Time's Echo (44 page)

Sophie put up her chin and looked belligerently at her father. ‘Ash says I’m ready.
He
doesn’t treat me like a child. He says it’s time.’

‘I’ll bet he does.’ Drew visibly yanked on the reins of his temper. ‘Sophie, can’t you see that he’s just using you to get at me?’

‘He said you’d react like this,’ she said, and I had a sudden, shocking memory of Agnes smoothing down her skirts and saying almost exactly the same thing to Hawise.

‘Dad, Ash doesn’t want to “get” at you,’ she told Drew. ‘The truth is that he’s sorry for you. Your mind is so closed and warped by
materialism.’

‘
My
mind is warped? That little tosser is warped through and through. He’s a fraud and a charlatan!’ I’d never seen Drew lose it before, and my mouth fell open
at his roar. ‘Why do you think he’s taken such an interest in a fifteen-year-old girl? Ash Vaughan likes to manipulate people, plain and simple. He’s motivated entirely by ego. If
you think there’s any goodness – any spirituality – in him, you’re fooling yourself, and frankly I’d expected better of you.’

Sophie’s mouth was wobbling, and she was blinking furiously, but Drew was too angry to see the defiant set of her jaw.

‘If you think for one moment that I’m letting you undergo some kind of initiation rite with Ash Vaughan in charge, you’ve got another think coming,’ he raged at her.

‘You can’t stop me!’

‘I most certainly can. I’m your father and you’re underage.’

He was losing her. I put a warning hand on his arm. ‘Drew,’ I murmured, but that was a mistake. It gave Sophie the perfect excuse to take out her distress on me.

‘Don’t interfere!’ Her voice was shrill. ‘What’s any of this got to do with you, anyway? You’re leaving.’

I couldn’t argue with that. I took my hand from Drew’s arm.

‘Ash was right about you.’ Sophie’s voice was shaking with the black rage of adolescence. ‘You’re completely superficial.’

‘Sophie, for God’s sake!’

‘No, it’s okay,’ I said to Drew, but I admit that my lips had thinned a bit. ‘I had no idea Ash could analyse me so well, based on two short conversations! What else does
he say?’

Sophie had gone too far to back down now. ‘He says you might seem super-cool, but you’ve got no spiritual connection to anywhere or anyone, so actually you’re really
sad
!’ She was on her feet now, her face red and blotchy with inarticulate distress. ‘And he says you’re using me and you’re using Dad, but I don’t care, so
the sooner you go, the better!’

‘Sophie!’

Sophie flinched at the lash of Drew’s voice, but she couldn’t stop. ‘I hate you!’ she shouted. ‘I hate
both
of you! I’m going to be initiated into
the Temple of the Waters tomorrow and then I can go and live with them, and you can’t stop me!’

She slammed from the room and Drew put his head briefly in his hands.

‘Well, that must have done your headache a power of good,’ he said, looking up.

‘She’s frightened, poor kid,’ I said. ‘I remember feeling out of control like that, and lashing out at what I loved best. I was terrified by the strength of my own fury
and frustration. Ash tells her what to do and think and feel, so she can channel all those churning emotions, and that makes her feel safe.’

‘Safe’s the last word I’d use in connection with Ash,’ said Drew, grim-faced. ‘I don’t want her going through with this initiation thing, but how am I going
to stop her?’

‘Lock her in her room?’

‘There’s no lock on her door – and don’t think I haven’t been tempted to put one on!’ He sighed. ‘Besides, she’s fifteen. I can’t lock her
up forever, however much I might want to, and I don’t want to push her into running away altogether.’ He rubbed a hand over his face in a gesture that was already shockingly familiar to
me. ‘Her mother has picked a fine time to go away on holiday!’

I didn’t know what to suggest. I got up and began clearing the plates away. ‘She seemed very insistent that the ritual – or whatever he’s planning – had to be
tomorrow,’ I said at last. ‘Maybe it’s just a question of keeping an eye on her until Halloween is over.’

‘So, what: I should just bar her from leaving the house?’

‘Or follow her when she does go out, and make sure she knows you’re going to stick with her, whatever happens.’

