Stepping Back #5
Her own eyes continually drifted to the old homestead, as if she expected any moment it might transform itself.
She had no explanation for what had happened.
If it was a hallucination, it was a pretty good one, but she knew it wasn’t a dream.
She wanted to discuss it logically, but who would listen to her?
Gabe? He might, or he might just ring for the doctor.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of it had been the sense of familiarity. Her daydream had already shown her what to expect and when she stood in the lavender it had not seemed foreign at all. And he had not seemed a stranger.
But still her rational mind argued, needing proof.
Claire got up abruptly and hurried out to the door, the dog trotting along behind her. She came back with the box from the museum and set it down on the kitchen table, then poured herself another glass of crisp white wine.
A quick search found mostly junk. There was a photo album, however, and she eased it out and opened it up, expecting great things.
She found disappointment. The first photo had been eaten away by mildew, the faces unrecognizable.
The next page was worse. Claire turned another page and then another, but it was all the same.
The damage to the album had been extensive and irreversible.
Even a master restorer could do nothing with this mess, there was simply nothing to restore.
Claire had come to the end of the album.
The last photo. And it was undamaged. She stared down at it.
A man in a high white collar, his handsome face stern and still, a lock of dark hair falling over his brow.
His gaze was intense but it was also faintly amused, as if he knew the effect he had on those around him – especially women.
Claire shivered.
It was him. The man she’d seen.
Niall McEwen was alive. He lived in a place that could be reached through a moat of water that surrounded the homestead. He existed in the past, but he also existed in the here and now, and only Claire knew it.
Only Claire could reach him.
But that was madness, impossible! Wasn’t it?
There was only one way to prove it. She had to go back there and do what she’d done earlier. She had to cross the causeway and step on to the island where the homestead was. She had to go and face her fears.
The knock on her door almost gave her a heart attack.
Gabe’s smile faded when he saw her face. “What’s happened?”
Claire knew she could tell him. She could burden him with everything and he would help her, look after her, as he had before. Or she could solve her problems herself and come to him as an equal partner.
“I had a headache. It’s gone now.”
He appeared to accept her word.
“I didn’t expect to see you tonight, Gabe.”
By now he’d taken in the box from the museum and the photo album. She closed it before he could see Niall McEwen, some sense of self-preservation driving her.
“You were talking about Helen,” he said. “I thought you might like to see the picture of her that belonged to my grandfather.”
“Oh. Yes, thank you.” She found a glass and poured him some of her white wine. “How did he come by Helen’s photo anyway?”
It was just idle conversation but Gabe seemed to find the question awkward. “Belonged to an uncle of his, a cousin of Niall McEwen’s who worked as Niall’s foreman. He was fond of Helen, and when she vanished . . .” He shrugged. “He kept the photo.”
They sat down in the lounge and Claire tucked her feet up under herself. She remembered how, after she had left hospital, she always sat so straight and formally, feet together on the floor, hands clasped in her lap. Gabe had teased her, gently, and gradually she had learned to relax.
She realized Gabe was talking about his grandfather again.
“He believed there were places in the world where the veil between our time and the past was thinner, more able to be breached. The valley was one of them, according to him.”
Claire tried not to let him see how much his words had affected her. Thankfully the room was dimly lit with candles, her preferred form of lighting.
“Why did he think that?”
“He was told things and he saw things himself, things he shouldn’t have been able to see. His belief was that the past and the present ran at different speeds. For instance, whereas a hundred years might have gone by here in the present, only a day might have gone by in the past.”
Claire took a gulp of her wine, her fingers trembling.
“You haven’t been down there again, have you, Claire? To the homestead?” And, when she didn’t answer, he added, “It’s not safe. Promise me you won’t go alone.”
“You worry too much about me, Gabe. You shouldn’t have to worry about me. I feel as if I’ve become a weight around your neck.”
He stood up and crossed to her, then took her wine glass from her hand and set it down. She looked up at him.
