Chapter Six

I am at the waterfall’s edge watching the green-and-white stream fall in a cascade of mossy wishes. The unrelenting flow wildly attacks the jagged rocks and tumbles smooth pebbles. The sky above me is the colour of old copper streaked with lurid pink. I can taste the looming thunderstorm. Ceri, trapped in the maelstrom of the plunge pool, splutters as she tries once more to call my name. The water pulls her under again and I wonder, in an idle, disinterested way, how long she can last against this violent demonstration of nature’s temper.

I hover there, just above the ground, my dreaming view showing me so much more than any wakeful moment will allow. The Hunter stands to one side. Watching. The water changes. Darkens and thickens. When Ceri lifts her hand in supplication toward me, it is coated in thick crimson. She is drowning in a river of blood.

* * *

I sat bolt upright with a gasp. My skin was coated in a sheen of sweat, and I felt my heart beating in my throat. This dream was different. Always before, Ceri and I were fleeing from the Hunter. We were united against him. This time, I was neutral, an observer. Worse, by not acting to save Ceri, I was siding with the Hunter.

Ceri’s screaming penetrated the thudding in my ears. This time it was real, and I pushed aside my bed covers, grabbing up a candle as I bounded up the nursery stairs.

She was standing beside her bed, her eyes huge in the pale oval of her stricken face. I made shushing, comforting noises. “Why? Why didn’t you help me, Lilly?” she sobbed. “You didn’t even try to get me out of the water. You just watched me—you and the Hunter were together. And then there was blood….”

As I knelt beside her and held her close, I could not tell where her violent trembling ended and mine began.

* * *

“What brought you here, Lilly Divine?” Gethin asked with sudden sharpness. We were sitting in the parlour. It was my favourite room, with windows that descended to the floor and opened onto the lawn adorned by the pretty fountain. It had become a routine for us both to retire here once Ceri was in bed. I wouldn’t admit, even to myself, how much I enjoyed those hours spent—often in mellow silence—both of us reading or playing the occasional game of cards. Sometimes, I would work on the chair cushions—a task I believed might well become my life’s work. And, oddly, I never heard any disquieting noises from the attic when I was with Gethin. As he gazed at me, I was aware that I was sitting curled into a cushiony corner of the sofa, with my legs tucked up under me. It was not exactly commensurate with my professional status, I decided, and unfurled myself.

I pretended not to understand. “A big, black car,” I replied brightly, opening my eyes very wide. “A Bentley, I think it was. Oh, and you were driving it!”

He didn’t respond, and I schooled my face back into a serious expression. How could I possibly explain my suspicions—my conviction—that what had brought me here was not of this world? That the unearthly ties that united Ceri and me in the spectral realm had, for some still unspecified reason, dictated that we must now also be together physically? And, even more bizarrely, that Taran House was the catalyst that had drawn me? I would be lucky if my feet touched the ground as he threw me out the door!

“I needed a job where I got to use my brain instead of my bum!” I blurted out candidly. “And it wasn’t as if there was a promotion in the offing at the Felicia, or some nice man was going to come along and sweep me off with a proposal marriage.”

There was a lot more to it, of course. I was only twenty-two, but if I wasn’t careful, I could see my life mapped out. I’d be like some of the older girls, doing whatever it took—and apparently it took a lot—to please Maxie, or his friends, just so that I could keep my place in the show.

I didn’t like to let my memory drift back too often to the day I’d wandered into the Felicia—desperate, skinny and scared—and asked about the Cleaner Wanted sign on the door. Maxie took one look at me and marched me down the road to a greasy spoon cafe. There he bullied me into eating a cooked breakfast washed down by several cups of tea and offered me a job as a hat-check girl.

“Put a bit of flesh on and we might even try you out in the chorus,” he had added, waving away my thanks. “You got somewhere to live? Go to this address, tell Mrs C Maxie sent you.” I owed Maxie a lot, it was true, but my mind shied stubbornly away from a future in which sharing a bed with him became a regular feature. I had a feeling, however, whenever he looked my way, that he was storing me up for just such a starring role on some forthcoming occasion.

