‘Hello, Richard,’ she said simply, taking a jug of water and sluicing her legs down. ‘I haven’t seen you for a while. I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve been spending time with Henry,’ I explained. ‘Father made him Count of Anjou and sent him over here to survey his lands. Except he hasn’t done any of that—instead, mother’s made us stay in the castle...’
Yvette raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh no, he will be more arrogant than ever, but what illustrious wine we’re making, we should name it Hubris Henry!’ She giggled, and I grinned delightedly.
‘Do you think Hodierna will notice if I leave this pie?’ I asked.
Yvette glanced over to see where her mother was, but she had disappeared back into the house. ‘Come on, there’s something I want to show you,’ she said, taking my hand and leading me towards an old barn.
She pushed me in first and then slipped in and closed the door carefully behind us. It was cool and dark in there, and it took me a minute for my eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. Various winemaking tools were lying around—stakes for the vines, baskets, barrels, and a spare vat or two.
‘Over there, in that corner,’ she whispered. ‘Can you see them? But you must be quiet! They’re quite timid still.’
I looked in the corner and saw three pairs of eyes staring back at me. On a pile of hay were three little fox cubs, sizing me up. ‘Where did you get them?’ I asked, enchanted.
‘I found them starving. Mother let me bring them here. Aren’t they adorable?’
Slowly, we sat down and watched them, and after a minute the boldest of them stepped off his bed and took a few steps towards us. Then, with a grunting noise, he returned to his brothers and playfully bit one of them. Very soon they were all playing, rolling around on the hay and chattering and yelping at one another.
I didn’t want to leave. Henry could flirt with the girls all day if he liked; I just knew I wanted to stay here with Yvette. I gripped her hand tightly.
‘I’ll miss you.’
‘Maybe your mother will let me visit you?’ she asked.
Loathing lying, I considered what to say. ‘We’ve...we’ve run away!’ I eventually admitted.
Yvette sprang to her feet. ‘You can’t do that!’
‘I know,’ I replied, standing too. ‘It seemed a good idea at first. I suppose I wanted to prove how brave I can be to Henry.’
She turned and kissed me, very gently, on my cheek. She smelt of roses and wine, and I wanted to kiss her back, but she put a finger on my lips. ‘I think you’re brave, Richard,’ she said, smiling. ‘Come on, let’s talk some sense into that hot-headed brother of yours.’
She opened the barn door and pulled me out into the bright sunlight. I touched my cheek where she had kissed me and followed her back to the yard. It was clear as soon as we got there that something was wrong. Henry had gone, and the two girls were out of the wine vat and dressing themselves hurriedly, white-faced and frightened. My heart hammered in fear as I heard shrieks from inside the house. Yvette pulled away and ran to the door of the house just as it opened, and for a second I glimpsed the ruddy face of the man we spied earlier. Without thinking, I did as my brother had commanded and ran.
I ran into the vineyard, thankful that not all the grapes were harvested yet as the vines provided thick cover for me. I could not stay here for long, but it would allow me a few minutes to decide what to do. I couldn’t ever imagine my big brother running, even though he had told me to run. Crouching down, I caught my breath. Who were these men?
Fear welled within me. We had brought danger to Hodierna and Yvette. Tears pricked my eyes, but I wiped them away angrily. I would shame neither Henry, nor my mother. Too young to carry any weapon, I doubted I could do anything to protect Henry. He had said they had come for him. I could at least help the women, after they were gone.
Swallowing hard, I crept away from the vines and, keeping low to the ground, I headed towards the barn. There I would hide under the hay, wait for the men to go, and then take Hodierna, Yvette, and the other girls if needs be, back to my mother.
As I crept across the edge of the yard, I saw Yvette on her knees, moaning softly and stroking the head of a woman I realised to be Hodierna. Both of them were soaked in blood, and Yvette looked at me with pure anguish as she let out an animalistic cry of pain. I may have gone unnoticed if I’d kept moving, but the scene before me froze me to the spot.
Hodierna’s throat had been cut. I heard hooves, and then a saddled knight wearing the finest chainmail and robed in a dark cloak loomed above me. His head was bare, revealing iron-grey hair that fell to his shoulders, and his face was adorned with a well-sculpted beard. An amethyst ring glinted on his finger. Firm hands reached over my shoulders and yanked my arms back, pulling me up with a force that made me wince. Another man then slid behind me and held me. I could not see this man, but his breath smelt so foul that it made me want to retch—a mix of aniseed and rotting eggs. He dragged me into the courtyard.
‘Do you not know who I am?’ I gasped, struggling to speak as I saw Henry appear from behind one of the men.
‘Wait! He’s my brother!’ he shouted.
Just then the door of the vintner house flew open, and a soldier came out, holding a screaming Trinette by the waist. She seemed so tiny next to this man’s huge frame.
‘Can I bring this one, Sir? I sliced the other into two, but I like this one’s arse!’
Trinette, who was fighting like a wild cat, turned and spat in his face. I could feel the body of the man who held me vibrate as he laughed. Who were these men?
‘Any witnesses could cause problems,’ ordered the one on the horse.
