Jocelyn arrived at eleven o’clock prompt with a wicker basket full of hidden treasures. ‘I thought we might make the most of the Indian summer and have a little picnic, if you’re up to it?’ she challenged.
‘If I’m up to it? So what’s put a spring in your step?’ answered Holly, genuinely surprised.
‘Well, I believe I have your Tom to thank for persuading Patti to return to university.’
‘She’s decided to go back? Jocelyn, that’s fantastic news, but please don’t go giving Tom all the credit. I’m sure she would have made the same decision eventually,’ Holly assured her.
Jocelyn had only recently returned from her visit to see her son and this was the first chance they’d had to catch up. Holly had been impatient to find out all there was to know about the moondial, but now the time was here, she was suddenly very nervous about bringing the subject up and she knew Jocelyn shared her reluctance.
Holly had managed to call a truce on all the thoughts and theories that had plagued her ever since she had crossed paths with the moondial. She hadn’t found all the answers, she hadn’t even worked out all of the questions, but she still held out hope that the answers were in her grasp and, most importantly, that there may be a way to secure her future and Libby’s too. She wasn’t about to give up on her daughter just yet.
But no matter how positive she was trying to be, she couldn’t dispel all her fears. Her experiences of the moondial had been to the extremes of bitter and sweet. For every ounce of hope it had revealed, it seemed to add a pound of pain. Jocelyn had already said there was a price to pay for changing the future and Holly wasn’t sure she was ready to hear the secrets that her friend had promised to reveal.
‘I hope you have something better in mind than the garden for our picnic,’ grimaced Holly. Although Holly had tried to keep the garden under control, if only so that Tom’s hard work wasn’t completely undone by another year’s summer growth, it was hardly the lush landscape she knew it could be and she still felt guilty about the state it was in every time Jocelyn visited.
‘I was thinking we’d take a trip to the ruins of Hardmonton Hall.’
‘Really? I didn’t know we could drive up there,’ asked Holly. To her shame, she had never visited the ruins close up and had seen no more than the crumbling walls that skirted the outside of the old estate boundaries and which lead right up to the gatehouse. Even then, the extent of the estate wasn’t as grand as it used to be with most of the land having been sold off, redeveloped or reclaimed for farming. Only the areas immediately surrounding the ruins had been left untouched.
‘We can’t drive up there,’ scolded Jocelyn. ‘Kids these days want to be ferried around everywhere. These joints of mine are feeling well oiled today and if I can make the trek, I’m sure you can.’
‘You want to show me where the moondial was originally sited, don’t you?’ Holly asked, and her stomach did a flip simply saying its name out loud.
‘It seems the ideal place to debate the pros and cons of time travel,’ chirped Jocelyn, but Holly sensed a tone of false bravado in her voice.
‘Well, what should I bring?’ asked Holly in a panic. She started to randomly open kitchen cupboards. ‘I’ve already made a pot of tea. There’s a flask here somewhere. Have you brought food? I’ve got some bits and pieces in the fridge. And cutlery. Have you got cutlery?’ Holly was gulping air at the end of every sentence as panic set in.
‘I’ve got a flask,’ soothed Jocelyn, ‘and enough food to feed an army.’ Holly went to say something else but Jocelyn stopped her. ‘And I’ve got a blanket and all the utensils we could possibly need.’
‘You’re sure?’ replied Holly meekly.
Jocelyn took hold of Holly’s shaking hands to steady her. ‘We’re not about to carry out brain surgery here,’ she told her. ‘Just talk, that’s all. Just as much as both of us can bear.’
‘Maybe I should get changed,’ suggested Holly.
Jocelyn sighed. ‘You’re fine as you are.’
‘Umbrella?’
Jocelyn raised an eyebrow, silencing any further prevarication.
‘Let’s throw caution to the wind, shall we? Life’s all about taking risks,’ she told Holly.
Holly and Jocelyn began their walk in silence as they followed the overgrown path that had once been an impressive drive leading up to the Hall. The disused road was hidden beneath years of decay and neglect. The only sound breaking the silence was the occasional snapping of twigs underfoot and sweet birdsong that brightened the morning in spite of the growing tension between the two women.
