Borderliners (23 page)

‘Steady on, love.’

‘You misunderstand me, darling,’ I said. ‘I need to tell you something but I don’t want to be overheard. I need cover!’

He chuckled and put his arms around me, pulling me closer. ‘I reckon this is as good a cover as you’ll get – nobody’s going to hear us. Fire away.’

‘I’m going to need to stay here a while,’ I hissed. ‘I have to take care of something and I might be late – if you want to leave, just do so. You can let yourself into the house. There’s a key under the back door mat. Don’t ask questions, or come looking for me or anything else like that. I don’t want to attract unnecessary attention.’

Dan raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

As we unlocked our embrace and turned to walk back into the stately home, I noticed a dark shape in the doorway swivel round and saunter into the building. Had he been watching us?

Dan steered us to the dance floor, and I stayed there for a while, making a reasonable show of enjoying myself, until it dawned on me Julia was nowhere to be seen. I frowned and touched Dan’s arm, indicating I needed to take a quick break. He nodded but continued dancing.

It had begun to rain outside, but despite this, I decided to walk away from the stately home. Turning left outside the French doors I walked through the rain into the gardens. Hurrying along, head bent against the rain, I nearly ran straight into Vince, who was standing under his umbrella ahead of me on the path. I hadn't seen him leave and blinked in confusion. He nodded a cursory hello but I felt as if his intention was anything but to greet me politely. His eyes glinted but at the same time his voice wavered and I couldn't really discern what was behind this mismatch of sound and gesture. I stopped and waited in silence, letting droplets of rain drip from my hair onto my nose.

‘I saw you talking to Julia,’ he said.

‘She came over to talk to me. Not the other way around.’

‘Where is she now?’ He was watching me carefully.

‘I don’t know. I was wondering that, too.’ I took a breath. ‘A few people have disappeared from the ball - can you guess which ones? They may have gone home, of course, but considering what we discussed in the pub a few weeks ago about a certain ceremony, I thought I’d take a walk around, maybe venture into those woods and see what I can find.’

I made to move past him, but he grabbed my hand. For a second we stared at each other.

‘Come on, Elena,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘You can’t be taking a walk inside those woods on your own?’

‘I can look after myself.’

The stately home nestled behind us in the darkness of the gardens. A halo of light surrounded it although the steady hum of voices which usually caressed the ears of those outside was now inaudible over the aggressive patter of the rain. As we continued to stare at each other in silence, the umbrella clattered to the floor, falling unnoticed from Vince's free hand. A peal of laughter from inside the banqueting hall registered and I took my cue to pull away.

Turning towards the woods beyond the stately home’s gardens, I began to walk again.

Vince fell into step with me. ‘I’m coming with you.’

I didn’t reply and we were both silent as we marched forwards.

The sky stretched across my sphere of vision like a membrane. Thinner at the top and thicker at the sides, the orange of the lights outside the Hall directly above us turned the sky a menacing shade of purple at the edges. Further away, the horizon was flecked with sparkling dots which crept across the night sky. I strode along, looking up towards the heavens rather than down at my feet and the undergrowth, which grabbed at my dress as I pounded through it.

After several minutes, we stopped and I took stock of where we were. We had ended up in a large clearing where the thick tree mass had lightened to give way to a clearer expanse. My dress was ripped in three places and my feet felt too large for my body as I dragged them through the damp undergrowth. I was soaked. Voices reverberated and strained at the edge of my consciousness. I slowed my pace down, suddenly aware of the sodden, autumn leaves beneath my feet and my breath cutting through the night air. At some point the rain must have stopped, giving way to clearer skies. It was already cold and the temperature was dropping fast. I made for the edge of the clearing to avoid the clarity of the moon and the voices in the near distance.

We glanced at each other. Backed up against the edge of the shadows, I stooped over to catch my breath, wondering if we were anywhere near the site of the clandestine Walpurgis ceremony. Gradually, I gained control of my breathing and concentrated on my surroundings. The voices I’d heard earlier seemed a lot closer and I frowned as I attempted to tune in to them. I could make out other sounds mixed in with the low hum of voices: a low moan and a shrill, but constant whine. My breathing became irregular as I strained to listen more closely, my instincts on alert.

