Often over the last year Adam had wondered if he was mad. Proposing marriage to a woman he hardly knew was not the action of a sane man. But inexorably time had moved on. He and Jane had become close and companionable, his plans had been laid, his exams taken and passed and his time at the Royal Infirmary completed as the war drew to an end. The Smith-Newlands were a terrifying prospect as parents-in-law. The announcement of the engagement had been followed by an immediate state visit from the south, but Jane’s father seemed to like him, and strings had been pulled to find Adam a nice safe practice as the junior of three partners in Hertfordshire, with an income higher than he had ever dared to hope and with it a rented house, which would be ready for them when they moved in. He had watched the activities around him in a daze, hardly feeling that any of it concerned him at all, except that it meant he would leave Edinburgh. When Jane had dared to question her parents’ plans and remind him that they loved Scotland and would like to live there always he had shrugged and shaken his head. ‘It’s kind of them to help us and I’d never get such a good chance up here – or not for ages.’ He did not see her crest-fallen expression, and did not add his own, single over-riding thought: Brid would never find him in England.
The summer before he had agreed, against all common sense, to be a witness at Liza’s wedding to Phil. The misery he felt as he watched her exchange vows with the man beside her was profound and totally inadmissible. As was the devastation which had overwhelmed him as he said goodbye when they set off for Wales. As she left Liza had leaned forward and whispered in his ear, ‘No sign of Brid?’
He had shaken his head. ‘Not a word.’
‘Good.’ She had put her arms round him and given him a hug. Then she had climbed after Phil onto the train.
That autumn he had heard that his mother was dead. The letter from his father was brief, without emotion. She had been killed, it appeared, in an automobile accident in Chicago. There was no mention of the man she had left Scotland with, nor of where she would be buried. Adam stared at the letter for a long time, all the old emotions of grief and anger, loss and regret resurfacing one after the other. Jane had comforted him and he had torn the letter up and then he had gone at last to Pittenross to see his father. Thomas knew no more of the circumstances of Susan Craig’s life and death in America than he had told Adam in the letter. If he felt any grief he hid it totally. The two men shook hands and parted. They were not to meet again until the day before Adam’s wedding. Adam did not climb the hill to visit the stone. And he did not pass a night under his father’s roof.
Meryn Jones lived in a small, white-washed, stone-built cottage which lay in the shelter of a ridge of the Black Mountains, with a view of the Wye valley spread out below it in a panorama of pale shifting colours. The house was only a mile from Pen-y-Ffordd, where Liza and Phil had come to live in her old family home now that her mother had gone to live with her sister in Kent.
Liza stood for a moment staring at the house, then, half reluctantly, she moved forward to knock on the door. Meryn had lived here for as long as she could remember, certainly since she had been a child, and his reputation locally as a wizard and a magician was formidable, so much so that when she was little she had called him Merlin. If asked, all he would have admitted to was the ability to charm warts, to predict the weather, something any farmer could do as well, as he always said, and sometimes, perhaps, to give advice on ghostly happenings in the vicinity. What he did in his lonely cottage, alone, when there was nobody to watch, no one knew.
As she sat down by his fire Liza’s nervousness disappeared as Meryn’s kindly smile reassured her and he made himself comfortable to listen to her tale.
Beside them the logs cracked and hissed and the room filled with the aromatic scent of burning apple and oak.
‘So, you want me to make you an amulet to keep your friend Adam safe from this woman who pursues him?’ he ventured at last. ‘You feel that although he has not heard from her in a long time, she hasn’t gone away.’
Liza nodded. ‘He’s getting married. I think she might not like that.’
Meryn gave a grave nod. ‘From what you have told me, I would agree.’
‘Can you do it for me? Please?’
‘I suspect I can.’ His smile was gentle. ‘Leave it with me, Liza, my dear. I shall think about it and come up with something suitable. Something which will give him and his bride protection from this girl and at the same time not shame their elegant home.’ The smile had become distinctly mischievous. ‘And neither you nor I need admit there is anything of the supernatural involved.’ He took Liza’s hand and held it for a moment. ‘Come back in a week. I shall see what I can do for you.’
After she had gone he sat for a long time, his eyes fixed on the fire. He frowned uneasily as the pictures came, confused and strange at first, then slowly more vivid. He could see the girl with her long dark hair and her wild frightened eyes and he could see the great stone on the hillside. Behind her, in the shadows, was a power which turned the flickering apple flame to the colour of blood and roared in the chimney like a giant wind. He shivered and shook off the vision. Enough to know that Adam Craig and his new wife would face danger beyond their imagining. He stood up and walked over to the table which stood in the centre of his room. On it lay a litter of objects, amongst them a small, intensely bright crystal which he had been given when he had visited New York State to learn the ways of the Iroquois Indians. It was pretty enough in its diamond brilliance to please the eye and its protective power was profound.
‘Darling, you look so pretty.’ Patricia Smith-Newland, kneeling on the pink Chinese carpet, fluffed up the white silk skirt, which had been made with a careful combination of hoarded coupons and a white silk bedspread. Her daughter sat in front of her bedroom mirror, adjusting her veil. ‘I can’t believe it!’ Suddenly there were tears running down her cheeks again, forming ugly rivulets in the pink face powder. ‘It’s not too late, you know, to change your mind. Daddy could make it all right if you want to stop the wedding.’
‘Mummy!’ Jane turned round on the narrow stool and glared at her mother. ‘Please stop it! I am marrying Adam and that is that! I love him. He loves me! You should be jolly glad I’ve found someone so respectable.’
‘I am, sweetheart. It’s just …’ The woman shrugged helplessly as she climbed heavily to her feet. ‘Well, he’s so Scottish!’
Jane stared at her mother with something like real disdain. ‘All the best doctors are Scottish, Mummy. Everyone knows that.’
‘And that father of his!’ The hand gestures spoke volumes. ‘Thomas. He’s like the spectre at the feast.’ She shuddered ostentatiously.
The object of her dislike was a house guest, at that very moment adjusting his snow-white bands and black gown before setting off in the car to the church where, much against his better judgement he was to help officiate at the very Church of England wedding of his son to an English lass with blonde hair so very much like the English lass who had captivated him so many years before.
‘Mummy, do you mind if I’m on my own for a few minutes?’ Jane smiled at her mother in what she hoped was a conciliatory way. ‘Just to compose myself. You know.’
Patricia gulped. ‘Of course, darling. I’ll wait downstairs with the bridesmaids.’ Six of them. ‘I’ll send Daddy up to find you in five minutes, shall I?’