The ancient trees that had guarded the approach to Hardmonton Hall loomed overhead, growing more dense as the women made their pilgrimage. The September sun glinted occasionally through the canopy and the dappled sunlight lit the way ahead for Holly and Jocelyn. Holly tried to enjoy the mixture of light and shadow and the contrast between the rotting vegetation underfoot and the sparkling greenery above. The leaves were yet to show the onset of autumn, but as the breeze whipped them into a frenzy Holly could hear their telltale death rattle.
‘So how was your visit with Paul?’ Holly asked, eager to break the silence.
‘As well as could be expected.’
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ quizzed Holly.
Jocelyn sighed. ‘Paul hasn’t let me into his life for a very long time, ever since his father died really,’ confessed Jocelyn. ‘He was a teenager when I left Harry and he never knew what I’d been subjected to – and he certainly didn’t know what I’d seen of the future. I’d protected him as much as I could from Harry’s cruelty and, perversely, so had Harry. Harry was incapable of love but he could put on a good act. He found it entertaining to engender Paul’s affection and use that against me so when I decided to leave, Paul never really understood why.’
‘He blames you for Harry’s suicide?’ Holly asked, although the answer was clear.
Jocelyn laughed. ‘Oh, Holly, yes. Yes, he blames me, and he has every right to.’
‘But you know that’s not true. He would have driven you to suicide. He killed himself instead of you. How could you even begin to feel guilty about that?’
Jocelyn looked into the distance where the canopy of trees had started to thin and the full light of day could be seen in all its glory, marking their arrival at the ruins. ‘Ah, the light at the end of the tunnel,’ she told Holly, avoiding the question.
‘Or an oncoming train,’ sighed Holly.
Jocelyn took Holly’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘I’m here to help. It’ll be all right,’ Jocelyn assured her but the sadness in her eyes told a different story.
The ruins lived up to their name. The Hall itself was nothing more than a series of lonely, half-demolished walls covered in ivy and lichen. Holly could almost believe she was wandering through an overgrown cemetery with giant headstones.
‘Do you remember when the Hall was in its heyday?’ she asked Jocelyn.
‘Lord Hardmonton – the old Lord Hardmonton, that is – used to hold annual garden parties and the whole village was invited. They were glorious affairs and we’d spend all year looking forward it. When he died, his son Edward, the one who was lost in the fire, carried on the tradition, but I was married by then, so I never went.’
‘Harry?’ guessed Holly.
Jocelyn simply nodded.
‘So why did it burn down anyway? Tom was right, even though he didn’t know it. If they had the moondial and could see into the future, why didn’t they see it coming? Didn’t Edward Hardmonton use the dial?’ Holly knew Jocelyn was leading her slowly to the revelations of the moondial and she felt herself trying to sprint to the finish line. She needed to know everything and the questions just kept coming.
‘Oh, Edward Hardmonton used it,’ Jocelyn told her, but offered no further explanation. ‘Now, the site for the moondial is right over here, as I recall.’
Biting her lip to hold back questions, Holly let Jocelyn lead her towards what would have been the ornamental gardens. The gardens were still magnificent despite the neglect. The mixture of exotic shrubs and grasses had fought for supremacy over the abandoned and partly demolished architecture and had secured a glorious victory. The red, orange and yellow hues of autumn had arrived early here and the view was breathtaking. Holly wished she had seen the gardens earlier in the summer at the height of the flowering season.
Holly recognized the site of the moondial from the architectural plans she had already seen. The outer edge of the circle was made from grey stone, although most was now hidden beneath the shrubbery that had bordered it. In the plan, each of the four segments of the main circle had been planted up with a different mix of plants and shrubs, possibly chosen to depict the four seasons. Over the years, the more delicate specimens had either been consumed by their more dominant bedfellows or had simply withered and died. In contrast to other parts of the garden, the landscaping here looked bleak.
‘What’s this?’ asked Holly as she stepped onto one of the four paths that led to the stone centre circle where the moondial had stood. Kicking away thick layers of moss underfoot, Holly revealed writing that had been etched into the stone.
‘There are inscriptions on each of the four paths,’ Jocelyn told her. ‘A poem with four verses. This is why I wanted to bring you here. They explain how the moondial works and, if I remember correctly, the first one is over here.’
