Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) (30 page)

twenty-nine

The full moon hung
low in the west, glowing like a Christmas bauble, outflanking the real baubles in every shop window. It was
bitter cold in my garden as the moon sank on its steady course. Six of us stood on my lawn, holding hands through our gloves, our faces raised to watch the moon set. Magically, this full moon would drop below the horizon just after the winter solstice sun rose above it.

We’d set up a pagan circle under the dying moon, in almost the same way as I set up my therapy room. We cleansed it with a besom broom, smoking incense, and a sprinkling of Glastonbury water. I took my wand of yew and cast a circle that would enclose us and keep us safe. We called in the powers of the four directions—north, east, south, west—and the central powers that come from a place and time so sacred, it existed before any place or any time. The centre of our circle was marked by a lantern (didn’t think a candle would last the event), which let out enough light for us to see where we walked while the sun rose.

It was already getting lighter in the garden; dawn was arriving long before we would see the sun rise over the rooftops. But we could see into the west, where the moon’s last light was fading as dawn broke. I thought about the way the solstice sun would hang at its southernmost latitude for three or four days, where its path from horizon to horizon was so short it offered nothing more than a glimmer of warmth and a few hours of light, making the night interminable. Once those three solstice days were through, the sun would begin to move northwards. It would grow warmer, week by week. And every day, the sun would rise earlier and set later.

We’d put the patio table to the north of our circle and draped it with the Celtic throw I use in my therapy room. Once we’d called in the directions, each person had brought something to the table, something that was dear to their spiritual lives.

Marianne had brought a shell she had found on a beach in Zeeland, close to where her family lived. On the day she’d found it, she’d made her decision to come to England to live and work. She told us this small story and placed the shell on the table. Stella and Garth had brought one thing between them. It was a small framed photograph, but from my position in the circle, it was hard to understand what the picture was. “Our baby,” Stella said. “Twelve-week scan.” Garth, in his usual way, gave a solemn nod.

Marianne’s friends, Avalon and Teddy, who I’d not met before,
went to the table in turn. Avalon brought from her belt a black-
handled dagger and raised it above her head. “The Temple of Elphame!”

We all called out in response. We’d decided to call our new gathering the Temple of Elphame, in honour of fairy energy, which I know I’ve got plenty of among my flowers and vegetables.
Avalon had suggested our name, an old term for elf land, and the rest of us had loved it. In fact, so far we’d got on well. Two shamans, two Wiccans, one new-age traveller, and his open-minded partner.

“This is my athame,” Avalon began. “I have used it since I became a priestess of Wicca—an extension of my own magical power—a way of directing my energy. I dedicate it to this new gathering.”

Teddy came next, holding a chalice made from pewter. It was the sort of thing you can buy in half a dozen shops along Glastonbury High Street, but no worse for that. He placed it onto the table with care. “We used this in every ritual our coven held. But that company was not to be. I bring it to the circle in the hope that this gathering will be strong into the future.”

I’d brought the little china otter that stands on the altar in my therapy room. I placed it facing the north and told the story of how Trendle had forced me to open my eyes to the otherworld. “Perhaps, as time goes by, all of us will have our totems added to this altar.”

We joined hands, singing chants to keep ourselves warm as full light came into the sky and colour came into the garden. There were some clouds but they were high; the skyline was clear as the sun rose. It was a red dawn, suggesting bad weather today.

“The longest night of the year has passed,” said Teddy with quiet intent. “The shortest day will follow. The sun is at its lowest point, but from this moment onward, the year will open out. The land will stir and before we know it, spring will arrive.”

From the table I took a basket of my bread. Marianne poured the grape juice she’d brought into the chalice. We passed round the food and drink to celebrate the solstice dawn.

We stood for a while, just enjoying the rays of the sun, before clouds passed in front. Then we took our circle down, hugging each other over and over. The first ritual of the Temple of Elphame was closed, leaving simple, magical memories in our hearts.

_____

It was warm in the kitchen. As we pulled off gloves and hats, a low-volume chatter started up. Marianne got into the business of making everyone hot chocolate. I couldn’t wait to congratulate Stella and Garth on their new baby. Garth had got into a conversation with Teddy, but Stella was keen to tell me how things were going.

