The Dreamers (9 page)

Naked, she slid beneath the covers and closed her eyes. She touched her own face, imagining it was Arianwen’s hand, Arianwen’s fingers soft on her skin.

‘Arianwen, please come back. I want you here.’

All those other times, Arianwen had come to her in her dreams without
being wished for. Now Jennifer wanted nothing more than for Arianwen to be here with her and she wouldn’t come.

Jennifer pulled on her dressing gown and went through to her living room. The piano sat waiting for her. She sat down on the stool and lifted the lid. The keys gleamed back at her. She felt comforted by them. She placed her fingers at middle C. She remembered that much from music lessons at school. She pressed down gently and a sweet tone vibrated through the air. She pressed another key, wishing she knew how to play. Her playing was like the plinking of a three year old.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and bent her head. It was no good. She wanted Arianwen. Nothing else mattered anymore.

Suddenly a peal of notes surrounded her. Her head snapped up and it stopped.

‘Arianwen? Are you there?’

The music came again, this time deep and slow. Jennifer shivered as the lower notes vibrated through her like thunder. Her heart began to slam in her chest.

‘Arianwen? Please let me see you.’

‘It’s all wrong now. I don’t belong here.’

‘
This is your home, Arianwen. This is your cottage. We can be together here, can’t we?’

There was a thud of notes from the piano. ‘We can’t be together. I’m not even alive!’ Her face suddenly appeared before Jennifer, ugly with anger.

Jennifer backed away, tripping over the piano stool.

Arianwen was there now, real and trembling. She slammed her hand down on the piano keys and advanced on Jennifer. ‘I’m not here. I
died
. Why didn’t you tell me?’

Jennifer didn’t know how to reply. She wanted to comfort Arianwen, to make it all better but she couldn’t.
There was nothing she could do.

Arianwen threw down the lid of the piano. The sound reverberated around the room, a jangle and crash of chords.
Her face twisted and she let out an inhuman noise. The walls throbbed. The windows rattled. Plates and dishes began to hurl themselves from her kitchen cupboards.

‘Arianwen, stop!’
Jennifer yelled over the noise.

But
Arianwen did not stop. She howled louder, her screams echoing through the whole house. Jennifer curled up on the floor, an arm over her head to blot out the screams.

Silence fell.

Jennifer lifted her head and looked around. The devastation was finished and she was alone. Slowly, she stood and let out a breath. Arianwen knew she was a ghost. Jennifer’s body ached to be with her, to comfort her.

 
Arianwen lies still in her bed. She is dead, lost, nothing. The words pound in her head, over and over.

Dead

Lost

Nothing

Why is she still here? This is the emptiness between worlds; it must be. Could her desire, her lustful thoughts and imaginings have condemned her for eternity?

Or
perhaps this is a second chance. Perhaps she has been given a taste of happiness?

‘Arianwen’

The voice reaches her across the distance and she can feel Jenifer there. Her sweetheart is not aware of her and Arianwen does not speak or touch her. She just watches.

Jennifer lies motionless on her,
their
, bed. Her eyes are distant and sad. She whispers Arianwen’s name over and over again.

‘Arianwen, please, please come’

Arianwen sits on her windowsill and looks down at the floorboards. Her letters are hidden under there. If Jennifer reads them, perhaps she will understand.

‘Read,’ she whispers, hope filling her.

Jennifer sits and stares at the floor, before rising and bending over the exact spot where Arianwen’s letters are hidden. Arianwen smiles and sits back to watch Jennifer discover her past.

The atmosphere had changed. The cottage felt empty now. Jennifer was genuinely alone. She knew Arianwen wasn’t coming back, that she wasn’t waiting and watching. She had gone.

Jennifer went about in a dream for days, barely noticing anything around her. She didn’t hear the greetings of the villagers as they passed her. Her mind was on Arianwen only.

Three days after Arianwen had disappeared
, Jennifer received an email.
Notification of reply to message board post
. It was the genealogy website she’d posted on, asking for information about the village.

I’m also researching Cilfachglas. Can we swap information?
I’d love to chat about the village. My father was born there. Seren.

There was an email address. Jennifer dashed off a message.
If she could find out a little bit about Arianwen, maybe that would help her not to feel so alone.

She went to
bed, lay on her side, with her bedside light on, and lost herself in her thoughts. Looking back on the months since she’d moved in, it didn’t feel real. Her time with Arianwen seemed like a dream.

After a moment, she realised she was staring at a spot in the floor. Her brain was telling her something. She sat up and looked harder. There was a finger-shaped hole in the floorboards. Kneeling on the floor, she
slid her finger into the hole.

The floorboard came away easily and she peered inside the dark space beneath. Sitting there waiting for her was a bundle of yellow letters tied with a wrinkled pink ribbon.

Jennifer brought them into the light. There was also an old diary and several leather-bound books in the hole. She pulled them out too.

Sitting on the floor, she curled her legs up under her and opened the diary. Something was written in tiny black print in the inside cover.
The private journal of Miss Arianwen Jones.

She turned the first page in the diary. The writing was sparse. Tight little sentences dotted the pages. There were no dates. Only the varying patterns of the writing, the different fading of the ink showed it was from different days, different months,
different years.

I have dreamt about Blodwyn. It is sin but it is not in me to care.

I spent my morning in Church. God was not in my head but Blodwyn was present.

I have written to Blodwyn. She will understand. She has to. I have poured my heart into the letter. It has all the love I have ever felt.

Blodwyn tore my letter. The pieces fell in the mud.

Blodwyn was married today. She did not look at me.

My throat is tight. I cannot breathe. I cannot continue to live but I must. There is nothing I can do. I am like the froth upon the tide.

Blodwyn is with child. Mother says she was fast. She was never fast with me.

Blodwyn’s children grow day by day. The husband, I cannot bring myself to write his name, works for his family. I could not have provided for her.

Mother died today. Da is desolate. He talks of nothing but his longing for death. They have employed a new minister. I fear Da will not survive my mother for long.

The new minister stuttered over Da’s eulogy.

I am alone in the house. Each day drifts into the next. Loneliness is all I am.

I do not know how many years it has been. There are no more minutes, no more days, only endless time here on my own.

I am alone.

This was the last line in the diary. Jennifer swallowed down her tears and took a deep breath. Arianwen had died alone. She’d never had happiness in her life. She wanted to wrap Arianwen in her arms and keep her safe from all the hurt in the world. Jennifer knew she could give her the happiness she’d never enjoyed in life. Oh, why wouldn’t Arianwen come to her, so they could be together?

She glanced through the stack of letters. They
were all addressed to Blodwyn. Arianwen had been in love with Blodwyn. That was clear.

Jennifer stood and put the letters and the diary in her bedside drawer. She would read them slowly.

Cold. Arianwen is cold. It surrounds her, like being encased in ice. She is alone in her ice tomb. She has nobody. Her family have gone. Her neighbours have gone. Her time is gone. She does not belong.

There is so much
she still wants, that she did not have while she was alive. She never had soft kisses and caresses. She never had the pleasure of her body entwined with another’s.

In death, she has had these things.
But they were not real. She cannot hold onto them. In death, she has been teased with the promise of happiness.

There is darkness. The darkness surrounds her. She
is bound and blindfolded, captured in this shadow of the real world.