‘What has happened here?’
He whirled around at the sudden voice behind him, clutching his chest with relief when he saw his sister standing there. ‘God, Cassie, you frightened the hell out of me! What are you doing here?’
Cassie looked dispassionately down at the corpses sprawled nearby, and then cast a curious look at the remains of the painting. ‘Am I too late?’ she asked.
Nathan stared at her. She seemed almost to be in some bizarre trance. ‘Are you all right, Cassie?’
‘I am Cassandra, Protectorate of Time.’
Nathan took a couple of steps back into the room. ‘What are you talking about, Cassie?’ he gasped. ‘These people are dead. I need to call the police.’
Cassandra held aloft her hands. ‘Everything will be as it should be.’
‘That’s what that man said, just before he and Dorothea… Eudora… vanished. Cassie, do you know what has been going on? I don’t understand any of it.’
‘Everything will be as it should be,’ Cassandra repeated.
The world suddenly exploded into light, and Nathan lost consciousness.
Epilogue
Awakening from what felt like a deep sleep feeling fully refreshed, she stretched languorously and sat up. She smiled as she stroked the head of the man who lay snoring contentedly beside her, but as the remaining vestiges of sleep departed, momentary confusion set in.
She could remember everything that had happened and knew the police were bound to ask questions concerning recent events, but she would worry about that later… when she could remember who she was.
Who am I?
Am I Dorothea?
Dorothea Clayton was dead, just like her son, and just like Dino when he ‘committed suicide’ eighteen months earlier, there would be no sign of Dorothea’s body.
Am I perhaps Theodora?
Theodora Dieudonné, Queen of Atlantis in some other lifetime, also the alleged concubine of the Sultan, Selim II; in another time and place, her spirit had sought shelter within the mind of Eudora Donat. Theodora, having returned to Atlantis to continue her rule, with Spiridon by her side, possessed memories of the one whose mind she had shared.
Am I then Eudora?
Eudora had been returned by the powers of Atlantis to continue her life, all memories of her lifetime as Dorothea intact. She was home, with the man she loved… the man she really loved… the man she should have spent her lifetime with, instead of disappearing back in time.
Nathan Bosporus.
Everything seemed so real, the memories so vibrant and distinct. There’s no way that was any dream! I am Eudora.
She was about to awaken Nathan to see what he remembered about events, when she saw the painting, propped on the chair opposite the bed.
It was a painting that by rights should not exist; a painting she had seen destroyed – from the inside as herself, from the outside as Dorothea.
It was a painting of three men: Constantine, Diocletian and Spiridon.
It was Dion Taine’s Trinity.
Being an expert, she only had to glance at it, to smell the rosewood, and knew it was the genuine article.
Perhaps it had all been a dream then. Did that mean certain people she thought dead were actually alive?
She would worry about that later.
She slipped from the bed, padding naked across the carpeted floor to kneel before the painting. She frowned. The painting seemed different somehow. It was as lifelike as she remembered, but it somehow seemed oddly lifeless.
Spiridon’s spirit was no longer imprisoned therein.
Eudora’s frown turned to a smile as Theodora’s mind linked suddenly with hers, sharing thoughts and memories.
So, it was no dream. It had all actually happened, but now it was over. Time flowed, and everything was as it should be.
With Diocletian imprisoned once more, and Spiridon free at last to be with his Queen in Atlantis, she herself could live naturally as Eudora Donat, to continue her life as it was meant to be, with Nathan Bosporus, father of her unborn son – who would not, she prayed, grow up like Dino Clayton. She could not decide if this meant Spiridon had not been Dino’s father after all, but her head hurt and she decided not to think about it.
She decided she wanted to try to trace her mother. If Eleanor was indeed still alive, she wanted to make her peace with the woman she had hated with such passion, now she knew the truth.
But that’s something to think about tomorrow.
Eudora slipped back into bed and snuggled up against Nathan’s comforting warmth.
For now, the past was buried, but all around, watching and waiting, the spirits of the dead lived on.
The End
Author’s Note
The Oxford Names Companion really is an invaluable book for a writer, and actually gave me the rough outline for this novel. Whilst searching for characters’ names to use in another book, I stumbled across the name Spiridon, and from that single entry came the plot for Portrait of Shade.
Abbreviated From the Oxford Names Companion:
Spiridon: Russian, from the Greek personal name Spiridion, a diminutive form from Latin spiritus spirit. The name was borne by a 4th-century saint who was a bishop of Tremithus in Cyprus, persecuted under the Emperor Diocletian. See also Dušan.
Dušan: Czech equivalent of the Russian name Spiridon, derived from the element dusha spirit, soul.
I am always being asked where I get the ideas for my books. The ideas come from various places, usually my imagination, but as you can see from the above abbreviated entry for two variants of the same name, an idea for a plot can come from anywhere, and the writer’s imagination takes hold of that and moulds it into a complete novel – which necessitates a fair bit of research.
The facts I discovered I have used only in as far as they suit the purpose of the plot, so any inaccuracies are either accidental or a deliberate use of artistic licence.
Portrait of Shade Page 29
