by Kim Wilkins
Ten minutes later, Mila joined her, laying the tarot pack on the table near her left hand.
“Well?” Maisie asked.
“You were right.”
“I’m sorry.” She was too excited to infuse her voice with any sincerity.
“You did me a favour.” She grasped one of Maisie’s hands. “Maisie, you have such a power. For a first-time divination, the accuracy and the detail are quite remarkable. I want you to finish the reading.”
“I don’t know if I can. I’m kind of…disconnected now. And I don’t want to meditate for another three and a half hours.”
“It won’t take so long from now on. Once you’ve touched spirit one time, you never forget how it feels. The preparation will become shorter and shorter, until you’ll find you need only blink to be ready.” Mila poured tea and reached for a biscuit. “We shall do some more exercises tonight. I doubt that Sacha will come back as he has to work early in the morning.”
Maisie sipped her tea, absently scratching Tabby behind the ears. “Do you think I’ll be able to make a living out of it?” she ventured.
“Is that what you want?”
Maisie nodded. “I think I’d like that. And then I wouldn’t have to go back to the orchestra.”
“I’m sure you could do it. Many people far less talented than you make a great deal of money telling fortunes. With your ability, you could probably do a number of things. Spiritual advice, contacting dead relatives for people, auric readings, psychometry, prophecy…but you have a lot of work to do.”
“I’m willing to learn.”
Mila pushed the pack of tarot cards across the table to her. “Go on then. Finish the reading.”
She did, and was surprised by how the ideas came to her – she told Mila things that she couldn’t possibly have known, read her as easily as if the information was written all over her, delved into her past and present as effortlessly as she could call up the details of her own, and predicted events for her future which Mila said were logical possibilities. Finally, when she had finished, feeling exhausted and elated, she pushed the cards across to Mila.
“You read mine, now,” she said.
Mila shook her head. “I can’t.”
“It’s what you do, isn’t it?”
“I can’t do it with you.”
“Why not?”
“You’re so much stronger than me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mila touched her hand softly. “You have a very great power. If I tried to open up with you around, I wouldn’t be able to control it. This dark energy is coming off you in waves.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“You’re right to fear your power – fear is a kind of respect. But you can learn to control it.”
“But where is it from?” Maisie pushed her hair behind her ears, an anxious gesture. “I don’t really understand it – you talk about powers and the Gift and energy, but it means nothing to me. I’m completely ignorant of all this stuff.”
“When you get back home, find yourself a good spiritual teacher. The right person will come along if you’re looking, and he or she will help you find your guides. Find somebody who can teach you how to be spiritually healthy, not just somebody who can show you how to do the tricks.” She tapped her finger on the table to make her point. “A power like yours can be dangerous if not balanced with the right amount of spiritual awareness, something which, unfortunately, you lack.”
Maisie bit her lip, thinking.
“You have more questions?” Mila prompted.
“Have I inherited this power from my grandmother?”
“Probably, but your grandmother was not as strong as you. She had a rather ordinary power which she employed extremely effectively.” Mila paused before continuing, as though weighing up what she would say next. “I have been wondering, since I met you, if you and Sybill would have got along.”
“Why?”
“Because Sybill would have been very envious of you, I think.”
Maisie considered this. “Was she a nice person?”
“She could be nice. But at times she wasn’t. She was always wonderful with Sacha and me. Generous, funny, such a wicked sense of humour.”
Maisie finished her tea and took her cup to the sink, began putting the biscuits back in the packet. “And can I lose my power?”
“No, not unless you give it up.”
“I could give it up?”
“Of course. If you wanted to.”
“I could just say, ‘Go away, I don’t want you any more’?”
“You’d probably have to find somebody willing to take it. Another psychic, a spiritual group.”
Maisie paused, leaned on the back of a chair. “Why didn’t I know I had the Gift?”
“I can’t say for sure. I think you should ask your mother.”
“My mother? She doesn’t believe in any of that stuff. She’d say I was deluded.”
Mila shrugged. “She knew you as a child. If something had happened, she’d remember.”
Maisie knew she was never going to ask her mother for advice on psychic development. “I don’t know about that.”
“Don’t dismiss it out of hand,” Mila said. “People are deep and complex, and not at all what they seem sometimes. You are too quick to judge – that is why you always find yourself judged.”
Maisie smiled politely, but the comment bounced off her. It sounded too much like something Cathy would say, and she knew the world didn’t operate quite so tidily.
When somebody died in Solgreve, it was always slightly more shocking and sad than it would have been anywhere else in the world. So when the Reverend got the call early on Monday morning that Douglas Smith had passed in his sleep in the early hours, he was shaken and unaccountably disturbed. He had made the necessary phone calls, spoken with Dr Honour and the constable, and Douglas’s body would be taken down to Whitby sometime the next morning.
He knew the reason he couldn’t bring himself to visit Elsa until late in the afternoon was because she frightened him a little. And that made him feel like such a silly old man – for he was an old man – frail and nervous and afraid. But it could not be put off forever. It was his duty to offer comfort to the bereaved.
