Chapter 42
CERENSTHORPE ABBEY – PRESENT DAY
The carpet at the foot of the stairs was on fire.
Tabitha stared downwards, horrified as the flames took hold of the ancient wood of the banisters. This was the quickest and easiest way out; there was the route to the roof, but there was no way she could move the two inert bodies such a distance.
Outside, a car engine roared and rushing to the window, she saw Lucia’s black Porsche Cayenne screeching up the driveway. They were trapped.
Running back into the bedroom, she grabbed her phone and rang the fire brigade.
‘I’m on the first floor of Cerensthorpe Abbey with Edith and Gulliver Swanne. They’re both unconscious, they’ve been drugged,’ she said, her voice high-pitched, panicky.
As she gave her details, she heard a faint moan and realised Gulliver was waking up. His eyes fluttered and he murmured her name.
‘Tabitha, what’s happening?’ His voice was slurred, he was uncoordinated.
‘The house is on fire,’ she said.
‘What?’
He slumped forward again, not seeming to understand.
Her phone buzzed. It was Tamar.
‘We’re in the car, we’ll be with you within the hour…’
‘It’s too late,’ said Tabitha. ‘Lucia has gone, she’s set fire to the first floor, we’re trapped.’
There was a stunned silence.
‘Can you move them both into the bathroom?’ asked Billy. ‘Run the bath. If necessary, you can get in there to protect yourselves from the flames. Soak a sheet too and block the gaps around the doorframe.’
Tabitha felt tears welling in her eyes. His words were practical, helpful, but the reality of moving two unconscious people even such a short distance felt overwhelming.
‘I’ll try,’ she said.
‘We’ll stay on the line—’ said Tamar, then the phone went dead.
Tabitha swore, her battery had been low when she had hurried over to her office to print the pages. In her haste, she had forgotten to charge it. The charging cable in Edith’s room for her ancient iPad did not fit Tabitha’s newer iPhone. She suddenly felt very alone.
‘No,’ she said aloud, reassured by the sound of her own voice, ‘the emergency services are on their way. Tamar and Billy will be here soon. I’m not alone. I have people who love me and people who I love.’
Straining her ears for the sound of sirens, she ran into the bathroom and turned on both taps on the huge free-standing claw-footed bath as Billy had instructed.
Next, she rummaged through the linen cupboard and dragged out as many sheets and duvet covers as she could find, flinging them into the water.
She added a few pillowcases too, thinking they would be useful to protect their faces.
Turning around, she noticed a fold-up wheelchair tucked discreetly into the corner of the bathroom.
‘Yes!’ she exclaimed in triumph.
Molly had delivered it to Edith a week earlier, suggesting it might be useful, but the older woman had refused to use it.
Tabitha had been unsure where it had been stored, but now the wheelchair was a lifeline.
Dragging it from its hiding place, she opened it and ran back with it into the bedroom. Gulliver was stirring.
‘Gull, I need you to wake up,’ Tabitha said, sitting beside him and slapping his hand. ‘There’s no time to explain, but we’re trapped in Edith’s suite.’
He stared at her through unfocused eyes.
‘The house is on fire,’ she said. ‘We need to hide in the bathroom until help arrives.’
Tabitha glanced over her shoulder, smoke was curling under the door of the bedroom, the temperature inside the room was increasing and a roaring noise filled the air.
‘Gull, help me lift Edith into the wheelchair,’ she demanded, but he slumped forward again, incapable, uncomprehending.
Tabitha wanted to scream in frustration.
‘Calm,’ she said out loud, speaking her intentions aloud to quell her panic. She placed the wheelchair beside Edith’s bed. ‘I’ll move Edith first, then Gull.’
With great care, Tabitha pulled back the pale blue sheets and slid her arms under Edith’s prone body; summoning all her strength, she lifted.
Edith weighed little more than a child. Tabitha placed her in the wheelchair, positioning her feet on the footrests and strapping her in, before grabbing a soft blanket from the bed and Edith’s favourite bed jacket from the pillow beside her.
She pushed her into the bathroom with as much speed as she could manage.
Tears were streaming down Tabitha’s face as she checked Edith’s pulse again. It was faint, but regular.
A low armchair was positioned by the ornate marble fireplace and trying not to jolt Edith, Tabitha half lifted, half dragged her into the chair, running back into the bedroom to gather more cushions and blankets, which she arranged around the older woman as quickly as she could.
The heat was intensifying and as she propped the final pillow behind Edith, there was a sickening crash and roar, as the door between Edith’s living room and bedroom breached.
‘Gull!’ Tabitha screamed and ran back into the bedroom.
Flames licked at the bookcases on either side of the door, eagerly destroying all in their path, the rug and carpet smouldered like devils and smoke filled the room, penetrating, intense, deadly. Fire leapt up the curtains and raced towards Gulliver, who remained immobile beside the bed.
Tabitha forced the wheelchair over the carpet, sweat mingling with the tears on her cheeks.