Indicating to Vince that he should follow behind, I edged up to a large, low branch on the periphery of the clearing and parted its leaves to see. In the clearing, I saw a terrible face contorted in both ecstasy and power. With long, dark hair and willowy legs, the central figure stood with her arms outstretched towards the sky in the middle of a crowd of onlookers: men and women still dressed in their ball gowns and tuxedos but transformed into creatures of another universe. Their eyes aloft, glazed and otherworldly, they chanted softly looking as if a spell had been cast on them. Shrinking back into the shadow and protection of a large, maternal oak tree, I squinted through its remaining brittle leaves, paper-thin now that autumn had advanced to claim their former lushness. There was a silence, suddenly deafening.

‘This woman has broken the rules,’ said the central figure in a voice which although lilting and low was powerful and direct.

I edged closer to the side of the tree trunk, gripped by slow release panic as I tried to see who the people were. There was no mistaking the woman in the middle whose voice carried through the night air to where I hid. The assembled group were concentrating intently on the proceedings but still, I felt as if my breathing alone could be heard all around the clearing. I couldn’t work out who was whom as tuxedos and ball gowns merged into a mass of black and white and colour. But I recognised the girl in the middle: my patient, Linda, who at odds with the rest of the company, was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. There was no sign of her sister.

And I recognised the man too.

As I caught sight of him, he turned to look directly over at the branch behind which I was hiding. He was standing to one side of the main group in the middle, his blue eyes haunted, mournful and pleading as they bored through the surroundings to strip everything away. In his left hand he was clutching a sheaf of papers of differing sizes which looked worn and tatty at the edges. And I felt as if I was standing right before him, my soul exposed and bare, lain open for all to see. I had failed him. His eyes conveyed this as he stared over at me, sad and resigned. I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out and I just stood there, helplessly contorted.

Julia, who had been chanting incoherently, slid across to where Tony was standing before gliding back to the middle. ‘THIS, ladies and gentlemen,’ she said slowly and deliberately, ‘is an example of the sickness the world bestows on you if you meddle where you are not welcome!’

A tremor passed through the waiting crowd: they appeared to sway in time with Julia’s slow, lilting words. The invisible thread connecting me to Tony strengthened as I continued to stare over at him, paralyzed. Breaking his sightless gaze, I took a deep breath, recognising the hard kick of adrenalin which coursed through my veins, as I prepared to burst forth from the bushes to run into the circle.

Julia floated back over to Linda, her lilting tones breaking through my train of thought. ‘Tonight is our annual ceremony, where evil must be banished.’

The assembled crowd took this as a sign and, moving together in one, fluid mass which flowed around the two stricken figures in the centre, they started chanting. Three, two, one, I prepared to lunge myself out of the foliage towards the group.

I was stopped by a hand thrust over my mouth and an arm thrown around my waist. Damn Vince! I kicked and thrashed about but he held me tight, pinning my hair back as he bent his head to my ear. ‘Quiet!’ he hissed. I breathed in and kicked out backwards. Ignoring his muffled cry, I yanked myself away before turning to face him.

‘What was that?’

His green eyes flashed as he rubbed his right calf where I’d kicked him. ‘This way. Come on!’ There was no mistaking his urgency, so as he turned, I followed, ploughed unevenly through the undergrowth. Unable to keep up I broke into a run to the cover of a thick mass of trees beyond.

‘They’ve seen us,’ I thought I heard him say, his voice lost in the rustling of our feet on the leaves and twigs below. We stopped, my breathing hard and painful as we stood staring at each other. Then Vince moved forward to take my hands in his, clenching them roughly. I noticed how several locks of coarse, shaggy hair had fallen in front of his eyes, making it difficult to read his expression.

‘What were you about to do then?’

‘I have to put a stop to it.’

A long silence stretched between us as the moon went in, finally, behind swift clouds which thickened and crowded around it to engulf their prey. Darkness closed in.

A shrill screech carried across from the clearing to where we were standing, breaking both the silence and the spell. My mind cleared and I remembered what had seemed so important only moments before.

