Time's Echo (11 page)

‘The priestess?’ Drew looked across the room to where Vivien was talking to Sophie, and his expression was unfriendly. ‘She’s got a certain charisma, I grant you, but I
don’t trust people like that, whatever beliefs they’re peddling. They’re experts at manipulating weaker minds.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything sinister about it,’ I said doubtfully, pushing my hair behind my ears. ‘It’s just all a bit silly.’

‘It starts out silly, but it can turn nasty. My mother was like Sophie,’ said Drew. ‘She started off dancing around trees and ended up joining a cult.’

Drew’s mother had been in a
cult
? I almost choked on my nettle tea.

‘
Really
? How old were you?’

‘Six,’ he said briefly.

Six. Lucas had been about six. I wondered what Drew had been like as a small boy. ‘Did she take you with her?’

‘No, the whole business of looking after a child wasn’t mystical enough for my mother.’ Drew’s expression didn’t change, but there was an undercurrent of bitterness
to his voice. ‘I stayed with my father, who remarried a sensible woman a couple of years later. My stepmother brought me up, and she’s still the person I think of as my
mother.’

I was still trying to get used to the idea of Drew having a mother who was into alternative living. ‘What happened to your real mother?’

‘She got herself to the States – God knows how – and joined some community in the middle of nowhere. She died when they all took a suicide pact.’

‘That’s . . . terrible,’ I said inadequately.

I was shocked, but Drew simply shrugged. ‘It was a stupid waste, but that was my mother for you. You can see why it worries me to watch Sophie drifting down the same path. Everyone says
she’ll grow out of it, but my mother didn’t.’

I bit my lip. I’d said that too. ‘Well, I won’t tell you not to worry, but I don’t think Sophie is that otherworldly. We had a laugh when we were making the cake
yesterday, and she was telling me about people at school. She’s a pretty good mimic, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, she can be good company when she tries, or when she forgets that she’s supposed to be a surly teenager.’

‘I think she feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere,’ I said. ‘I remember feeling like an odd duck too. I’m not saying Sophie doesn’t believe in all this
stuff, but maybe she’s just trying to find somewhere she can be one of the crowd, and not the odd one out for a change.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

There was a strangely companionable silence as we stood in the window. I was thinking about Drew and the mother who had abandoned him, but Drew, it appeared, had more prosaic matters on his
mind.

‘Do you fancy coming to supper tonight?’ he asked after a while. ‘I’m not much of a cook, so I can’t promise anything exciting, but I’ll open a bottle of red.
I think we’ll both need it after this.’

I brightened. ‘I’d love to,’ I said. I’d been missing my friends in Jakarta, and the thought of an evening away from Lucy’s house was very inviting. An evening not
letting myself remember hurrying through the crofts. Not letting myself wonder if Francis had waited. Not letting myself listen for the anguished whisper, or sniff for the reek of rotten
apples.

‘Can I bring anything?’ I asked. ‘Some poppy-seed cake perhaps? I can tell how much you’ve enjoyed it,’ I added, nodding down at his plate. Apart from the tiny
piece I’d broken off, it was untouched.

Drew smiled. Really smiled this time, not that tantalizing almost-smile, and just for a moment my breathing got all tangled up. ‘Delicious as it was, I couldn’t possibly deprive you
of the leftovers,’ he said smoothly.

‘I’m going to be eating it for weeks,’ I grumbled, to disguise the fact that my lungs had momentarily forgotten how to function.

‘You could always try burying it under a full moon and see what comes up.’

‘Don’t joke. It might well come to that.’ I paused. I was reluctant to move on, but I still had to speak to a number of Lucy’s friends. ‘I’d better circulate.
I’ll see you later then?’

‘About seven?’

‘Great,’ I said.

It wasn’t exactly a date. It was just dinner with a friend. Still, anticipation fizzed along my veins and I had that fluttery feeling beneath my skin that makes it impossible to settle to
anything. That was how I had felt the day I went to meet Francis in the orchard, I remembered involuntarily, and I stumbled mentally at the thought, cursing myself.

I’d been doing so well not thinking about Hawise, not thinking about the way the air in Lucy’s house seemed to pulse with frustration sometimes. That day the atmosphere was
fractious, fretful, although none of the so-called witches seemed to notice anything amiss.