The small twelfth-century Surrey church was packed on the bride’s half of the aisle. The groom’s side was less well represented, but Adam’s friends had made a noble effort. Amongst them were Liza and Philip Stevenson. Andrew Thomson was sitting beside him now, his best man. Both were resplendent in the kilt, the only thing, Adam felt, which went even a little way to pacify his future mother-in-law’s implacable dislike of all things Scots.
Climbing out of the old Bentley, which for the whole of the war had been stored in a barn at the bottom of the field near the house, Jane took her father’s arm. He patted her hand. ‘All right, sweetheart?’
She nodded nervously. If only she could talk to him alone; if only he had come on the long walk with her which she had tentatively suggested the evening before. Just to be with him one last time as his daughter before she became a wife. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Adam. She did, desperately. And yet she was afraid. It was as though there was a shadow there somewhere, where she couldn’t quite see it. A shadow which frightened her. Did everyone have doubts like hers at the last moment? Did everyone want a few words of reassurance from someone, a sign that they were doing the right thing? She didn’t know. But her mother had stepped in, as she always did, making sure any small moments of tenderness between father and daughter were lost in her own overpowering need to control every single member of her family. ‘Don’t be silly, Jane. The last thing you want is to go for a walk! You must have an early night. Conserve your strength! Heaven knows, you’re going to need it! Leave the poor child alone, James.’
And so the chance had gone. She was pulling at her skirts, arranging them, vaguely wondering where the bridesmaids were when James turned her to face him. ‘Remember, Janie. It’s your life. Be happy.’ There they were. The six small girls in a froth of pink and white and rosebuds, being shepherded along the path. ‘Adam is as straight as they come, Janie. He’s a fine young man. I happen to think you’ve made a good choice. Don’t listen to anyone who says otherwise.’ It was the nearest he ever came to rebellion, this quiet contradiction of the accepted view in his house. He smiled down at her with so much love and understanding she felt the tears flood into her eyes. He had understood all along. Seeing the tears he patted her hand again. ‘Come on. Let’s get these children fell in. Forward march!’
The service passed, for Jane, in a dream of happiness. As she stood beside her kilted husband, gazing up at the old stained-glass window, still criss-crossed with brown paper to save it from any nearby explosions, she did not believe anyone could be so lucky. All her doubts had gone. She glanced across at Adam, and feeling her gaze upon him he smiled down at her and squeezed her hand.
Mrs Adam Craig. Changing later into the soft heather tones of her suit and hat in the bedroom which was from today no longer hers, Jane tried out the name. Dr and Mrs Craig. Adam and Jane.
She turned enquiringly at the knock on the door. It was Liza. ‘I wanted to bring you my present up here. I hope you don’t mind.’
Marriage had not altered Liza. Her hair was still long and wild and curly, her clothes unconventional and brightly coloured, her manner relaxed and warm. For a moment Jane felt herself as gauche and naïve as she had always felt in Liza’s presence. Then she remembered. She was married too. She was Mrs Adam Craig and she knew, deep inside, that that was something Liza might have once wanted to be herself. She smiled and went forward to kiss Liza’s cheek. ‘I was so pleased to see you and Philip had come. Really pleased. I thought Adam said Philip had been ill.’
‘He was.’ Liza’s sparkle faded for a moment. ‘But he’s fine now. All he needed was to get away from the university and rest. He’d been working too hard. Professors have a surprisingly stressful life.’
Jane turned away from her to sit down in front of the mirror again. She reached for her lipstick. ‘You will come and see us in St Albans, won’t you, when we’re settled in the new practice? We’ve got a lovely old house, too. Adam is terribly lucky to get the partnership. He wanted to get away from Edinburgh so badly. I couldn’t quite understand that.’ She glanced at Liza in the mirror and found the other woman’s eyes fixed on hers. ‘When he finished at the Infirmary they offered him a post, a plum post, but he didn’t take it. He said he wanted to get away from Scotland.’ She outlined her lips with vermilion and blotted them elegantly. ‘It’s funny that, though. You both wanting to leave Edinburgh so badly too. I can remember you swearing you would never go.’
‘Coincidence.’ Liza laughed uneasily. So Adam had not told Jane about Brid. She sat down on the bed and lay back on the shiny satin counterpane. ‘Perhaps we’d all been there too long. One can, you know. I needed new ideas. Phil wanted a complete change of scene. Perhaps now the war is over we can go abroad. I would love to go to Italy. My father’s family came from Tuscany somewhere. Edinburgh will still be there if we want to go back.’
‘Methinks you do protest too much.’ Jane put the lipstick in her handbag. She swivelled round and looked at Liza. ‘You are happy – you and Phil?’
Their eyes met.
‘Yes,’ Liza smiled. ‘Yes, we are happy. And I hope you and Adam will be too. Just don’t let –’ She broke off.
‘Don’t let?’ Jane felt a small worm of unease turn in her stomach. She knew Liza had come up here to say something.
‘Don’t let him get too serious.’ The laugh was light and unforced. ‘Did you see papa Thomas? The wrath of the Scottish God is not to be courted.’
Jane smiled. She stood up and checked the seams of her nylons. ‘Adam is nothing like his father.’
‘No!’ Liza sat up suddenly. She swung her legs to the floor, frowning. ‘Don’t ever go back, Jane.’
‘What?’
‘I mean it. Don’t go back to Edinburgh. Don’t ask me why.’
‘You’re not making any sense at all.’ Jane half turned towards the door, distracted by a shout from downstairs. ‘Janie! Come on. Your guests are waiting to see you off!’ It was her father’s voice.
‘Liza?’
Liza shrugged. ‘Just a feeling I have, I suppose. Intuition. Put it down to my superstitious Welsh upbringing. I just think it wouldn’t be lucky. Here.’ She held out her hand. In it was a small parcel wrapped in white tissue paper. ‘This is for you. To bring you both luck.’
Jane took it from her and turned it over in her hands. It was surprisingly heavy. ‘Shall I wait and open it with Adam?’
‘If you like. As long as you take it with you.’
Liza was half a head taller than Jane. She reached forward suddenly and pulled Jane to her. ‘Please be happy,’ she whispered. ‘Both of you.’
Jane only thought of the parcel again that night when they had checked into their hotel bedroom in the New Forest. She pulled it out of her handbag and waved it at Adam. ‘Look what Liza gave me. We were having a chat, just before we left.’
