by Linn Chapel
She had to talk to him about the link – but that would take a bit of courage. And some careful planning, since he seemed determined to avoid her company.
Tressa gazed reflectively across the garden, not really seeing it. Holt had appeared to her more clearly with every passing episode, she realized. In the most recent one, when she had found him in the arid desert, their eyes had finally met.
If she were to come upon him yet again, maybe he’d even talk to her.
And answer a few questions.
Taking a seat on a mossy stone bench, she closed her eyes and began to form colors and shapes in her mind, picking for her scene this time the gardens of Langley Manor, but not in their current state of decay. Instead, she filled the beds with flowers so that the scene resembled her earlier vision, the one that must have come from Holt’s memories.
She wondered if she should attempt to clothe herself in another long white gown, but decided against it. If she were able to find Holt in her dreamscape, the gown might trigger more memories from his long-ago past.
Her real goal, she reminded herself, was to ask him about the present.
Within her dreamscape, her feet began to tread the pebbly path to the center of the garden, where the stone pillar held up the sundial. Once again, it was free of all masking vegetation. She passed it and continued onward, walking by mounds of lavender and savory-scented thyme with tiny green leaves sized for the hands of fairy folk.
So far, all the elements had come from her own mind. Nothing had intruded, nothing that could have come from Holt’s mind. Walking onward, she kept searching.
Holt! Where are you?
Maybe creating so many details was keeping her mind too active. As Tressa came to an opening in a hedge, she tried to empty herself so that she could be receptive, instead.
As she stepped through the gap, she found herself so completely enveloped in a dense fog that it was impossible to see her whereabouts. Then a cold breeze sifted through the strands of her hair and stirred the fog ahead of her, thinning it.
To her surprise, she found that she was standing next to a body of water; the surface gleamed like dull silver in the fog. Another chilly breeze blew past her and the fog thinned some more. Suddenly, she could see the curving bank of a small lake that lay in the middle of a dark, encircling forest.
From a recess near the bank, a pair of black swans emerged to drift across the gleaming water. She stared at their ebony plumage, feeling more unsettled than ever.
And then she spotted Holt. He was walking swiftly away from her along the bank. The branches tossed restlessly above his head and the waters of the lake rippled as he passed along the shoreline.
Had she entered one of Holt’s memories from the past? No, that couldn’t be true, for he was dressed in the style of clothing he wore in the present day. But why had he come to this strange place in his thoughts? She followed a narrow footpath along the shoreline, keeping her eyes on him in the distance as he rounded the lake.
Holt suddenly turned away from the water and disappeared into the trees. Tressa hurried after him. When she reached that spot, she found another path leading into the misty trees. Following it, she passed through more drifts of thick fog.
A breeze swept past and then she could make out the forms of tall hedges growing an arm’s length away on either side of her. They had been sheared to form the firm green walls of a narrow corridor.
Her attention was captured by a movement up ahead. A figure in black clothing was disappearing out of sight around a corner – Holt.
Quickly she ran after him. She rounded the corner just in time to see him disappear around another corner. The light dimmed and a cold breeze blew again, ruffling the tops of the hedges.
She followed the green corridor as it bent around sharp corners again and again. It seemed to be a garden maze, but there were no crossings, no alternate routes. It was a maze without any choices.
She came to a stop at last, unable to find Holt. As she gazed up at the looming walls, a sense of foreboding swept over her. She had just decided to give up the search for Holt and retrace her steps as quickly as possible when she heard the murmur of voices.
Cautiously, she walked onward. As she turned a corner, she found herself at the entrance to a square space within the maze that was open to the sky but bounded on all sides by tall hedges.
In the middle of the space stood Holt. His back was still turned away from her, and on the far side of the green-walled room, in a shaded alcove, sat a dark-haired woman in a long, flowing gown from the past.
Her face was classically beautiful. She seemed completely unaware of Holt’s presence, and was looking downward instead, as if lost in thought.
Tressa’s gaze darted back to Holt. Taking his modern clothing as a sign, she realized that Holt must be thinking about a woman from his long-ago past.
The tops of the hedges were swaying under the buffets of a strong, uneven wind. Whoever she was, the dark-haired woman seemed to be stirring up very strong emotions within Holt.
Who was she?
She continued to be unaware of Holt, which only strengthened Tressa’s impression that Holt was thinking about someone from his past. Her dark hair was arranged in artful ringlets and the profile of her face showcased the perfect proportions of her features.
Tressa followed the direction of the woman’s gaze down to a small pool that was edged with flagstones. Filling the pool was something darker than water, something that shone reddish and murky under the cloudy sky.
Tressa felt a wave of dizziness come over her. Shaking her head to clear it, she stared across the open space.
Within the darkness of the alcove, the woman’s pale skin was unnaturally white.
Tressa shuddered, feeling afraid and vulnerable. But there was no need to worry about an attack, she reminded herself. The beautiful predator was only an image in Holt’s memory.
But Holt’s presence here was different. He’d be able to see Tressa in this strange maze. If he should turn around just now, what would he think?