I’d been on my own too long, I decided. I hadn’t been aware of the atmosphere when I was talking to Drew, but now it seemed to press in on me again. I looked across the room to where
he stood, head bent towards a wheezing woman in a flowing blue robe. I recognized her from Lucy’s funeral rites. Her expression was intense as she talked, while Drew listened courteously,
only a twitching muscle in his cheek betraying the impatience that I knew he felt.

He was a nice man, I thought. It was good to feel such a sense of connection that wasn’t muddled up with physical attraction. I could just enjoy Drew as a friend without complicating
things with sex. Absently I touched the pendant at my throat. Perfect.

‘That’s a beautiful necklace.’ I swung round to find Vivien Price watching me watching Drew, and to my annoyance I felt colour creeping up my throat. Vivien had penetrating
blue eyes that reminded me uneasily of the Widow Dent. But there the similarity ended. I guessed Vivien to be in her forties, with smooth skin and dark, thick hair that fell almost to her waist.
Although she was dressed no differently from any of the others in the room, she wore her simple robe with an air of authority.

I forced a smile. ‘Thank you. Yes, it’s lovely, isn’t it? It was a Christmas present from a boyfriend a few years ago.’

‘May I see?’

Obligingly I held the pendant out from my neck. The jade was cut in a simple oblong and was the clear translucent green of a tropical lagoon. It hung from a braided silver chain and sat just
below the hollow of my throat, as it had done since Khao Lak. I hadn’t taken it off once.

‘What a wonderfully intense colour.’ Vivien’s eyes lifted to mine. ‘He must have been a nice boyfriend to choose something so beautiful for you.’

‘Yes, he was,’ I said evenly.

‘Jade is of the heart chakra, did you know that? It’s worn to attract love.’

I laughed. ‘That’s not why I wear it. I’m not looking for love.’

‘Your pendant says that you are.’

‘In that case, it’s lying,’ I said pleasantly. ‘I like to be able to move on whenever I need to. That doesn’t go too well with intense love affairs.’

‘You’re afraid to get too close to people,’ said Vivien. ‘You yearn for it and fear it at the same time.’

‘The only thing I’m afraid of is that I’ll be left with all that seed cake,’ I said lightly enough, but my jaw was tense, and when I caught a glimpse of myself in the
mirror, the tendons in my throat were standing out. ‘Do have some more.’

‘You’re afraid of this house too,’ said Vivien as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘You’re right to be.’ She looked around the sitting room. I’d got rid of the
altar, much to Sophie’s horror, taken down the weird pictures and rubbed out the pentagrams Lucy had chalked at the windows and doors, but the room was still disturbing in a way that I
couldn’t put my finger on. ‘I see what you have tried to do, but there is still violence here,’ she said. ‘Violence and hate and fear.’

Violence. Hate. Fear
. The words jangled in the air. I swallowed.

‘And here was me thinking everyone was getting on so well,’ I said flippantly to cover my unease.

‘You can feel it,’ Vivien continued, unperturbed. ‘You’re a sensitive.’

‘No,’ I said, taking an instinctive step back. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You must take care. And you must be careful of Sophie.’

‘Sophie?’ I had been about to make an excuse and move away, but I stopped and looked at her sharply. ‘Why? What’s wrong with Sophie?’

‘She’s foundering around, looking for somewhere she can be accepted. That makes her . . . vulnerable.’

‘Vulnerable to what?’

‘She’s open to the spirits, she yearns for them in fact, but not all spirits are good spirits or safe spirits.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said uneasily.

‘Just look out for her,’ said Vivien.

‘Vivien, I hardly know Sophie,’ I protested and she fixed me with those far-seeing blue eyes.

‘You know her father.’

Heat stung my cheeks. ‘Not really.’

‘Still, watch out for her. You’ll be better for her than Lucy. Your godmother was a fool,’ said Vivien calmly. ‘She dabbled in things she didn’t understand and
strayed too far into the darker paths. Don’t let Sophie go the same way.’

Drew was still cooking when I went round at seven. ‘It’s supposed to be a vegetable lasagne,’ he said, surveying the crowded worktop in dismay. ‘I
always forget how long it takes to chop everything up. It’s not nearly ready.’

‘Let me do those.’ I nudged him aside with my hip and took over slicing aubergines, without thinking about how familiar I was being. Inappropriately familiar, I worried afterwards,
but at the time it just seemed the natural thing to do. I hadn’t been cooking much for myself, and it felt good to be in a warm, light kitchen. Sophie had opened the door to me and was
slouching on a stool at the tiny breakfast bar. I tossed her a couple of peppers. ‘You could chop those up, Sophie.’