‘I suppose I could . . . Shit, no, I can’t.’ Drew propped his elbows on the table and clutched at his hair. ‘I’ve got to give a paper tomorrow. It’s been
organized for months. And my old mentor is coming over from the States. I’m supposed to be taking her out for supper. We were going to talk about my book—’ He broke off.
‘Well, she’ll understand, if I tell her I can’t make it.’

He swore. ‘That bastard Ash! I’d call in the police, but what could they do? Sophie’s going along of her own volition, and I’ll bet you anything that little toerag has
made sure everything is technically legal.’ His hand swept wearily over his face again and he pushed his chair back from the table. ‘I’d better email the organizers and tell them
to cancel.’

‘Is it important, this paper?’ I asked, rinsing plates under the tap.

‘It’s not the paper so much, as the people who are coming to it. We’re hoping to set up a new international research group that . . . Well, it’s not brain surgery,’
he caught himself up. ‘It can wait, and Sophie is more important.’

‘I can be here,’ I said. ‘I’m not teaching tomorrow night.’

Drew smoothed my hair behind my ear. ‘I’m not asking you to do that, Grace. Especially not after Sophie was so rude to you.’ He hesitated. ‘You know that she’s just
upset because you’re going? She’s very fond of you.’

‘I know that,’ I said. ‘And you’re not asking me. I’m offering.’

‘You’ll be going soon. You can forget all about the Temple of the Waters and all the rubbish associated with it.’

Bess . . .

The whispery gurgle was so damp and so close that I had to resist the urge to wipe my face. It was hard to believe Drew couldn’t hear it, but he was still talking.

‘Sophie isn’t your problem,’ he said. ‘She’s mine. You don’t need to get involved.’

He was right. Only a matter of weeks and I would be on that plane to Mexico.

Bess . . .

Sophie wasn’t my responsibility. I didn’t need to get involved. But I knew how important Drew’s work was to him. I’d heard him talk about his mentor often enough to know
that she was a big part of his life. I wouldn’t be there, but I wanted him to have his research. I couldn’t love him the way he wanted, but I could help him keep his daughter safe. I
could do that for him.

‘I’ll be here,’ I promised. ‘You go and give your paper. I’ll stay with Sophie. I’ll look after her.’

‘Dad’s out.’ Sophie was in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water when I let myself in the following evening.

‘I know. But I’m not teaching tonight, and it’s such a filthy night that I fancied some company.’

It had taken me some time to persuade Drew to go to his research group and let me stick close to Sophie, but he had agreed – reluctantly – in the end, on the condition that I rang
him if there was any trouble at all.

‘I’m going out,’ said Sophie truculently. I had the feeling that she was regretting the argument the night before, but having insisted, she couldn’t now see any way out
of it. I felt sorry for her. ‘I told you. It’s my initiation tonight.’

The wind was wrestling at the windowpanes, throwing rain at the glass in short staccato bursts. I’d got soaked just running from door to door.

‘You’re going out in
this
?’

‘It’s Samhain,’ she said, glancing uneasily at the angry night. ‘It has to be tonight.’ But she didn’t look very happy about it, and I didn’t blame her.
The clocks had gone back the week before and it was already pitch-black out there.

‘Well, do you mind if I hang around while you’re waiting to go out?’ I said. I knew there was no point in trying to dissuade her at this stage.

Sophie scowled as she turned the tap to refill her glass. ‘Why can’t you hang around in Lucy’s house?’

‘I prefer it here.’ That was true. ‘Now that it’s almost empty, it feels . . . spooky over there.’ With the furious wind screaming impotently in the dark outside,
it wasn’t hard to achieve a nervous laugh. ‘I think there’s a ghost in Lucy’s house.’

‘There is,’ said Sophie.

I was taken aback. ‘You know about it?’

‘I only know what Lucy told me.’ Sophie carried the glass to the table and sat down. ‘She used to regress, and every time it was the same story. She told me once she preferred
the past to living now. She said it felt more real. It must be amazing to travel through time,’ she went on wistfully and her eyes rested on me with a trace of resentment. ‘I
didn’t think it would happen to someone like you, though.’