“Garth’s got a job now. He’s working at that big garden centre outside Taunton. He likes it a lot. I’ll carry on in the office until I get my maternity leave, and Mum’s still having Aidan after school.”

“How is Aidan?”

“He’s as bright as a button. He sometimes talks about the time he was away from us. The counsellor suggested we just listen, without showing anger. That’s hard, but we manage it. We’ve got to pick our moment to tell him he’s having a new brother or sister. But I think he’ll like it.” She smiled. “Things are good. They feel back to normal, but better, y’know?”

“As if things have shifted into their proper place?”

“Exactly that.”

We cupped our hands round mugs of chocolate.

“Watch the time,” Marianne said to me. “I’m very aware you must be at work at eleven o’clock. We need to get out of your hair so that you are not late.”

I pulled a face. I was not going to confess to Marianne that I didn’t care how late I was. She wouldn’t understand. I had a long shift ahead of me out on the road until gone nine tonight, then there was cleaning the kitchen and shop ready for the following day. An image of Stan grudgingly passing over my full pay was all that kept me going. I was going to stand there until he gave me every penny. I was going to demand a payslip that showed all deductions, even if he had to write it out by hand.

I raised my chocolate and smiled around at everyone. I wanted to properly get to know both Teddy and Avalon before they left, and talk a little to Garth, if he’d let me. Frankly, I didn’t care how late for work I was; they were desperate enough to forgive. “Happy Yule, everyone,” I called, and everyone called back in their individual ways.

“Merry Midwinter!”

“Happy New Year!”

“To the rising of the solstice sun!”

In the tiny pause of silence after our cries, as we sipped our hot chocolate, my phone beeped a text in.

“Do you need to get that?” said Marianne.

“Not right now. I can guess what it’s telling me.”

_____

“You must be Mrs. Browne.”

The woman at the door nodded. She was shorter than her son.

Mrs. Browne possibly boasted the same centimetre width round her waist as Jimmy had in height. Her wild hair was streaked blonde and although she wore hardly any makeup, the slash of geranium lipstick managed to make her look a perfect tart.

“Is Jimmy in?”

“Come on through, he’s in the back.”

I was grateful that Mrs. Browne was the one at the door. She hadn’t asked me any awkward questions. She’d assumed Jimmy had told me where he lived. I was hoping Jimmy would think Stan had given me the address, rather than confess it had arrived in Rey’s text, shortly after they’d released Jimmy this morning. The address was in capitals, followed by a single lowercase
x
. A peck of a kiss that broke my mind into pieces as I remembered the last time he’d kissed me properly … Sunday morning, as he’d left my house to arrest Jimmy. I was trying to get used to the way Rey conducted his relationships. I had dropped into the same position his wife had been in, when they were together. I was gaining sympathy for the woman.

Jimmy was curled like a girl into a fat armchair right up close to a flaming gas fire. The heat in the room hit me as I moved into it, along with the smell. I was reminded of the odour of the varnish they had used on the doors and windows in my old children’s home. It wasn’t a bad smell, but it was so chemical that it hit the back of my throat and made me want to gag.

“Hi,” I said. “Nice to see you back in the land of the living.”

It was my prepared start, to ease me into the visit, but it hardly bordered on the truth. Jimmy looked as if he’d returned from a Stasi torture cell. His face, always pale, had lost every trace of colour. His nose looked pinched and his pale eyes were bloodshot.

“I thought I’d pop in. You know, between deliveries. We can’t wait to have you back, Jimmy, they’re making us all do double shifts.”

He hadn’t spoken at all, not even a brief “hi.” I let a silence settle, then I asked, “Were they hard on you?”

“What?”

“The police? Didn’t they treat you okay?”

“They were all right, yeah.”

“It’s the cells, isn’t it?” I had a sudden and unwelcome flashback. The sound of a crashing door. The dim light you can’t control. Tiny place to lay your head. Wee staining the floor. “I spent a night in the cells once. Sobering, huh?”

“You were drunk?”

