Sanctifying Grace (Resurrection) (19 page)

I went with it, flattening my body against the wall as the door swung fully open, giving up a silent prayer I was on the right side of the wall to be hidden by the opening door. If I had been on the other side…

It was still very dark, but I could see a figure, a lighter grey than the shadows around it, glide into the room. If I could see
it
, then it might be able to see
me
. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but then, there was a time when I thought vampires were stories to scare little children.

I forced a shriek back down my throat as the door was softly closed. The figure appeared to hover above the floor, and I couldn’t make out any feet
, yet I could hear a slight slap as those non-existent toes touched the floor.

It didn’t have a head, either.

A scream was building in my chest and I bit my lip hard enough to break the skin in an effort to keep it in. If I made a noise now it would certainly see me. Ice ran in my veins as I slowly sank into a crouch, hoping that a small ball of naked skin would be less noticeable than an upright streak of it.

The figure paused by the bed and I heard the rustle of the bedclothes. I really didn’t want to witness what it was going to do to that poor man, sleeping innocently in his own bed, oblivious to his impending doom.

Then it spoke.

‘Keith, turn over,’ it urged, and I nearly let out a yell of surprise. This was no ghost; this was a woman in a white nightie getting back into bed!

My crouch turned into a slump as the adrenalin shot through my limbs, tingling my hands and feet, and my legs abruptly refused to hold my weight. Luckily the woman’s own clamber into bed and subsequent creak and groan of the mattress covered any noise I might have made.

‘Keith,’ she repeated. ‘Turn over.’ I heard a tapping and guessed she was patting him to get him to move.

The bedsprings protested as Keith mumbled and turned. Then there was more creaking and rustling as the pair settled down. I wrapped my arms around my legs for warmth and prepared to wait. At least I knew where the door was.

Predictably, Keith was the first to return to the land of Nod, and predictably he began to snore again. His wife had to prod and poke him a few more times before he quit. It seemed a long time before her breathing evened out into that particular rhythm that meant she, too, was asleep.

I eased my cramped limbs, stretching each aching leg before I stood up.

With infinite care and stealth I eased the door open and crept through, closing it so very quietly behind me
, and then I winced at the click of the latch as it dropped into place.

I waited on the landing, listening for sounds of alarm from inside and hoping I wouldn’t be forced to run through an unfamiliar house in the dead of night to escape a couple who would probably think I was trying to burgle them. All was quiet and I relaxed a little. Now all that was left to do was to find some clothes and get out.

In the almost-black, I could see to the end of the landing and the deeper darkness which was the stair well, so I cautiously inched towards the first riser and crept downwards, careful to avoid the centre of each step where most of the creaks undoubtedly were.

I put my hand out to the wall to steady my descent and felt familiar wood panelling under my fingers. I frowned, but it was only when I reached the bottom of the stair case I knew for certain.

The faint starlight from the window gave enough light for me to see the hall, with the kitchen on the left, the door to the vegetable patch beyond that, the laundry room, the ground floor bathroom, the front door… I knew exactly where I was – in my own house.

And I knew exactly whose bed I had just gotten out of: my paternal grandparents’, Keith and Jean.

Goose bumps raised the hairs on my arms and I shivered. Granddad and Grandma had still been living in the farmhouse when I was little. Granddad and his son, my own father, had worked the land together for many years, just like Dad and Ianto were doing now.

I hoped to God my younger self was not asleep in one of the other bedrooms. That would simply be too weird for words, not to mention the problems which might arise if I met myself. There was no way of knowing what damage such an encounter might cause. And there was always the disturbing thought of whether it is possible for me to exist as two separate entities in the same time and place.

I had to get out of this house. If this younger self woke up and found some stranger downstairs… And then there was my mother. What if I bumped into her!

I rooted around in the laundry room, coming up with a blouse, jumper
, and a pair of work trousers. I skipped the underwear (the thought of wearing my grandmother’s or my mother’s knickers wasn’t particularly appealing), but I did grab a pair of socks.

After dressing swiftly, I tiptoed through the kitchen, feeling the residual twin warmth from the banked down coal fire and the ever-lit Aga, and slipped into the boot room.

I had forgotten about the dogs.

A low growl, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The click of claws on tiles froze me to the spot, knowing the slightest sound or movement could trigger an attack.

The dogs on the farm had always been working dogs, not pets, but friendly enough, and had actively sought out human company. They hadn’t been guard dogs, although they would protect what they deemed as theirs. These were no exception.

Two shadows approached me cautiously, sniffing as they came. And as quickly as it had begun
, the growling ceased: I had been accepted as friend not foe. I guessed it might be because the clothes I wore carried a recognisable scent, or perhaps I smelled vaguely familiar, like the family as a whole. I wondered if scent was hereditary.

I murmured ‘good dog’ whilst I worked my feet into a pair of ankle high, thick soled boots and silently opened the door to slip outside.

As comforting as it was to be in such familiar surroundings, I couldn’t stay. I had no idea where I was going to go, but I had every confidence that Roman would find me sooner or later. He always did.

I was grabbed from behind before I had taken more than ten steps. My instinctive shout was cut off before it got any further than my throat and I was thrown to the ground with the force of a wrecking ball hitting the side of a derelict building. All I could manage was an
oomph
! as the air was driven out of my lungs.

‘What are you doing here?’ Roman demanded in a harsh whisper.

I couldn’t answer him because I didn’t have enough air. He waited impatiently for me to gasp some oxygen back into my system.

