A Place of Secrets (24 page)

“What is it?” Euan asked.

Jude picked one up and stared at the marks around the circle and the lines intersecting it, the little scribbled symbols. “It’s a horoscope,” she said finally, squinting at it. “Look, that symbol’s meant to be fish—Pisces—and the squiggly lines must be Aquarius. I couldn’t tell you what it means, though.” She studied the paper for a minute or two longer, then said, “There’s
a date, look, along the tear. Seventeen sixty-something. July—what, the twenty-first? I wonder if Gran knew it was there in the hole?”

“Let’s have a look.” It was Euan’s turn to stare at the paper. He shook his head.

“The 1760s are definitely during Wickham’s lifetime.”

“Could this be Esther’s?” Euan said suddenly.

Jude considered. “It would be neat if it were, but no one seemed to know her
birth date.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Euan said. “I wonder what it foretells.”

“Claire’s the expert,” Jude said. “She cast one for me once. It’ll be a reading of the stars and planets on the date given, which quite often was a birth date. As to what they actually mean, that would be open to interpretation. I could never work out mine.”

“You mean I could look at one, maybe, but wouldn’t be able
to predict how many children the person would have.”

“It certainly wouldn’t be as specific as that. More to do with predicting character. You know, like the Sun being in Aries, which rules the head, meaning you’re a particularly rational being. I could take it and show Claire—if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, of course, up to you, you found it. I can’t imagine John Farrell would be interested.”

“I’m
not giving it to him, whatever,” said Jude with feeling.

* * *

Later, she reread the early part of Esther’s memoir, wondering if the astrological chart had anything to do with her. It must be! Her birthday was assumed by the household to be July 21 and it sounded as though that was the day that Anthony brought her to Starbrough rather than when she was born. But surely no one would think
themselves certain enough of a date to cast a horoscope for it?

That evening she was due for supper at Claire and Summer’s. It being Friday, Summer was allowed to have her friend Emily from up the road around to stay. Where Emily’s mother had been pale and quiet, Emily was a solid child with strong coloring, tall for her age, and ungainly, with thick dark wavy hair worn in a ponytail on top of
her head and a way of staring directly at people as though she were summing them up.

When the girls were safely out of earshot, playing some ball game in the garden, and Claire had brought in two mugs of tea, Jude laid the two pieces of the horoscope on the coffee table between them and said, “What do you make of this?” She explained where she’d found it, and when she mentioned that Euan had
been there, too, Claire glowered in silence. But the chart interested her.

She sat hunched over it for some time, then said, “I’m not totally sure. It’s different from any chart I’ve seen. How old did you think it is?”

“It’s 1760-something. Look, it says there.”

“We can look at some of my books, if you like. There’s one that has some historical stuff in it.”

Jude went over to the narrow bookcase.
A great many of the books were on cookery and gardening and interior design, she saw, but the top shelf contained a guide to the night sky, the first of Euan’s books, and several paperbacks, mostly popular ones, about astrology. She picked out the one serious hardback on the subject, a history of astrology, and ran a finger down the contents page. “Astrology since 1700” was the title of one
chapter.

“This one, I take it?” she said, holding it up for Claire.

“Yes. Dad gave it to me.”

“Did he? I’d forgotten.” Jude turned to the title page where was penned “To darling Claire on her birthday, September 1996” in his dear sloping capitals. “Good old Dad.”

“Pass it over. Thanks. He was good old Dad. I think he secretly thought it all rubbish. But he still gave me the book because he
knew I’d like it.”

“I still miss him dreadfully,” Jude said, her voice dull.

“So do I.” Claire turned her head to look out at Summer and Emily, who were now bouncing on the trampoline. “The other day I drove past that nightclub in Norwich where I used to work and remembered how I’d call and he would always come down in the car to collect me, sometimes at one or two in the morning. Just to make
sure I got home safely. It was horrible when he died.”

Jude tried to remember that first awful time, before the other time following Mark’s death. When their father had his fatal heart attack, she and Mark were about to get married; there was so much still to be thankful for in life. But Claire, Claire had been as aimless as ever, drifting between jobs and men and now left in too-close proximity
to a mother who wasn’t coping, irritating the hell out of one another.