‘Why haven’t you opened it?’ Adam smiled at her. She was very pretty, his new wife, and he was extremely fond of her, and what he wanted more than anything was to take her to bed, but just at this moment she looked totally exhausted. The final parting from her mother had been harrowing and he had nearly lost his now almost legendary calm as he dragged Jane to the car with its obligatory old boot tied to the bumper and left Patricia sobbing in her husband’s arms surrounded by embarrassed wedding guests and over-tired bridesmaids.
‘Champagne?’ Adam asked quietly. James had stowed two carefully hoarded bottles in the boot beside the matching old leather suitcases.
She nodded and began to pull at the ribbon which tied the package as Adam eased out the cork and filled the two glasses which were standing ready on the chest of drawers near the window. Outside the forest was already dark. In the grate someone had lit a fire of apple logs and the room was warm and snug.
Adam clinked glasses with her. ‘Here’s to us, my darling.’
‘To us.’ She smiled. She took a sip and put the glass down, going back to the ribbon. He watched her affectionately for a moment as she struggled with the knot then he turned away and went to stand by the window looking out into the darkness. ‘Isn’t it wonderful not to have to worry about blackouts any more? Look at the light flooding out amongst the trees! It seems almost extravagant.’ There was no answer and he turned. ‘So, what is it?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She was examining something in her hands. ‘It’s heavy and it’s very pretty – some kind of ornament.’
He put down his glass and went over to her. ‘Let me see.’
‘There’s a card with it: From ghoulies and ghosties … This is to keep you both safe. Keep it with you forever. With all my love and blessings, Liza.
Adam frowned. He held out his hand. Jane put into it a small sparkling rock crystal set in what looked like the branches of a silver tree. ‘Stand it up on the bedside table. Look, it’s lovely.’ She clapped her hands like a child. Adam shivered. He knew exactly what it was.
You’ll need to protect yourselves. Use a talisman against the Romany magic. Counter her power with your own. Mrs Gardiner’s voice floated back to him from the afternoon in Morningside when he and Liza had sat before her looking at her crystal ball. Liza had thought he wasn’t listening, but he was. Use rock crystals. They’ve long been considered lucky charms by the Scots. Use the ancient powers of the rowan tree. Fight her. Show her it’s no use tormenting you. Poor lass. She doesn’t come from the same world as you. You have to show her that you can be free of her.
The crystal sparkled in the light of the beside lamp. On the silver branches tiny rowan leaves nestled around it and here and there a bunch of minute red enamelled berries. ‘She must have had it made specially.’ Adam shook his head. ‘I expect one of their arty friends is a silversmith but even so, it must have been expensive.’ There was a lump in his throat. He guessed she had had the crystal made into an exotic ornament which would appeal instantly to Jane because otherwise he would not have had it in the house. It was superstitious rubbish. So much idiotic nonsense. Like the pendant.
Leaving it on the table he walked over to the window and pulled the curtains across with a rattle. He shivered. The last person he had wanted to think about on his wedding night was Brid.
Jane put the ornament on the mantelpiece in the sitting room of their new home in St Albans. It was very pretty, but somehow out of place between the austere gilt carriage clock which her uncle Frederick had given them as a wedding present and the three white leaping horses which she had brought with her from the shelf in her bedroom at home. On the wall nearby were some of her books. Jane had always been a great reader and in the first months in St Albans it was only her books which saved her from total misery.
She wasn’t sure how she had seen her life as a doctor’s wife, but certainly not one of unending boredom and loneliness. The practice was a busy one; it had its own secretary and she was helped by Sarah Harding, the wife of the senior partner. Sarah, invariably dressed in immaculately cut skirts and cashmere twinsets or tailored silk shirts, her nails neatly manicured, her jewellery discreet, was cast in the same mould as Patricia Smith-Newland. But she was also hard-working and violently protective of her husband; she had long ago got the measure of his roving eye and fiercely headed off any threat, real or potential, to her marriage. She could have made Jane’s life wonderful, or miserable. She chose to do the latter. She did not invite her to help in any way, she did not arrange for her to meet people or to take part in the activities of the women’s institute or the mother’s union or the practice whatsoever. She actively discouraged Jane from appearing at any social function – ‘Perhaps when you know us all a little better, dear.’ When Jane timidly asked Adam what she could do he shrugged and told her she should be pleased. It would give her a chance to follow her own interests. He had no idea what was going on.
At one of the partnership meetings Robert Harding had a quiet word with him. ‘Only when she’s ready, of course, old boy. But it would be nice if Jane would join in sometimes. I know it’s a bit strange for her, so we won’t rush it. But it looks a bit, you know, stand-offish!’
‘I want to, Adam! I hate spending all day on my own in the house!’ Her wail of anguish when he broached the subject with her shook him. ‘Sarah keeps telling me I’m not needed!’
‘She’s only concerned in case you feel shy.’
‘Oh no, Adam. I don’t think so!’ Her vehemence was so uncharacteristic he reeled back. ‘That woman hates me. I can’t think what I’ve done to make her feel like that, but she does. She doesn’t want me doing anything at all.’
What neither of them knew was that after Adam’s initial interview, when he had returned to introduce the members of the partnership to his fiancée, Robert Harding had commented to his wife later, ‘What an exceptionally nice young woman. Pretty, too. She should bring some life into the place. Give you older ladies a run for your money, what!’ He had not noticed Sarah’s expression, neither the hurt nor the anger, nor the final rigid setting of her jaw.
The discovery that she was pregnant filled Jane with complete and utter joy. She had suspected it for some time, but when at last she mentioned it to Adam, and he confirmed it, she could not contain herself. The first person she had to tell was her mother.
Patricia’s response was predictable, implying that Jane could not under any circumstances cope with pregnancy or baby without her mother close at hand. But her father, who had overheard the far end of the conversation, grabbed the telephone receiver and whooped down it. ‘Tally ho, Janie. Brilliant! I’m so pleased, sweetheart. Wonderful. When?’ In ten short words he had restored her confidence, her happiness and all her optimism. And amongst all the joy she hugged to herself was one small gleeful thought: Dr and Mrs Harding were childless.
Calum James Craig was born in September 1946. He had honey-coloured hair like his mother, brilliant blue eyes and enormous charm. Adam was besotted by him.
‘He’s got your features, my boy.’ James Smith-Newland looked down into the wooden crib and gave the baby his little finger to hold. It had been a while before his wife had been persuaded to stop handing out gratuitous advice and go downstairs to supervise the kitchen arrangements instead. Jane was asleep, worn out by the visitors who had come to wish them well. Only Sarah Harding was conspicuous by her absence.
