for silent company.
He surveyed the carnage in the room, wondering what he should do.
Portrait of Shade Page 28
