Chapter 2 #2
‘It definitely happened to you,’ Bree had told her. ‘You are the same person, the same soul, just as I’m the same as Bridget North was, and Molly was our sister Rose. Our spirits were simply in a different body. It’s really very straightforward, Jenna.’
Jenna wished she found it all as clear as Bree did. But Bree had always been so certain, so direct. Jenna was always looking for explanations of the inexplicable experience she had had.
She started walking again, past a wall whose sharp, old edges were softened with trailing ivy.
It was so quiet that she could hear the little river running softly; it brought back more ancient memories of the woods in summer, dappled with sun and shade, humming with insects, warm and fragrant.
A part of her wanted to sink into the past and relive all that she could remember, but the desire to uncover why she needed to come here was stronger.
In the last few weeks, she had had a persistent sense that something was wrong.
Something in the past had been disturbed and was coming back to haunt her.
She did not know what it was, and to start with, she had tried to ignore it.
For a while, she had even been able to stave off the sense of disquiet, but it felt like something too dangerous and threatening to dismiss.
One of the things that had always puzzled her about remembering only one past life was that it was so specific.
What had been the point of this one rebirth?
She was certain that there was a purpose to it and she hoped that in coming back to Winterhill today she might discover what that was.
The wrought-iron gates leading from the park into the hall and priory grounds were firmly closed.
It was only nine-thirty and she saw that the house and the ruins did not open until ten.
She could, however, smell the scent of coffee wafting across the market square from her favourite café.
They were just opening up. She glimpsed an array of croissants on the counter and heard the hiss of the coffee machine.
It was the perfect place to sit and it was out of the cold.
She smiled as she manoeuvred around a woman who was carrying a sandwich board outside and ducked under the low lintel.
‘Just coffee, please,’ she said in answer to the server’s enquiring glance.
‘Cappuccino. Thanks.’ She slid onto a wooden seat, unzipped her jacket and started to unwind the scarf from around her neck.
The windows were so steamed up she couldn’t see out and the warmth of a misty fug wrapped about her.
Despite the coffee and croissants, this was an old-fashioned greasy spoon café with plenty of cooked breakfast options.
The smell of bacon was starting to drift out from the kitchens at the back.
It made Jenna’s mouth water and she wished she hadn’t had breakfast before she set out. A bacon sandwich felt appealing.
Her phone rang. The caller ID was Molly.
Her younger sister’s birthday card had arrived a couple of days before, a big glittery affair covered in balloons with the words ‘Uh Oh! The Big 3 Oh!’ written on it in swirly silver letters.
Jenna had hated it but appreciated the gesture since Molly was so often wrapped up in her own dramas that she forgot about everyone else.
Now she felt a rush of pleasure that her youngest sister had remembered to call on her birthday as well.
‘Hi, Moll,’ she said.
‘Happy Birthday, Jen!’ Molly’s voice was full of excitement.
‘You’ll never guess where I am! Dubai! It’s lush!
’ There followed five minutes of Molly chattering non-stop about her trip and how she was actually there on business to set up a new vehicle supply partnership with a company in Dubai Hills, but that she was staying at the Jumeirah Beach and it was amazing…
‘Anyway.’ Molly finally ran out of breath.
‘I’ll tell you all about it next time we meet up.
Sorry, I’m going to miss your birthday get-together next weekend.
Some people I met here have invited me to a yacht party in Sandbanks. ’ She cut the line.
Jenna put the phone down. Her coffee had arrived and she needed the burst of heat and the bitter hit of caffeine to make her feel better. Blown out for some new friends who had a yacht. She smiled wryly. Most conversations with Molly left her feeling depleted.
‘She’s toxic,’ Bree had said bluntly on one occasion when Molly had hijacked a cousin’s wedding by turning up in a white dress and somehow making the occasion all about her recent split from her boyfriend.
‘She’s so self-centred, it’s unbelievable.