Adam smiled adoringly at his sleeping wife and then joined his father-in-law by the crib. ‘I hoped he would look like Janie.’
‘He does. He’s got her colouring.’
Adam seemed to have aged far more than the few months since James had last seen him. He had also put on a little weight, but that was good; it suited him and gave him a certain gravitas which was useful in a young doctor. He was popular with his patients, or so Janie said, and they were, if not comfortably off, at least not on the breadline.
‘Are you whispering about me?’ Jane opened her eyes and stared at them drowsily.
Adam smiled. He went over and dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘Whatever gave you that idea, my love?’
‘Because you’re a couple of old gossips.’
‘We’re a doting father and grandfather!’ James came to sit on the edge of her bed. ‘And if you begrudge us that, young woman, it’s too bad! Now, there’s another visitor downstairs for you. Your friend Liza, from Wales. Shall I send her up whilst Adam and I go and find some sherry to pacify your mother?’
‘Liza?’ Jane glanced at Adam. ‘Did you know she was coming?’
Adam shrugged. ‘She said she might look in on her way to London. You don’t mind do you? I should have told you.’
‘Yes, you should.’ For a moment Jane frowned. Then she relaxed. There was no need any more to feel jealous of Liza. She nodded and smiled. ‘I’m glad she’s here.’
‘Good. I’ll tell her to come and view the son and heir.’ James stood up. He patted her again. ‘Don’t let her tire you out, my love.’
Liza picked Calum out of his crib and brought him to cuddle on the end of Jane’s bed. ‘He’s gorgeous! So gorgeous. Oh Jane, I swore I didn’t want any children, but I think I’m going to change my mind!’ She kissed the small cheek and hugged him tighter, then she leaned forward and pushed him into Jane’s arms. ‘Go on, how can you bear to leave him in that lonely little bed. He needs his mummy.’
Jane’s arms tightened round him. She frowned. ‘My mother said he ought to get used to being on his own. I’m to feed him every four hours and not pick him up between.’
Liza stared at her. ‘What if he’s hungry! He’s so tiny! Oh, Janie. You can’t. Take no notice of her. I’m sure Adam would tell you I’m right.’
Jane nuzzled the baby and he whimpered, searching for her breast. ‘I’m not supposed to.’ She was tense. Uncertain.
‘I have never heard such rubbish in my whole life.’ Liza jumped off the bed and going to the door, turned the key. ‘I should send your mother home!’
‘You’re so good for Jane.’ Adam had walked down to the bottom of the long walled garden behind the house with Liza. The air was soft with the mellow autumn sun. ‘She doesn’t stand up for herself. Her mother has bullied her resistance out of her. I think that’s the problem with Sarah too. She reminds Jane too much of Patricia, and instead of standing up for herself she crumbles if Sarah so much as looks at her. I know why she came to Edinburgh to study now. It was about as far as she could get from home.’
‘It must have taken a lot of courage to tell her parents she wanted to go away to university.’
‘James was on her side. He’s a real brick.’
Liza smiled. ‘Picking up all the English expressions, I see. So, how does the good doctor like the Home Counties?’
Adam hesitated. ‘I’m not sure I fit, to be honest. I miss the hills. I miss the country. This garden is all I see of mother nature for days on end. I sometimes go out to the countryside to see a patient, but mostly I’m working in the town. Robert and John, our other partner, keep the well-heeled patients for themselves. I was taken on to do the less lucrative side of the practice.’
‘That stinks!’
‘I have to start somewhere. Don’t forget James helped me buy into the partnership. I couldn’t have done it on my own. If I had had my way I would have settled down a million miles from Patricia – St Albans is at least a bit of a way. As you know Jane wanted to stay in Edinburgh. Before her mother started organising our lives!’ He was standing, hands in pockets, staring down at a pale pink rose. ‘You know why I couldn’t stay there. She was there. Even if I couldn’t see her or hear her, she was there.’
Neither of them had to state who ‘she’ was.
‘I was so afraid she would latch onto Jane. She begrudged me visiting you, imagine what she would do if she found out I was going to get married.’
‘But you never told Jane?’
He shook his head. ‘Why worry her?’
‘You’ve never seen Brid since you came to England?’
‘No. Perhaps your magic charm has worked.’ He knew Liza had noticed it. Patricia had too. ‘Why don’t you move that hideous geegaw!’ was her comment. ‘It does lower the tone of the room, Jane darling. I know that arty friend of yours gave it to you, but really …’
‘You’ve been safe, Liza?’ He broke off the rose suddenly and handed it to her. ‘At one point I wondered if she might follow you to Wales.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sure she lost interest in me long ago. After all, I’m married to someone else. I hardly ever see you. What reason could she have for hating me, still?’
They both stared down in silence at the soft pink petals of the flower in her hand.
‘None,’ he said after a minute.
Once or twice Brid had seen Adam as she gazed into the pool on the hillside. He looked older; bigger; more solid. And she saw with him a woman. Not the woman Liza but another, a weak, pretty woman with honey-coloured hair and blue eyes. A woman who was not right for him. The last time she saw the woman she had a belly. She was near her time. Brid’s eyes narrowed with anger. A-dam’s child.
She had made her way once to Liza’s studio and climbed the stairs. There was a padlock on the door and she could tell the place was empty. So, the Liza woman had gone too. She had stood looking down the narrow staircase. A tortoiseshell comb had lodged in a crack in the old deal of the steps. Some of its teeth were broken and between them there were one or two long red hairs. Stooping, she had picked it up and smiled. She had seen combs like these before; the woman Liza always wore them. She had wrapped it carefully in her scarf and put it into her bag.
On Midsummer’s Day Brid went back to the room off the Grassmarket where she and Maggie, maintaining their grudging friendship, had found lodgings, to find Maggie lying unconscious on the floor. She stared at her for a moment, shocked by the sight of the woman, angry that Maggie was not there for her when she needed her. Then she remembered that she was a healer. It was necessary to bring Maggie back to health and she would do everything in her power to ensure that that happened. Unemotionally and carefully she nursed the old woman for four days until, finding tucked in her filthy clothes a piece of paper with the address of her much talked about but never seen daughter, the daughter who could help make her better, she sallied forth to find her.
Catriona had long ago lost patience with Maggie and her drinking, but with a sigh she gave Brid money to buy milk and bread and electric lightbulbs.