As they crossed the centre of the circle, Holly put down the wicker basket she had been carrying.
‘Wait, I need something from in there,’ Jocelyn said. She rummaged in the basket and took out a wire brush.
With a little careful brushing, Holly revealed the wording on the first path:
Beneath the fullest moon
If only for an hour
Reflection is the key
To the moondial’s power
‘Well, that’s nothing I couldn’t have worked out for myself,’ Holly said sulkily, unable to hide her disappointment that this verse hadn’t revealed any hidden secrets. ‘I’d already noticed that the vision only lasts about an hour, and I’d worked out the need for a full moon too. I tried using the dial once when there wasn’t a full moon and the orb barely flickered.’
‘Let’s read the next verse,’ Jocelyn suggested.
There was no moss growing on the next path so the second part of the poem was relatively easy for Holly to read.
A timepiece like no other
Moonlight will point the way
A shadow cast by moonlight
Reaching out to an unborn day
The reference to a timepiece triggered a memory. This time, Holly did have a question. ‘The moonlight reflected from the centre of the glass orb created what looked like hands of a dial spinning around and I could hear the ticking of a clock too. But if it’s a timepiece, how does it work? How does it dictate how far its reflection is cast into the future?’
‘I think that’s the one thing that will always remain a mystery. The journal shows how the brass mechanism was engineered, but the timepiece was an instrument to count down the hour, not dictate where the reflection would lead to. It’s clear from the notes that it can only be the dial that makes the choice. How it does that, I don’t honestly know, but it does seem to choose a critical point in the traveller’s life.’
‘Or death,’ added Holly morosely. ‘Have you brought the journal with you?’
‘Don’t worry, it’s in the basket. Once we’ve finished with our picnic, you can have it. I don’t want it any more.’
‘How did you get hold of the journal, anyway?’
‘Mr Andrews, the old gardener at the Hall, came to see me not long after Harry bought the moondial. Though he had never used the dial himself, he had been a close confidante of Edward Hardmonton. I’ll tell you all about it later, but I think you need to read the poem in full first. Ready for the next verse?’ insisted Jocelyn.
This path too was practically clear, with pretty clusters of lichen around its edges, though not enough to conceal the engraving.
Like a hand upon the water
No imprint shall there be
Like a drop of rain on glass
The choice of path may not be free
Holly stared at the words and tried to make sense of it. A shiver passed through her body as she remembered her footprints in the snow and the dust on the mantelpiece during her last vision and she realized that the first part of this verse fitted perfectly with her own experience. She had visited the future but left no imprint, any impression she made disappearing just like the poem said, like a hand upon the water. The meaning of the second part, however, eluded her, or perhaps she was simply evading it.
‘The choice of path isn’t free? What does that mean? Does it mean I have no free choice or does it mean something else? You said there was a price to pay.’
‘A little of both, I think. The best way of explaining it is to picture raindrops on a window like the poem says.’
Holly wasn’t convinced that picturing a pane of glass would ease her confusion, but she did as she was told and let Jocelyn guide her through the image developing in her mind.
‘Have you ever tried to follow a particular raindrop as it makes its way down the glass?’
Holly nodded in agreement but said nothing. As a child she had spent hours watching the rain trickle tears down her bedroom window.
‘As it hits the window,’ continued Jocelyn, ‘you would think it’s setting off on its own journey. But at some point, it will cross the path of another raindrop. You may not be able to see that path and you may think that there’s not even a trace of it there, but then suddenly, your raindrop veers in a new direction. It’s following its predecessor, no longer on its own journey but one that has already been laid before it.’
Holly hadn’t realized but she had her eyes closed as she followed an imaginary raindrop on its path down her old bedroom window. When she opened her eyes, Jocelyn was watching, her gaze infused with sadness.
‘Life, it seems, demands a certain balance. Even when you think you’re choosing a new path, it can sometimes lead you to the same place.’
‘Oh, my God,’ gasped Holly. ‘It means no matter what kind of health checks I have, if I get pregnant with Libby then I can’t avoid dying in childbirth. That’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it?’
