The Dream Weavers

by Barbara Erskine

  Bea smiled. ‘It is.’

  ‘But that’s garbage. It’s not real. It was my imagination.’

  Bea sighed. ‘You can look at it that way, of course you can. Emma, what you do with your gift is up to you. I can show you how to control it. To switch it off, if that’s what you want. How to ignore it whenever you feel it beginning to filter into your consciousness. It’s not easy to live with and I understand you may not want to. You may prefer to think of it as an over-active imagination. That’s up to you.’

  ‘Have you switched yours off?’ Emma looked at her intently.

  ‘I have learned to control it, yes. Sometimes I feel I need it to explain things that are happening round me, or round other people, and then I use it. It’s another sense we possess like touch and smell and taste.’

  And, for want of something else, I deliberately look for a stone to anchor me to the place. That was not something she intended to tell Emma.

  ‘But you couldn’t deal with the voice at the cottage. The ghosts.’

  ‘No. That was something different. What your father calls a ghost is an echo from the past.’ Bea hesitated. ‘But I am going to use every method at my disposal to help understand what is going on up there. There are layers of memories there that are particularly intense and your father’s book has somehow brought them into focus.’

  ‘So, it’s his fault.’

  ‘It’s no one’s fault. It just is. Like an echo in a huge dark cave.’

  Emma shivered. She looked round. ‘Has this house got ghosts?’

  Bea smiled. ‘It did. I asked them to go away.’

  ‘It’s very old.’ Emma was looking up at the beams in the kitchen ceiling.

  ‘Parts of it are. It’s part of the cathedral estate. There were buildings here for centuries before the Church dignitaries decided to refashion them into beautiful houses for the dean and Chapter. Mark and I love it here.’

  ‘Tell me how to switch it off!’ Emma’s desperate cry interrupted her.

  Bea sighed. ‘All right. I think we should go upstairs to my study, where I keep my books and candles and herbs, things that create a calm atmosphere and will help set the mood for what we want to do.’

  She led the way up the broad staircase with its elegant handrail and bannisters curving up to the first floor, then on up the narrower flight, conscious of Emma so close behind her she could feel the warmth from the girl’s body.

  It was peaceful in Bea’s sanctuary, and it felt safe. Hilde and Eadburh were for now locked away in the past. She turned to Emma. ‘I want you to sit down on the big cushion there and relax. You’re so full of tension and stress you won’t be able to think straight until you feel more comfortable.’ She searched through the music list on her phone and found a quiet tune to play, then she sat down too, in the corner, not watching, not too close; there in case she was needed. The girl needed healing before anything else could happen.

  Slowly the window grew dark. Below on the far side of the high garden wall the town lights came on one by one. Emma’s eyes had closed. Quietly Bea stood up and lit a piece of charcoal in the little brass dish she kept for the purpose, then she reached for a bottle of dried herbs and scattered a pinch onto the glowing embers. A wisp of fragrant smoke drifted up into the still air. She reached for her phone and quietly tapped in a message to Simon. Don’t wait. This may take some time. I’ll bring her back to the cottage later. Then she pulled out a second cushion, sat down, leant back against the wall and she too closed her eyes.

  22

  In the Hampshire palace of King Beorhtric, Eadburh was once more with child. She was sick and miserable and lonely, begging Nesta for tisanes to ease her nausea. At last she had received a letter from Hilde and she sat up and pulled a cloak around her shoulders as she read it. It had been brought back by the king’s bodyguard when they returned from Sutton and delivered into her own hand, and she smiled as, tucked amongst the other news, she read the one phrase she was looking for. And the thane Grimbert was killed by the sting of a bee in his ear. That was all. She gave a grim smile. She would wait for Hilde to return to hear the further detail, but she was not expecting the woman for a while. She had another errand to perform. Somewhere else to go. Another death to avenge.

