Chapter 38 #2
‘Dad!’ she called every few steps, wiping the water from her eyes, searching with all her senses, listening intently in case he returned her cry.
Time lost all meaning as she continued on her slow campaign around the stones, checking each one thoroughly before moving on to the next.
She wondered when the help Alan had promised would arrive.
If her father was here, lost and wandering in the elemental storm, they needed to speed up the search or he might die from exposure.
The stone circle, usually a place of familiarity and comfort, felt huge and menacing on this desperate night.
‘Dad!’ she shouted again as there was a lull in the wind. ‘It’s me, Caitlin, I’ve come to take you home.’
Behind her, there was a scuffling sound.
She spun around and, as she did, a dark shape hurtled towards her, screaming in panic.
Shouting for him to stop, Caitlin backed away, but the man ran at her, cannoning into her side so her torch flew in one direction and the small cross-body bag with her phone and inhaler caught on the sharp edge of one of the stones.
The strap broke and the bag and its contents disappeared into the night.
Caitlin sprawled on the ground, winded, struggling to catch her breath as her father shouted in eldritch tones, ‘“So many horrid ghosts”,’ before disappearing into the rain-soaked blackness.
‘Dad,’ she called, her voice muffled as she fought her way to her feet, ‘it’s me Caitlin. I won’t hurt you. Let’s go home.’
She stared into the darkness, her eyes adjusting enough for her to make out the edges of the stones.
From behind one, her father’s head appeared.
To her relief, he was wearing his expensive weather-proof coat with the hood pulled up and fastened tightly, but as his jacket blended in with the night, his pale face shining through the gloom, seemingly unsupported, held a spectral quality.
‘“Who’s there?”’ he called out, his voice filled with a mixture of fear and hope.
Caitlin had recognised the quote when her father had attacked her as being from Henry V. Was this question intentionally a line from Hamlet or was she beginning to see connections in coincidences?
‘It’s me, Dad,’ she called, edging nearer, ‘it’s Caitlin.’
Larry shook his head as though trying to shake away a bothersome fly. ‘Begone from me, demon. You’re not real. You’re dead.’
Caitlin hesitated, not wishing to scare her father but desperate to move nearer, to try to persuade him into the warmth and safety of her car.
‘Who am I?’ she asked.
‘You’re his wife,’ said Larry.
‘Whose wife?’
‘Bill Shakespeare’s wife,’ he said. ‘You’re Anne Hathaway and I bet my Miranda sent you to talk sense into me. She always said she and Anne had a great deal in common, a playwright husband with too much enthusiasm for the stage and not enough for his home and his wonderful daughters.’
Unsure what to say, Caitlin decided to play along.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I’m here to help you make sense of things.’
She moved a step closer.
‘Sense,’ Larry said and his voice was bitter.
‘There is no sense. Not any more. All that I am, all that I was, all that I still hoped to become will be taken from me. Do you understand? Do you know how such treachery and despair feels? To have your sense of self, your very soul, stolen, while you are forced to live in an empty husk, waiting for death.’
Caitlin bit back her tears but did not attempt to reason with her father. Instead, she whispered, ‘“Speak, I am bound to hear”’ – a line from Hamlet.
‘Speak, you want me to speak?’ he shouted.
‘Very well, I shall tell you my tale, Mrs Shakespeare. My wife, Miranda, she was my true love. She gave me my three beautiful girls. All I wanted was to love and protect them, surround them with happiness, yet I failed. Miranda protected me from my own selfish ways, but when she died, my stupidity and carelessness glared at me from their eyes. I have lost my girls. My precious girls. All four… Did you have girls, Anne? Did your husband love them?’
Caitlin swallowed her gasp of surprise at his comment about all four of his daughters, but as she did, she coughed, her chest feeling suddenly tight and wheezy.
‘We had two girls and my boy,’ she said, but it was becoming difficult to speak.
‘My husband claimed he lost them all after Hamnet’s death.
