29

 

 

“WHATEVER YOU DO,” Martin said, leaning quickly toward her as she held the door, “don’t tell Mary I’ve been here. She’ll tighten security if she finds I’ve been out.” He shook his head in disgust. “Thinks I’ll hurt myself, she does.” He was down the steps to Eyewell Lane with a surprisingly quick step; as he made his way along the pavement, he raised a hand in farewell, and Gwynn thought, under the fedora, his eyes were scanning the windows of the house.

 

SHE TURNED AWAY from the front door and went back to the sitting room. The tea things on their tray still sat on the table; Martin had offered to help her clean up, but she had waved that suggestion away. The afternoon was drawing down, oppressively, and she needed something to keep her occupied; she didn’t think she could concentrate on the drawing any more. Now she stood, her gaze lifting beyond the table to the wing-backed chair.

The chair was empty.

Of course it was. Gwynn shook herself, trying to get rid of the prickly feeling on her skin. Her great-aunt was nowhere to be found in this house, because she was dead. Gwynn told herself she was simply becoming infected by the irrationality of others. No ghosts. No.

Martin’s voice: You’ve seen her.

And Colin’s: You might not have a choice.

Gwynn stared at the chair. Floral Chintz. A perfectly normal chair, with antimacassars on the arms. There was no indent in the cushion indicating an occupant, no pressure of an unseen head on the chair back. She could go over and sit there now, now that Martin was gone and would not stop her with his strange urgency.

Yet she wouldn’t. Instead she picked up the tea tray and took it through to the kitchen. She filled the sink and washed the cups and saucers mechanically, listening hard for the sound of anyone else in the house. The footsteps, perhaps, of her first night, after the sound of the door closing.

No.

There was no sound. Of course there was no sound.

Dishes dried and put away, Gwynn hung the dish towel on the rack. The mantle clock rang the hour, and a sudden gust of wind rattled the glass in the window frames. She jumped. She couldn’t help it. Was that the sound of someone at the kitchen door? It was growing dark outside, twilight, the time in between. Resolutely she straightened and wrenched the door open to look into the garden.

There was no one there. Of course there was no one there.

Brambles. Still. Always, she thought in disgust. She’d have to see if Colin would be ready for digging up the entire back garden, to get rid of the roots which she imagined snaked beneath the surface, sending up ten tendrils for every one cut back, a horticultural many-headed hydra. She pushed that idea aside as well: one hired a handyman, but did one hire the handyman who had become a lover?

The gate in the wall was creaking. From here she could see that it was partially open, though she knew she had shoved it as much closed the last time she’d come through there, and she knew she checked it compulsively every time she was in the garden.

“Damn it,” she hissed, ignoring the frisson along her spine, pushing her way out into the brambles.

You opened the gate. You let him in.

“Shut up,” she said aloud.

The thorns caught at her jeans, and tiny knives scraped their way across the back of her hand. She shoved her way through to the gate, pushed at it with all her strength.

It didn’t move.

Gwynn leaned her entire weight into it. The bottom scraped along the ground, but still it refused to close all the way. Of course it did. Eight inches of space, maybe twelve, through which she could make out the shimmering boles of the trees on the hill between her and the ruined dovecote. She pushed again.

Then she heard the doves.

Gwynn stared out into the falling darkness, out there, beyond the wall, for only a moment before turning on her heel and fleeing back into the cottage. In the kitchen she slammed the door and locked it, leaning her back against it, trying to catch her breath.

 

SHE DIDN’T KNOW how much later the telephone rang.

“The gig’s on,” Colin said, as soon as she picked up. “At the Holly Bush.”

There seemed to be an opening in his pause.

Gwynn looked around the sitting room, feeling panic rise. She hadn’t realized how much she had been looking forward to Colin’s appearance this evening, and now she was faced with several hours filled with only—something she couldn’t quite identify. Something she didn’t want to identify.

The vision of Martin’s photograph rose up in her mind. Of Tommy Chelton, standing in the background, watching with those black pits of eyes. Waiting.

“Come get me,” she whispered quickly.

“Gwynn?” A question. Urgent.

“Just come,” she pleaded.