  The women’s bower was draughty and the fire had burned low. There was no sign of any of her maidens or indeed any servants at all. She wasn’t surprised. They all seemed to hate her, resenting her manner, still resenting the fact that she was Mercian, resenting the fact that she ordered the court and took over so much of its running from her husband. She guessed where they all were. There was a new minstrel in the great hall of the king and they had crept out of her chamber while she slept to listen to him. She walked down the roofed walkway that had been built between the hall of the queen and the mead hall, towards the sound of shouting and clapping, and stood for a while in the doorway looking in. The guards had uncrossed their spears at her approach. No one else noticed her. They were all concentrating on the young man standing on the dais at the far end. The sound of shouting and applause had died now, and there was intense silence. He was playing a lute and his voice was particularly sweet. She listened for a while, feeling herself relax for the first time in weeks, her hand on her belly where the child was quickening at last, a tiny flutter beneath her ribs. That was another source of resentment in the court, that she hadn’t given Beorhtric a son. Well, God willing, she would soon rectify that failing at least. This child would be a boy. She was certain of it. It was then she looked round for Beorhtric. He wasn’t there. With a frown she made her way through the crowded hall, seeing the men and women shrink away from her as she pushed her way towards the doorway into the private royal chamber behind the dais and pulled the curtain aside.

  Beorhtric was there, sprawled on his great chair, and there was someone sitting on his lap. He was kissing her, fondling her body as he sat with his back to the door. Eadburh watched for several seconds, stunned into silence before the wave of fury and jealousy hit her. While she languished, sick and heavy and ugly with the misery of carrying her husband’s child, he was playing with another woman against all the laws of God and the Church! ‘Husband!’ Her cry made him jump violently and the woman on his knee almost fell to the ground, recovering herself, spinning round to face her queen.

  His queen.

  The person on her husband’s lap was a man and he was naked.

  Bea opened her eyes with a start, reeling with shock and sat not daring to move, her heart thumping, completely disorientated. The room had grown dark and Emma was fast asleep, curled on her cushion. It was several minutes before Bea stood up and groped her way to the bookshelf, turning on the lamp. The room filled with a gentle ivory light as the music of the lute, a twenty-first century lute, played on. She checked her phone. The battery was very low. As she tiptoed towards the door she heard footsteps on the stairs. Mark must be home. She pulled the door open, meeting him on the landing and put her finger to her lips. ‘Emma’s here. She’s asleep,’ she whispered. He nodded and turned away.

  ‘Poor kid. She must be in a bad way after last night,’ he said as she followed him into the kitchen.

  ‘She is. And it’s worse than that. She’s been having nightmares and visions, which explains why she ran off the way she did. She sees, Mark. She’s a natural. She has to be shown how to control it all or she’ll be destroyed by it.’

  ‘She sees?’ He grimaced.

  ‘Sees. The past; perhaps the future. She is a sensitive, Mark.’

  He sighed. ‘Are you sure? It sounds a bit improbable.’

  ‘Why?

  He hesitated. ‘Her parents aren’t exactly …’

  He stopped, groping for a word.

  ‘Wacky? Hippy?’ Bea supplied it for him. ‘Neither were mine. It’s not hereditary, Mark. Look at our two. They have a vicar and a weirdo like me for parents and they both ended up normal!’ She had, perhaps conveniently, forgotten about her grandmother.

  ‘Sorry!’ Mark rai
sed his hands in surrender. ‘I was I suppose a bit worried you were reading more into her …’ he groped again, ‘her teenage angst, than was actually there.’

  Bea stared at him. ‘No. I’m not,’ she said shortly.

  He gave an apologetic grimace. ‘No. I’m sorry, darling. I should know better than to question you. You know what you’re talking about. Can you cope?’

  ‘I hope so. Yes, I’m sure I can, but first I wanted her to rest. I didn’t realise it was so late. I told Simon I would drive her back to the cottage.’

  He nodded gravely. ‘Why not keep her here tonight? Then at least we’ll know she’s safe. She can have Anna’s room. I’ve got to go out briefly. The churchwarden at St Mary’s last night told me they normally do a Tenebrae service on Maundy Thursday and he’s asked me to take it for them. I have to run it past the bishop. He said I can pop round for half an hour now.’ He checked his wristwatch. ‘Can you cope with her on your own?’