“No … I …”

“They think I slit open them girls.”

“They’ve released you,” I said, softly. “They haven’t charged you.” There was no point in adding …
yet
.

“Yeah.” Jimmy shifted in the chair so that his bare feet lodged on the edge of it. He began to pick at a toenail that was yellow from a fungal infection.

“Everyone at Papa asked me to send their love. Can’t do without you. Even Stan!”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, honest. Stan is cooking, would you believe!”

He wasn’t listening. “I never liked her much. Pushy. Screechy. I was glad when she went, to be honest. I wished she’d gone sooner. But I never wished her dead.”

“I believe you, Jimmy. I was sure they’d got it wrong. The police do get things wrong. They’ve admitted their mistake, haven’t they?”

Jimmy began to shake. It started in his shoulders. Surely he couldn’t be shivering. The room was so warm I could feel sweat pricking under my arms. Jimmy had a film of it across his forehead.

“What they said, it was a shock.” He paused. He was trembling all over now, as if he’d contracted a bad case of flu while he was in the cells.

“Jimmy, are you all right? Shall I get your mum for you?”

“She ain’t no help.” He tried to smile. “I mean, she don’t know what to do. She wants me to be brave an’ all.”

“I think you are being brave. We’re all brave in our different ways, aren’t we?”

“No, she’s right. She don’t know it, but she is. I can’t tell her. I—I want to tell her, but …” He hunched his trembling body as he picked at his bare toes. The scent of unwashed feet rose up and joined the chemical varnish. I found an old tissue in my pocket and pretended to blow my nose. The tissue smelt faintly of imperial mints. I inhaled, my eyes almost closed in rapture.

I was sure that days and nights of police interrogation might easily bewilder Jimmy. At work, he didn’t even dodge the blows. Under the powerdrive eyes of DI Reynard Buckley, he’d cave completely. I tried to formulate a question that would take us to the point I wanted to raise—did Jimmy know what had been in my moussaka? But he was a wreck. Rey had turned a gentle sous chef into a gibbering jelly.

“See, they talk to you like they’ve already told you what they’re on about. Then they shout at you if you don’t understand. They get you all relaxed, then they jump. Right over the table. They jump at you and say,
You did it, Jimmy Browne. You killed her, didn’t you?
And I’m saying, no … no … Over and over, no … no … But they whisper things and they’re true things, and then they whisper things that are lies. That can’t be right. Can’t be!”

“What? What can’t be right?”

“I didn’t kill her, Sabbie.”

“Jimmy, you look really cold. I’ll tell your mum to bring a blanket.”

He shook his head. “I wish I hadn’t done it.”

“But you said you didn’t …”

“She made me feel sick. But desperate. Both. She was …” Jimmy doubled forward. He was trying to hold back tears. No—not tears. More the juddering breaths you get when you begin to howl.

I stuffed the mint-scented tissue away. He was not their man. The police knew he was not their man. They were looking for an experienced transplant surgeon, for goddess’s sake.

“What about after she went missing? After the carnival? Do you know where she went to?”

“You aren’t the police. Why should you care?”

I put my hand out to touch him and my fingers landed on the sole of his bare foot. It felt like something from the fish counter. “I’d never tell the police anything to hurt you. But, Jimmy, there was something in my moussaka, wasn’t there.”

He looked up. A line of drool led from his bottom lip onto his jeans. He seemed to have no idea what I was saying. “Do you remember? How I fainted in the loo? What had you put in the food, Jimmy?”

“What?”

“Did someone tell you to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Put something in my food?”

He swallowed hard and swallowed again, like there was shingle in his mouth. He was still holding on, being brave for his mum.

“She came on to me so strong.” He hadn’t understood my question. Perhaps he hadn’t heard it.

“Strong?”

“She came on to me, out by the scooters. I know she’s dead, but I have to say it. She was a scrubber.”

“Scrubber?”

“Yeah? Never heard the word? Not from Somerset then.”

My mouth opened … closed again. Not from Somerset. This wasn’t the time to explain I was exactly that. Instead, I stared at him, my heart thudding like a shaman’s drum, waiting for him to confess.