It was Brid who found warm blankets; who watched over her like a hawk as the old woman grew stronger than she had been for many years. It was Brid who went back to Catriona’s to collect clothes, some of them for herself, some of them for Maggie, and books and records for the old gramophone which Maggie had found in an empty room in the tall house in which they lived. She would sit for hours listening to the nocturnes of Chopin, rocking back and forth, tears in her eyes, and she would beg Brid for the money to buy a bottle, but Brid never weakened. So when she returned one evening from an expedition onto the hill to collect herbs and found Maggie dead, she could not believe her eyes. She touched her face and took her hand, trying to coax the poor tired spirit back into the cold, worn-out flesh, and then she sat and cried.
Two days after the burial Catriona returned home from a day at the bank where she worked to find Brid on her doorstep in a state of trance from which she could not awaken her. She called her doctor and within hours Brid had been admitted to the Craighouse in Morningside.
In the border world to which she had retreated Brid flitted amongst the shadows, aware of Broichan stalking angrily around the stone. His power had grown. She could feel the tentacles of energy reaching out, touching her spirit, drawing her back and, frightened, she dodged back into the darkness. There was another figure there too now, a shadow she did not recognise, tentative, exploring, his power as yet undeveloped but very real, a challenge to Broichan. She felt him questing inside her head, gently searching. Afraid, she shrouded her thoughts and withdrew into the silence. She could see her body lying propped in the small room in the hospital. It looked empty, drained of life. From time to time a nurse would go in and do things to her, otherwise she was left more or less alone. Catriona visited her once a week, and had she known it phoned every day to see how she was. But she was lost in between the worlds again, her life force drained by the shock of Maggie’s desertion.
Liza’s daughter, Juliette, was born on October the thirty-first 1947. Halloween. Adam and Jane came to Hay-on-Wye for the christening at St Mary’s and stood as her godparents while Calum gurgled happily in the back of the church.
Pen-y-Ffordd, the old farmhouse high up in the Black Mountains, where they all adjourned afterwards to wet the baby’s head, had stone walls two feet thick and small square windows which had let in a surprising amount of light once the insides of the rooms had been painted white. Round the back there were two large old barns, his and hers, which Philip and Liza used as their studios. Retired from his teaching, Philip had reverted to what had always been one of his first loves, painting landscape, which he did enormously successfully whilst her portraits were now increasingly full length or bigger and her prices, according to her proud husband, matched. ‘We don’t have to live here, you know,’ he confided to Jane. ‘We could get a bigger place, but we love the mountains so much. And Liza feels safe here. Brid could never find her, even if she wanted to.’
‘Brid?’ Jane turned from Calum’s pram and stared at him. ‘Who is Brid?
His mouth fell open. ‘Don’t you know?’
Jane shook her head. ‘Should I?’
He shrugged. ‘You had better ask Liza.’
She did. Minutes later, in the kitchen, Calum in her arms.
Liza turned from the sink where she had been rinsing mugs and looked at her for a moment, then she shrugged. She reached for a towel. ‘I couldn’t believe Adam hadn’t told you,’ she said.
Jane listened in silence, her eyes on Liza’s face. When she had finished the story at last Jane shook her head. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘You can’t seriously expect me to believe all that. Oh no, Liza. That’s too much. You’re making it up. Why? Why would you want to frighten me with a story like that? Is it because of Adam and me? Is that it? Are you jealous of us or something?’ She clutched the baby more tightly.
‘Ask Adam if you don’t believe me.’ Liza was tight-lipped. She turned away sharply. ‘And no, Jane, I’m not jealous. Not one bit. I have everything I want here.’
There was a short uncomfortable silence, then Jane put out her hand to touch Liza’s. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I know you’re not jealous.’
‘Good.’ Liza went back to the sink and turned the taps full on, watching the water splashing down the drain. ‘Don’t believe me about Brid if you don’t want to. I just hope you don’t find out about her the hard way.’
Catriona stared at Brid’s face intently. There had been a movement there. The eyes had for a moment focused on hers, she was sure of it. The strange vacancy which had been her only expression for weeks had lessened. Dr Freemantle, the psychiatrist, had visited her several times. He had recognised her from her stay in the Infirmary and was fascinated by Catriona’s description of Brid as an animated, intelligent young woman. ‘It must be a brain disorder. Perhaps an injury as a child? Some kind of state which is affected by shock.’
The energy came back in waves, small currents through her veins, pathways of light through the fog which separated her from the people around her as, slowly, she managed to drag herself back into her body.
Catriona drove her home two weeks after she had first seen the movement in Brid’s eyes, and Brid understood that she could stay at the flat in Royal Circus until she felt fully recovered.
Liza was painting in her barn, standing before the easel, surveying the portrait of Aneurin Bevan which she was working on for a gallery in Cardiff, a commission of which she was intensely proud, acknowledging as it did her swift rise to fame as a portraitist. In spite of her baby, nearly a year old now, she managed to put in several hours a day at the easel, and her output was increasing steadily.
As so often happened when she had been painting for a long time she was exhausted, and her brain, so engaged as she worked, had slipped into neutral as she stood back to rest her arm. Nevertheless, the movement by the door caught her eye and she turned round to look. ‘Phil? Is that you?’
It had been an impression, no more, but the slim figure, the long dark hair, the presence, was unmistakable. Her heart thudding with fear, she ran to the door and flung it open, staring out. The path through the orchard to the house was empty. There was no sign of anyone. A robin was sitting, singing, on the branch of an old lichen-covered apple tree near her. Surely if someone had passed close to him he would have flown away?
She said nothing to Philip and after a while she forgot the incident. Until next time. On this occasion she was playing with Juliette on the bed in the long, low-ceilinged bedroom in the attic of the house which she and Philip shared. It was pouring with rain outside and after she had finished feeding Juliette in the kitchen she had brought her upstairs to change her, then stayed for a while, singing lullabies to the little girl, reluctant to put her down in her cot in her own little room to sleep. The room was warm and cheerful as it always was, the bed covered in the same silk throw which she had used in her studio in Dean Village. One moment she was singing, the next she had stopped. She was listening intently, aware of a presence in the room near her. She could feel the skin on the back of her neck prickling with sudden cold. Juliette stopped looking at her with those intense, loving deep-blue eyes. Her gaze refocused on something immediately behind her mother. Liza felt her mouth go dry. She held her breath, then slowly, she turned.
There was nothing there.