’ The endless nights discussing Shakespeare and his life with her father allowed her to continue the conversation as though she were Anne Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare.
‘You had daughters?’
‘Two. Susanna and Judith. And one boy, Hamnet. He died when he was eleven,’ Caitlin said, trying to catch her breath. She reached for her bag and realised it was gone. Looking around frantically, she could feel her own panic rising.
‘And your girls?’ Larry asked.
‘Married, both of them,’ Caitlin replied, her voice rasping with the effort to keep her breathing regular.
‘They were closer to me than Bill. He lamented he hardly knew them. Susanna, when she was older, became friendlier towards her father. She married a doctor. But Judith, no, they weren’t close. ’
‘Doesn’t it make you sad?’
‘Haven’t you read his plays, old man?’ she said, wondering when the rest of the search party would arrive, her chest tightening painfully. ‘The stories of fathers and daughters? The pain of loss between them? The loss of paternal love? His heart was broken.’
‘I have three daughters – Goneril, Regan and Cordelia,’ he said, then paused in confusion. ‘No, there is a fourth, how can there be another? Lear has three daughters…’ His voice trailed away and he wandered to one of the stones. ‘Where is Cordelia?’ he whispered.
‘Dad,’ Caitlin gasped, unable to continue the charade any longer. ‘We have to go back to my car, I need my spare inhaler.’ She was struggling to breathe.
‘Cordelia will come for me,’ he said.
Caitlin tried to inhale, to make her lungs work, but lights were popping all around her and the darkness at the corner of her eyes was more than the shadows of the night.
‘Dad,’ she gasped again as her knees buckled, no longer able to hold her up. ‘Help me…’
Larry did not respond, instead he continued to speak to the standing stone.
‘Not like this,’ Caitlin said. ‘Not alone.’
A hand reached out, grasping her wrist, and the woman stood before her. They stared at each other, their faces mirror images. The rain had stopped and they hovered in air of the softest blue. A rook circled above them and three bees danced around their heads.
‘Cordelia,’ Caitlin said. ‘Am I dead?’
‘No, Caitlin,’ she replied. ‘You’re safe in the Everywhen, but you must breathe, you are the Charmed One, the one who will break the curse.
Trust in the power of the Bee Maidens three, Corycia, Kleodora, Melaina, they will take you home and then you will tell my tale.
The true tale will free us all from the curse of the past.’
Cordelia placed her finger on Caitlin’s lips and, as she did, Caitlin felt a rush of relief as though the woman had given her the breath of life.
‘Breathe,’ Cordelia whispered as she faded away into the blue lights of the Everywhen.
‘“Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and thou no breath at all?”’
The words were distant, but she recognised her father’s ranting voice as it drifted towards her.
In the background were blue lights, the rain was easing and the cars parked near the stone circle were flooding the ancient stones with light.
To Caitlin, it was hazy, strange – was she in her time or Cordelia’s?
‘Come on, Moon,’ she heard Lee’s anguished voice and in an instant she had returned to the present, ‘breathe.’
She spluttered as the inhaler was placed to her lips, followed by the clammy plastic of an oxygen mask. The pain in her chest began to ease. Lee’s white face was desperate, but the drugs were working and air was circulating her body, her mind, her heart.
‘Lee,’ she murmured, lifting the mask, ‘thank you.’
‘Where was your inhaler?’ he asked, his fury driven by fear.
‘Dad ran into me, I lost my bag,’ she managed before a cough rendered her speechless.
Lee lost all control and pulled her into his arms, kissing the top of her head. ‘Never do that to me again,’ he sobbed.
‘I promise,’ she said, tears and laughter mingling. ‘Where’s Dad?’
‘In the ambulance,’ said Lee.
‘How is he?’
‘Confused, but he’s safe,’ he replied. ‘If you’re able to stand, I’d like them to check you too.’
Caitlin knew it would be pointless to argue and acquiesced with a nod.
‘When we’re home, I need your help,’ she said as he helped her to her feet. ‘I know what we have to do to save Dad.’