‘No! Stop! Henry, tell them, tell the—’ I managed before the man behind me put his hand against my throat and started to pinch so hard that I could not breathe, much less speak.
‘Stop, please! Please don’t hurt him!’ sobbed Yvette as she turned and held on to me, clutching my legs.
‘This is unnecessary!’ pleaded Henry to the man throttling me.
I felt the grip around my throat loosen, and I could breathe properly again. ‘Henry, please, make them let the girls go,’ I begged.
Henry looked first at me and then at the knight on horseback, and at last he spoke.
‘Can we not take the girls as hostages? They will have their uses.’
‘Well, my Lord, our orders were to take only you, but if it is your wish that these girls come, perhaps we can bring one of them.’
I felt myself starting to tremble, as if my body had a better understanding of the danger we were in than my confused mind. Looking down I could see the crown of Yvette’s head against my thighs, her fingers gripping my legs so tightly that her knuckles stood out as white as bone. Feeling her breath against my leg, realising that she was praying out loud. My eyes were still upon her as I heard Henry’s response.
‘Very well, that one.’
I looked up at him, realising he must have already indicated his choice. Trinette screamed, and I felt Yvette’s hands relent as the ruddy-faced knight pulled my friend away from me, kicking her twice in the stomach whilst Trinette’s captor slammed her against the vintner house door. The man holding me chuckled again as the soldier went to kick her once more, but my brother stepped forward and sharply pushed the man back. Finally! He was going to save her.
Or so I thought. Instead, he took out a sword that I was surprised had not been taken from him, and deliberately forced it into Yvette’s heart. She did not scream, she just sank down.
I tried to pull myself away from the man who held me, but he was too strong.
‘Yvette!’ I cried, tears burning my eyes and throat. Her lips moved, and with her last reserves of strength she murmured, ‘Richard, this is not the end.’
Her eyes glazed over as I saw her life ebb away.
‘It was better that she die than be taken,’ muttered Henry, appearing at my side. ‘I did it for you.’
‘And now kill this pretender!’ The soldi
er addressed my brother.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We have our orders, strange as they might seem, but we’ve heard he’s no true brother of yours, my Lord, so mourn him only briefly!’
‘No.’ He responded.
I cried out as I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. My brother’s word was ignored as I was stabbed by a foul smelling soldier, who I never even saw. I fell forward, noticing as I did, Henry watching me, a single tear staining his cheek.
But I never hit the ground; instead I fell straight through it, as if leaving Anjou above me as I plummeted deeper into darkness. And I wondered upon Yvette’s dying words: was this the end?
Skull Dream
I traversed into my dream where these men were now holding a human head, cutting the face away, scraping the dead flesh from the bone—dehumanising it—blood seeping over their hands and running down their arms. Now the head was a skull, covered in a deep red stain that I witnessed turn brown as if centuries had passed in seconds. This was not some random dream; this was the dream I kept having, the reason I had visited the old Swanshurst Farm house in my Charlie life. I knew that this dream was born from something much deeper. I sensed this dream was key to keeping all my lives in focus: somehow it connected my lives.
I needed to practice remembering each life.
Storm Clouds
I was observing the scene through a glass lens. I knew this because it was in colour and had depth, but I could tell it was a faked depth. Almost reality, but not quite. The resolution was crisp, beating any cinema movie I had seen in either my Charlie or Vicky life. The 3D effect was much better than the virtual reality robot game I had played as Vicky in the London Trocadero at Piccadilly.
One moment I was looking from above, the next from close beside, or afar, like in a newsreel when an invisible director keeps changing the camera angle for the viewers’ pleasure.
Where was I? I had no sense of where I was sitting or standing, or even whether I was sitting or standing. I had no sense of my physical body at all.
And the show I was watching was no family matinee. I saw the figures of thousands of people running in a chorus of terrible screams as a dark cloud swept from behind and engulfed them. It was heralded by lightening that flickered and snapped in bursts of white energy, piercing the ground and my skull simultaneously, sending slivers of pain through my head. I was constantly moving just beyond its reach—above, beside, afar, above, beside, afar. I knew I was in no danger, yet I also knew that what I was witnessing was real.
The dark cloud rolled across the land at an intense speed, swallowing all in its path: buildings, trains, cars, trees, people. I stood in front of it now, watching it loom towards me with an angry black force that nothing on earth could resist. I shot back to maintain my perspective. What was behind it? Just as I wondered this, I found myself instantly above it and then behind it, and I was surprised to see that instead of leaving behind total destruction, everything remained untouched, utterly still—except no life remained. All appeared to have been obliterated.
My perspective zoomed in with an overly rapid motion, like a spy satellite recognising its target. Was I connected to some sort of computer? Any human at those controls, and there would have been a slight hesitation as their eyes adjusted focus or their thumb worked a control knob. This was instant and too precise. As Vicky, I knew something about computers.