‘No,’ she shouted irrationally at the flames, ‘you shan’t have him.’ And from nowhere, the old family poem sprang into her mind: Feather, flame and whisper bind – what is lost, the heart will find.
She pushed this unexpected thought aside and shook Gulliver. He opened strangely blank eyes.
‘What’s going on…?’ he slurred.
‘You have to help me,’ shouted Tabitha in panic, hauling on his hand, ‘get into the wheelchair.’
‘What…?’ he murmured.
‘Move, Gull,’ she demanded, yanking him forward.
The flames edged nearer and Tabitha summoned all her courage to stand between the wall of heat and Gulliver as she dragged him forwards.
She felt sure they would perish at any moment, then, as Gulliver pushed himself to the edge of his seat, she was able to manhandle him into the wheelchair.
The intensity of the heat was agonising.
‘No,’ she gasped, ‘you won’t take another man I love, he’s my twin flame. “Feather, flame and whisper bind – what is lost, the heart will find.”’
There was a roar behind her as she pushed the wheelchair with all her might and the flames, which had seemed ready to engulf them, split into two, then bent away from her, changing direction, moving to the other side of the room, leaving a clear path for her and Gulliver to escape.
Tabitha heaved Gulliver, a dead weight in the wheelchair, into the bathroom, slamming the door behind them.
She could not believe what she had seen, the flames had divided before leaning away from her: had she been hallucinating?
A voice echoed around her mind, ‘You’re a natural-born witch, Tabitha. The feather flame is there to save the Mott-Drayson women, the descendants of the Boleyns, the Woodvilles, the Saint Pols. Blow the whistle.’
Pushing these thoughts aside, convinced smoke inhalation was making her delirious, Tabitha forced herself to use the last of her energy to wring out several sheets. She threw them on the floor, pushing them with all her might into the gap at the bottom of the door.
With the back of her hand, she wiped away her tears, checking on Edith, whose pulse was faint but regular before returning to Gulliver. She placed a pillow behind his head, but she felt less sure about his progress. His pulse had weakened and was erratic.
‘Stay with me, sweetheart,’ she whispered, pushing his dark hair away from his face with gentle fingers. ‘We’ll get through this together.’
He looked younger in sleep, innocent, and Tabitha felt a corrosive hatred for Lucia.
‘Not now,’ she told herself. She could not afford to waste her energy on anger with Lucia, there would be time for her to be brought to justice.
There was a small sash window and as the heat intensified, Tabitha opened it, but the mechanism was broken and it shut whenever she let go.
There was no prop, so she searched for something to keep it open and as she forced a jar of body lotion in place, she heard the wail of a siren, saw the fire truck racing towards the house.
‘Here,’ she screamed, waving. ‘We’re here!’
Smoke billowed in the air and Tabitha wondered where Lucia had started the fire. How much of Cerensthorpe Abbey was damaged?
The heat was intensifying, and Tabitha willed the sirens to draw closer.
Suddenly, there was a deafening roar as she heard the greedy flames reach the bed, sparks scattered like a thousand tiny stars through the gaps at the top of the doorframe, but, for now, the bathroom door remained intact.
How much longer it would hold, Tabitha did not dare to imagine.
Panic seized her and she leaned out of the window again. The fire engines were at the front of the house and they could not see her. She shouted until she was hoarse, but they did not hear her cries.
‘No,’ she wailed, wondering whether she should try to manoeuvre them all into the bath. ‘Help, please help us.’
Tabitha’s vision blurred. She dropped to her knees beside Gulliver, grasped his hand, willing him to wake.
His eyelids fluttered open, then closed.
Edith gave the faintest sigh and stilled.
Tabitha thought of Elizabeth Boleyn, of her words, her curse, echoing through the centuries.
Was this how it ended? At the mercy of the Boleyn curse?
A white feather drifted onto the floor beside Tabitha and she stared at it in bemusement.
Gulliver stirred.
‘The whistle,’ his voice was distant. ‘It’s in my pocket, blow it. Let the firefighters know where we are…’
He pointed feebly to his jeans pocket and Tabitha scrabbled inside, pulling out the golden hawking whistle, the vines and tiny birds glinting in the gloom and in the centre, the words, ‘Two for joy’.
Love. A gift of love.
There was a crash below, followed by shouts and the heavy thud of axes.
She knew she would never be able to make herself heard by shouting, instead she put the whistle to her lips and blew.
Each screech of the whistle echoed around the tiled room, deafening, unearthly.
She would not let them die. She clutched Gulliver’s hand and as she blew with all the breath left in her lungs, she remembered the words:
If breath is loosed in love sincere,
The ancient curse shall break – and clear.
Smoke was filling the bathroom and she was struggling to breath, but still she forced herself to blow into Elizabeth Boleyn’s ancient hawking whistle. A gift from a king who did not understand love. But love would save them.
As her vision blurred, there was a thunderous noise and figures raced into the room.
‘How many people in here?’ the towering figure at the front shouted.
‘Three,’ she replied, pushing the whistle into her pocket before allowing herself to slump into the vice-like grip of the firefighter as she was carried away.