“I imagine the extras were quite lucrative, however,” Gethin remarked gravely, and I bit my lip. Maxie had, at one time, owned a shady establishment in Berlin. But—as he himself was fond of saying—Germany was no longer the place for those with Semitic tendencies. The Felicia was Maxie’s attempt to upmarket. He encouraged us to have a drink with the customers, but publicly he insisted that there was no “funny business” at his club. Of course, there was funny business, and plenty of it. But it was all very discreet. Privately, the girls would make an assignation with one of the customers, and be well paid for their time. Maxie remained—or pretended to remain—oblivious. I didn’t really go in for all that stuff, myself. Unlike many of the girls, I didn’t turn tricks. But that’s because I’m a frightful prude. Or I used to be. Back then.

But Gethin wasn’t to know that, was he? After all, I hadn’t exactly been a shrinking violet when I had a drink with him at the club. Thinking back, I’d practically thrown myself at him shrieking, “Take me to bed!” But his words still hurt me. Perversely, I wanted him to believe in me, to believe I was…what? Pure and good? But that was nonsensical, wasn’t it? Lilly, the inexperienced stripper. Who would believe that? I’d had a few encounters, but I wasn’t a cheap little tart. Since that was obviously what he thought of me, however, I wasn’t going to make myself vulnerable by trying to convince him otherwise. Give a girl a bad name and she may as well live up to it.

“Gosh, I didn’t just strip down and give up the goods for anyone!” I tried to emulate Fanny’s bored drawl. “It always had to be someone I liked! Am I shocking you?” He shook his head slowly, the brooding expression more pronounced than ever. “Actually,” I continued, still in my best world-weary sophisticate voice. “I find sex most frightfully boring! An absolute chore! All that drooling, panting and pawing.”

“Now you have succeeded in your quest to shock me,” he announced, chucking the newspaper he had been reading to one side, and rising from his seat. I raised my brows and he said, “I’m shocked that any man lucky enough to have been with someone as warm, beautiful and downright desirable as you, Lilly Divine, didn’t take the trouble to ensure it was the most miraculous experience of your life!” I sat there staring up at him in stunned silence until, with a flash of that occasional, and this time decidedly wicked, smile, he bade me goodnight.

As soon as the door clicked closed behind him, I rushed over to the ancient mirror over the mantel and studied my face in its scarred glass. “He thinks you’re beautiful!” I whispered to my reflection. She made a thumbs-up sign and grinned delightedly back at me. Succumbing to my feelings, I danced a few elegant waltz steps around the room.

* * *

Reverend Owen Lewis did not really fit in with my mental image of a Calvinist preacher. He was too twinkly and humorous, and when he declared his intention of calling on me at Taran House, I was surprised to find myself looking forward to the visit. He was the minister of the tiny village chapel. His eyes were endlessly blue in a round, kindly face. Tufts of snowy hair surrounded his shiny bald pate. It was hard to estimate his age, but from the way he talked about the valley, and events that he had witnessed there, I judged him to be in his seventies.

Gethin, when I asked him, had given the matter some thought before saying, “Bryn was staunchly anti-religious. And I don’t think Christina cared one way or another. But the chapel is an important part of being Welsh. If Ceri is to make her home here and be accepted in the valley, then, yes, it would be wise to make sure she attends regularly.” So, despite her rolled eyes and vociferous complaints, I took Ceri to chapel every Sunday.

“Last time I came here, the house was descending slowly into ruin Miss Divine,” Reverend Lewis commented as we drank tea in the parlour. The full-length windows were open onto the garden, exposing the room to the bright day that had burst upon us. Mount Taran rejoiced in the sun, and the surrounding farmland had flung off the clouds of winter sleep. The house slumbered in the bosom of the mountain’s embrace. “It is looking considerably better now.”

“It’s such a beautiful house.” I sighed. How could I ever have thought it was ugly? “But it seems that circumstances have conspired against it in recent years.”

He nodded. “My heart aches for this valley.” His accent was a lilting sing-song that made everything he said sound like poetry. “The Depression hit Wales hard. In some places half the workforce was unemployed, and people have left the rural areas for the cities in their droves. Which is why,” he said, with a smile at me, “it is so nice to welcome young people who choose to make the valleys their home.”