His back was still turned and all of his attention seemed to be focused upon the dark-haired vampire. Tressa’s former plan to speak with him about the psychic link suddenly seemed like a very bad idea.
She retreated slowly back along the corridor. Once she was out of sight of the green-walled room, she turned around and fled, retracing her steps through the maze. But as she turned each corner, the rigid, dark green walls became more and more blurry. Dark shadows filled the way.
A sense of terrible urgency made her run faster. Her link with Holt must be disappearing, and because of that, the hedges and other features of this place were fading away.
She could still feel the sharp, clipped branches of the hedges whenever she blundered into them, even though she could barely see anything now in the darkness. With their painful guidance, she persisted onward.
When a cluster of damp, pendant leaves slapped at her face, she knew that she had finally left the maze and was passing through the misty trees that encircled the lake. Her feet slid and stumbled as she ran along the bank. To her left, the waters of the lake stretched off, still faintly visible because of their dull sheen. She heard a sharp hiss nearby – one of the black swans.
Suddenly, her outstretched hands encountered another hedge, and then a gap. As she ran through it, a sense of light slowly grew around her. Soon, she was walking once again among the sunlit beds of lavender and roses. The flowers seemed more vibrant than ever and she viewed them with a sense of gratitude.
Coming to a stop under the spreading oak tree, she allowed the colors and shapes of the dreamscape to dissolve.
As the images faded away, Tressa felt the coldness of a stone bench underneath her and opened her eyes. The garden surrounding her was filled with weeds and bounded by unkempt hedges. Nearby, the ivy-covered wall of Langley Manor rose upward from a tangle of shrubs.
Pale clouds covered the sky and a chilly mist hung in the air. Tressa wrapped her arms around herself. The
beautiful dark-haired vampire must have been very important to Holt in the past. But if an emotional bond had formed between them, it could never have lasted for two hundred years.
Whoever she was, her role in Holt’s life must have ended a long time ago. She might even have met with foul play, for such a fate was not infrequent among her own kind. She could have perished at the hands of a rival vampire and Holt could still be mourning her death, even now.
Twenty-seven
Tressa had just finished weeding the front garden at Cup Cottage when Peter’s voice drifted through the cool evening air, calling her for dinner. All afternoon she had given herself one task after another to complete, for she had been determined to keep her thoughts from dwelling on the lovely vampire she’d spotted in the maze.
Now she straightened and brushed the soil from her clothes, feeling unprepared to face the others. Would Holt join them in Arbor Cottage tonight?
Peter’s voice called her name again, and reluctantly she stepped inside Cup Cottage to wash the soil from her hands in the bathroom. In the mirror, her eyes gazed back at her, shadowed and unsure. To her mind, she looked much younger than her twenty-one years. She noticed a smudge of garden loam on her cheek and rinsed it off.
She tried to imagine herself dressed in a designer outfit. What would she look like with her hair arranged by an expert stylist? Would she seem more poised then, more self-assured? Her reflection gazed matter-of-factly back at her. No, nothing would change.
She turned away from the mirror and made her way down the stairs. She was sure that for a short while, Holt had felt something for her, just as she was. He had been drawn to her despite her lack of sophistication, despite her odd ways and her various failures. But it must have been a passing fancy, a fleeting interlude.
As she passed outside and walked up the lane in the growing darkness, she changed her mind. Holt had felt guilty about his predatory lapses, it was true, but when she considered all that had passed, it seemed clear to her now that Holt had never viewed their short relationship as a mistake.
It had been deliberate creation, like a poem that Holt had dreamt up, with her cooperation – and how willing she had been! – a joint effort that had been piercingly sweet while it had lasted. It had been an inspiration that he had toyed with, turning it this way and that, marveling at it briefly in his mind without any intention of ever writing it down in any permanent way.
There’s nothing to be done about it now, and no way to make it happen again, she told herself.
When Tressa arrived at Arbor Cottage, she found to her relief that Holt was absent that evening. Her only companions at the dinner table were Peter, Luke and Hugh.
Partway through the meal, Hugh rose from the table to tend to his wife upstairs, and Peter exchanged a meaningful glance with Luke. As soon as the caretaker’s footsteps could be heard climbing the creaky stairs, Peter turned to Tressa.
She was elated to learn that Peter had risked making contact that morning with the federal channel in the States. But her hopes of a speedy investigation were dashed when Peter added that he’d had no choice but to assume a false identity. That precaution would have to continue, too, until Luke had intercepted more of the Operation’s messages. If Luke could rule out any signs of a countermove, then the ponderous wheels of a secret federal investigation would finally begin to roll.
The stair treads creaked again as Hugh made his way back downstairs and all talk of the Operation ceased.
But as they finished their meal, Tressa’s thoughts ran silently onward. Uneasily, she wondered how many vampire subjects could have been altered so far. How many others might be lying in hospital beds or stretchers, undergoing a course of psychoactive drugs right now?
If Margot were truly dosing a series of vampire patients somewhere out of sight, and Ted was busily spreading false rumors from headquarters, then the dangerous undercurrents within the Operation were still rising higher and higher with nothing to oppose them.
