Chapter 3
Elodie pushed open the door to the community center and into a feverish whirl of activity.
People filled the dilapidated main room.
Members of the local WI were painting a banner over by the wall.
Some of the local dance troupe was in the kitchen making cups of tea.
Several old-timers who she recognized as stalwarts of the repair club were setting out chairs, ready for the meeting.
Overseeing all this like a conductor with her orchestra was a middle-aged woman with wild, frizzy hair wearing a pair of purple dungarees and pumps. She looked up as Elodie entered and waved frantically.
“Ellie! You made it!”
“Wow, Carla,” Elodie replied, walking over. “Looks like you’ve got the troops organized already.”
Carla Simpson, Elodie’s mother’s oldest friend and a kind of surrogate aunt, looked around the room and planted her hands on her hips.
“No choice. We’ve just heard that the planning meeting has been brought forward to ten in the morning instead of midday tomorrow.
That means we’ll need to be down at city hall for the protest by half-past nine. Will those flyers be ready?”
“Er...sure,” Elodie said. “They’re delivering them later today.”
Carla clapped her hands. “Excellent! We’ll show those pen-pushers that they can’t take our community center away from us! They won’t know what’s hit them!”
Elodie smiled at Carla’s enthusiasm. Unfortunately, she didn’t share it.
Despite everything they’d done so far—countless letters, countless phone calls, meetings with councilors and a petition signed by hundreds of locals, the council were still threatening to pull funding for the community center and throw all the groups that used it out on their ear: the WI, the dance troupe, the repair club, coffee mornings for the elderly. Where would they go if that happened?
After her experience at Cross Construction today, Elodie didn’t hold out much hope that tomorrow’s rally would make a difference. She was beginning to realize that nothing ever really did.
Carla cocked her head. “Are you all right, love?”
For a moment Elodie considered telling Carla everything.
No, actually. I’ve just quit my job and now I don’t know how I’m going to pay the rent or any of my bills for the next month.
But she didn’t. She worried that if she started talking, she wouldn’t stop and that all the frustration, disillusionment, and downright annoyance she was feeling would come spilling out in a flood.
So she just smiled. “I’m fine. It’s been one of those days.”
Carla nodded sympathetically and patted Elodie on the shoulder. “We all know what they’re like, don’t we?” She tightened her grip, squeezing Elodie’s shoulder. “Your mother would be proud of you, you know that? Never forget it.”
Would she? Elodie wondered. Or would she be disappointed with the choices I’ve made?
Angie MacNeil had been one of the strongest women Elodie had ever met.
She always knew what to do and how to do it.
She would have found a way to make Cross Construction see sense.
She would have found a way to save the community center.
Elodie had done her best to live up to her mother’s legacy but she suspected she was failing badly.
Ye have fought for others so long ye have lost sight of yer own life, lost sight of what it is that brings ye true contentment.
Irene MacAskill’s words flashed through her head and she pushed them away with an effort and forced herself to smile for Carla’s sake.
“Thanks.”
Carla turned to the room and clapped her hands. “Everyone to their seats! I’m calling this meeting to order.”
Elodie dutifully sat and listened as the meeting got underway.
People discussed the council’s plan, people vented, people squabbled, and Elodie let it all wash over her, barely listening.
She found herself staring out of the window.
It was a bright, sunny day and from where she sat she could see the drooping branches of the willow tree in the center’s garden gently swaying in the breeze.
Ye are always fighting the good fight, Elodie MacNeil. Trouble is, have ye found yer true fight yet? The one that will lead ye to yer destiny and the person ye are meant to share it with?
What had Irene MacAskill meant by that? She was so lost in thought that it took a moment for Elodie to notice that the room had fallen silent. She dragged her attention back with an effort and realized everyone was looking at her.
She blinked. “Sorry. What?”
“We’re waiting for your vote,” Carla said. “If you’re in favor of protesting down at city hall tomorrow, raise your hand.”
“Oh. Yeah. Right.” Elodie dutifully raised her arm.
Carla did a quick count. “Right. Motion carried. We’ll meet at the city hall steps tomorrow at nine in the morning, sharp.”