  ‘Of course I can. I should be used by now to you popping off to have sherry with the bishop.’ She smiled.

  ‘Who said anything about sherry?’ And he was gone.

  Bea texted Simon and then turned to the cooker. Like Kate, she believed food was a great healer, and above all else it was grounding.

  ‘There are some other bits here and there in the margins.’ Felix and Simon had picked up some fish and chips to take back to the cottage, then settled once more in front of the laptop. Felix had uploaded his new pictures. ‘He hasn’t rubbed it out. This is in Latin, even I can see that. And this …’

  He slid off the chair to let his father sit down. ‘They are records of legal agreements,’ Simon said after a moment. ‘I’ve seen that before in manuscripts. Almost notes about something they were going to deal with later. Such an odd thing to do when they were taking such care with writing up their chronicle.’

  ‘Perhaps he meant to rub it out when he’d copied it up somewhere else.’ Felix watched with interest as his father’s mobile pinged and Simon reached for it to read the message.

  ‘It’s from Bea. She’s going to keep Emma overnight and bring her back in the morning.’

  Felix wandered away from the desk restlessly and then walked back, his hands shoved down in the pockets of his jeans. ‘What do you make of Emma’s freak-out, Dad?’

  They hadn’t really discussed it, even when they were seated in the kitchen, eating their supper. Simon sighed. ‘To be honest I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘But you trust Bea.’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  Felix nodded. He squatted down in front of the fire and threw on another log. ‘Bea knows what she’s talking about, doesn’t she.’

  Simon nodded. Bea came over as genuine and knowledgeable. Some of the stuff she talked about was truly weird and would be laughed out of court by every rational person he knew, and yet obviously for her it was true and because of that she was taking Emma seriously. As he must. He remembered suddenly Bea’s admission that she had been to Coedmawr, that she had dealt with a poltergeist there. He hadn’t even queried the coincidence.

  He swivelled in the chair to face his son. ‘You said Em has told you before about the things she sees?’ he asked.

  Felix looked sheepish. He nodded. ‘She tried once or twice, but to be honest,’ he stopped, chewing his lip, ‘well, to be honest I took the mick.’

  ‘You mocked her?’ Simon remembered the word Bea had used. It seemed so apt now.

  Felix looked away.

  ‘Well, I might have done the same,’ Simon conceded. ‘If I hadn’t seen what happened. Has she told Mum about all this?’

  ‘No!’ Felix was horrified. ‘Mum wouldn’t understand. You know she wouldn’t, Dad. If she found out she would rush back here and force us to go back to London whether we wanted to or not. Then she would either forbid Em to talk about this and Em would internalise it or she’d take her to see a shrink. Far better Em discusses it with someone who knows what she’s talking about. Bea is not going to turn her into some kind of weird side show; she will help Em come to terms with whatever this is and deal with it.’

  ‘You sound very certain.’ Simon smiled at his son; he had seldom seen Felix look so intense.

  Felix nodded. ‘She can help Em. Em trusts her.’

  The two sat in silence for a while, staring into the fire.

  ‘Are you going to go on staying here, Dad, in spite of the ghosts. For the rest of the summer?’ Felix’s question came out of left field.

  Simon stood up and walked over to the front door. He opened it and looked out into the darkness. ‘This is a good place to work. Perfect,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Most of the time I can concentrate really well.’ He gave a wistful smile.

  ‘Until you were pestered by your children and a ghostly nun.’

  ‘The children will be going back to school soon.’

  ‘Oh great! You had to remind me!’

  ‘And just as well. You don’t seem to be doing any revision at all. How come?’

  Felix grinned. ‘If one learns a subject properly in the first place, there’s no need to revise.’

  ‘So you’re going to get top marks in every subject?’

  ‘Probably. Honestly, Dad. There’s no point in going over everything. It’s all in here.’ Felix tapped his temple. ‘After all, I knew all about the Reformation and Henry VIII destroying shrines when Em didn’t. And she’s doing history for A level.’

  ‘Good point. I suppose.’

  ‘The best. Let’s forget about it. I’m cool.’