He was unsurprised when Margaret King answered his knock at the door. She was Elsa’s neighbour and they were very close.
“Come in, Reverend,” she said, and her top lip seemed somehow stiff, as though she had resolved she would not smile at him. He guessed then that he was losing favour in the parish.
The house smelled of old pot pourri and rising damp. He wiped his feet on the doormat and entered the house. Margaret closed the door behind him.
“Elsa, the Reverend’s here,” Margaret called, leading him down the hallway.
Elsa didn’t reply.
“She’s in her bed,” Margaret said to him. “She’s feeling poorly.”
“Of course she is.”
“It was so unexpected.”
Only in Solgreve could that be said about the death of an eighty-seven-year-old man. “Yes. A terrible shock.”
Margaret led him to Elsa’s bedroom. The curtains were drawn against the weak winter light. Her white hair contrasted with the dark maroon sheets and pillowslip. She sat in bed with the covers pulled up to her waist, staring towards the closed curtains. Margaret hurried in and took the spare chair next to the bed, so the Reverend had no choice but to stand.
“Elsa?” he said, tentatively.
She turned her head slowly and looked at him.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said, taking a hesitant step forward. “The whole village will miss –”
“This wouldn’t have happened if not for her.”
The Reverend was taken aback. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s because she’s here, isn’t it?” Elsa spat. “She’s like Sybill, she’s a witch and she’s undoing our good luck. We’ll all become ill and die.”
“Elsa,
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the girl,” the Reverend replied, trying to keep his voice even. “You know we can’t live forever. Perhaps Douglas would have died much earlier if it wasn’t for –”
“When are you going to get rid of her?” Margaret King demanded. “I agree with Elsa, she’s a witch. She’s bringing harm to the village.”
“You made a promise,” Elsa said. “Get rid of her.”
“She didn’t respond to the Wraiths. They couldn’t get into the cottage.”
“Then get her killed, for god’s sake!” Margaret King cried. “Before she kills all of us with her witchcraft.”
Did Elsa and Margaret really believe what they were saying? “Her…power, whatever it is, can’t hurt us,” the Reverend protested.
“Like Sybill? How long before she’s out there, digging up the cemetery?” Margaret said. “Mark my words, it will happen. And then it won’t just be Douglas who’s dead before his time.”
Elsa nodded curtly. “It might even be you, Reverend.”
It didn’t work like that, he wanted to scream. But he wouldn’t tell them how it really worked. That was his burden alone to know. The Reverend cleared his throat and took a step back. “I’ll see myself to the door, shall I?”
Elsa had returned her attention to the drawn curtains, as though she wanted to look beyond them but hadn’t the heart to face the day. Margaret stood but didn’t move towards him.
“I seem to remember a community meeting, not long ago,” she said. “And you promised that if she wasn’t out of here by the end of the month…”
“Yes, I remember that too.”
“And it will be done.”
The Reverend put his hands behind his back so she couldn’t see them shake. “Yes.”
“You have a week,” she said.
A week. He knew it was a week. He had been watching the calendar as closely as they had. As he walked home along the cold, main street, the shivering afternoon wind piercing his overcoat, he turned the problem over and over in his mind.
“Maisie Fielding is not Sybill Hartley,” he said. He congratulated himself on finally remembering the young woman’s name. Maisie was not Sybill, and she did not deserve Sybill’s fate. But he didn’t know how he could divert the course of events, not with the village so opposed to her being here. How long before Elsa and Margaret’s mad notion that Maisie was undoing their good health spread to the wider community? And of course they’d all believe it, because they wanted to believe it. If only the girl had responded to the Wraiths. She was too brave for her own good.
He let himself into his house and closed the door firmly behind him, hung his coat and hat on the stand by the door. In his dim kitchen he put the kettle on to boil and contemplated where his duty lay. He wanted to warn the girl, but couldn’t without betraying the others, without drawing attention to what happened here. He had no idea how much she already knew, but he couldn’t risk leading her into information that she had no right to know.
But he couldn’t let her die. He liked her. Yes, admit it, Linden, you like her. She was young and pretty and seemed bright and sincere. If he had had a family, if she was his own granddaughter he would be proud of her, would have her over for afternoon tea and ask her to tell him what was happening in her life. And he would listen and be warmed by her company and her youthful vitality. Perhaps he was being an old fool, but he did not want to see her come to an unpleasant end. What to do?
The kettle was whistling so he pulled it off the hob and set it on the sink. He eyed the pad of writing paper he kept on the sideboard for shopping lists. A letter wouldn’t necessarily give away its sender.
With determination he reached for the pad and a pen and sat at his kitchen table. He tapped the pen thoughtfully several times against the tabletop, then began to write, scribbling out and screwing up and beginning to write again. It took him an hour and his boiled water cooled on the sink, but when he was finished he felt a pleasant – if a little guilty – sense of satisfaction. He folded the letter and put it in an envelope.
