On the Edge of Darkness

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘I shouldn’t, Mrs Craig.’

  ‘I think you should, if you value your job.’ Jane was amazed at the strength she was finding to stand up to the woman. In the past the receptionist staff at the practice had filled her with terror.

  For a moment Doreen hesitated, then with a little shrug she went through to the back office, shutting the door behind her.

  Jane walked to Adam’s door and opened it without ceremony. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  He was standing behind his desk shuffling papers into his briefcase. Startled, he looked up at her and for a moment her resolve wavered. His face was haggard and ill, his eyes red with lack of sleep.

  ‘I am not prepared to be made a fool of in my own house.’ She closed the door behind her, aware that Doreen would have reappeared from the office and be standing at the receptionist’s counter, listening. ‘If you want to live with another woman, I suggest you find a real one.’ Her voice dropped to a hiss. ‘Or go to Scotland and live with Brid there, in her mud hut or stone circle or wherever she lives when she’s at home, but don’t ever,’ she paused, taking a deep breath, ‘don’t ever bring her back to our house again.’

  ‘I don’t bring her, Janie.’ His voice was weary. He dropped the briefcase on the desk and throwing himself down into his chair he closed his eyes with exhaustion. ‘I have never invited her there. She comes.’

  ‘Then tell her to go.’

  ‘Do you think I haven’t tried?’

  ‘You got rid of her before.’

  ‘By running away. Do you want me to do that again? I can’t get away from her, Jane. You know that as well as I do. Somehow she is able to follow me. She came to Wales, remember? She found us in St Albans. She would find me anywhere.’

  ‘She doesn’t come here.’

  ‘Because she knows I am working here. She respects the fact that I am a doctor. She knows I would be angry if she came between me and my work.’

  ‘But you’re not angry when she comes between you and your wife!’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘How, pray?’ Her voice was icy.

  He looked up and she saw naked despair in his eyes. ‘Because of Calum. Calum is coming between us, Jane. I don’t know why. I don’t want it to happen, but it is. You and I. We shouldn’t still be alive. You stand there, and you remind me of him –’ He put his hands over his face and to her dismay she saw tears trickling from between his fingers.

  Speechless, she just stared at him, then slowly she stepped back towards the door. ‘Does it never occur to you that I might be broken-hearted and lonely too?’

  He shrugged. ‘You seem to be able to cope.’

  ‘Seem, Adam. You forget that I have lost two of you. Calum is dead because of an accident. He did not choose to go. You have made that choice. And what is more,’ she hesitated, almost afraid to say the words, ‘you seem to be enjoying a wonderful relationship with the woman who killed your son.’

  There was a long silence. It was Adam’s turn to stare at her in shocked disbelief. ‘Don’t say that,’ he choked at last. ‘Don’t say such a thing. How low can you stoop! How can you, Jane!’

  ‘Easily if it’s true. Has it never occurred to you who the mysterious woman was who stepped out in front of the car – the woman who disappeared and was never traced?’

  ‘It was not Brid!’ His voice was harsh with passion.

  ‘No?’ She was fighting tears. ‘Well there’s no point in asking her, is there? No doubt, amongst all her other talents, she is a first-class liar. Adam, how can you defend her? You know she’s a murderess!’

  ‘We don’t know!’ He was crying openly. ‘With me she is gentle and loving and sweet. She knows how to please a man. She can soothe me, and make my headaches better, she can relax me and she listens when I talk.’

  ‘And I do none of that?’ The pain in her voice was palpable. ‘Adam, this is me, Jane. Remember?’ She stared at him for a long minute. ‘Obviously not. Obviously the years I have given to you were a complete waste when you would rather I had not been there.’

  ‘No, Jane, please, don’t say that.’ He focused on her suddenly. ‘I do love you, Janie.’

  ‘But clearly not enough.’ Her voice was full of hurt. ‘I just ask you one thing, Adam, please. Don’t do it in our house. Ask her to go somewhere else to seduce you, not my home.’