She fumbled the peppers, looking surprised, but got up to get a knife without objection. Drew looked at her and then at me. ‘I can’t invite you round for supper and let you make own
meal.’

‘Pour me a glass of wine and we’ll be quits.’

‘That I can do.’ He had wrenched off the tie he had worn to the funeral, and with his shirt sleeves rolled above his wrists he looked relaxed and much younger than he had seemed that
first night. There was a luxurious pop as the cork came out, and Drew lifted the bottle to his nose, grunting in satisfaction. ‘Opening a screwtop just isn’t the same,’ he
said.

He poured the wine into two glasses, and my hands stilled as I watched him. Time slowed and I braced myself against the tug of the past, but it turned into one of those intense, inexplicable
moments when all your senses are heightened and everything seems to be happening in slow motion.

I heard the unhurried glugging from the bottle, saw the leisurely swirl of the wine in the glasses, the rich ruby colour of it. I could smell the wine and garlic and feel the weight of the knife
in my hand. When I looked down, I was dazzled by the purple shininess of the aubergines, the redness of the tomatoes, the greenness of the courgettes, piled like jewels on the chopping board. It
was as if I’d never seen vegetables before, and I stared at them, feeling time begin to spiral.

‘Here.’ Drew’s voice startled me back to the present. He was holding out one of the glasses, and my hand was unsteady as I put my smile back in place and accepted it.

‘Thanks.’

Drew didn’t let go immediately. ‘You okay?’ He looked at me searchingly and I automatically brightened my smile.

‘Yes, sure. Why?’

‘You looked a bit strange there for a moment.’

‘Did I? I’m just spaced out, I guess, with the funeral and everything.’

I picked up the knife once more. The strangeness of the aubergines had evaporated and they were once more ordinary vegetables that I’d cooked with a thousand times.

‘At least it’s over now,’ I said, ‘and I feel as if I’ve done right by Lucy, which is the main thing. She would have approved, don’t you think,
Sophie?’

Sophie nodded. Her head was bent over the peppers, which she was cutting up very slowly and precisely. ‘I still miss her,’ she said, and her voice cracked. Hers had been the only
tears at the ceremony. ‘I still don’t understand why Lucy went to the river,’ she burst out. ‘If she hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have died. What was she doing
down there?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, feeling helpless. Feeling as if I ought to know. ‘Lucy’s solicitor told me there’d been an inquest and that it had returned an open
verdict.’ Knife in one hand, I lifted my glass with the other and took a sip as I looked at Drew. ‘What does that mean?’

‘That the police found no evidence to suggest either that it was suicide or that foul play was involved.’

‘Basically, nobody knows?’

‘There isn’t always an answer, Grace. You both have to accept that you’re never going to know exactly what happened to Lucy.’

I frowned down into my glass. ‘That feels wrong.’

‘You were the one who said the other day that the past is past,’ Drew said. ‘You can’t change it.’

‘And
you
said that we should try and understand it,’ I countered, and his expression relaxed into one of those tantalizing almost-smiles.

‘Touché. I was thinking about history generally. Look, it’s not as if Lucy’s death was brushed under the carpet. The police investigated. They will have talked to her
friends. They talked to
us
.’

‘I
told
them Lucy would never have gone near the river on her own,’ said Sophie, ‘but they didn’t listen to me.’

‘Because there’s no evidence that her death was anything but a tragic accident,’ said Drew firmly. ‘Lucy’s dead, and nothing’s going to change
that.’

‘She’s not really dead, anyway,’ said Sophie.

My mind twitched so violently that I actually flinched. I put down my glass.

‘What do you mean, she’s not really dead?’

‘She’ll be reborn sometime, somewhere. It’s part of the cycle. Lucy had lived before.’ Sophie sounded absolutely certain. ‘She told me about it. That’s why I
know she wouldn’t have committed suicide. She was afraid of water,’ she said. ‘She said she had drowned in her past life. She wasn’t afraid of dying, but she didn’t
want to drown. She said it’s a horrible way to die.’

I pulled a tomato towards me. ‘Yes,’ I said, thinking of the tsunami. Of the agonizing pain in the lungs, the pressure in the ears. Of not being able to breathe, and of the horror
clogging the mind. ‘Yes, it is.’