“Claire, I’ve been in love with you since I first saw you. I wanted to wait until you were . . . better, so that you could be sure about your future, but now I think I’ve waited too long.”
She went into his arms. It seemed foolish to deny herself any longer.
Gabe’s mouth closed on hers. His body felt familiar against hers, but only because this was Gabe.
And he showed her how he felt with every touch, every caress, every stroke.
For the first time in her life Claire knew what it was to be with the man she loved, and who loved her.
The water was chill against her thighs as she waded deeper. Her skirts dragged about her and she was gasping for air. He stood on the bank, watching her, his face full of fury.
For a moment she thought it would be all right. She almost believed she was safe. But then he stepped down into the pond, the water rising over his boots and up his legs, and she knew.
Stumbling, trying to hurry, she moved towards the far bank. Her foot slipped and she went under. The murky water closed over her head, and suddenly everything was quiet. Like a church. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs were bursting, but she couldn’t seem to find the surface.
The next moment she rose up from the water, gasping and spluttering, crying out. But when she opened her eyes she was somewhere else. He was gone, the valley was gone, and when she turned back to the homestead, it was nothing more than a derelict ruin.
Claire opened her eyes, confused. She’d fallen asleep in Gabe’s arms, content and happy.
Now the sound of the dog barking was sharp and clear in the night, and for a moment she felt as if it was all still a dream.
That she was Helen, running for her life, coming through Gabe’s grandfather’s thin veil in time.
And then reality clicked in and Claire eased herself out of bed, careful not to wake Gabe, and took her clothes into the lounge.
She dressed, then went out on to the verandah.
The sky was a marvel, full of starlight, and beneath it the empty reservoir echoed with the intermittent sound of barking.
Something small and white was bobbing about, just outside the moat.
Somehow the dog had escaped the house while she slept and was now running back and forth outside the ring of water.
A terrible sense of excitement, of anticipation, gripped her. As if she had been waiting for this moment for a very long time. And at the same time fear flooded through her body, lifting every nerve to a new state of anxiety.
The air was like warm silk against her skin, heavy. She plodded along in her gumboots, her gaze fixed on the homestead, the occasional flash of lightning and rumble of thunder warning of an approaching storm.
The dog had noticed her at last and came running towards her. Jumping up, paws scrabbling at her legs and whimpering a greeting. She reached down to pet him, ruffling the thick, curly coat.
“Where did you come from, boy?”
The dog looked up at her, its eyes gleaming darkly, tongue lolling. He knew a secret and he wasn’t telling.
“Be like that then,” Claire murmured.
She picked the dog up and tucked his firm little body under her arm.
He felt warm and solid, and comforting. The water of the moat sloshed against the toes of her boots, then up around her ankles, her calves.
Did she really want to do this? She knew that some part of her did, some part of her was hungering to see the past again, to understand what it all meant.
The rest of her was just plain terrified.
The water had evaporated even more since yesterday and soon there wouldn’t be a moat at all. What would happen then? Would the past spill into the present like an unstoppable tide?
Claire moved out on to the causeway, the dog still clasped in her arms. The little animal seemed quite content to remain with her, quietly, trusting her, and besides, he was only a companion on this strangest of journeys.
Claire thought she might even manage to cross without getting wet feet, but the water was just deep enough to slosh over the tops of her boots and run down inside.
With a grimace she found her way to the shallow water on the far side and took one step out and on to the bare desolate ground of the island.
It happened the other way around this time.
The overexposed picture began to come into focus, quickly gaining colour and definition.
It was night-time here just as it was in the present, but there was a sense of life, of movement, all about her.
The scent of lavender was strong in the air and she realized that once again she was standing among the thick bushes.
An owl hooted and something snuffled in the flowerbeds, small feet running swiftly.
The little dog whimpered in her arms and she hushed it, gently holding its muzzle so it couldn’t bark.
She was back.