‘I’m sorry, Holly. I wish I could say the last verse will give you hope, but I can’t. The moondial’s rules are cruel, there’s no way of softening the blow. Just remember that the dial is giving you a chance to save your life. Try not to lose sight of that. Try to see it as a gift.’ Her voice had the hushed tones befitting a funeral parlour.
‘A gift? How can this horror that I’m being forced to go through ever be called a gift?’ Holly demanded, anger burning the back of her throat.
‘If it keeps you safe, and I know it will, then yes, it is a gift. Come on, let’s read the last verse,’ Jocelyn said, her tone still soft and unnervingly sympathetic.
The last path was covered in a thick carpet of moss and as Holly scrubbed away the stone’s living shroud, she felt her heart sinking.
If evading death you seek
Then the dial shall keep the score
A life for a life the price to pay
Never one less and not one more
‘A life for a life,’ Holly repeated. ‘What does it mean, “keep the score”?’
She had asked the question, but Jocelyn wouldn’t answer her. She just looked at Holly and waited for her to interpret the poem for herself.
‘My life for Libby’s? I have to erase my beautiful baby’s life for the sake of my own. Please, Jocelyn, please tell me I’m reading it wrong.’
When Jocelyn’s continued silence gave Holly the answer she hadn’t wanted to hear, a crushing weight knocked the wind out of her and she let herself sink to her knees. ‘Oh, Jocelyn, I don’t think I can bear this any more!’ she cried out. Then she did something that she had never done before in her entire adult life. She let herself cry without restraint. In a matter of moments, she was howling sobs that had been a long time in the making.
Jocelyn laid out the picnic in the rose garden, picking the location because it was out of sight of the moondial circle. The food remained untouched but Jocelyn had insisted that Holly drink some tea, which was, as always, sweet and hot.
Holly had quelled her tears and, despite the shock, she wanted to hear more about the dial. She needed to understand how it had been used in the past. She had to be sure that there were no other options before she gave Libby up completely. ‘Tell me what happened to you, Jocelyn,’ she asked. ‘You told me how you were going to be driven to suicide, but how did the rules apply to you?’
Jocelyn played with her teacup, swirling its contents as if she would find a path back to the past. ‘I think I need to start at the beginning. Is that all right?’ Jocelyn asked, her eyes already glistening with unshed tears.
‘Take your time. I’m here for you too,’ offered Holly as she leaned over and squeezed the old lady’s hand.
‘Mr Andrews didn’t mention time travel the first time he visited me at the gatehouse. He had simply come to hand over the wooden box and the journal – with some reluctance, I’d have to say. I think he was torn between letting the secret of the moondial die with the Hardmontons, or leaving it to its new owner to decide. He warned me to read the journal first and not to resurrect the moondial unless I was prepared to accept the consequences. By the time he returned a few months later, I hadn’t just read the journal but I’d experienced the power of the moondial first-hand.’
‘The dial chose to take you to that point in time when you’d committed suicide.’
Jocelyn nodded. ‘I went through the same nightmare you probably did, questioning my own sanity. The journal seemed to confirm everything I’d experienced, but I was more than willing to dismiss it as fantasy. When Mr Andrews realized I’d seen my future, he helped me accept that what I’d seen could really happen. We took this exact same walk to the Hall and the stone circle where he helped me interpret the poem exactly as I’ve done with you.’
‘The raindrop on the window pane,’ confirmed Holly.
‘When I realized that the “life for a life” rule meant that someone else would have to die in my place, I simply resigned myself to my fate and for two years, I did nothing.’ Jocelyn shrugged her shoulders by way of any further explanation.
‘But then you used the dial again and saw what Harry would do to Paul. That’s why you changed your path. But the life for a life rule?’ asked Holly, but she was already working out the answer as the words came out of her mouth. ‘Oh, I see. It was Harry. Harry took his own life. That’s why you feel so guilty, isn’t it?’
‘That isn’t the half of it,’ confessed Jocelyn. ‘When you avoid death, the life that will be sacrificed in your stead isn’t necessarily yours to choose. The life taken is always a close family member, not necessarily a blood relative but within the family circle. You can’t just go out and randomly kill a stranger and expect the score to be settled.’
