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

Rolling herself in her cloak she lay down with Ava beside her, cuddled up close as the icy rain started to fall. In her dream as she slept Eadburh was once more in the warmth of Elisedd’s embrace. The dog woke, and feeling her mistress had grown cold, snuggled up more closely as far away a wolf began to howl.

When the shepherds came to gather in the sheep before the autumn storms arrived they found their bones, stripped of flesh by the creatures of the night, and they buried what was left of the woman and her dog where they lay.

The shepherds did not return to the hafod. Nor did anyone.

For generation after generation the story remained potent of the ghost of the woman on the hill who cried for her lover and of the great dog who ran at her side. Time passed. Anglo-Saxon and Celtic rulers were replaced by Normans. Welsh princes and English kings disputed the borderlands as again and again this Marcher country changed allegiance. Plantagenet, Lancaster, York. A man called Owain Glyndŵr, descendant of the Welsh princes, tried and failed to take back his country. The Tudors came and Welsh blood again ruled over the ridge but by now the legend was forgotten. There was no one there to hear the woman’s cries. Three hundred years later men came and seeing the heaped stones of the fallen walls built a farmhouse for a new generation of hill folk.

They too heard the sad call of the woman, carried echoing on the wind. They attributed it to the tylwyth teg, the fairies of Wales, and left offerings of milk and bread to ensure their benisons. The offerings were always gone by morning. In March shepherds would watch the hares boxing and on moonlit nights in summer they would see, sometimes, a lonely hare staring up at the sky and they would shiver, but they would never harm her. The hare had always been a magical creature. She was sacred to the Celts … Their sheepdogs would not go near the wall where Eadburh and Ava lay.

The farmhouse fell into ruins in its turn and then a Victorian collector of oddities came and fell in love with the site and built himself a cottage there. He pressed ferns into a book and wrote poetry and he heard the cries on the wind and shivered and went away. No one by then remembered the story of the lonely lady of the hares who was Offa’s daughter.

‘So, she’s buried here?’ Emma stood up slowly and looked round her.

Bea nodded. ‘I believe she is.’

‘What shall we do?’

‘Perhaps we could set up some kind of memorial to show that she and Elisedd are not forgotten. To show them we have understood their joy in this place and their pain at being separated and we could pray that their spirits can now be released to join one another in the light.’

‘Their two lonely graves were high on separate hills.’ Emma gave a sad smile. ‘It would be nice to mark this place somehow, you’re right. And say prayers to allow them to rest in peace together at last. Then the cottage won’t be haunted any more.’

‘I think it’s a lovely idea.’ Bea put her arm round Emma’s shoulders. ‘Let’s go and talk it over with your dad and Mark.’

And Chris, she thought privately. What would she say to a memorial in the back garden? Would that go down well with her holiday visitors? It seemed strange to think of anyone else staying here in the cottage Emma had referred to as home, but when his six months were up, if not before, Simon would be going back to London. That had to happen for Emma’s sake. Once she was back amongst her friends, and refocused on her own life, she would slowly be able to distance herself from all this. But she was right, here, before they left, there had to be some final closure for that troubled spirit and the first thing she, Bea, could do was return her touchstone to the flower bed. This time it would stay here, invisible beneath the mats of wild thyme and saxifrage.

Sandra did not waste any time. She rented out her flat, immaculately cleaned, with fresh flowers on the table, booked her trip online and packed her bags, but not before she had disposed of her Tarot cards buried in the bottom of the rubbish bag and quietly slipped her crystal ball into the swiftly flowing waters of the River Wye.

‘It was all in my head,’ she said before Heather could enquire. ‘I was ill. I hurt myself quite badly and I thought Bea had done it with a bolt of lightning. As if she could hurt me. An ambulance came and they explained I was having panic attacks.’

Heather stared at her, aghast. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

‘I did. Your phone was off.’

Heather closed her eyes. She had blocked the number. ‘And you’ve given up all that psychic stuff?’

Sandra nodded. ‘It’s not real. It never existed. I was making it up. I’ve been to the doctor and he sent me straight to a counsellor who made me see it was all to make me feel important. It was because I was lonely. I’ll get a job when I come back from Spain.’

Heather nodded slowly. ‘And you’ll come back to us at the cathedral?’

‘I might do,’ she said. ‘I’ll send you a postcard when I get to Compostela. Look after yourself, Heather.’

Kate and Phil asked Mark to christen their baby; their chronicle was to be sold the following year and they had promised donations in remembrance of St Ethelbert and St Melangell. Simon was going to write the official description.

When his mother had left for Provence, reluctantly accepting that her children would not be going on this particular holiday, Felix had caught the train to spend the summer with his father and his sister. His results when they were published were exemplary and he planned to