Shadows at Stonewylde (18 page)

Blowing out the flame Yul took Sylvie in his arms and held her tight, waiting until the terror subsided. She could barely speak but shivered compulsively, shaking her head and apologising, clinging to him and crying softly.

‘Did you smell it?’ she whispered.

‘Smell what?’

‘When you came in here first, did you smell anything?’

‘No,’ Yul shook his head, ‘no I didn’t. What was it?’

‘Why did you say you’d come back? Why did you keep saying that?’

‘Because I had come back,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand. Why were you so upset?’

But she wouldn’t answer and after calming her down a little more, he ran a hot bath. An hour later they were both in bed, warm and dry and sipping tea. Sylvie couldn’t tell him what had scared her so much and he was loath to push it – whatever it was had now gone. She was reluctant to turn the light off and Yul teased her gently about this, getting out of bed to put a light on in the bathroom and leaving the door ajar, so their bedroom was softly lit.

‘Silly old thing,’ he murmured into her hair as at last they stretched out, lying in each other’s arms. ‘It’s me that’s usually spooked at Samhain, not you.’

‘I was so frightened when you were stumbling about in the dark,’ she mumbled, almost asleep. ‘And you said that you’d come back …’

They both drifted off to sleep, exhausted from their earlier fear and the long day, but during the night Yul awoke and reached for her. She smiled sleepily, drowsy but welcoming, and pulled him towards her. Propped on an elbow and half asleep himself, Yul kissed her deeply while he caressed her, knowing her so well. Soon she was gasping, wanting him urgently.

But as he braced himself above her on the point of making love, her eyes suddenly shot wide open. In the faint light, hovering above her, she saw her worst nightmare. This man poised over her didn’t have dark curls, but straight silver-blond hair. He smiled down at her, eyes gleaming darkly.

‘Sylvie, my beautiful Sylvie,’ he murmured.

She shoved him away with a scream of absolute terror, the heel of her hand catching him hard on the jaw. She rolled to one side and out of bed in almost one movement.

‘
Get away from me!
’

Chest heaving in panic, she backed away to the door. The dark shape in her bed sat up groping wildly for the light switch and the lamp crashed to the floor.

‘Sylvie! What’s the matter?’

‘Keep away from me! Stay away!’

Sylvie flung the bathroom door wide open, heading for the girls’ bedroom, wanting only to escape.

‘Sylvie!’

She turned and caught a glimpse of Yul kneeling up on the bed with the quilt all tangled around him. He reached out towards her, his face twisted in anguish.

‘Sylvie what is it? Don’t go!’

She shook her head in complete confusion – this was now definitely Yul. Sobbing, she stumbled into the other bedroom and slammed the door shut, climbing into Celandine’s empty bed with all the lights blazing. Yul tried to come in but she shouted at him to leave her alone, and recognising the hysteria in her voice, he returned to their bedroom. He spent a fitful night, worried sick. Sylvie sat bolt upright with Bluebell’s quilt around her shoulders trying to stay awake. Every time her eyelids closed she’d jolt awake until at last she gave in to exhaustion and dozed restlessly. It was a long night and morning couldn’t come soon enough.

Sylvie sat hugging her knees and stared absently at the ragged trees outside, still holding on to brown leaves that longed to let go. Her breakfast sat untouched on the table, as did Yul’s. She closed her eyes and tried to swallow the sharp pain in her throat, a pain that also prickled at the back of her eyes and made hot tears well up suddenly and spill from under her closed eyelids. What was happening to her? What had happened last night?

She felt vulnerable and scared and worried about Yul. What must he be feeling? She’d never rejected him like that, not even during her illness. But she was sure it hadn’t been him in bed with her last night. She was certain it was Magus and not a figment of her imagination, just as his strong scent had been real a little earlier. Somehow, Magus had returned. She sat in a state of misery, unsure of what to do or say for the best. How could you tell your husband that in the middle of the night, just as you were about to make love, he’d transformed into his late and hated father? In the cold light of morning it seemed utterly ridiculous.