‘You said the moondial’s rules were cruel, but, Jocelyn, cruel doesn’t even begin to describe it!’
Both women were staring in the direction of the moondial site, unable to meet each other’s haunted gaze. Morning had slipped silently into afternoon and as the determined September sun fought through the gathering clouds there was still just enough warmth left in the day to heat up the gentle breeze. Holly shivered nonetheless.
‘I couldn’t avoid death without risking another member of my family. The moondial demanded a life and my worst fear was that it could be Paul’s life I was risking. That’s why I did nothing for two years, not until I saw what would happen to Paul if I didn’t try to change the future.’
‘Please don’t say you killed Harry,’ gasped Holly, half jokingly, but with a fear that there were yet more unpleasant surprises to be revealed amongst the ruins of the Hall.
Jocelyn smiled but as she wrinkled her eyes a tear began its solemn journey down her cheek. ‘As good as,’ she confessed. ‘I saw what he would do to Paul and I felt a rage growing inside me that perhaps only a mother can feel. I had never fought back against Harry’s abuse. I couldn’t have been more submissive if I’d tried. But when I saw Harry’s cruelty being directed at Paul, destroying him as surely as it had destroyed me, that rage consumed me and I think I would have been capable of murder if it had come to it.’
Holly did her best to concentrate on Jocelyn’s experiences. Though she was trying hard not to think about how all of this knowledge would dictate her own path, she could feel those familiar insecurities about motherhood returning to haunt her yet again. She thought she had been learning to be a mother, but she wondered if she could even begin to imagine the burning rage that Jocelyn described.
Jocelyn was trembling as she resurrected the spectres of her past and she seemed to have reached the point where she couldn’t go on. Holly desperately needed to hear more to help her understand. ‘If you didn’t kill him, how did you make sure the life that would be taken was Harry’s?’ asked Holly softly.
‘I started fighting back,’ whispered Jocelyn, as if she were afraid to wake up the ghosts that seemed to be crowding around them. ‘Harry had unwittingly given me the skills to undermine him. Of course, unlike me, Harry wasn’t in the least bit submissive, so when I started to stand up to him, his reaction was explosive. The abuse and cruelty he inflicted on me escalated and the physical abuse became more frequent, more intense.’
‘Oh, Jocelyn, I’d never imagined it had been so bad,’ replied Holly, genuinely shocked by the horrors Jocelyn must have faced in the house that was now Holly’s home.
‘I think the saying, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” certainly applies to me. And through it all, Harry still managed to keep the abuse hidden from Paul. My secret shame would have remained just that if
I hadn’t realized that I could use it to my advantage. I made certain other people knew. Slowly but surely, Harry’s work dried up as people refused to deal with him. The people in the village became my silent allies and, with the help of my sister, Harry was ostracized. He was close to breaking point, but then I started to wonder if I’d gone too far, if maybe I would still die but at Harry’s hands instead of my own. It was only the intervention of a dear friend, my knight in shining armour, who tipped the balance back in my favour and really set the path of my future on its new course.’
‘And who was this knight in shining armour?’
‘Someone you already know,’ answered Jocelyn, cryptically. ‘He’s still a regular visitor to the gatehouse.’
‘Billy?’ gasped Holly.
Jocelyn nodded. ‘He was a young man in his prime back then. He had called around to the gatehouse to chase Harry for money that he owed him. It was the middle of the day and Paul was at school so Harry was making the most of the time we had to ourselves by beating me to a pulp. One minute I was cowering in a corner and the next, Billy was there and it was Harry who was nursing bruises and broken ribs at the end of the day.’
‘Well done, Billy.’ Holly was smiling with a newfound admiration for her builder.
‘It wasn’t so much the beating that Harry found so hard to take but the humiliation, and I reinforced his shame every chance I got. It broke him, and when he was at his lowest, I knew it was time to leave.’
‘And that’s when the moondial showed you it would lead Harry to suicide?’ asked Holly in disbelief. Holly had always known that Jocelyn was much, much stronger than the frail body that ensnared her, but it was still difficult to imagine Jocelyn taking her husband’s cruelty and using it as her own.