“As a governess, I can’t claim to have any choice in the matter.” I returned the smile. It was irresistible. “I must go where my employer decides.”

“You will excuse me for saying that I don’t believe you to be a typical governess, Miss Divine.”

“The uniform didn’t fool you, then?” I asked, indicating my dark blue dress with its puritanical white collar.

“Miss Divine, you are clearly unaware of the remarkable effect that your presence here has had on my congregation. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of young men attending the chapel recently. I cannot, sadly, ascribe this phenomenon to my charismatic sermons. I beg you, please don’t abandon your ‘uniform.’ I would fear for their sanity if you do!” He laughed at my dumbfounded expression. “I am sure you will excuse me for adding that perhaps an unconventional governess was exactly what young Ceridwyn—and, indeed, Taran House—needed.”

We talked for some time about Ceri, her well-being after the loss of her parents and what the future might hold for her. But I sensed that Reverend Lewis had other matters on his mind. Eventually, with a penetrating stare, he asked, “And how is Gethin?”

“Busy,” I replied. I had barely seen him over the past few days. He left the house before breakfast and returned after dinner. Whatever it was that was taking up so much of his time had etched fine lines about his eyes and caused a grim look to appear about his mouth. I didn’t mention to Reverend Lewis how much I longed to soothe those signs of strain away with my fingertips and lips. I had a feeling he might not approve.

“I meant, how is he emotionally? Following Bryn and Christina’s deaths?” Reverend Lewis helped himself to a biscuit, watching my face as he ate.

“It would be difficult for me to comment, since I didn’t know him before,” I said noncommittally. I wasn’t sure I wanted to discuss my employer’s business with this insightful little clergyman.

He sighed. “And yet, I feel that you are a most perceptive young lady, Miss Divine.” The blue eyes continued to probe. “Most perceptive,” he repeated. He tented his fingers and rested his chin on them. “I have known the Taran family for a long time. You will no doubt be aware of the legends surrounding our valley, Miss Divine. We delight in telling them, and they grow in character with each telling. But this house, located as it is at the heart of the mountain’s circle, has more than its fair share of folklore and history. You cannot live here and be unaffected by the lingering emotions of this place. That effect is, of course, strongest for those of the Taran family. I baptised the twins, and I watched them grow up.” His face was troubled. “I’m worried about Gethin. In looks the boys were identical, fine and handsome. Gethin was the sensitive one, the one who felt things deeply. Bryn was more outgoing, charismatic. Definitely a charmer. You felt strongly that nothing touched him. But there was real hatred between them, and I know how deeply Gethin’s life has been affected by that.”

“You mean over Christina?” I asked.

“Amongst other things,” he agreed. “In that instance, Bryn systematically set out to come between them. Of course, they didn’t live here then, but sometimes visited the valley during the summer months, and it was a painful thing to witness. Christina wasn’t strong enough to resist him, and Gethin, although he tried to hold her, couldn’t compete with Bryn when he turned on the full beam of his charm. And, well, you know the rest.”

“And now Gethin is left caring for their daughter,” I finished for him. I didn’t need anyone else to tell me that was an uneasy relationship. I saw it for myself every day. “Why do you think Bryn hated Gethin so much?”

“I think this place—this house—has the power to polarise the souls and emotions within it,” he said bluntly. “And I am well aware how fanciful that sounds, Miss Divine, particularly for a man of my calling! Therefore, evil—and that is not a word I use lightly—can, if allowed to do so, thrive here. There is an ancient creed that warns ‘When the darkness falls, stay indoors…’.”

“‘When the true darkness descends, stay indoors.’” I corrected him, explaining, as he raised his brows, “There is a copy of the text in the old master bedroom.”

“Heed it well, Miss Divine,” he nodded. “Yeats said that the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our human senses to grow sharper. The darkness referred to in that creed may not be the darkness of nightfall.” He rose then to take his leave, seeming embarrassed that he had spoken with such depth of feeling.

I walked out with him, and he clasped my hand, saying with a warm glow in his eyes, “Good can also thrive here, Miss Divine, and I feel that your arrival here has been a good thing—for Ceridwyn, of course—but also for Taran House.”