  She walked out blindly into the reception area. She did not even see Doreen as she found her way outside. Only when she reached her car did she allow her pride to waver. It was a long time before she put the key in the ignition and pulled out of the car park.

  From the window of his consulting room Adam watched her go.

  ‘Leave him, Jane.’ Liza, standing by the phone in her kitchen, was staring out at the pouring rain. ‘Please, just leave him. Come here.’ She was biting her nail as she talked, aware that every part of her body was tense with anxiety. ‘Look, it doesn’t have to be forever, just while he is under this spell. For your own sake, Jane.’

  But it was no use as she knew it wouldn’t be. She pictured Jane immured in that dark, soulless house, locking herself in her lonely bedroom at night whilst Adam frolicked with – with what? A succubus? A ghost? A witch?

  ‘Not Jane again?’ Phil walked in from the studio and shook the rain from his shoulders like a dog shaking its coat to find her standing, lost in thought, by the phone. ‘She caused enough trouble, leaving your car in Newport! I don’t know why you keep ringing her. She’s a grown woman. She has to make her own decisions. Perhaps she’s a masochist. She likes being humiliated by that bastard.’ He ran the tap and washed his hands. ‘Where’s Beth?’

  ‘Playing next door.’ Liza shrugged. ‘I’m sure it’s not safe for her there, Phil. Brid is dangerous. She can kill.’

  The door opened and Beth appeared, pushing a doll’s pram in which she had tucked a small toy rabbit. Liza bent and picked the little girl up, giving her a huge kiss. ‘You’d think she’d want to be here. To see Beth.’

  ‘Liza.’ Phil sat down at the table and pulled the pile of unopened post towards him. The small red post van winding up the hills did not get to the farm until nearly lunchtime. ‘Liza, has it ever crossed your mind that we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves? Remember when that cat followed them here? It was never seen or heard of again once they had gone back to St Albans. We don’t want to put ourselves, or,’ he hesitated and reached over to put a gentle hand on the back of the little girl’s hair for a minute, ‘little Beth here at risk.’

  Liza met his gaze over the child’s head. ‘You don’t think she’d hurt Beth!’

  He shrugged. ‘Just give the phone a rest, love. Jane knows where we are. She knows there is always a bed for her if she wants one and she knows our number so she can call us if she’s in trouble. Leave it at that, all right?’ He put his arm round his wife’s shoulder and gave them both a bear hug which made Beth shriek with delight.

  It was two days later that Liza decided to take the longer route back from shopping in Hay. She had loaded the car with supplies, called in at one of the book shops to have a quick look at her favourite corner, bought two books she couldn’t resist, hidden them under her shopping, knowing how Phil would tease her that the house would collapse if she bought any more, bought some wine and picked up the papers from Grants, then slotting Beth back into the car she set off up over the hill. The road, climbing out of the woods and fields, led after a few miles out onto the mountain, where the sky swooped low over the soft green and grey of rocks and grass, dotted with grazing ponies and sheep. At the end of the narrow track which led to Meryn’s cottage she stopped the car and thought for a minute.

  ‘Go home.’ Beth put a small hand on Liza’s arm. ‘Go home, Granny Liza.’

  Liza smiled. ‘In a minute. I just want to see if Meryn has come home.’ She wasn’t sure why she had this strange feeling that she should turn up the track. There was no sign of smoke from the chimneys out of sight behind the stand of pine trees, no fresh tyre-ma
rks on the grass, but suddenly she had an overwhelming urge to see. Climbing out of the car she opened the heavy old gate and climbing back in she turned up the drive.

  The door was open and in one of the windows she could see a huge pot of geraniums. Meryn was writing at the old pine table in the centre of the room when she and Beth put their heads round the door.

  ‘So, this is the little one.’ He kissed Liza and then squatted down to take Beth’s small hand in his own huge one.

  ‘You know what happened to Julie and Calum?’ Liza suddenly found she had tears in her eyes.