‘That woman there, in the jeans, she’s a patient!’

‘The one right in the middle?’

‘Yes. She’s not supposed to be here.’ I pulled my hands away.

‘I agree. She’s far too young to be messing about with that lot. What’s her name? Lana or Linda or something?’

‘It’s not only that. She’s not well…’ I broke off, afraid to say too much, my brow furrowed. ‘She’s my patient and she’s in danger. Other people too! Whatever they are up to – it’s not good.’

‘You can’t just go running into their midst,’ he said, not releasing his eyes from mine. ‘We need to expose her. But Elena, let’s do it properly, let’s not put ourselves in danger too. You don’t know what those people are like, what they’re capable of.’’

‘Vince! I know! But time’s running out!’ I kicked off my shoes, grabbed them with my free hand and took flight once again. I heard a growl of frustration behind me, but I kept running until I got back to the clearing. As I re-joined the trees encircling the clearing where the gathering had been, I stopped, rooted to the spot.

‘Here!’ he ordered as he caught up. ‘Give me your phone. Quick.’

I fished out my phone. It was tricky, as the chain on my bag was both wrapped around my neck and caught in the sash I had wound around my waist. My bare feet were exposed to the uneven autumn ground which was strewn with dank leaves and sharp, brittle twigs. I shuffled up behind him and peered over his shoulder to the clearing. ‘They’ve started up again,’ I whispered, well aware there was no need for commentary. Vince put his forefinger on his lips and I fell silent again, watching as he used the zoom function on my phone to view a close up of the proceedings. I allowed my eyes to adjust to the group who were about fifty metres away, close enough for us to see and hear them, close enough for them to see us too. But not near enough for them to hear the wild beating of my heart. Only Vince was privy to this.

As moonlight escaped the rain clouds above, biting cold swept in. My toes curled as I tried to keep my circulation going, to keep a semblance of feeling in them. I told myself it wasn't important as I screwed up my eyes to get a better look at what was going on in the clearing.

A cloaked figure stood gaunt and tall, its face taut. I looked again, hardly trusting myself, but despite the sudden appearance of a cloak I knew who this was. The height and presence, the long, dark hair plastered against her face and shoulders in flattened, separated ringlets. A slow, crawling feeling of horror clutched my heart and lungs, making it difficult to breathe. For the second time that night I wanted to scream, to break into a run, but I was unable to move.

I craned my neck to see better. She looked much younger, her legs and arms sinewy and taut, her hair glossier and her eyes darker than before as she bent over a figure kneeling at her feet. The crowd around her, all tuxedos and gowns, was faceless. They swayed together and emanated an unworldly hum. Behind the kneeling figure was another cloaked figure, a man, small and dark, like a thief in the night. A black panther. Little and wiry, I barely recognised Iain in this form. He, also, appeared much younger, thinner and a lot stronger. Why the cloaks? I didn’t like it and I suppressed a shiver and the desire to flee the scene.

Hands clenched into balls, I stole a glance at Vince who was focussed on the phone camera. He did not look at me. Turning back to the figures in the middle, it was then that I realised the man in the middle was stripped to the waist, his hands tied behind his back, his eyes tightly closed and his mouth torn open in a silent scream. Noise, a kind of pleading, emanated from him.

‘Julia, Julia, Julia!’ he was saying. ‘I beg forgiveness. Please. Please!’

Through the trees, the smaller cloaked figure picked up a dark canister which had been sitting on the ground on the edge of the crowd, and began to unscrew its lid. I watched, aware of Vince who was standing perfectly still just in front of me, his hair obscuring his profile so that I could only see the line of his jawbone, hard and straight, giving nothing away. Looking back at the clearing, I fixed my eyes on the cloaked figure as he trailed the canister in a line then crossed over to the other side of the clearing to begin again in the opposite direction. When he was finished he stood back. It was then that I noticed the wind had dropped completely so that the air hung in stagnant pockets around us, and the hum increased in volume before splitting into several parts. The sound was disharmonious, rising and falling, and it sounded like nothing on earth. I couldn’t make out words, just sounds, like an elongated form of the babbling I’d heard at the prayer group.