“When you talked about evil,” I said, “did you mean that Bryn Taran was evil?”

“I meant that there has been evil here at Taran House. There may yet be evil here again,” he replied gravely, and I sensed a warning in the words.

After he left, I walked slowly back into the house, puzzling over his parting message. My eyes were drawn upward to the clock tower, and, as if on cue, the sun ducked behind a cloud casting a long shadow over the valley.

* * *

The photograph album was leather bound, with gilt trim on the cover. Inside it, each heavy-duty, black page had tabs to secure the pictures in place. Embossed vellum sheets between the leaves provided another layer of protection. These were Taran family memories and I perused them greedily, searching for clues about Gethin’s past. Most of the pictures were carefully posed portraits. The album started with a sepia wedding photograph. I think photographers in those days threatened newly married couples with dire consequences if they smiled. Consequently, the expressions this couple wore were funereal. The bride wore a straight, drop-waisted dress that finished a few inches above her ankles. Her heavy lace veil was worn flat to her head and, to my critical eye, it resembled a tablecloth. Do we ever really approve of the tastes of the previous generation? She held a bouquet the size of a cartwheel. The groom, self-conscious in his bow tie and tails, was undoubtedly Gethin’s father. The harsh beauty of the Taran features was as evident in him then as they were in Gethin now.

A series of typical family snaps followed. A woman, unmistakably the bride, seated before an easel, wore a floppy hat and a frown of concentration as she applied her brush to the canvas. Mount Taran towered behind her. Then came a picture of the wedding couple holding their newborn twin sons. Gethin’s parents had permitted themselves a prim smile for the camera in this one. Then came a photo of two identical, dark, hair-tousled boys in shorts digging on a beach. One of those boys holding aloft a sports trophy in a triumphant pose, while the other—arms folded across his chest, face expressionless—looked on. First day of school, standing on the steps of Taran House, the hair now tamed. At the cricket stumps—older now—one brother shielding his eyes from the sun and laughing with his teammates, the other standing slightly to one side, frowning in concentration. One of the twins leaning against a car while the other sat in the driver’s seat, both of them with cigarettes dangling from their lips. A jokey shot of them, with their mother between them. They had linked their arms through hers and lifted her a few inches from the ground. All three of them were laughing. From the sketchy details Gethin had given me of his family, I calculated that his mother must have died very soon after that picture was taken. Bryn and Gethin Taran were each a mirror image of the other. I don’t know what I had expected. Perhaps that Bryn’s celluloid image would radiate evil? Or that I would know him by his horns and tail?

An aging envelope had been tucked into the back of the album, and I slit it open. It contained a few more photographs, which I studied with the guilty feeling of one prying into an intensely private story. The first showed a young couple, and I immediately recognised the location. They were sitting on the edge of the marble fountain that graced the lawn out at the front of Taran House. Christina looked relaxed, unlike her image in the picture Ceri kept in her room. Her hair was longer and wavier, and she was smiling up at the man—one of the twins—who had a protective arm about her tiny waist. The next picture in the sequence showed Christina, still seated on the fountain’s rim while her beau knelt in front of her. He was holding a small, open box out toward her, and she was clearly crying. But she was smiling through her tears. This was an interesting tableau, because, in it, the other twin lounged against one of the porch columns, watching the scene. His face was in shadow. Was this Bryn watching as his brother proposed to the woman he loved? Or Gethin watching as his hopes disappeared? How infuriating it was not to be able to tell the brothers apart!

The final picture was of the three of them, on Bryn and Christina’s wedding day. My heart ached for Gethin, standing slightly to one side of the married couple, his face as stony and proud as the Welsh mountains. Christina had changed. Her wavy hair had been cut and tamed. There was a tension about her face that had not been there in the earlier pictures. The brittle look that I knew from Ceri’s picture was emerging even then. She wore a simple, full-skirted, below-the-knee dress and a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with flowers. Bryn was smiling like the cat who had got the cream. But what interested me most about that picture was not the love triangle it depicted, fascinating though that was. It was the startling family resemblance. Not a physical resemblance so much as a shared expression. I had never noticed it before, but in this photograph it was brutally clear. But it shouldn’t be a surprise, should it? They were twins after all. I ran my finger over the face that reminded me so starkly of Ceri. Gethin’s face.