Yul had gone now, presumably down to his office. He’d tried to talk about it this morning but Sylvie simply couldn’t tell him what had happened. She’d stayed silent and withdrawn, resisting all his attempts to talk or just hold her, and eventually she begged him to forget the whole thing and leave her be. He’d looked so upset as he left but she was terrified of telling him what had really happened. She started to clear away the breakfast things, putting them in the dumb-waiter to go down to the kitchens. Her hands shook and the crockery rattled as she told herself firmly that her husband was not a shape-shifter and it couldn’t possibly have been Magus who’d come to her bed and almost made love to her last night. That was the stuff of madness.

Yul stomped around the Stone Circle feeling the anger rise within him.

‘
Desecrated!
’ he spat and kicked at the remains of the funeral pyre, filthy on the soft earth floor. Another great patch of scorched earth very close to the Altar Stone showed where the lightning bolt had struck the night before at Samhain, during the Dark Moon. It was as if the very elements themselves had turned against Stonewylde, striking at her heart. Yul shuddered at the memory of the lightning strike, recalling the terrible sensation when he’d felt his whole being switch polarity and jolt in agonising spasm. He looked up and the black crows and white skulls painted on the great stones leered down, mocking him.

‘Clear it up!’ he roared, kicking viciously again at the ash with his riding boot. ‘I want every single trace of this sacrilege removed! This is a place of life and energy, not death! Never, ever again … and wash the stones.’

The men who’d come up on the wagon to tidy the Circle looked at one another nervously.

‘But the paintings …’

‘Wash them off!’

‘But Yul, sir, it’s the custom to leave them until the Winter Solstice,’ said one of the men tentatively.

‘I don’t give a damn about the custom! That custom is finished! I want every single reminder of this awful Samhain ritual removed. If I find just one sign of it, there’ll be big trouble.
Do you all understand?
’

He glared at the group of men belligerently and they nodded and kept their eyes down. Yul was formidable when he was angry.

Without a backward glance he strode across to where Skydancer was loosely tethered and swung up into the saddle in one powerful motion. A nudge from his heels and the great horse launched into a canter down the Long Walk, also sensing his master’s anger and pent-up rage. They rode hard away from the Circle and up towards Dragon’s Back. Once on the ridgeway, Yul gave Skydancer his head and man and horse flew, sweat gradually drenching them both despite the cool November breeze. Eventually they slowed down many miles away, with the green hills of Stonewylde all around them and the soft grey skies above. Yul slumped in the saddle, his shoulders drooping as Skydancer ambled along getting his wind back, cropping occasionally at the short turf.

Yul gazed, without seeing, at the curved beauty of the landscape. His deep grey eyes were clouded with inner turmoil and his mouth, usually so firm, quivered. He fought back the tears, but lost the battle as great heaving sobs overwhelmed him. Sylvie was the person he held above all others. She was the brightness to his darkness, his counterpart and balance – how could she not want him? What had happened last night? He tried but failed to push away the terrible thought – was this a return to her illness?

A few days later, Leveret stood above the springhead looking down. The hill was almost vertical here and very short grass struggled to survive on the thin soil that barely covered the rock. Although she couldn’t actually see it, Leveret knew that just below her, under the craggy outcrop of rock at her feet, the spring gushed from a cleft in the rock-face. The clear, pure water tumbled down, seemingly a small fountain but quickly gaining in volume and velocity as it surged down the hill towards the distant Village.

It was joined on its journey by other small springs until it became the river that flowed past the Village, full of otters and kingfishers and overhung with weeping willows. An ox-bow next to the Playing Fields formed a great fresh-water pool with beaches where the children played and swam in the warm months. Yul had taught her to swim there many years ago. The river flowed on, past the mill where the flour was ground, the tannery where the skins were cured, the clay beds where the potters worked, and into the reed beds where the thatchers gathered their materials and the wading birds nested, before finally reaching the sea. Looking now at the thin trickle just visible through the undergrowth, it was hard to imagine such a small source creating such a body of water.

