Time's Echo (23 page)

‘I’m not teaching till this afternoon,’ I said breezily. ‘I fancy a walk. Besides, I wanted to ask you something.’

‘Oh?’ Sophie looked wary as we began walking.

‘Do you remember Vivien, who came to Lucy’s funeral?’

‘Of course. They don’t call her the leader, but she’s the one in charge of Lucy’s coven.’

And the one who had decided that Sophie herself was too young to join, I remembered.

‘You don’t happen to know how to get in touch with her, do you?’

Lucy had left instructions for her funeral with John Burnand, and he had made all the arrangements. I had never contacted Vivien directly, but now I wanted to talk to her. Ever since coming
round in the kitchen with the knife in my hand and that smile of anticipation on my lips, I had been grappling with how to deal with Hawise. A sense of unease nagged at the back of my mind. Oh, I
was worried about what was happening to me, of course I was, but beyond that I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I needed to do something about what was happening to Hawise too.

But how could I? I couldn’t change the past, I knew that, but still the feeling persisted all weekend. I didn’t want to go back to Sarah. She was a scientist. She had offered an
explanation that made sense as long as Hawise wasn’t there in my head, but now she was back, tugging insistently at my mind, impossible to ignore, impossible to deny.

Several times I had considered confiding in Drew again, but he was like Sarah. He was a historian –
an
historian, he would have said, I was sure – and while I thought he
would want to help, I didn’t see how he could. He would need to believe in Hawise, and I didn’t think he could do that.

Then I had remembered Vivien – Vivien who had sensed what had happened in the orchard.
There is violence here
, she had said.
Violence and hate and fear
. Vivien would
believe in Hawise.

I could have gone to John Burnand, I supposed, but I didn’t want to tell him why I wanted to speak to Vivien, and Sophie seemed a better bet.

‘I don’t have a phone number or anything, but I know where she lives,’ said Sophie. ‘I went there once with Lucy. It’s not that far from here. I could show you, if
you like.’

‘I don’t want to make you late for school.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s okay.’

‘I haven’t seen you for a while,’ I said, uncomfortably aware of my relentless cheeriness as she led me down a side street. But it was hard not to sound cheery in comparison.
‘What have you been up to?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Your dad says you go out quite a bit,’ I persisted.

For the first time a trace of animation warmed her face. ‘I go to the Temple of the Waters. I’m training to be an initiate.’

‘What does that involve?’

Sophie cast me a sidelong glance, obviously wondering why I was being so nosy, but just as obviously she couldn’t think of a reason not to answer.

‘I go to gatherings. We meditate.’ Enthusiasm warmed her voice in spite of herself. ‘Ash – that’s our leader – is so charismatic. He’s taught me how to
see Gaia in everything.’

Forgetting her reluctance to confide, Sophie plunged into an involved description of what the Temple of the Waters believed in. I nodded along. It sounded to me like a rehash of any other pagan
mythology – not that I knew much about it. Sophie talked about worshipping Mother Earth, and acknowledging the power of the elements and our place in nature, and while it all sounded rather
silly and self-important, I could sort of see why it appealed to her. I wasn’t entirely sure where the waters came into it, but it all seemed fairly harmless. I wondered if Drew was worrying
unnecessarily. I could think of worse things for Sophie to get into.

I couldn’t see that having coffee with me was going to hold much appeal for her, but I had promised to offer, and I was wondering how to introduce it into the conversation when we rounded
a corner and ran slap into a couple of goths coming in the opposite direction. I was in the middle of the whole sidestepping and apologizing thing when I realized that Sophie had stopped dead and
the colour had rushed into her face.

My first impression, it was clear, had been based on little more than the fact that both were wearing black leather jackets. On closer inspection they had a gloss that I had never seen on any
goth I’d met before. He was tall, with beautiful cheekbones and a wide, sensuous mouth, and had long, silky ringlets that should have looked girly, but which somehow emphasized the dark
masculine beauty of his face instead. The girl with him was two or three years older than Sophie, with piercings in her brow and nose and a sexy, sullen expression.

Sophie was looking bedazzled. ‘Ash, hi,’ she stammered. ‘Hi, Mara.’

So this was the allegedly charismatic leader of her temple. I could see that there was a certain glamour about both of them, but they were very young. I was amused more than impressed as I
glanced back at Ash, only to find myself caught by the intense, shiny green of his eyes.

Francis Bewley’s eyes.