‘Do you know whose property this is?’ he continued. ‘You could have been seen.’

‘That hadn’t occurred to me,’ I finally answered, every word soaked in sarcasm.

‘So, why are you here?’

I rolled my eyes in exasperation: for someone who has been around as long as he has, he could be incredibly dense on occasion.

‘I don’t have any choice in where I materialise,’ I reminded him. ‘I usually appear wherever you are.’

I stared at him distrustfully, still flat on my back. ‘Why are
you
here? This is my home, or it will be. My grandparents live here.’

He was crouching above me when, without warning, all his weight was on me and I couldn’t breathe again. I should be used to this by now.

‘Shh,’ he hissed. ‘Your father.’

I stopped trying to heave him off me and lay as still and as quietly as possible, attempting to suck in air without wheezing. He eased up off me a fraction, enough to let my poor lungs inflate. Just because he didn’t need to breathe was no excuse for him forgetting that I did, I thought resentfully. Then I realised what he had said.
My father
.

The scuff of leather on stone was close and the soft footsteps passed inches from where we hid. They paused, and for a moment I thought we might have been discovered, but they started up and I heard the snuffle of the dogs as they greeted him in the boot room.

I strained to look, wanting to see my father in the flesh, but he had gone.

When, after many minutes
, Roman eased his body away from mine and helped me to my feet, I could see a light coming from the barn and heard the high-pitched bleat of a very young lamb; the knowledge that I had narrowly missed bumping into my father sank in.

‘What year is it?’

‘1974’

‘That means my dad is…’ I tried to work it out in my head but my brain was all afuzz.

‘He’s sixteen, more or less,’ Roman supplied, helpfully.

Sixteen: he was still a boy. I wished I could have gotten a look at him, but perhaps it was for the best if I hadn’t. I needed to keep my distance from the past as much as possible. There’s no telling what damage I could do if I got too close.

Speaking of too close…

‘Why are
you
here?’ I repeated.

‘To keep an eye on your family.’ Roman was matter-of-fact, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to stalk your lover’s family in the middle of the night.

‘I cannot help it, but I must ensure the safety of your great grandparents, grandparents and parents. If any of them were to die before the next link in your ancestry were conceived, then you would never be born. I could not allow that.’

There was something wrong here, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

‘Roman – what have you done?’

‘I haven’t done anything. Much.’ For a blood-sucking, mightily powerful, almost immortal vampire, he didn’t half look sheepish.

‘You interfered, didn’t you?’

‘Not really. I just did what I thought was necessary.’

‘What did you do?’

He shrugged, then confessed. ‘I prevented your mother from being killed.’

‘How? When?’ I had a really bad feeling about this.

‘She was playing in an old barn, not far from your maternal grandparent’s house when the wall collapsed. I held it up long enough for her to get out.’

My heart did a little flip with worry. Roman heard it, his eyes narrowing as he stared at me.

‘What about her brother?’

‘What about him? He was with her and I believe he was uninjured, except for a broken leg. He was not my concern. If your mother had died, you would not exist.’

‘For God’s sake, Roman! I told you to stay away from them. Didn’t I?’

He had no idea what he had done: what I thought he had done, I amended. I wasn’t certain, but I think he may have altered history, my history, and it wasn’t for the better.

‘I have not touched a single drop of their blood,’ he said, his shoulders stiffened with displeasure and he raised his head, sticking his nose high in the air with indignation.

‘My mother’s brother, Andrew, died when he was a child. Eight, I think he was. My mother was a couple of years older.’

‘So, he will now live. What of it?’

‘They were planning to go to Australia. They were going to emigrate. Then, when he died, Nana didn’t want to go. He was buried in her local church and she didn’t want to leave him.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yes. Ah. If my mother emigrates, then she never meets and marries my father. I won’t be born.’

‘Ah.’

‘Is that all you can say, ‘ah’?’

‘It is enough. I will stay away in future and trust to the gods.’

‘Yeah, you do that, and in the meantime, do I simply disappear? I’m surprised I haven’t already.’

‘I will put things right,’ Roman said.

‘Oh, no you don’t! I know exactly what you’re planning to do and you can’t!’

‘I will have to.’

‘No! What’s done is done. I’ll just have to live with it.’

‘Impossible. I shall have to correct this mistake.’

‘You can’t kill him. You can’t. It’s not right.’

‘I let my heart rule my common sense,’ he retorted. ‘I have to correct that. It is inconceivable that you won’t be born.’

‘There must be another way.’

We had reached an impasse. I could not tolerate his solution, yet I had no other to give him.

‘Quick!’ Roman grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the side of the house. A security light flashed on and a man’s voice called, ‘Who’s there?’

We ran for the shadows of the trees beyond the drive
, dove underneath the canopy, and didn’t stop running until I was out of breath and stumbling.

I bent over, my hands on my knees, head down, panting like a too-hot dog. Roman watched me, expressionless.

Eventually, I managed to speak. ‘You sent Leticia to take blood from me. You told her you didn’t want to have any contact with me until our time lines converged. You just broke your own rule.’

He shrugged, saying, ‘Perhaps I learned my lesson.’

‘I can’t believe I’m still here. I thought I might have ceased to exist. There must be something else, something that we’re not aware of, or maybe I am stuck. I can exist in this time, but not in my own.’

‘We should leave here. I’ll take you to the lab. We can talk there, decide what to do.