‘There was just one more thing I had to do first. The moondial needs a specific event as a catalyst to switch from one vision of the future to another and, for me, it was sitting down and writing Harry a letter, telling him that I was leaving him. I told him how he had failed at everything and the world would be a better place without him, although I think I might not have put it quite so subtly. With the letter written and my bags packed, I used the moondial one last time. It confirmed that everyone I loved would be safe, that it would be Harry and not me that would commit suicide and that it was safe for me to leave.’ Jocelyn lifted her head high and looked directly at Holly. ‘So going back to your original question, yes, in a way I did kill Harry.’
‘And you never told Paul.’
‘No,’ confirmed Jocelyn. ‘I couldn’t tell him before Harry died in case it changed the future, and afterwards, I was wracked with guilt. I couldn’t justify what I had done even to myself, let alone justify it to Paul.’
‘You let Paul believe his father was the innocent party.’ Holly shook her head and tried to suppress her anger.
‘When the gatehouse was cleared out, Paul found the letter I’d written to Harry. I was officially divorced by that point so had no rights to the property, everything went to Paul. As soon as he was old enough, he left me and left the village. He joined the army and travelled the world, travelled anywhere that would take him as far away from me as possible.’
‘It must have been hard for both of you, but you’re all right together now?’
Jocelyn shook her head and a tear trickled down her face. ‘I tried. For years I tried to get back in touch with him, but he was intent on wiping me out of his life as surely as if I had been the one that had died. Every single letter or card I sent to him was returned unopened. Up until last month, I’d not managed to speak to him for years.’
‘I just assumed you went to visit him regularly. You did stay with him, didn’t you? You were away for over a week,’ Holly asked, confusion adding to the raft of emotions brewing up inside her.
‘You gave me the jolt I needed to try one last time. I tracked him down through an army friend who’s also from Fincross. I practically took up roost on Paul’s doorstep until he couldn’t ignore me any longer.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I didn’t tell him about the moondial, if that’s what you mean. I think that would have been a step too far. But I told him his father had driven me to the point of suicide. I told him that I’d left Harry to protect him as much as for my own sake.’
‘Did he listen?’
Jocelyn smiled and the weary lines on her face softened. ‘He listened enough, I think. We’ve not mended all our fences, but some.’
Jocelyn smiled as her tears dried, but the ghost of those tears remained and Holly knew the old lady wouldn’t let go of the guilt she had carried with her for thirty years.
The clouds gathering overhead were leaching the colour from the sky and the warm breeze had developed a sharpness. The gloriously overgrown gardens that surrounded them had lost their lustre and Holly needed no persuading when Jocelyn suggested they head home.
‘I don’t think this picnic was a very good idea, was it?’ sighed Jocelyn. ‘We’ve both lost our appetites and, I hate to say this, but I think my joints have seized up. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get up off the ground.’
Holly smiled as she picked herself up and put her arms out to help pull Jocelyn to her feet. ‘Well, I can’t leave you here and I can’t make it back without you.’
This was Holly’s way of reaching out for help and Jocelyn found enough determination to make it to her feet and give Holly a hug. ‘I won’t leave you to face this on your own,’ she assured her.
The journey home was slower and it was also darker. The dappled light that had lit their way to Hardmonton Hall had been replaced by a cold murkiness. Holly’s journey to the ruins had been undertaken with a mixture of fear and hope but on her return, she carried back with her only the fear and a sense of emptiness that had seeped into her body once her tears had been spent.
‘What if there’s an exception to the rule?’ she asked Jocelyn as they neared the gatehouse. It was the first time they had spoken on their bleak journey home, other than the occasional expletive from Jocelyn as her hip joints failed her.
‘There’s no bargaining with the moondial,’ Jocelyn warned. She stopped and turned to look at Holly. It was hard to tell if the grimace on the old woman’s face was from the pain or from the thought of Holly taking risks with her future.
‘So why use it!’ Holly blurted out, not sure if her sudden anger was directed at Jocelyn or the moondial. ‘Why didn’t you destroy it, or at least the mechanism? Why did you leave it so some poor fool like me would come along and start putting it back together again?’