Standing up, Liza grabbed the baby and clutched her to her chest. Her heart was thudding so much she was sure Juliette would feel it as she fled across the room and out onto the landing. Downstairs in the kitchen she began to laugh. How stupid. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Brid could have found her. She did not notice until later, her tortoiseshell comb lying on the carpet near her dressing table, though she remembered putting it away.
Later that day she climbed the hill to visit Meryn. His house was empty, the door locked. She grimaced and turned back.
The night was dark, the wind swirling through the trees. At his feet the water poured over the rocks and sucked down into the whirlpool of dead leaves and green weed. She was there, waiting. Adam paused, looking down, his heart in his mouth. He knew he was going to have to climb down. Somewhere there the pendant lay, deep in a crevice under the rock, guarded by the hag with her small sharp knife. He could feel the wet rock slipping under his fingers; he could smell the strange electric smell of the water as it poured down round him. There was no escape. Inexorably he was being pulled towards the whirlpool. Already he could feel himself drowning, feel the reaching, clinging cold fingers of the woman who waited for him there.
‘Brid, no!’
His scream was so loud it woke him up and he lay staring up at the ceiling, shaking, the bedclothes soaked in sweat.
Beside him Jane kept her eyes tight shut. She was terrified. It was the third time in as many weeks that he had awoken her shouting Brid’s name; Brid, whom he had explained away when Jane questioned him months before, after the christening, as an old girlfriend who had become a nightmare.
Adam wasn’t sure when he had begun to be so afraid. It was after they had gone to Hay for Juliette’s christening. It was as if talking about Brid again had conjured her in some way. Coming back to the house he had had a sudden strange feeling that she was there in the building, waiting for him. His terror was total. He stood there, completely paralysed for a moment, unable to breathe, unable to move, feeling the sweat starting underneath his stiff collar. Then sanity had returned. The feeling had left him as swiftly as it had come and he had walked into the living room and thrown the keys down on the table with a sigh of relief. Only then had he allowed himself the comfort of walking across to Liza’s crystal and touching the cold glittering surface for just a second with his fingertip. That same day he had moved it up to their bedroom and told Jane the whole story.
Liza seated her guest at the table and put a large cup of milky coffee in front of her whilst Calum, oblivious of the fact that he had arrived at his destination and been lifted from the car, slept on. Jane stared round the kitchen. The white-washed walls and low-beamed ceiling with the heavy iron saucepans hanging from hooks along the beams had been almost hidden since she had last been here by dozens of paintings and collages, and arrangements of the pretty hand-thrown pottery on the open shelves. On the huge scrubbed table a few early daffodils, picked in the orchard that morning, were opening from tight buds in a Royal Worcester cream jug with a missing handle.
‘So, why hasn’t Adam come with you both?’
Jane smiled. ‘Work, of course. They never seem to be able to spare him at the practice. I don’t know if he’ll ever get a holiday at this rate.’
‘Then you must insist.’ Liza glanced at her. ‘Everything is all right between you, Janie?’ There was an awkward pause. It was nearly a year since they had seen each other, since the almost-row over Brid, and so much had happened in between. ‘I was so sorry to hear about the baby.’
Three months before, to her utter devastation, Jane had lost the baby she was expecting in the fourth month of her pregnancy. When Adam had rung Liza to tell her he had broken down and sobbed.
Jane nodded without looking up. ‘It’s fine. He just gets so tired and I get so fed up with the situation. It hasn’t improved you know. That cow is still making my life a misery.’ Sarah Harding’s open hostility had, after the miscarriage, been replaced by a constant stream of sympathy; she was forever offering to help with Calum, almost every day turning up at the house or phoning with advice and interfering on a scale which eclipsed anything Patricia had ever achieved; it was driving Jane to distraction.
‘Adam should say something.’
‘Or I should.’ Jane sighed. ‘The trouble is I don’t want to make things awkward for Adam. And I think one of the other partners is considering leaving, which would put Adam in line for promotion in a manner of speaking. He doesn’t want to lose out on that. And there is something else.’ Picking up the spoon from her saucer she fiddled with it for a moment. She glanced up. ‘Do you remember at the christening you told me about Brid? I didn’t believe you and I was very rude.’ She looked away, embarrassed at the memory. ‘Well, he’s been having nightmares about her. He’s brought the amulet you gave us into our bedroom.’
‘Do you think he’s seen her?’ Liza could feel the skin on the back of her neck prickling suddenly. ‘How could she find him?’
How had she found her?
‘I don’t know. There must be loads of ways she could discover where he is. He’s a doctor after all. She could reach him through the medical school. They know where he is. Or she could get a private detective or someone.’
‘Jane.’ Liza bit her lip. She had been about to say, ‘She wouldn’t work like that. She’s not real.’ But that wasn’t true, was it? Brid had been – and was – very real.
Jane glanced up and her face was suddenly naked in its misery. ‘Did he love her very much, Liza?’
Liza stared at her, dumbfounded. ‘No! Whatever Adam felt for her once, it was over long before he met you. Before he met me. The last person in the world he would want to see would be Brid, I promise you.’
She shuddered. So, this was the reason Jane had taken it into her head suddenly to brave the cold March winds and drive across country to the Welsh borders. Liza stood up and coming round the table, put her arm round her shoulders. ‘Adam would rather meet the devil himself than Brid.’ She smiled gravely. ‘In fact, from some of the things he told me, he was under the impression at one time that she was the daughter of the devil at the very least. He never seemed to be very sure where she came from but she really scared him. She really scared me.’ She paused. She had been so certain they were safe. So confident. But now … ‘I’m sure she can’t find us. Any of us. She might be looking,’ – she was looking – ‘but she won’t succeed. And now, I’m going to lay the table for lunch, then we’ll round up Philip from his studio and see if Juliette is awake yet and not think about Brid any more.’
She turned away to open the dresser drawer and rummage for knives and forks, aware that Jane was studying her closely.
She hoped her worried expression did not give her away.
Adam had finished the last of his house calls by about midday and had just walked through the front door when the phone rang. He sighed. He had been looking forward to a glass of whisky before the cold lunch which was waiting for him in the kitchen. Picking up the receiver he glanced out of the window. ‘Dr Craig here.’ It had stopped raining at last. But the infernal east wind was still blowing. Half his patients were down with chest complaints because of it and the other half were racked with rheumatism.
‘Adam? It’s Jane. I just thought I’d see how you are.’
His face softened into a smile. ‘I’m well. So, how are you and Calum? And Liza and Phil?’
‘We’re all fine. It’s lovely here. Oh, Adam, can’t you come? Just for the weekend? Please.’