  ‘I know.’ He stood up again and reaching into a bowl of fruit he took a shiny red apple and gave it to the child, then he led Liza to the settle by the fire.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Liza looked up at him. His face was even browner than she remembered, and his brilliant blue eyes were brighter than ever. She found herself wondering as she did every time she saw him how old he was, and she decided as she always did that he could be anything between fifty and a hundred. He squatted down on the stool before the fire and reaching out threw on a couple of logs. Beth, chewing on her apple, came to stand just behind him. He did not turn, treating her like a small animal which must overcome its shyness in its own time before friendship and trust can be established.

  He ignored Liza’s second question, concentrating instead on the first. ‘There is a reason these things happen, Liza.’ He was staring into the fire. ‘It may be hard to bear, harder to understand, but you must not be sad forever. You will see them again. You know that.’

  With a sniff Liza nodded. ‘I suppose I do.’

  He turned and fixed her with his intense gaze. ‘Suppose?’

  ‘It’s difficult. I still miss her so much.’

  ‘Be strong, Liza.’ He sounded very stern. ‘Now, what have you done about the woman, Brid?’

  ‘You think she is a woman, then?’

  ‘Oh yes, she’s a woman.’ He gave a grave smile.

  ‘She broke the amulet. Or Adam did. Jane has the pieces, but she doesn’t think it works any more.’

  ‘Then it doesn’t work. A talisman has only as much power as it is given. You must make her another.’

  ‘Me?’

  He nodded. ‘Jane doesn’t understand what we are dealing with here the way you do. Brid is a powerful, highly trained practitioner of the black arts. They were not black when she learned them, but her perceptions have been blunted and changed by her lust and her fear of the man who pursues her, and she has lost her judgement and honesty. You have to fight her with her own weapons or she will win.’

  ‘What do I do? Phil is frightened she will turn her attention here.’ She nodded towards the little girl who was still standing behind him, her eyes fixed on his face.

  Meryn reached out a gentle hand to the child. She stepped forward into the circle of his arm and leaned against him trustingly, sucking her thumb.

  Meryn nodded thoughtfully. ‘He is right to be worried, but I think at the moment there is no need for that worry to be for Beth. Adam has rejected the child, you say? Then she is no danger to Brid. She is not a distraction or a rival for his affections. You will monitor the situation, but I feel at the moment there is nothing to fear.’ He looked up at Beth and she returned his smile with a trusting kiss before offering him a bite of her apple.

  ‘So. Should I make a new amulet for Jane, and take it to her?’ Liza was concentrating on what he was saying, trying to put out of her mind the thought that Julie and Calum had spent their honeymoon in this house – two weeks out of their so-short lives together. ‘How?’

  He nodded. ‘Take rowan wood, bind it into a cross with red thread and imbue it with protection and power. It is a symbol Brid will recognise and respect.’

  ‘How do I imbue it with power?’ Liza shook her head.

  He laughed out loud. ‘You are wondering with a part of your mind if the old man has finally gone doolally! Are we talking magic and spells? Is he wizard or witch or lunatic?’

  ‘You know I’m not thinking that.’ Liza was indignant. ‘I wouldn’t have come to you for help if I’d wondered that. I just wonder if I can do it. I have no training in these things. I visualise Brid as having learned it all from some great occultist, like a Dennis Wheatley villain. She can turn herself into a cat, Meryn!’

  He fixed his gaze on her again unsurprised. ‘But there is still no reason to be afraid. Calm, strength and a belief in the power of protection is all that is needed. If Jane is a Christian then her protection will come from Christ. But you will help it. I will tell you what to do.’

  She waited until Phil was asleep and snoring before checking on Beth and then creeping downstairs and pulling on her wellington boots which were waiting by the back door. There was a part of her which was embarrassed and sceptical. Another part was afraid. Another felt enormously excited and empowered.

  She had located the tree in daylight. It stood a little apart from the others, behind the orchard out in the field above the edge of the drop to the nant which raced over the rocks and through the valley towards the meadows which bordered the Wye in the distance. In the silence she could hear the water as it poured into the waterfalls and cascades down in the damp mossy shadows beneath the trees. Up here, in the open, the moonlight was like day. A white frost had already settled over the grass.