* * *

The crowds press in on me, stifling my breathing and a panicky, claustrophobic feeling rises in my gullet. He is so close I can almost touch him, and as I try to push my way forward, he turns and throws me a flash of his familiar cheeky grin.

“Got myself a ticket out of here, Lilly darling.” Cigarette smoke curls blue-grey from his lips and swirls in the air about his head.

He is moving quickly away from me, and I hurl myself into the press of bodies. They are standing shoulder to shoulder, marble still yet somehow resentful of my actions. I call his name, but no sound comes from my urgent lips. In the distance, a boat is moored at the edge of a mirrored lake. From the mists, which drift across the water’s surface, a tall, robed figure emerges and beckons Ricky to go with him. As he steps into the boat, Ricky turns and gives me a cheery wave. Ceri is at my side, and she waves a solemn hand in an answering salute. Her other hand rests lightly on Shucky’s head. The boatman puts back his cowl and turns in my direction, revealing only black darkness beneath the folds of cloth. It is the Hunter. He is taking my friend.

* * *

When I woke, my pillow was wet with tears, and when it came time to rise, I felt clumsy with lack of sleep and renewed grief. Over breakfast Ceri’s chatter washed over me.

“Don’t be sad, Lilly,” she said, covering my hand with hers. I looked up in surprise. “He had his ticket out of there.”

Our shared dreams no longer had the power to surprise or frighten me. Instead, I was oddly comforted by them. I returned the pressure of her hand, and we finished our breakfast in silence. I had decided we needed to work on her knowledge of British history, since this was an area that her Austrian school had not, for obvious reasons, covered. My mind was full of images of Celtic warriors, Roman invaders and Anglo-Saxon chieftains.

“Don’t forget the Vikings,” Ceri reminded me. I nodded and then turned to look at her with my mouth dropping open in what I knew to be a deeply unbecoming manner. I had not spoken out loud. “They attacked Wales as well as England,” she said in the pompous tone she used when she thought she knew more than I did.

“Ceri.” I wasn’t really sure I wanted to hear the answer to my question, “Do you…” I swallowed audibly. “Do you know what I am thinking?”

She smiled brightly. “Not all of the time, just now and then,” she told me jauntily. “And, even then, I don’t know exactly what you are thinking. It’s just an idea, like a blurry picture. But now and then it’s really loud, like you are shouting at me.” Ceri said it in the long-suffering manner of one who has every reason to complain but is determined not to do so. “That’s usually when it’s about the Hunter.”

“But I don’t know what you are thinking,” I pointed out. Would I ever have a private thought again? Following hard on the heels of that fear came the inevitable worry that Ceri might be aware of my angst-ridden thoughts about Gethin. Knowing my luck, she would blurt it out to him over breakfast.

“Then you aren’t trying hard enough,” she told me with a stern look. In that instant, our roles were reversed. This little, girlish seer with the far-reaching eyes had become my teacher.

So I tried. I tried when we had lessons. I tried when we went out for walks. I tried as we ate our meals, and I tried when I lay in bed at night and Ceri was one floor above me. I tried so hard to read her thoughts that a dull headache prodded at my brain.

“I can’t do it,” I confessed. “What do you do?”

“I think you,” Ceri said unhelpfully. My face must have told her as much and she tried to explain further. “My mind is normal, and then it whispers Lilly and my thoughts change. I link up with you. It’s like your mind is see-through.”

“Can you make it stop?” I asked. We were sitting at the edge of the tumbling stream, idly tossing stones into the foamy depths.

“Why would I want to do that?” Ceri seemed surprised.

Her question made me focus more deeply on the link between us. It was of the heart, not the mind. I was trying to force my mind to achieve something that my heart was afraid of. Deep down, I was scared of the idea of Ceri sidling catlike into my subconscious. And I was terrified of opening a portal to her thoughts that I might not be able to close again. But there was nothing to be afraid of. Our souls were side by side reflections. We could choose to keep them apart or we could let them meet. I lay back on the fragrant bank and allowed the sweet confetti of those unfettered thoughts to drift through my head.

