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

the canopy of the trees.. A large black bird had flown up from the tree and circled out over the forest. Crow? Raven? The messenger of a witch spying on her or a warning from the gods of the forest that she needed to be on guard and that she wasn’t alone in her battle to save Emma’s soul. She took a step forward. She could hear voices in the distance, a child shouting, a parent calling.

Thoughtfully she sat down again. Nesta was right. She had to be strong.

After Heather left, Sandra had gone back into her house, slamming the door behind her and decisively drawing the bolt before she returned to the sitting room.

Heather Fawcett was an unmitigated busybody. Sandra smiled grimly. She, Sandra, would deal with her later, but for now she was a nonentity in the great scheme of things. She bent to pick the box up off the floor and, putting it on her coffee table, once more removed the lid.

Sitting down, she leaned over her box of treasures, angry with herself for leaving it lying open for anyone to see. Thoughtfully she picked up the bag that contained the desiccated body of the rat and she smiled. She had enjoyed that exercise, one she remembered from her days of studying with an American wizard whose devotion to the dark side in his online lessons made him immensely popular with legions of followers. It was gratifying to think it had worked even on someone as experienced as Bea obviously was. She put the bag aside.

The crystal ball was cold in her hands and she weighed it thoughtfully, dropping it from one hand to the other as she tried to think what her strategy should be. Did she want to save Bea and the child or leave them to their fate? She had a choice as to what to do, however much she disliked Bea as a person and resented the fact that the woman was dragging the canon into her evil world, did she want to free her from whoever, whatever, it was that had entwined her in its wicked coils, or did she want to be rid of her? Perhaps she should allow fate to decide for her.

Sweeping all the papers and pencils aside, she made herself comfortable and, balancing the ball on the table, began to study the small muddy swirls in the crystal, forcing her gaze out of focus, not letting herself blink, waiting for the pictures to appear. She was expecting to see Ethelbert the king. Surely it was the evil swirling around him and his murderer she was dealing with here. But this was someone else, somewhere else. Another time. This wasn’t about Bea. This was about her. Her own past lives. She leaned forward, avidly watching the scene unfold.

She watched as the cavalcade containing the murdering Queen of Wessex finally turned the bend out of sight on the forest track. She, Sandra, had been there, one of the crowd, jeering and shaking their fists, baying for the woman’s blood. The scene changed. There was another target now for their fury. She heard the name as a whisper. They were hunting for the herb-wife, Nesta, who had made the poison that killed the king. It was the women now, their menfolk outmanoeuvred, who gathered in an angry swarm and turned away from the palace courtyard, streaming up the hill to the herb gardens and the still room where the poison had been concocted.

The hut was empty. Only the herbs hanging rustling in the draught were still there. The table was bare, the shelves cleared, the witch had gone. She had disappeared into the forest.

Backing away, Sandra looked round, no longer part of the scene, a mere bystander as the women set light to the hut. Now they were trashing the garden, angrily pulling up the lovingly cultivated herbs, stamping on them, hurling them into the fire.

And still she watched.

The scene changed again. She was a maid in the palace at Aachen, waiting on the Queen of Wessex as she flirted with the emperor, carrying water, emptying chamber pots, washing clothes, a maid who is never noticed, cowering against the wall as Eadburh swept past with a curse for the servants who dared to stray into her path.

This had been her destiny, she realised, in a dozen previous lives, in a hundred meditations, in a thousand dreams: to stand by the village pond as another screaming old woman was thrown into muddy waters to sink or swim, to laugh as the hangman’s noose tightened and the victim’s legs kicked helplessly as they died, to watch at the foot of the scaffold for a head to roll, to knit by the guillotine, always to watch others dragged away to their doom. It was her destiny to follow and jeer and laugh and then impotently to wander away.

Well, not this time. Now she was ready. She drew her hands over the crystal as if to wipe out its memory and, reaching for the silk scarf she kept in the box, she draped it over the ball. She felt a sudden shiver of real fear. This was not a game. It had never been a game. In this lifetime she had real power over real people. The power of life and death.

Her plan was simple. She needed to speak to Emma. Negotiating the narrow lanes up to the cottage, Sandra drove on past it, parking at the top on the sheep-cropped grass beyond the cattle grid. Walking back down the lane between high shaded banks laced with violets and primroses, she crept along the hedgerow towards the gate. Quietly unlatching it she tiptoed up the steps and stood for several seconds on the terrace, then, taking a deep breath, she raised her fist and banged on the front door.

There was an interval of several seconds before she heard footsteps inside. The door was opened by Simon himself. He did not look happy; even less so