Now I could make out motion within the scene before me. There was a breeze; singed branches swayed and creaked, items were being blown around. In fact, the momentum of the cloud was dragging things along behind it for some yards until they gradually stopped. It reminded me of a tornado that had been pushed onto its side and was rolling down a hill. If all I had known was Richard’s life, I would view this in comparison to Moses parting the Red Sea. As Charlie, I would have expected some great steam-driven machines to be crawling over the land and driving this storm, like in an H.G. Wells tale, but as I had Vicky’s knowledge too, I knew that man was obsessed with technological war devices.
What exactly did this device do, I wondered, expecting to be shown. The sounds of the lightning, rumbling storm and human screams were abruptly replaced by a whizz as I flew backwards, the storm fading from view. Except that now the scene before me had changed. The trees were charcoal skeletons; the fields scorched black. No life of any description—no birds in the sky, no animals on the land, no plants, nothing green at all. I traversed a wide river and noticed that the water seemed to be bubbling, as if boiling, yet giving off no steam.
Was this how the world would end? I suppose part of you always wonders that, in the same way that the time and manner of your own death is never too far from your consciousness.
With a jolt I realised I had stopped travelling and that the scene before me had frozen. Was it over? Would I wake up now, or be removed from whatever device I was hooked up to and be returned to my physical self?
I waited. Nothing happened.
As Richard or Charlie or Vicky, I had occasionally experienced flashes of memories—sounds, smells or images that were too brief to take proper shape in my mind, which I suspected came from another life. I could never pinpoint exactly what they were. Now they felt vaguely familiar. Was I about to emerge into a new life? Were they from this life? But what sort of life was this, with no apparent physical body? What was my role? Was I some sort of automaton? Why was I being forced to witness scenes of mass destruction?
My mind raced as I contemplated the vision of hell before me. I wanted to close my eyes, to block it out, but I had no eyes to close. And then the vile digital image was switched off, and I was plunged into darkness. Relief swept over me, until I heard a distant, echoing voice:
‘Stop! Reset!’
Deerden Estate, 1996
At last I awoke in my fabulous, huge and comfy bed at home in Deerden. It always took me a moment to work out who and where I was. Deerden felt like a real home should, cherishing and safe. This pattern of continually waking up as someone else was familiar to me now, and I had learnt to manage it, but I did wonder what other people were experiencing. The church spoke only of heaven or hell, and everyone I knew seemed either to avoid speaking of death altogether or spoke of it like it was just a sport.
The relief of arriving in this life soon diminished as I thought back over what had just happened. I was not even sure if I was alive anymore in my Richard life, yet that hurt less than the thought of Yvette. She was most certainly dead. Who were those assassins, and how could they make my own brother kill Yvette in front of me? She who loved life so much; she who had made me feel that my repulsion for any creature’s suffering was all right. And as much as I love my brother Henry, he does enjoy killing.
My happiness at arriving in Deerden was overturned by morbid despair. If I just allowed myself to doze, maybe I would restart the cycle and get back there sooner. I would always have a safe Deerden to awaken in, but Richard could be lying unconscious, perishing in the vineyard. I had managed it before—if I could just get back to sleep and do the same in my Charlie life, I would soon be back in Saumur. That’s how the cycles of my lives worked. Live a day, sleep and wake up in the next.
‘Where would you like your tea, Miss Vicky?’ the latest chambermaid repeated as she cleared her throat.
I’d heard her the first time and ignored her in the hope she would just leave, but then she asked again. I sat bolt upright.
‘Where do you think, the fucking floor?’ I shouted, waking myself up all the more from being so loud.
She put it on the floor and ran off. I got out of bed, grabbed the mug of tea and hopped straight back in under the inviting covers. Despite the antique central heating system being on all day at this time of year, the ceilings were so high that I think only the moths or occasional bat felt any real warmth. Fully awake now, I sat in my bed, looking out through the Victorian Gothic windows of my beautiful bedroom to the manicured grounds beyond. Yet I was totally unable to appreciate the view, as I felt sick with
grief. I wanted to cry but stopped myself, as I wanted neither Dad nor Vera looking at my tear-stained cheeks and asking awkward questions. Eventually I took a deep breath and climbed out of bed.
Half an hour later I had showered and dressed and sat looking at myself in the mirror on my dressing table. I used to have long hair, and could remember staring at my reflection for an age as my mother brushed it. It helped me adjust to being Vicky, but I had cut my hair short last year. Brown with a bit of ginger mixed in, as I used to call it. Richard’s hair colour was identical. Or auburn, like my mother’s, as my father would often remind me. Short hair was easier, and despite the insulting comments I received at school, or strange looks I got here—it was staying like this.
Soon I was downstairs in the breakfast room, eating croissants and drinking more tea. It would be my last breakfast before returning to boarding school and eating the crap they gave us there—soggy toast or cereal that tasted like sawdust. Food at school was just so gross; the only good thing about it was that I ate so little I always lost weight. Vera would have a go at me for being too skinny, but she was a fine one to talk, as she resembled a stick insect, with her hooked nose and eyes too large for her face. Today she was sitting across from me wearing an expression like a slapped arse, her back ramrod straight, sipping her black coffee. I regarded her blonde bouffant hair, so styled and fixed with hairspray that it resembled a wig.
Paralysis Paradox (Time Travel Through Past Lives Adventure Series Book 1) Page 3
