The Dream Weavers by Barbara Erskine (books you have to read txt) 📕

‘You talk of the Wyrd sisters in spite of the fact that Wessex and Mercia were long ago Christianised.’

Nesta smiled. ‘I believe in one God and all gods, in fates and spirits and angels, as did so many of my countrymen and women. Why limit oneself to one when there are so many out there to guide and lead and, of course, mislead.’ She smiled. ‘It is up to us to make our own way through the maze. You do the same.’ She put her head to one side. ‘You live with a priest and yet you believe in following the paths through the other worlds.’

Bea gave a wry smile. ‘But I can’t follow Emma.’

‘She has gone her own way. It is up to her which way she follows the enigma that is life. You have given her guidance. We must hope that is enough.’

‘Tell me one thing. How come she sees Eadburh as a girl her own age and I see Eadburh as a grown woman?’

‘Because a grown woman can dream she is a girl. Emma has left herself open and our queen has borrowed her body.’

Bea shivered. ‘That in our world is called possession.’

‘It happens. It is to be hoped the child will be strong enough to retrieve her own soul.’

‘And your plants? Do you believe plants have a soul? Did you take them back into your world?’

‘They are of my world. That was where they should die, to fall back into the soil of my time and live again in the cycle of all things.’

She supposed it was obvious when she thought about it. ‘So, what of Eadburh in the court of Charlemagne? The Eadburh I see. Is she real? Does she have a soul? Who am I watching when I see her?’

Nesta smiled. ‘You are watching a woman who was flattered that the king called her to his side, and she flirted with him and played with his affections, or she thought she did, but she had met her match.’

‘So, what happened?’

There was no answer.

‘Nesta?’ Bea looked round but the woman had gone. The attic room was empty, her candle guttering as the flame burned low.

‘Em?’ Felix knocked on her door. ‘Em, are you there?’

The cottage had suddenly felt very empty. He had grown used to hearing Emma move around in her room over the last days. The old beams creaked at every movement when people were upstairs, but he hadn’t heard anything at all for a while now, he realised. She must be asleep.

He pushed open the door. She wasn’t there.

‘Shit!’

But he had been there, in the living room downstairs, for hours. She couldn’t have come down without him seeing her. Unless he had been asleep. He frowned with frustration, turning to run back down the stairs. The front door was still bolted on the inside. He went through the kitchen to the back door. That too was locked.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He looked round wildly. She couldn’t have climbed out through the window, surely. He raced back upstairs, but the windows were too small. There was no way she could have fitted, and if she had even tried, he would have heard her.

He retraced his steps downstairs and unbolting the front door went out to stare down the steps towards the lane. All was quiet. The sheep in the fields on the far side of the valley peacefully grazing, a buzzard slowly riding the thermals above, letting out the occasional desolate cry. Should he ring his father? Or the police? Or Bea? Felix was frantic. He had been left in charge. It was such a simple thing, to keep an eye on his sister, and he had failed.

He was sitting down on the low wall, turning his phone over and over in his hands, paralysed with indecision, when he heard the familiar sound of his father’s car, the engine straining as he drove it up the steep narrow lane.

Simon parked and turned off the engine. ‘Hi, Felix. Everything OK?’ He turned to pull a shopping bag out of the boot. ‘I’ve stocked up on some groceries and bought us pizza for tonight.’ He paused, studying Felix’s face for the first time. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Dad. It’s Emma—’

‘What about Emma?’ The voice behind them made him leap out of his skin. She was standing in the doorway, staring out. Apart from dishevelled hair and a crumpled T-shirt she looked normal – perhaps a little sleepy. ‘What have I done now?’

Felix leapt to his feet. ‘Where were you? I looked everywhere!’

‘What do you mean, where was I? I was asleep. I know I should have been revising but I was tired, OK?’

‘You weren’t in your room. I checked. I checked twice.’

‘You can’t have looked properly. I was there. Unless I was in the loo.’ She stepped outside onto the terrace and reached out. ‘Let me take the shopping, Dad. That would be really nice, to have pizza. What kind did you get?’

As Simon turned back to the car to collect another bag of shopping she turned on Felix with a furious whisper. ‘I told you to leave me alone! How dare you spy on me!’

‘I’m sorry. I was frightened. You had disappeared.’

‘I had done nothing of the sort! I was asleep in bed.’

‘No, Em, you weren’t.’

‘What’s the matter, you two?’ Simon climbed the steps and put the second heavy bag down at his feet. The clank of bottles betrayed the contents. Lemonade and shandy for the kids, lager for himself. ‘What is Emma supposed to have done?’

‘I haven’t done anything. He checked on me when I was asleep, and he seems to think I had gone out. Which I hadn’t. If I went anywhere it was to the loo.’ Emma was furious.

‘Dad told me to keep an eye on you,’ Felix protested.

‘Well, he had no business to. I don’t need anyone keeping an eye on me!’ Emma turned back into the cottage with the groceries and disappeared through the far