What next? Deliver it to her door? He might be seen. Post it? The mail in Solgreve went via the Halletts’ grocery store. He couldn’t risk them seeing him dropping in a letter addressed to Maisie. It would have to be posted from outside town. Yet months often went by without him leaving Solgreve, and he knew nobody outside the village.
Well, almost nobody. He folded the letter in half and tucked it into another envelope which he addressed to Lester Baines, scribbled a quick note instructing him to post the letter to Maisie as soon as he got it. He picked up his keys and left the house, heading for the grocery store. Valuable days would be wasted sending the letter by this method, but as much as he wanted to help the girl, he didn’t want to incriminate himself. He had a responsibility to Solgreve. He would just have to hope and pray that she got the letter in time. And that she wasn’t so foolish as to ignore it.
“Is it weird, being in here with me while your mum’s out there?”
Sacha kissed her throat in the dark. The scent of their love-making hung heavy on the air. “No. She’s very open-minded. And anyway, she’s probably asleep by now. The witching hour is reserved for lovers.”
“And witches.”
“Well, you fall into both categories then, don’t you?”
Funny how Maisie had once thought he had some kind of exotic accent. She couldn’t hear it at all anymore, just ordinary middle-class English. Perhaps it was because she was growing used to the sound of Mila’s voice. She yawned. “I’m not a witch. I don’t ever want to be one. I love the psychism, the feeling of being connected. But I couldn’t do all that rites of the equinox stuff. I’d feel like a dickhead.”
Sacha laughed lightly. “Don’t say things like that. My mother is already concerned you’re lacking spiritual depth.”
“Should I be offended?”
“No.”
“Does she like me?” Maisie asked.
“Ma? She loves you. But don’t feel too special, because she loves everybody.”
“That’s not very discriminating.”
“No. But very charitable.” He rolled onto his back and she wriggled across to lean her head on his chest. Under his warm skin she could hear his heart beating, closed her eyes for a few moments and listened. Sweet music. Almost enough.
“What’s going to happen when I go home, Sacha?” she sighed.
“I don’t know.”
“Will you forget me?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“I don’t know about ‘never.’ What’s the etiquette on how long you should remember somebody?”
“I guess it depends on how passionate you were about the somebody,” Maisie said, frowning. She wished, right then, that he loved her. Even though she was going home soon, she wanted him to be in love with her, to die at the thought of losing her. “Am I just a holiday romance to you?”
“I’m not on holiday,” he said.
“You know what I mean. Am I a fling?”
“You have a lot of questions tonight.”
“Well?”
His reached across and gently played with her hair. “No, you’re not a fling.”
“What’s the difference between me and a fling?” Midnight gusts of wind moaned softly over the eaves. The shadows of tree branches moved beyond the window.
“I know your surname for one.”
“Anything else?”
“You’re classy.”
“Me? Classy?”
“You know you are. Flings are usually with a different kind of girl.”
“Like Chris?” The words were out of her mouth before she thought better of them.
“That’s not very nice.”
“Sometimes I’m not very nice. Go on, I’m classy and you know my surname. What else?”
He chuckled and she heard it rumbling deep in his chest. She snuggled against him, pressed her legs against his.
“You’re Maisie.”
“Which means
?”
“You’re special and different.”
She smiled in the dark. “Thanks.” Her fingers lingered over his chest and she sighed. She couldn’t decide if this sweet longing was pleasure or pain. She was silent for a long while.
Eventually, Sacha said, “What’s on your mind?”
“What if I didn’t go home, Sacha?” she ventured softly.
He was quiet.
“Sacha?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Do you think we’d…you know…do you think we’d stay together?” Making love every night, somehow remaining young forever.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
Not sure? How could he not be sure? “Why not?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Don’t be upset.”
“I’m not.”
“Maisie, you’re never going to be satisfied.”
“I could be satisfied,” she said. “If I got what I wanted, I’d be satisfied.”
“I don’t even think you know what you want. Not really.” He gently pushed her off and lay on his side, his eyes seeking hers in the dark. “We could be together. You could stay and we could be together, but within a year or two, I’d be holding you in my arms and you’d be looking over my shoulder, looking for something beyond me, something I couldn’t give you. Something which you were absolutely sure was the one thing that would make you happy.”
“That’s not true,” she protested.
“Maisie, it’s true. I’ve told you right from the start that I understand you, and I do.” He shook his head, touched her lips softly with his index finger. “I understand you and I know that you’d grow weary of me just as you’ve grown weary of Adrian. Even quicker, because I’m not a musical genius and I don’t have an impressive IQ and I work in a bakery.”
Tears pricked her eyes. “I’m so tired, Sacha,” she said.
“Let’s go to sleep then.”
“Not that kind of tired,” she said. “I’m tired in my soul.”
He wrapped her in his arms, rocked her gently. “You’ve got it all in front of you, Maisie. Don’t give up on life just yet.”
She clung to him, pressed her face into his shoulder. Hoped against hope against hope that when she went home, things could be different for her.