When dinner was over, a knot of tension remained in the pit of Tressa’s stomach. While Peter and Luke sat by the hearth, talking quietly together, she entered the kitchen to brew a pot of herbal tea in the hopes of calming her nerves before bed.
She found a teapot and a tin of chamomile tea in the cupboard. The kettle of water was heating on the range when she heard the connecting door to the kitchen swing open on its ancient hinges.
“Tressa.”
Caught unprepared, she uttered a little gasp. She turned around to find that Holt had entered the kitchen.
When he pulled out a chair for her at the table, Tressa sat down with her heart hammering painfully in her chest. The vision of Holt standing before the beautiful vampire in the maze throbbed again in Tressa’s thoughts.
Holt sat down across the table from her. “I just spoke with your brothers. It seems they’re hoping your government will come to your aid, but the results will be slow.”
She nodded, adding, “It’s our only option. Luke will watch for any countermoves and meanwhile, we’ll wait.”
“Tressa, do you have enough to occupy your time?”
The water in the kettle was boiling by then, so she rose and switched off the heat. “Oh, yes,” she called over her shoulder, even though it wasn’t true. If he’d spend more time with her, she wouldn’t feel so lonely and so restless, but she couldn’t tell him that.
“I know that Luke has arranged a leave of absence from your job at the hospital. But what will become of your online classes?”
As she opened the tin of chamomile tea, she replied, “I had to withdraw from them. Luke handled the details for that, too.”
“You must be disappointed.”
“A little. But to be honest, I’m not sure my classes would have helped me make any real changes at the hospital. Seeking out a position in the administration would have been more direct.”
Holt laughed dryly. “It’s a good thing you never tried that. You’d make a very poor administrator. And you should have known better than to imagine you had the makings of an agent for your Operation.”
Tressa’s heart constricted painfully as she poured hot water from the kettle into the teapot. Holt must think she was little more than a teenager, and an incompetent one at that. And why wouldn’t he? Her years of experience numbered only twenty-one, while Holt had witnessed the passing of one decade after another ever since he had been born more than two centuries ago.
“I’m not always bumbling, Holt.” She tried to laugh off his comments. “I’m good at making tea, for instance,” she added lightly over her shoulder as she added a scoop of dried chamomile to the teapot.
“No, Tressa, you’re not always bumbling. In fact, Hugh has been singing your praises ever since you arrived at Langley. He tells me that you’re able to bake loaves of bread that rival his own, a confession I never thought to hear. He also says that you’ve been very helpful with Jane, and that you gave him the name of a new medication that will help her stay at home. They’re both very grateful to you.”
“It was the least I could do.” She stirred the brew and set the lid on the teapot.
“Hugh’s wife also tells me that you’re a good listener.”
Tressa smiled to herself. “She tells a good tale.” Jane’s story had been about a fierce storm that had raged many years ago. Hugh had been a young man living in Cornwall then, and he’d been full of bravado. He had boasted that he could sail in all weathers, but when a terrible storm had hit one summer, his boat had sunk and he had barely survived drowning. Pulled from the water by a local fisherman, he had been revived and tended by the fisherman’s daughter. A few months later there had been a wedding. Jane’s accent had been easier to understand than Hugh’s, and with only a few questions, Tressa had been able to follow the tale.
“You should make recordings again,” Holt went on. “Not only would you salvage a bit of history, but you could end up having your wish, after all.”
“What do you mean?” Tressa turned from the cou
nter to look at him.
“Elderly folk might receive more sympathy if their tales could be heard. Speeches and campaigns do so little. How well I learned that lesson in the past! Many a time I held a crowd of listeners in thrall, speaking to their hearts about tenancy laws and the kind of hellish poverty that could be prevented, if only we would act together. My listeners would cheer, but their hearts were fickle. So many were quickly led astray by the clever tongue of any passing rabble-rouser. All my speeches came to naught and all my pamphlets must have met a soggy end, moldering in the gutters, after I disappeared.” Holt gave a rueful shake of his head.
Tressa wanted to cross the room and slip her arms around him where he sat frowning and staring off into space; she wanted to press her cheek against his, but she didn’t. That would seem too intimate to Holt, now that their short relationship was virtually over.
She only said, “Sharing their stories with the public is a good idea, but it would take some organization.”
Holt turned to give her an assessing look. “Your namesake is St. Teresa of Avila,” he pointed out. “She was able to make many changes for the better in her time, you know. A veritable firebrand, and yet she had visions, too. You already have the visions, Tressa. Why not the practical success as well?”
“But Holt, my visions aren’t like hers. They’re not important.”
Holt looked steadily back at her. “Are you certain?”
“Mostly they’re scenes that I create myself, in some strange way.” Except for the intrusions that had come from Holt’s own mind and memories, she silently amended.
Once again, her thoughts were assailed by the lingering images she’d been trying to suppress all day. She saw again the shadowed lake and the black swans; she saw the still, white hands and the beautiful face of the pensive vampire who had been seated in the alcove of the maze.
Worried that Holt would notice her distress, she quickly swept the images from her mind. Crossing the room, she set the teapot on the table.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked brightly.