Fresh guilt weighed down heavily on Jocelyn’s shoulders and she suddenly looked very frail and old. ‘I don’t know why, Holly, I really don’t. Just like Mr Andrews, I suppose I didn’t think I had the right to destroy the moondial. I hid the box in one of the walls in Harry’s workshop and I thought it would be safe there. It was certainly the last place Harry would ever look. And I kept the journal with me, remember. I didn’t think anyone would be able to work out how to put the mechanism together on their own.’
As soon as Holly saw the pain in Jocelyn’s face she immediately regretted her outburst and her anger vanished as quickly as it had arrived. She knew she was being unfair and besides, she couldn’t ignore the fact that the dial would be instrumental in avoiding her death in childbirth. ‘I’m so sorry, Jocelyn. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re as much a victim of the moondial as I am.’ She slipped her arm into Jocelyn’s and started walking once more towards home. ‘So tell me everything you know about the journal,’ she said, easing the conversation away from her ill-conceived accusation.
‘It was written by Edward Hardmonton and it describes in harrowing detail how he resurrected the dial and the decisions he was forced to take. He knew tragedy was coming, but there was still only so much he could do to change future events.’
‘“Like a drop of rain on glass, the choice of path may not be free,”’ Holly recited.
‘You’ve remembered the poem perfectly.’
‘It’s not something I’m likely to forget,’ sighed Holly. ‘It’s the only thing I have to get me through this nightmare.’
‘Not the only thing. I’m here to help you – unless you’re ready to talk to Tom about it?’
It was Holly’s turn to feel guilty. She was coming to realize that she was going to have to make some life-changing decisions and Tom had a right to be involved. ‘I need to have everything clear in my own mind first. I will tell him, one day.’
‘Just not today,’ suggested Jocelyn.
‘Or tomorrow,’ added Holly. ‘Perhaps not until all of this is over and there are no decisions left to take.’
The trees started to thin out and Holly sensed Jocelyn’s relief as the gatehouse came into view.
‘I’ll drive you back home,’ insisted Holly.
‘I’ve told you before, I won’t give in to these joints,’ Jocelyn said with a warning glare.
‘Then at least let me escort you home. No arguing.’
‘Who’s arguing?’ asked Jocelyn with a pained smile.
Although Jocelyn was relieved when they stopped in front of the teashop, she was less eager to say goodbye to Holly. She didn’t want to leave her on her own to dwell on the future. They both knew there was only one path Holly could take if she was going to survive and that meant a future without Libby. Her daughter might not exist in the present time, might never exist at all, but Jocelyn could see the pain of loss in Holly’s eyes.
‘I could always pack a bag and come stay with you until Tom gets back,’ Jocelyn offered. She had taken the journal out of her basket, but seemed reluctant to hand it over.
‘I’ll be fine, don’t worry,’ Holly assured her, reaching out and taking the journal from Jocelyn’s protective grasp. ‘I’ve got this to read and then there are lots of other things to keep me busy. The marble for Mrs Bronson’s sculpture is finally being delivered next week and Billy has promised to come back and finish off the conservatory. Besides, you’re busy too.’
‘Yes, it’s always busy at harvest time in the village, but I’m sure they could do perfectly well without me.’ Jocelyn still wasn’t making a move to go inside the teashop.
‘Jocelyn, am I going to have to drag you up the stairs to your flat?’ warned Holly with a mischievous smile. Even though Jocelyn was the only person that she could talk to about the moondial, Holly desperately needed time on her own.
When Holly returned home, the gatehouse felt empty and barren. She had been given a glimpse of motherhood, had seen the face of the child she and Tom would create, and then she had been lulled into believing that she still could have it all. She had assumed that the moondial in its mystical benevolence had shown her the dangers that lay ahead so that she could avoid them, so that she could survive, so that they could all survive.
She put the journal down on the kitchen table and stared at it. It was bound in dark brown leather with the monogram E.H. stamped in the top left corner. There was a leather strap tied tightly around it to keep in place ragged bits of paper which had been inserted between its unkempt pages. Holly was tempted to leave it unopened, especially now that Jocelyn had described its contents as harrowing; she had already heard enough harrowing stories for one day. But the journal demanded her attention and she knew she wouldn’t rest until her torture was complete.