Adam sighed. He was missing her so much. The house was very quiet without her and the little boy, and although the nagging worry for their safety had gone it had been replaced by a whole new set of anxieties about them being so far away.
‘Adam, are you there?’ Jane’s voice on the phone was filling him with longing.
Suddenly he had made the decision. The practice could spare him for a day or two. They owed him enough holiday. Somehow he would arrange it.
‘I’ll see if I can come, darling, all right? I really will try, I promise.’ His voice was buoyant. ‘Tell Liza to make some of that wonderful beef stew she cooked when we came to the christening last year. I’m starving to death here without my wife to feed me. I’ll be there on Saturday. I promise.’
And he was, driving through the early hours of the morning to arrive at the farm in time for breakfast.
Calum threw himself on his father with a squeal of excitement. ‘Daddy come see the lambs!’
‘So. I thought this was a painting farm.’ Adam kissed Jane and then Liza. With Philip he shook hands, passing over in the same gesture a bottle of malt whisky. ‘Where do the sheep come from?’
‘The field next door. They’re gambolling in the sunshine.’ Philip smiled. ‘Go with him, Adam. He’s been looking forward to showing you all week.’
Adam swung his son up into his arms. ‘Right, young man, which way?’
Jane followed them outside. ‘How did you manage to pacify the powers-that-be at home?’
‘I pointed out that I hadn’t had a proper holiday since I joined the practice.’
‘And that mattered to them?’
‘I doubt it.’ Adam shrugged. ‘Let’s not talk about them. How are Liza and Phil?’
‘Fine.’
It was the next day before Adam had a chance to talk to Liza on her own. He slipped out of the house and followed Liza to her barn. He closed the door behind him firmly. ‘What is it? Are you and Jane getting on all right? I can see you’re worried sick about something. What has gone wrong?’
‘She’s back. Inside my head.’ Liza threw down her brush and turned to him. ‘And from what Jane says you’ve been having nightmares about her too. I don’t know what to do.’
Adam stared at her aghast. He did not have to be told who she meant. ‘Dear God!’ He sat down abruptly on an old cane chair near the table. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’
She told him about the occasions she had thought she saw Brid, then about the comb. ‘It was an especially pretty one. One of a pair. I lost the other.’ She shrugged. ‘I hardly noticed at first. But it moved. It was moving round the room. I had put it away in the dressing table drawer.’ She stroked back her long hair distractedly. ‘But it was on my bedside table in the morning. I thought I’d done it myself. Of course I did. Then it happened again. Then the next day when I was holding it, it began to get hot.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I couldn’t believe it. I dropped it. When I picked it up again of course it was quite cold. So I put it away in a drawer …’ She was, he realised suddenly, wearing a ribbon to hold back her hair. ‘Then this morning I found it under my pillow.’ She heaved a deep shaky sigh. ‘I’ve seen her, Adam. In here. And then she was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Not really her. A ghost. A wraith. I don’t know. Just a shadow. Then she had gone, but it was enough. She’s found me. She’s watching me. I don’t know why. You and I are not together, so why is she following me?’
Adam bit his lip. His face had gone white. ‘Would you like me to send your crystal back?’
She shook her head. ‘We have a neighbour. Meryn Jones. He knows about these things.’ She gave a watery smile. ‘They reckon locally that he’s a wizard. He made the crystal tree for you. He says she’s following me because I’m more psychic than you. She finds it easy to get inside my head. I’m the only contact she has with you –’
‘And you let Jane and Calum come here!’ Adam stood up. He was suddenly furiously angry. ‘Knowing that girl had found out where you live, you asked Jane and Calum here, under your roof?’
‘I didn’t ask them, Adam! Jane asked herself. And she came because she was worried about Brid, too. What am I supposed to do?’ Liza faced him. ‘Am I going to be haunted for the rest of my life by that female because once I was in love with you?’ There was a long silence. She shrugged. ‘Sorry. Tactless. Forget it. Anyway, we’re both happily married. But Brid does not seem to have understood that we have moved on.’ She continued more quietly, ‘She should not be my problem, Adam. And certainly not Phil’s. Or Jane’s, come to that.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Adam sat down again. He put his head in his hands. ‘What does your friend Meryn say we should do?’
‘He’s been away. He only came back last night. I’ve rung him and explained. You and I are going to have to go and see him tomorrow.’
‘Not Jane?’
‘Not Jane. Not yet. Let’s you and I deal with this ourselves.’
They drove up the mountain the following morning, heading up the narrow pitch, where the hedges met overhead, turning the lane into a tunnel of black-laced hawthorn, not yet showing more than tiny shoots of green and pearly buds, with hazel catkins trailing gold dust across the roof of Adam’s car.
Outside Meryn’s house Adam stood for a moment staring out across the woods and fields towards the distant mountains.
‘Makes you realise how much you miss Scotland?’ Liza put her arm through his. She was shivering in the wind.
He nodded. ‘The hills get in your blood.’
‘You’ll go back one day.’
He followed her towards the low door which had already opened. The man who was standing just inside was nothing like Adam had expected. He was tall, dark-haired, perhaps in his forties. The lean, lined face was weather-beaten, not aged as Adam had thought it would be, and the eyes, far from being vague and mystical were piercing blue and very shrewd. He stood back to usher them in and they found themselves in the single room, half kitchen, half living room, which took up the whole of the ground floor of the cottage. Adam stared round and he felt a sudden shiver of distaste. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling, filling the room with strong exotic scents which were somehow far from being of a culinary nature. On shelves near the window, he could see rows of stones and crystals. There were several bookcases, stuffed to overflowing with books and magazines. On a dark shelf near the cooking range he noticed a sheep’s skull pushed back behind some brown glass jars. The atmosphere of the room was strange. It seemed very still.
Liza however seemed undeterred. To his surprise she flung her arms round their host and kissed him on both cheeks. ‘Meryn, this is my friend Adam.’
Meryn turned to him and gravely proffered a hand. ‘Dr Craig.’ There appeared to be a twinkle in the blue eyes but it was gone in an instant. Adam had the feeling that Mr Jones had sized him up within seconds of their arrival and he had a sudden vision of himself as he must appear to the other man. A reserved, studious, Presbyterian doctor, sceptical in the face of Welsh feyness and superstition. He wondered how Liza had described him. As if reading his thoughts she turned back to him and caught his hand. ‘Adam, I told Meryn all about you and Brid when he made the amulet for you. He knows you don’t like this sort of thing.’ She waved her hand to encompass the room and its contents, including, but Adam was not sure whether or not it was intentional, their host.