My heart stuttered in shock, every instinct in me recoiling from him as from a slap. I wanted to grab Sophie’s hand and run, but I just stood there, churning with revulsion and confusion
while Sophie gazed worshipfully at him.

‘Little Moon,’ he said to Sophie, and he glanced at me and he smiled.

He knew the effect he had on me, I was sure he knew. Struggling to mask my expression, I was certain I could see amusement in those horrible light eyes.

My mind scrabbled uselessly. What was Francis doing here? It felt like longer, but it was probably no more than a few seconds of panic before reason reasserted itself. Francis couldn’t be
here. Francis was dead.

This wasn’t Francis. He was just an ex-student of Drew’s, who didn’t even look like Francis. I inhaled slowly, made myself calm. Francis hadn’t pursued me across the
centuries. What a ridiculous idea! This boy, Ash, just had light eyes. It wasn’t a crime.

Still, I understood now just why Drew mistrusted him.

I pulled myself together. ‘Little Moon?’ I asked, looking between Sophie and Ash.

‘It’s our special name for her.’ Ash’s voice was low, caressing and, in spite of reason, loathing crawled between my shoulder blades. ‘Isn’t it,
Moon?’

Sophie nodded, the hectic flush still running under her skin. ‘It’s my spirit name.’

‘What’s wrong with Sophie?’ I knew I sounded taut, but I couldn’t help myself.

‘Moon does honour to the elements,’ said Ash gravely, and I could see Sophie lapping up his intensity. ‘The moon is a symbol of woman, the female. It is the moon that rules the
tides as she waxes and wanes. Little Moon here has a power she does not yet know.’

I only just stopped myself rolling my eyes. No wonder Drew was anxious! Sophie was drinking it all in, in thrall, and now I remembered something else Vivien had said:
Watch out for
Sophie.

‘Yes, I heard your group was something to do with water,’ I said, wanting Ash to know that I was unimpressed, and he smiled faintly, condescendingly.

‘That’s like saying light is something to do with the sun,’ he said, and beside him Mara closed her eyes. It was difficult to tell whether she was praying or plain bored.
Either way, I had the distinct impression that she had heard it all before. ‘Water is the source of all life, of all love,’ Ash went on fervently. ‘Open your mind, and all the
power you need is at your disposal.’

His mirror eyes rested on me for a moment and, looking into them, I felt a chill. Ash wasn’t Francis – he wasn’t anything like him really – but all I could think about
was Francis and the mad gleam in his gaze.

My mouth was dry. ‘I get all the power I need from clicking on a switch,’ I said.

Sophie looked shocked by my flippancy, Mara openly contemptuous, while Ash only shook his head gently.

‘Get Little Moon to bring you along to one of our gatherings,’ he said. ‘I think we can teach you a better way.’

‘No, thanks,’ I said rudely. ‘I don’t like water.’ Then I caught sight of Sophie’s disappointed expression and wished I hadn’t been quite so abrupt. Ash
might give me the creeps, but I didn’t want to hurt her. ‘I’m afraid of it,’ I found myself explaining.

‘Afraid of
water
?’ Mara’s expression was incredulous.

‘Yes,’ I said evenly.

‘A tragedy for you,’ said Ash, but I had seen the glint of satisfaction in his eyes. He might not be Francis, but there was something wrong about him all the same. ‘Come, Mara,
we must go.’ He reached out and flicked Sophie’s nose lightly. ‘We will see you tomorrow, Little Moon?’

She nodded eagerly, blushing with pleasure at a gesture that to me had reeked of contempt. ‘I’ll be there,’ she promised.

Ash lifted his hand and gestured a graceful circle. ‘Blessings,’ he said to us both, and sauntered off with Mara.

Sophie gazed after them with such naked longing in her face that I averted my eyes. I would have to be very careful.

‘Wow!’ I commented lightly as we started walking again. ‘So that’s Ash.’

‘I know.’ Sophie was still lit up by the encounter. ‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ Fortunately she didn’t wait for me to answer. ‘He’s so . . . so powerful
and so
spiritual
,’ she sighed.

And so cold and so calculating, I wanted to add, but didn’t. There was no point in alienating Sophie. Criticism would only push her further under Ash’s influence. I needed to find a
way of puncturing the image she had of him, very carefully, so that all that so-called charisma leaked out of him and she saw the emptiness left behind.

So I just made a non-committal sound.

‘When Ash talks to you, it’s like he’s really
seeing
you,’ Sophie went on.