  Simon shook his head in despair. ‘OK.’ He changed the subject hastily. ‘Let’s go out and look at the stars. They’re amazing up here. So many! There is almost no sky left between them.’

  He felt Felix behind him. ‘Dark skies, they call them, don’t they?’ the boy said thoughtfully. ‘And they are anything but. OK, Dad, so your children are going home soon, but what about the nun?’

  Simon smiled. ‘Ghosts can’t hurt one, can they. I’ll get used to her. I’m staying.’

  Emma sat and watched while Bea chopped vegetables. When she had at last appeared downstairs the girl had admitted to being very hungry. ‘So, what you’re saying is that I can switch this off when I want to.’

  Bea nodded. ‘I’m not saying it’s easy. What you see is seductive, however horrible it is, and of course when you’re swept into the story it’s hard to keep one foot on the ground of your real life.’ She was talking about herself, talking about something that had never happened to her before, not like this, not so insistently, but if the same thing was happening to Emma, then she had to find a way to help her. ‘That’s the bit you have to learn. But once you know it’s possible to step back, you’re halfway there.’

  ‘Is this to do with reincarnation?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Not in this case. That feeling that you have been somewhere before, that you know the people you encounter, in real life or in your dreams perhaps, is a different thing. Here you are a witness rather than a participant.’

  Was that true? Yes, even though Eadburh and Nesta could see her, she wasn’t there, with them.

  But she was, wasn’t she. Eadburh had seen her and Nesta had drawn her in.

  ‘Bea?’ Emma was staring at her. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sorry, I was thinking about something that happened to me recently.’ Why not be honest with this girl. Think of her as an apprentice rather than a victim. But don’t tell her everything. That would only terrify her more. ‘I had seen something spontaneously, and I came out of it spontaneously. I wanted to know what happened next because it was relevant to a haunting I was dealing with, and that was when I used a touchstone. I picked it up from the site of the haunting; in this case it was literally a stone, and I formed the intention that I could only see the story when I had the thing in my hand. If the story gets too upsetting, I drop it.’

  ‘And that wakes you up?’

  ‘Yes.’ She said it firmly.

  It wasn’t always true, o
f course. Surely Emma would see through the over-simplification.

  ‘Hello, I’m back.’

  Mark’s voice in the hall saved her from the tangle of her own thoughts. ‘So, how was the bishop?’

  ‘Amenable. If they want the Tenebrae, he’s fine with that. I’d better ring the churchwarden and tell him.’

  ‘What’s the Tenebrae?’ Emma watched as Mark disappeared towards his study.

  ‘A rather lovely late-night service. Part of the Easter story. They are going to have it on Maundy Thursday – that’s the Thursday before Easter Day. The church is candlelit, with no electric lights on, and they will blow out the candles one at a time until the church is completely dark, then someone will slam the door loudly. The sound symbolises the rock being rolled across the entrance to Jesus’s tomb. It’s very dramatic. Then they will meditate on Jesus’s death.’

  Emma grimaced. ‘I don’t go for that stuff. And,’ she leaned forward on her elbows, ‘I’m surprised you do. I suppose you have to, if you’re married to a vicar.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything because I’m married to a vicar,’ Bea said gently. She brought out a loaf and the butter dish and began to lay the table. ‘But obviously we talk about things. We have interesting discussions.’

  ‘In our family, “interesting discussions” usually means blazing rows,’ Emma folded her arms.

  ‘That’s sad.’ Mark returned in time to hear her remark.

  ‘I hate it. Mum is a bit fierce sometimes. She doesn’t really like the same things as Dad. She wishes he had a proper job.’

  ‘Our children had the same problem, I fear.’ Mark smiled. ‘It’s not very cool, having a clergyman for a father. We’re generally regarded as wimps.’

  ‘But you’re not a wimp.’ Emma spoke with feeling.

  Bea turned away to hide a smile. She gave the pan of soup on the stove a quick stir. ‘Indeed he isn’t,’ she said.

  ‘And you believe in ghosts. You must do,’ Emma went on earnestly. ‘Dad said you dealt with his ghost.’