You’re far too kind to her, Jenna. Why don’t you tell her she’s a selfish little b—’
‘Because she’s my sister and I love her,’ Jenna had said firmly.
If she repeated it often enough, she thought she might convince herself one day.
But it was difficult; Molly had taken over their parents’ company two years before and was always talking up how well she was doing.
She had been nominated one of the South West’s ‘Young Entrepreneurs’ a few months ago, which Bree had said was hardly fair since she had inherited everything rather than building it up herself.
Jenna shifted uncomfortably. Molly frequently pointed out how much more money her business made than Jenna’s, but since Jenna owned a bookshop that she had started from scratch, it didn’t feel like a fair comparison.
Forget Molly, she told herself now. Don’t let her distract you.
There was nothing but foam left in the coffee cup.
Jenna scooped it out with the teaspoon, got up and handed the empty cup back to the server with a word of thanks and went out into the market square.
It felt so familiar, and another rush of memories hit her hard.
This was where she had stood with the other villagers when the first of the priory walls had fallen, that terrible day in the spring of 1539.
Or rather, it was where Marris had stood.
All had been smoke and dust and confusion…
A horn shattered the memory and Jenna jumped back, out of the way of a lorry that swung itself too fast around the entry into the pub car park, beer barrels clattering on the back.
The inn that had stood on the same spot in the sixteenth century had had an equally rowdy clientele, as she recalled.
In fact, Winterhill had had a reputation as a rough town and an odd place for a priory.
It was Ealhswith, the wife of King Alfred the Great, who had founded the convent in about 898 ad, so perhaps she had had a fondness for the town, or thought that a holy site might have a good influence on the people there.
Stop, she told herself. Enough of this dwelling on the past. Take a deep breath. Focus on a satellite dish or something, for heaven’s sake. That will remind you what century you’re in.
It was difficult to find something modern in the carefully preserved marketplace, but eventually she spotted a side alley with new tarmac and double yellow lines.
She immediately felt more grounded in the twenty-first century.
It could be tough dealing with 500-year-old memories, she told herself. Humour also helped.
‘Reincarnation is not a cultural tradition that is particularly widespread or well-understood in western society,’ her therapist had told her a couple of years before when she had felt driven to talk about it to someone more objective than Bree, ‘but it is a widespread belief system in Asia.’
‘I know,’ Jenna said. She’d been reading about the concepts of reincarnation, retrocognition and karma for years.
She didn’t need someone to tell her about it; she wanted someone to listen to her experiences.
And, to be fair, Dr Shaw had done so, sufficiently to help save her sanity.
Jenna thought there was sometimes a judgement in his eyes that hers was a case of psychosis, but she might have been imagining that.
Certainly, Dr Shaw was professionally on point, confidential, empathetic, insightful.
Jenna walked back to the priory gates, which were open now.
They framed the perfect vista across the lawns towards Winterhill Hall.
It stood a short distance from the priory ruins and had been built using the priory’s stone.
The facade of the beautiful Tudor manor gazed placidly across an ornamental lake, as though defying all the misery and destruction that had been needed to create it.
Both entry and exit were, as with most places, via the gift shop where a smiling assistant asked if she had visited the priory before.
‘Yes,’ Jenna said, ‘though I haven’t been for a few years and I’ve never seen the house because it wasn’t open to the public when I was last here.’
It was only a white lie, she thought. She had not been inside the house in this lifetime.
‘The main entrance is around the far side of the house.’ The assistant evidently thought she needed a refresher.
She gave her a map and pointed to the ‘you are here’ arrow.
‘There’s plenty to do.’ She sounded keen for Jenna to be entertained.
‘You can visit the ruins, of course, and there are trails through the gardens, although they are a bit bare at the time of year. There’s also an open-air sculpture museum, the second-hand bookshop and the house itself, of course…
And don’t miss the gift shop and the tearoom. They close at 3 p.m. in winter.’
‘Thank you,’ Jenna said. The assistant beamed back at her.
‘No problem,’ she said. ‘Enjoy your visit.’