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

up. ‘You berk! Do you want to tell everyone!’ Her whisper carried clearly across the garden as the three of them hurried away.

Bea was left staring helplessly at Sandra. ‘Nice people,’ she said. ‘But it makes me realise how pleased I am my girls are grown up now.’

‘What did he mean, you are the actual ghostbuster?’ Sandra’s voice was icy.

‘He’s confused. The owner of the cottage Simon is staying at is, as Simon said, a friend of mine. The daughter, Emma, is a bit flaky as you saw, and Mark suggested they come here so he could pray with them at the shrine.’

Sandra nodded. ‘She’s a pretty girl.’

Bea breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Isn’t she. Poor Simon. As he said, he’s a historian. I don’t think he realised his wife was going to deliver the kids to the cottage and leave them with him for a few days. He had come up here to write in peace and he has been trying to think of ways to keep them engaged with what he does.’

‘It sounds as though the girl is entering into the spirit of it.’ Sandra took a sip from her cup and grimaced; obviously her tea was cold. ‘Talking about ghosts is so dangerous, I always think.’ Her gaze was speculative once more. ‘Such stupid superstitious nonsense,’ she added with fervour. ‘I’m surprised the canon encouraged her.’

‘She wanted to light a candle and pray,’ Bea said reproachfully. ‘I think we can trust Mark to have made the right decision about what to do.’

Sandra looked taken aback. ‘Of course. You’re right.’

Bea pushed her plate aside and stood up. ‘I am sorry, Sandra, but I must get on. I have a whole lot of things to do this afternoon. It was lovely to run into you. It’s such a peaceful place, isn’t it, this garden?’

Before the woman could respond Bea turned and hurried away, oblivious to the expression on Sandra’s face as she watched her go.

‘Why did we have to leave?’ Felix was still grumbling as Simon unlocked the car.

‘Because Bea was uncomfortable talking about ghosts in front of that woman.’ Simon climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘She specifically asked me not to mention that part of her life to anyone else.’

‘Well, you should have told us.’

Simon sighed. ‘I didn’t think the subject was going to come up in public like that.’

‘She was a nosy old bat,’ Emma put in. ‘For goodness’ sake, Felix! You dropped Bea right in it.’

‘Why? I thought you said it’s her job. Why would she not want anyone to know about it? She’s not embarrassed about it, is she?’

‘She might be, in front of her husband’s colleagues.’ Simon pulled out into the traffic. ‘She might well be.’

‘That woman did look a bit creepy. Pushing her way into someone else’s conversation like that.’ Felix was finally getting the point. ‘Why don’t you ask Bea and Mark up to the cottage again, Dad? I for one would like to go on with that particular conversation.’

‘As long as Mum never finds out,’ Emma chipped in from the back seat. ‘That wouldn’t go down well either.’

Sandra sat still for a long time after Bea disappeared. One of the girls from the café came and cleared the table with a cheerful greeting. Sandra didn’t hear her. Her instincts had been right. Beatrice Dalloway was a psychic.

Her mouth had gone dry, her heart was beating unnaturally fast and she could feel a pain in her stomach as the memories came flooding back. The excitement, the ability to inflict terror, the intense thrill of power and control, then at the last, the loss of that control and the utter, blind fear that had swept over her in an overwhelming tide. She had made a lot of money from her psychic readings. She had manipulated her clients, hooking them with her promises of dreams to come, then gradually drawing them in with warnings and cautions and threats until they didn’t know how to escape. She read their body language – cold reading, she had discovered it was called, and she was good at it, too good. It had taken some time but eventually she had begun to suspect she was genuinely in touch with something beyond herself, that she was genuinely able to predict the future, that what she did was real. For a while it was glorious. She advertised in a local paper and more and more people came to see her, then one day she had foreseen a death. A real, hideous death, and she had not known how to deal with it. She had messed up, her customer had run away in tears and had told people, lots of people, what Sandra had said. What was written in the stars could not be altered; not long after that the woman was killed by her abusive partner. The police came and interviewed Sandra. She was terribly afraid they would think she was involved, but in the end she was written off as a crank who had made a lucky guess. That had hurt.

She turned in the end to the Church for reassurance and help and security. She never looked at the cards or her crystal ball again. She had never told anyone what had happened. She had been lucky. She had escaped. The past was behind her, but her intuition was still there.

That evening she pulled a file labelled LOCAL GHOSTS from the bottom drawer of the desk in her sitting room and carried it over to the table. It was full of newspaper cuttings. Slowly and methodically she picked her way through them. There it was: LOCAL GHOSTHUNTER EXORCISES POLTERGEIST. She read the article carefully. They did not name the house or give its exact address, but there were four pages packed with lurid details. The nameless exorcist was described as an attractive woman with phenomenal powers. Sandra snorted. It emphasised the fact that the exorcist had demanded anonymity. Well, she would, wouldn’t she, if her husband was a canon