‘Because I’m not spiritual enough?’ Ash’s words had rankled, and she flushed a little.

‘It just seems really unfair. I’d love to experience that, but it never works for me. I tried to do it with Lucy once, but nothing happened.’

‘You should be glad,’ I said, thinking of Sybil’s death, of the sickness, of Francis’s sweaty hands on me, and I shuddered. ‘It’s frightening.’

‘Lucy wasn’t frightened. She loved it.’

Had she loved it when Francis forced himself into her? When Ned died and her heart broke? When she watched Sybil Dent hanging from the gibbet? Lucy must have lived through everything I had done
. . . and then she had died, I remembered with a shiver.

‘Lucy’s dead,’ I reminded her, and Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. I sighed and went over to put my arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, Sophie. I
didn’t mean to snap. I’m just feeling edgy today.’

‘Me too.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘Perhaps it’s something to do with Halloween?’ She looked out of the window, her expression distant. ‘Did you know that
this is the night when the boundaries between the real world and the spiritual world come down? Between the living and the dead?’

‘Don’t!’ I said sharply. I was remembering what Vivien had said:
Be very careful.

Sophie turned her head to look at me. ‘Does Dad know you’ve seen a ghost?’

‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘I’ve had some pretty bad experiences, Sophie. Don’t wish for them.’

I’d spent a disturbed night after I’d left Drew. Part of me had longed to stay with him, but the old restless demon drove me out of the bed in the small hours, after Drew had fallen
asleep. I’d lain in Lucy’s bed, the image of Sybil’s dreadful end circling endlessly around my brain, tense and afraid that Hawise would draw me back to the past again. I
didn’t want to go back any more. I’d had enough.

The awful sense of foreboding wouldn’t go away. I told myself it was something to do with the relentless rain all day. There was something apocalyptic about the darkness of the air, the
weight of the sky. It been like this for more than a week, and the Ouse was rising, swollen by the run-off from the moors and dales to the north. There were rumours of sandbags being stacked, and
in the shops everyone was talking about the foods in 2000.

I had forgotten my delight in autumn. I was oppressed by the lack of light and the endless, dreary rain, and at the back of my mind something terrible simmered. If I tried to look at it, it
evaporated like last night’s dream, leaving only the sense of pooling dread of what was to come.

Sophie might be right about Halloween. Death felt very close. I wasn’t bothered by the pumpkins and ghost masks, and miniature witch hats on sale in the supermarkets. They had nothing to
do with the tug and swirl of darkness, or the way, ever since I arrived in York, time had spiralled round and round and up and down, billowing back and forth. That feeling had been intensifying
ever since Sybil’s death. I felt as if I was walking along a narrow path in the dark, expecting to slip any minute, but I couldn’t think about that now. I had to concentrate on
Sophie.

I forced brightness into my voice as I sat down opposite her. ‘Are you nervous about the initiation?’

‘Why should I be?’ The edge in her voice told me that she was, and I shrugged, careful not to spook her.

‘Initiation rites are always a big deal,’ I said as casually as I could. ‘Do you know yet what you have to do?’

‘I have to purify myself.’ Some of the truculence left Sophie’s expression. ‘I haven’t eaten all day, and I’ve only drunk water.’

‘So what’s going to happen tonight?’

‘I’m going to offer myself to the river goddess. If I prove I am worthy of her, and pure of heart, I’ll ascend to the next level of oneness.’

I could just hear Ash intoning the words, see Sophie wide-eyed with awe as she drank in every word.

‘How do you prove if you’re worthy or not?’

Sophie’s eyes slid from mine. ‘I don’t know yet. Ash is going to tell me tonight.’

As if woken by his name, her phone rang. The sound of it jangled through the quiet kitchen and we both jumped. I couldn’t see the caller name, but I knew it would be Ash.

After an infinitesimal hesitation Sophie scraped her chair back and picked up the phone as she got to her feet. ‘Hi,’ she said as she turned away.

I watched her back, worried. Ash was doing all the talking while Sophie murmured agreement every now and then. Suddenly she stiffened.