‘Funny,’ I said lightly, ‘I remember thinking the same thing about your father when I first met him.’

‘About
Dad
?’ She stared at me. ‘Dad’s nothing like Ash!’

Thank God, I thought, but I just shrugged and shifted my battered bag to my other shoulder.

‘Drew mentioned that Ash was one of his students.’

‘
Ex
-students,’ Sophie corrected quickly. ‘Ash dropped out when the spirits called him.’

‘Did they call before or after his exams?’

‘Ash can’t be limited by oppressive conventions,’ she told me. ‘What’s the point of a piece of paper proving that you can recite a few facts?’

‘Well, it usually means you have a better chance of earning some money to live on,’ I said.

‘Money!’ Sophie’s voice held all the contempt of one who had never had to earn any. ‘Money is only good for buying things. I’d rather have wisdom, and Ash says you
can’t buy that.’

‘Can’t argue with that,’ I agreed.

‘I have to stay at school until I’m sixteen,’ Sophie confided with a hint of defiance, ‘but then, if I’m ready, Ash says I can become his pupil.’

I didn’t waste my breath pointing out the downside of that idea. Sophie was too dazzled by Ash to listen. I tried another tack.

‘Was that his girlfriend?’ I asked instead, and was pleased to see her face cloud a little.

‘Mara, yes.’

‘She didn’t seem very friendly.’

‘She’s ascended to the seventh level,’ said Sophie enviously, as if that explained everything.

‘What – they can’t do smiling and saying hello on the seventh level?’

But that was a mistake. I had gone too far. Sophie bristled at my implicit criticism. ‘She’s really cool when you get to know her.’

I cursed myself as sullenness shuttered her face once more.

We walked in silence for a while, until Sophie broke it abruptly. ‘Did you mean what you said back there? About being afraid of water?’

‘Yes.’ I wished I hadn’t admitted it, but I couldn’t lie now. ‘I was caught up in a tsunami a few years ago,’ I told her. ‘I nearly drowned.’

‘A real tsunami?’ she gasped, fascinated – as so many people were – by catastrophe. I didn’t blame her. I had been the same until it had happened to me.
‘
Really
?’

I nodded. ‘The wave swept me out to sea.’ At least the thought of it had taken her mind off Ash.

‘Wow, that must have been so scary!’

‘It was.’

‘What happened . . . I mean—’ She blundered to an awkward halt, blushing furiously at the realization that she had sounded crass. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Do you mind talking about it?’

‘It’s okay,’ I said, though it wasn’t, not really. But I had talked about the tsunami with Sarah and with Drew and, beneath her gauche exterior, Sophie was a nice girl. I
would rather she was interested in the tsunami than in Ash, with his creepy eyes and his stupid Temple of the Waters.

I told her about going to Khao Lak with Matt, and about parting at the beach, and I admitted to myself that it was getting a little easier in the telling. Sophie listened, absorbed.

‘Did Matt . . . ?’

‘No, he didn’t die,’ I said. ‘We were both okay.’

‘Did you know anyone who died?’

‘We didn’t really know anyone else there. There was a little boy on the beach the day before,’ I found myself saying. ‘He was called Lucas.’ I stopped, shifted my
bag back. ‘I don’t know what happened to him,’ I said.

But that wasn’t true, was it? I did know. Or I was afraid that I did.

I had forgotten my plan to talk to Vivien Price until Sophie stopped. ‘I’m going straight on here,’ she said. ‘Vivien lives in Meadow Street . . . Meadow Road . . .
something like that anyway.’ She pointed down a road on the right. ‘You just go down here, follow the road round, then it’s on the left. I’m sorry, I can’t remember if
it’s the second or third turning, and I don’t know the number, either, but there’s a pentangle in the window – I remember that.’

I thanked her, and headed in the direction she had pointed. Preoccupied by Ash, by his eerie resemblance to Francis and his influence over Sophie, I didn’t even notice how confidently I
was walking until I stopped at the end of Vivien’s road. Then I realized that my scalp was shrinking and tingling with recognition.

I had been there before, but not when there was tarmac beneath my feet. There had been no buses with squealing hydraulic brakes, no rumble of trucks, no lines of terraced houses squaring off
against each other. Through a shimmer of petrol fumes, I saw scrubland as it petered into woodland. A scraggy cow regarded me incuriously before lowering its head to graze once more. I followed the
narrow path as it wound behind a stand of willow, startling some sheep, which blundered away across clumps of rough grass.