Jude waited for Claire to continue. They rarely talked like this—about deep feelings. Claire more often threw out barbed tendrils of the “Mum talks to you more than me” variety rather than calmly discussing her anxieties. And so their conversations frequently got tangled up in guilt and accusation. Jude couldn’t remember a
time when Claire hadn’t been a tight little ball of anger and frustration. The spiky child had turned into a pretty and wayward teenager, envious of Jude’s solid successes yet disdainful of them, too. Now they both realized how much of an anchor their father had been in Claire’s life; he was a kind, patient man who’d steadied this wild pony, but never tried to break her. No one had ever wanted to
do that. Claire had finally learned how to govern herself by having the responsibility of a child of her own.

Jude could never have predicted then that Mark would die, leaving her alone; that she and Claire would sit as they did now in the sunlit living room of a little cottage watching Claire’s precious daughter, for whom they both felt such fierce love …

Just then, Summer rushed inside with
her friend, announcing, “We’re going to play upstairs.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Claire called to them. “Then it’s bedtime.” She was flicking through the astrology book and found a page of illustrations. “There are some charts here that might be useful. Would you like me to have a closer look later?”

“Yes, please,” Jude said. “Anything you can work out would be useful.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I ought
to go soon,” Jude said. “Thanks very much for supper.”

“You’re welcome,” Claire said.

“I’ll go up and say good-bye,” Jude said, standing up.

She walked slowly up the stairs, admiring Euan’s pictures on the way. They weren’t great art, she had to admit, but they were attractive. He’d used the shimmering white bark so cleverly that it looked like a couple of trees, the moon and stars picked out
in gold and silver ink between their winter branches on a gorgeous dark cobalt sky. She wondered which book he’d used them in.

“Oh no, how dreadful…” Summer’s voice drifted down to her. Jude was immediately alert. She relaxed. Summer seemed to be telling some story, something about an accident. Jude walked up the last few steps and peeped around the door. Emily lay on the bed, turning the pages
of a picture book, but Summer was sitting on the floor by her doll’s house. She’d got the Jude doll and the Claire doll positioned by something on the carpet.

“Poor Thomas,” Summer was saying, her voice almost sobbing. “He’s dead. How can I live without him?”

Jude pushed open the door to see better.

Summer looked up, distress clear on her face. And then Jude saw what the dolls were standing
over. It was the black-and-white cat, Pandora, stretched out on the floor.

She quickly collected her thoughts. Summer couldn’t have said Thomas; that was the name of Esther’s cat. Her mind was playing tricks.

“What’s happened here?” she asked Summer gently, pointing to the little scene.

“A fox has caught the girl’s cat and killed it,” Summer said. “The other girl is going to help her bury it.”

“Oh Summer, what a sad story,” Jude stuttered. This had got to be some extraordinary coincidence. Summer couldn’t know the story of Esther’s cat. Had she mentioned it to Claire? Or to Euan? Maybe to Euan. That was it, and Euan had told Claire or Summer. She tried to remember if she’d told Euan about the latest installment of Esther’s memoir, but her brain seemed to have frozen.

“It’s all right,”
Summer said, misreading her aunt’s distress. “She’s going to get another cat so she’ll be happy again.”

“But where did you get this awful story?”

“I just woke up with it in my head,” Summer answered.

“She’s always telling stories,” Emily said, without lifting her eyes from her book. “She’s such a liar.”

“No, I’m not,” cried Summer, indignant. “I just wake up and know they’ve happened.”

“Know
they’ve happened,” Jude echoed, her alarm growing.

“Yes, they’ve happened.” Summer stuck out her lower lip.

Jude moved some soft toys from the bedroom chair and sat down, suddenly weary.

“Is everything OK?” Claire stood in the doorway, arms folded, one eyebrow raised.

“Of course,” Jude said, glancing at Summer, who had now brought Pandora back to life to jump up and play. The little girl certainly
didn’t seem upset in any way.

“Claire, can I have a word?”

“Sure.”

Jude followed her downstairs and drew her sister into the garden. They sat together on a bench under a buddleia bush brimming with purple flowers. Earlier the butterflies had been poring over it. It was a peaceful golden evening, the air rich with flowery scents, an evening on which it was almost possible to think everything
was all right. But it wasn’t all right. Jude felt the knowledge like a weight in her chest.