  Pushing her hands deep into her pockets she felt for her knife. It was one of her grandmother’s silver fruit knives, small and brilliantly polished and wickedly sharp and pointed. The perfect knife for performing a magical act. Quietly she pushed open the orchard gate and let herself in under the huge old apple trees, glancing nervously into the black moonshadows. It hadn’t occurred to her before that Brid might sense what she was doing, but now, in the dark, in the silence of the night she could feel a small but persistent worm of fear somewhere deep inside her. She glanced behind her at the house. It was in total darkness. Phil had been painting late and had come in, opened himself a can of tomato soup, heated it, drunk it from a mug and gone to bed all within the span of ten minutes. She didn’t mind. She knew what it was like when the creative urge was upon one. She resented stopping for a single moment when she was painting, and used to go on for hours after she was too tired almost to hold the brush. She frowned. It was a long time since she had painted anything. Bringing up a small child had seen to that.

  Turning her back on the house she looked into the trees again. The night was so still she could have heard a leaf drop, but even the sounds of nature seemed to have died away. There was no breath of wind, no snap of breaking twigs down in the valley as a small animal made its way along the tracks in the undergrowth, no distant hoot of a hunting owl.

  Silently she pulled the gate closed behind her and began to make her way through the orchard. Every sense was alert. She could feel the frost as it crisped the moss on the north side of the tree trunks, she could smell the lichen as it combined with the ice crystals, she could hear the tinkling snap of the frozen blades of grass beneath her feet.

  Six counties away, in Hertfordshire, Brid, asleep in the curve of Adam’s arm, stirred, sensing the moonlight outside the window.

  Forcing her fear to the back of her mind Liza walked on steadily, her eyes searching the shadows, alert for any sound. None came. She reached the gate at the far end of the orchard and began to climb over it, feeling the soles of her rubber boots slip on the icy rungs. Jumping into the field she stopped and held her breath. It was empty as far as the eye could see, the sheep already taken down to the shelter of the lower meadows, out of the mountain winds. She could see the rowan tree now, standing on its own, a small graceful shape in the moonlight, the thin branches casting a network of webbed shadow over the pale ground.

  ‘Ask permission,’ Meryn had said. ‘Explain why you need her help. Make the cutting of the twigs a sacred act.’

  Swallowing, she walked across the grass, feeling very exposed without the shelter of the orchard. Out here, on the hillside, she could be seen from f
ifty miles away across the valley, a tiny dark speck in her green jacket on the frost-white hillside. Behind her a trail of dark footprints marked her passing. In front the ground was sparkling. She glanced up at the moon. It hung low over the hill in front of her, every hill and valley on its surface seemingly visible to the naked eye. She could feel its power.

  Ten feet from the tree she stopped. She groped in her pocket for the knife and drew it out. The blade flashed in the moonlight and she thought she felt the tree flinch. ‘Explain,’ Meryn had said. ‘Explain why you want her strength and protection, and ask. If you snap a branch or a twig out of malice or ignorance or even necessity, the tree goes into shock. She withdraws her essence. You want her to allow you to take some of her strength, so you must explain and ask permission. And thank her afterwards.’

  Liza stood looking at the tree. She bit her lip, ignoring the sudden treacherous whisper of twentieth-century logic and cynicism which had re-emerged to ask her what she thought she was doing outside at midnight under the full moon talking to a tree.

  ‘Please,’ she pushed away her doubts and moved a few steps closer. ‘Please, I need two of your small twigs to make a cross. It’s to give protection to my friend. I don’t want to hurt you. I need your life force and your strength.’ Her voice sounded very thin in the silence of the night. She paused, wondering how she would know if the tree had agreed.

  ‘Please, may I come and take the wood?’ She stepped closer, within touching distance now of some of the branches.

  There was no response.

  Clutching the knife, she became acutely aware that the blade was glittering in the moonlight like a surgeon’s scalpel. ‘It won’t hurt. It’s very sharp. Please, can I have a sign?’ Meryn hadn’t told her to say that, but it seemed right, somehow.

  She waited, staring up into the branches.