I must have dozed slightly. I stopped thinking and let my feelings pursue the tumbled pathways of a dream. Ceri and I walked together in such perfect time that we shared a pulse, a tightly bound braid. A picture of Ceri, leaning over to scoop a large, flat pebble out of the water formed behind my closed eyes. It began as a washed-out, faded watercolour, but very slowly the colours deepened and darkened until it was a brush-stroke perfect masterpiece.

“You’re right,” I said, without opening my eyes. “It looks just like a fish.”

She hurled herself upon me then, squealing with delight. “You can do it, Lilly,” she chuckled as I caught her up, and we rolled down the bank together, landing a heap at the water’s edge. “You can think me!”

* * *

“I can see the spirits within the lights,” I said softly. Gethin glanced up at the mountain, and I shook my head. “Not right at this minute,” I explained. “But I do see them. I think I have what Gwladys would call ‘the eye.’” And so does Ceri, I wanted to add. But I decided against bringing her into the conversation. There were too many things I couldn’t explain. And that which cannot be explained is all too easily dismissed as an overimaginative or disordered mind. I didn’t want to give Gethin any further cause to write me off as ditsy.

“It’s just a mountain,” he said wearily, as though it was something he had said a hundred times before. I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.

“But there is something more to this mountain,” I insisted. “It has an aura of its own.” There were no lights to dilute the purity of the sky; we saw every single star. We stood side by side, regarding the hulking shape of Mount Taran, so close that I could feel the hairs on his arm just touching my flesh. It was a spell I didn’t want to break.

I sensed his eyes on my profile in the darkness. “Sometimes it’s easier to ascribe an event to the paranormal, simply because we don’t have an explanation for it now.”

“But perhaps sometimes the explanation we seek really is a supernatural one,” I reasoned. “All I know for sure is that the mountain—including the valley and, at times, this house—scares me. Are you listening to me?” I asked, turning to face him, astounded at the realisation that he quite blatantly wasn’t.

“No, I was wondering what it would feel like to kiss you.” The whispered words, like fine crystal, touched my cheek. All of a sudden I wasn’t quite sure what to do with my lips. So I solved the problem by taking the initiative and kissing him. He stood marble still as I rose on the tips of my toes and very gently touched his lips with mine. It was barely a kiss at all, more an exchange of breath. A trading of secrets. But it shook me to the core of my being, and I could tell it had the same effect on him. His eyes fluttered closed and he drew me, as one in a trance, into the shelter of his arms. His lips unlocked mine and scorched my heart. You will never truly know how you feel about someone until you kiss him for the first time and, in the aching intimacy of that moment, Gethin claimed me. He branded me. In future, when I dreamed of kissing, I would instantly return to this moment.

“That’s what it feels like,” I whispered.

“In that case,” he whispered back, “I think we might have to do it again.” So we did. Several times.

“You are a very good kisser,” I observed, leaning back in his embrace, studying him through half-closed eyes.

He laughed and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I think how good you are as a kisser has a lot to do with the person you are kissing,” he said, stroking my bottom lip gently with the pad of his thumb.

“That,” I decided, after giving the matter careful consideration, “is by far the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

His look of incredulity broke the spell, and I pulled away from him. It was there, like a third person sidling insistently between us. My past. I heard the dismissive gossip of the women in his “set”: Dreadful shame, darling, but what did the silly girl expect? No decent chap is going to seriously look twice at a girl from that sort of club.

“Lilly?” He looked bewildered, as though he knew my mood had changed, but he didn’t know why.

I smiled, in what I hoped was a bright, cheery manner. “Ceri will be waiting for me,” I said, as if kisses like the ones we had just exchanged were commonplace for me. I hurried back into the house. Much later, when my mind insisted on reviewing the incident, the images flashed before my eyes like a broken cine reel. And I began to wonder if, for him, those devastating kisses might merely have been a deliberate ploy to distract me from pursuing the discussion about the supernatural qualities of the mountain.