“What’s wrong?” Claire was looking worried now.

“Maybe nothing. It’s just … Well, you know Summer’s dream?”

“Yes. In fact I meant to tell you. I’ve made another doctor’s appointment for her. Tomorrow. They have a surgery on Saturday mornings. I’ll have to drop Emily off home, then go into work late.”

“Have you? I’m sure that’s a good thing.” What would a doctor make of this new development though? Jude took a deep breath.

“Claire, I think she’s dreaming about things that happened in the past. Not her past, I mean someone else’s. Esther’s. Things I’ve read about in this journal I found at Starbrough Hall.”

“Esther? You mean the stargazer’s daughter? But that’s nonsense. What’s Summer got to
do with Esther? That was a couple of hundred years ago.”

“I know. It does sound like nonsense. Listen, though. She was acting something out just now, something that I’d read in Esther’s memoir. It was about a cat that died and a gypsy girl came to help her. And Summer said she woke up knowing the story. Where could she have learned it, Claire?”

“If that’s all it is,” Claire said briskly, brushing
a petal off her cotton trousers, “you must have told it to her. Or she read something like it. Her head’s full of stories, and that one doesn’t sound very unusual.”

Jude knew Summer to be a very truthful child. She must think these dream-things weren’t just stories, but that they’d really happened.

“Will you let me talk to her about it?”

Claire looked upset now. “And put more silly ideas into
her head? What are you trying to say, Jude? That she’s possessed by something, or has lived before? That’s too weird and I won’t believe it.”

Considering all the other things you seem to believe, what’s wrong with one more? Jude almost said, but didn’t.

Instead, she sighed. “I know. It’s usually me telling you to be rational.”

“And now it’s the other way around? But this is Summer we’re talking
about, Jude. Your niece, remember? It’s no joking matter.”

Claire’s face was pink, her eyes shiny. How did we get to this stupid place? Jude thought, alarmed.

“Of course it isn’t,” she said, trying to make things right. “That’s why it’s important. That’s why I care so much.” But it was too late.

“You come here with your stuff about dreams and secrets from the past and stir everything up. You
can’t let me alone, can you? Summer’s all I’ve got. I’ve made my own life, finally. I’m happy, and now you come and mess it up by coming out with all these ridiculous things.”

“I haven’t messed it up,” Jude said helplessly, but Claire in this mood was unstoppable.

“You have,” she almost yelled. “You always do. Everything’s always gone right for you.” How many times in their childhood had Claire
said that and in just that whiny tone of voice. She seemed to realize it, for she stopped and whispered, “I’m sorry. Of course it hasn’t.”

Mark.

“That’s another thing I’m sick of, Jude. You’ve got to stop wringing your hands about Mark.”

“I can’t,” Jude whispered. “I don’t know why but I can’t. I’ve tried, you know.”

“Jude, I told you, Mark wasn’t that perfect. He was a man. There are others.”

“He was pretty much perfect,” Jude mumbled. “For me, anyway.”

Claire shook her head and said softly, “No, he wasn’t. He was just an ordinary bloke with all the ordinary faults.”

Jude looked at her sister and again there was that flutter of a curtain in her memory. Then it was gone.

“Come on,” Claire sighed, standing up. “I must get those two into bed. You can talk to Summer sometime if you
like, but there are no-go areas. I’ve read about that past life regression stuff in that magazine I get. It’s not good, Jude. Too often the therapists put ideas in patients’ heads by giving them biased questions. You can seriously mess someone up like that.”

“I know,” Jude said humbly. “And I won’t let that happen to Summer. Seeing the doctor’s a good idea. Let me know what he says.” She followed
Claire inside and picked up her handbag. “I’m shattered, Claire. And I feel awful that we’ve quarreled.”

“Don’t worry,” Claire said, giving her a quick hug, but there was no warmth in it. “Girls, Jude’s going now,” she called upstairs.

Jude hardly noticed her surroundings on the drive home, so wrapped up was she in this new worry. Everything that was happening swirled around and around in her
head. Esther. Gran. Summer. Tamsin. The folly. Euan. She drove past Euan’s house, forcing herself not to give it a glance.