As the meeting began to break up, Carla came over to Elodie. “Are you sure you’re all right? You seem a little...distracted. I did promise your mother I’d look out for you, remember?”
“I’m fine, honestly,” Elodie lied. “Just problems at work, you know how it is. Listen, why don’t you all head off? I’ll clear everything away and lock up. “
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. You get off home.”
To be honest, Elodie could do with some time to herself and she was grateful when everyone else filed out, leaving her alone in the hall.
With a sigh, she began stacking chairs and depositing them in the corner.
As she did so, she glanced out of the window again.
Some of the branches of the willow tree had drooped so low that they touched the ground, forming a kind of living arch.
And within that arch, Elodie spotted...something.
She squinted, trying to figure out what she was looking at.
The air beneath those branches was shimmering and moving like a mirage.
Elodie frowned. What on earth?
She walked out the back door and crossed the yard to where the enormous tree rose in one corner.
She halted several paces away and peered at the space between the weeping branches.
Sure enough, the air beneath seemed distorted, dancing and shimmering like the air above a bonfire.
And in that shimmering Elodie saw images.
They were too blurred to make out at first, but as she looked closer, she thought she could make out a wide, wild landscape of hills and sparkling lakes.
The image shifted and she saw a dark room, like the inside of a warehouse.
A forge burned in one corner and an anvil took up the space in the center.
A man stood at that anvil, hammering at something, sparks flying in the gloom.
Then all of a sudden, the man turned and met Elodie’s gaze. A shock went through her so sharply that she gasped and the image disappeared.
She staggered back a pace. What the hell?
Elodie found herself stepping closer to the strange shimmering air beneath the arch. Have ye found yer true fight yet? The one that will lead ye to yer destiny and the person ye are meant to share it with?
She took another step. She was so close to the odd distortion that if she reached out a hand, she would be able to touch it.
Something tingled along her skin, something like an electrical current that raised the tiny hairs along her arms and at the back of her neck.
What was she doing? She felt like something was pulling her, drawing her closer to that shimmering distortion like iron filings to a magnet.
She knew she should step back. But she didn’t.
Remember, choose wisely.
Elodie took a deep breath and stepped through.
She had no idea what she expected to happen. Nothing at all, most likely. But as she walked through the shimmering curtain, she felt a faint warmth brush against her skin, a sensation of falling for a second, and then she stumbled, throwing her arms out to stop herself falling flat on her face.
But her hands, expecting to grab the branches of the willow tree to keep her on her feet, met only air.
She pinwheeled for a moment, then came down on her hands and knees in soft, damp mud.
Something wet began pelting the back of her head and a wind sprang up out of nowhere, howling like a thing possessed.
Elodie shook her head to clear it, and then climbed to her feet, staggering a little as the wind slammed into her. Where had the wind suddenly come from?
She turned, intending to beat a hasty retreat back to the community center—but stopped dead.
The yard was no longer behind her. Neither was the community center.
Nor the buildings next door. In fact, there was nothing behind her except a long, lonely expanse of moorland stretching as far as the eye could see.
Dark clouds hung heavy and ominous and the rain felt startlingly cold as it pattered against her skin.
Elodie stared wide-eyed, sure she must be hallucinating.
Had she hit her head when she’d stumbled?
Or had she fallen asleep and was dreaming?
Yet this didn’t feel like a dream or a hallucination.
The wind that whipped her hair out behind her and squeezed tears from the corners of her eyes felt all too real as it caressed her skin with icy fingers.
What the hell was going on? She blinked, shook her head, squeezed her eyes closed, and then opened them again.
But she still found herself standing halfway up a hillside in the middle of nowhere, looking out over a windy, empty landscape.
Above her rose a gnarly, wind-blasted tree with just a single branch sticking out the side of the trunk like a pointing arm. Other than that, there was nothing.
Her heart began to race. It was not possible to take three steps and end up somewhere else entirely. It just wasn’t. So what the hell had happened to her?
She sucked a deep breath through her nose, feeling panic beating at the edges of her thoughts.
Think, Ellie, she told herself. Think.