None of this occurred to Leveret as she stood listening to the water tinkling below. She’d come here unintentionally, wandering out of the Village along the river bank and then taking a detour when the spring became too small and steep to follow upstream any longer. She’d walked in the early morning half-light up into the springhead hills, feeling a need to be somewhere high and quiet. She stood on the rock above the watershed and gazed at the beauty all around her. Wisps of mist clung to the lower hills in the clean November morning. The sky was palest blue, with streaks of gold and pink to the east where the sun would soon rise. The morning star was fading fast, and a late fox slunk past her heading for its earth. The sound of joyous birdsong was all about. A pair of great buzzards circled overhead, mewing and calling mournfully. Their enormous wings were spread on the air currents, the white stripes and splayed end-feathers clearly visible as they drifted.

Leveret sighed deeply and the breath caught in her throat. She felt unutterably sad as she looked down at the boulders below. As she’d done so many times before, she questioned the point of it all. Her life was a misery and everyone was against her. The one thing she wanted to do – roam Stonewylde freely so she could learn about the plants and fungi, collect them and make concoctions to heal – was forbidden, and instead it was all duty. She must go to school, must work hard to get good exam results, must help with all the jobs at home, must join in the Village activities and be like everyone else.

But she wasn’t like everyone else. The other girls of her age – Tansy, Linnet, Bryony and Skipper to name a few, and even the younger ones like Cecily and Faun – they all belonged to something she didn’t even begin to understand. They were interested in the same things, laughed together, fancied boys openly, talked about all the boring stuff that they found fascinating and Leveret wasn’t a part of that. She couldn’t care less who said what, the clothes everyone wore, or whose hair was longer or prettier. She had her deep secrets and would rather have died than share these with such fatuous company. Although there was someone special she found attractive, this too was dark, forbidden territory where nobody trespassed. The only person she actually enjoyed being with was her friend Magpie and even he could be hard work at times – besides which, she wasn’t allowed to see him anymore either.

The glimmer of hope that had kept her going was the dream of contacting Mother Heggy at Samhain and of one day being the Wise Woman of Stonewylde. She’d completely messed that up, and then had another terrible fight with her mother after the fiasco at Samhain. Maizie was now adamant that Leveret would never be allowed to become a herbalist, but should instead go to university in the Outside World and become a doctor. Her future seemed as bleak as her present.

Since Samhain she’d felt as if she were walking a tightrope. Her mother was furious with her for disappearing from the Barn without saying where she was going, and had been threatening to talk to Yul. She’d also scolded Leveret for misleading Clip about her brothers. Once again, Sweyn had managed to twist the facts and avoid punishment for the apple-bobbing incident, and Leveret despaired of her mother ever listening to the truth. Rosie had taken her aside and called her selfish and unfeeling for spoiling Samhain for their mother, saying how ashamed she was to have such a nasty little sister. Sweyn and Gefrin had hinted darkly at some horror in store for her which filled her with dread, and she had to constantly manoeuvre herself into situations where she wouldn’t be alone with them. Magpie was upset with her too because she’d vanished at Samhain and not been with him.

Even Clip, whom she now thought of as her wise silver owl, had given her a stern talking to about the dangers of mushrooms and especially Fly Agaric. He’d made her promise never to take anything like that again when she was alone. She was still experiencing after-effects and Clip said that the hallucinations may continue sporadically for some time. She didn’t want to lose his good will too, and was grateful that he’d squared her absence with Maizie and tried to explain about Sweyn’s cruelty. It wasn’t Clip’s fault it fell on deaf ears – how was he to know that Maizie never ever stuck up for her but always took her brothers’ side?

Leveret looked down at the boulders and imagined how she’d actually die if she jumped. The quickest end would be if her head split open and her brains spilled out. The worst would be breaking a limb and being unable to move, to die slowly of exposure, as nobody would think of looking for her up here. Neither option was inviting and she decided that if she were to end her life it would have to be more controlled and less down to chance. She’d make herself a strong concoction – she knew several natural poisons – and ensure there was no doubt about the outcome. Not that she wanted to kill herself – life was difficult, but she wasn’t ready to pass on to the Otherworld yet. Magpie loved her even if nobody else did, and how would he manage without her friendship?