He flushed a little, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry if my scepticism is unwelcome here. I am learning.’ He paused. ‘I know most of the problem is Liza’s at the moment, but I’ve had dreams recently – nightmares.’ He shivered and glanced at Meryn who was watching him in silence. ‘I’m afraid for Liza.’ He floundered on uncomfortably. ‘And I’m afraid for my wife and son. I don’t know why this has happened!’
Meryn said nothing. He continued to watch Adam with unblinking eyes.
Adam shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets. He was growing more and more unhappy with the man’s silence. ‘She seems to be a ghost, but I don’t know if she’s alive or dead.’
‘Sit down, Dr Craig,’ Meryn spoke at last, as though he had heard nothing that Adam had said. He went to stand in front of the window as Adam found himself a place on the old sofa next to Liza. Adam glanced sideways at her but she was staring straight ahead, her eyes seemingly fixed in space. He looked down at his feet and grimaced, feeling like a small boy summoned to the study of his headmaster as Meryn turned to look down the hillside towards the distant Wye valley. ‘The girl, who, for our purposes we shall consider very much alive, has been using something of Liza’s to establish a contact.’ He spoke in the soft lilting tones of the Welsh mountains. ‘Liza thinks it may be the comb she lost in Edinburgh before she moved and its pair, here, has been moving about by itself, perhaps under some kind of psychic influence. A comb is a real possibility. It is not the comb itself so much as the hairs which may have been attached to it which are used to make contact. It is a very simple technique. One used by adepts the world over.’
Adam found his mouth had gone dry.
‘Unfortunately the fact that this girl has established a link in this way means that Liza is going to have ongoing problems unless we can sever the connection. Have you, Dr Craig –’ he swung round and fixed Adam once more with his piercing gaze – ‘any reason to think she may have anything of yours?’ He waited only a second and answered for Adam, giving him no time to think. ‘I assume that she doesn’t, or she would have been able to reach you.’
‘If my nightmares are anything to go by I think she has reached me.’ Adam’s voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat loudly, trying to dispel the intense silence which clung to the room like a pall. ‘I’ve never been very, what you might call, psychic. I’m a scientist.’ He gave an apologetic grin. ‘From the very start it was Liza she seemed to be able to talk to. To reach. I don’t know how she does it.’ He grasped suddenly at straws. ‘Brid is a healer. Like you.’ He smiled and hoped suddenly that he hadn’t sounded patronising. ‘Such people have certain abilities, I know.’
‘We all have such abilities, Dr Craig,’ Meryn answered soberly. ‘Even you, did you but know it.’ He walked across to the empty hearth and stood with his back to it looking down at Adam with intense concentration. ‘Liza tells me you have used the amulet, that you have placed it in your bedroom. Was this because you felt it gave you and your wife further protection, or was it a gesture of crazy superstition which you regretted but did anyway for reasons you could not quite fathom?’ His eyes held Adam’s and at last he smiled. ‘I see it was the latter. No matter. Ritual even without substance can still work and even a feeling such as that one is a start. You see I cannot help you unless you are prepared to take my advice.’
‘He will take your advice,’ Liza put in at last. ‘I shall see to it myself.’
Meryn shook his head. ‘It must be more than that, girl. He has to be more than willing. He has to be strong. He has to believe.’
‘And what if he can’t?’ It was Adam who spoke.
‘Then, I don’t know that I can help.’
Adam swallowed. In spite of himself he felt a frisson of cold run across his shoulders. ‘I don’t see why we’re all still so afraid of her.’
‘Because she tried to kill me once, that’s why.’ Liza stood up and walked up and down the floor with small, agitated steps. ‘Because you’re afraid she’ll try and kill Jane. And the reason you think that is because you can’t be sure she hasn’t killed before. I always suspected she killed your father’s housekeeper. She’s a gypsy, for God’s sake. They are passionate people. They have vendettas. They put curses on people.’
Adam bit his lip. He was trying to rationalise his thoughts. ‘Look, I do believe she has the power to get inside our heads. She’s telepathic. She has the power to worry me. To frighten me, if you like. So I should be able to believe that you have just as strong a talent as she has. And that Mr Jones can tell me what to do. So, shut up, Liza. Let me answer for myself.’
Liza looked up at the ceiling as if invoking divine aid. ‘Right. Good. So be it.’
Meryn gave a small humourless smile. ‘If you fight hard enough between yourselves perhaps she’ll sense it. Then she’ll leave Liza out of it anyway.’
‘I’m sorry. We’re not fighting.’ Liza sat down next to Adam again. ‘I think I’m a bit agitated by all this.’
‘Right. Well that’s the first thing. Don’t be. You have to learn to stay calm. To stay centred. You have to learn to control your thoughts and be master of your own brain. You have to learn to exclude outside influences. You have to learn to protect yourself. You know all this, Liza. You inherited your psychic powers from your mother. Surely she must have taught you something about it when you were a child. She knew how to draw a circle of protection around herself.’
‘I’ve tried.’ Liza bit her lip. ‘It doesn’t seem to work with Brid.’
‘Because it’s the first time you’ve ever come up against this sort of thing, that’s why. You’re letting yourself be panicked. Stay calm. That’s all you need to do. Surround yourself with a wall of light. This Brid is a creature of the darkness.’ He had seen her in his meditations more than once now, Brid and the man who hunted her.
‘She told me once she came from the people who lived beyond the north wind,’ Adam put in slowly. ‘That’s how she saw herself. Wild. Untamed. Free.’
Meryn stared at him.
‘Does all that mean something to you?’ Liza asked quickly.
Slowly Meryn shook his head. ‘Probably not,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Probably coincidence. Now, Dr Craig. Let’s try and sort you out. You are going to have to learn to use your imagination. You are going to have to picture things with your mind’s eye so strongly and so well that they become real. And you’re going to have to do this for your wife and your son as well. You are going to have to learn to build walls around yourself and your family to keep this girl out and you’re going to have to make them so strong that whatever she does she can’t break through your defences.’
It was after Adam and Liza had gone that Meryn went to his bookcase and rifled through the volumes there. The old copy of Herodotus lay on its side, the pages loose, discoloured with age. He picked it up lovingly and thumbed through it to find the passage. The people of the north wind. Surely the reference he remembered was in there somewhere.
Some time later he sat before the fire and prepared himself for meditation. There was much he was going to have to remember, much he was going to have to study, before he could take on Brid and the shadowy figure who followed her.