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

Leave her be. Nothing has happened here. Emma is fine and she won’t do it again.’

‘No, I won’t,’ Emma echoed.

‘But what if you hear this voice again?’ Simon was still leaning against the closed front door as if holding the world at bay.

‘If I do, I will ignore it.’

‘How did you know where she had gone?’ Simon fired the question at Bea.

She swallowed. Clutching the hot mug between her hands more tightly, she held it against her chest. ‘It was guesswork. I followed the track towards the west. Always towards the west.’

‘Can’t you make all this go away?’ There was a touch of desperation in his voice.

‘I will try. I’m sorry I’ve not been much use so far. This is all part of a far larger story than I realised. There is so much going on here.’ She looked at Mark and he read a whole volume of messages in her eyes. Don’t tell them I saw a horse. Don’t mention anything. Say a prayer for them to bring peace to the cottage and allow them to sleep well and suggest we come back when it’s daylight. And then again: don’t mention the horse and rider, please …

Mark found he was shivering too. He could still feel that eerie tiptoe of the mountain wind across his shoulder blades. Clearing his throat, he stood up. ‘It’s late. I suggest we leave you three to get some sleep. I’m sure there’ll be no more disturbance tonight. If you will allow me, I will bless the cottage and then,’ he couldn’t believe he was about to say this, ‘Bea will set guardians at each corner, north, south, east and west. Angels to keep you safe. And tomorrow we will return and see if this can be sorted out once and for all.’

He glanced round. No one smiled or flinched or sniggered at the mention of angels, so, raising his right hand, he made the sign of the cross before giving his blessing. It was followed by a long silence. He sighed and, beckoning to Bea, he turned towards the door. Simon stood aside, leaving him to unbolt it.

Outside the cloud had blown away and the sky was ablaze with stars.

21

They drove back in convoy in their separate cars. It was after two when they at last got home, parking side by side in their allotted spaces outside the school and tiptoed past the sleeping cathedral across the grass towards their front door.

‘You called him Elisedd.’ Mark sat down at the kitchen table, exhausted. ‘The man on the horse. You knew Elise was a man.’

Sitting opposite him she nodded slowly. ‘I’ve seen him before, in my dreams.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I think the voice up there at the cottage belongs to Eadburh. She fell in love with a Welsh prince and they made love up there on the ridge in a sheepfold which I assume was later incorporated into the cottage. Her father banished him and had him murdered, and Eadburh was forced to marry someone else. I believe her spirit is searching for him still.’ There was a long pause. ‘And perhaps he is looking for her. That horseman. It was Elisedd, I’m sure it was.’ The black horse, the flying cloak, the wild-eyed rider. ‘I’m afraid for Emma. She’s sensitive and she’s picked up on the story.’

‘Presumably you’ve told Simon your theory?’

‘I didn’t think he would believe me.’

‘No. I don’t suppose he would.’ Mark sighed. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that one of Offa’s daughters – Offa, the King of Mercia, Offa of Offa’s Dyke, Offa who died over a thousand years ago – his daughter, is roaming the hills out there, wailing for her lost lover?’

‘You’ve seen her, Mark. You’re the only other person who has!’

‘I saw a nun! A nun, Bea. Not a wailing Anglo-Saxon!’

‘And who’s to say she didn’t become a nun?’ She looked up at him defiantly. ‘You’re the one who told me they were Christians.’

With another sigh he stood up, went over to the window and raised the blind to look out into the darkness of the garden. ‘You know, I’m too tired to think about all this now, but you have to tell Simon. I think he needs to get Emma out of that house. Whatever you think is happening, whatever you believe, a child is in danger. If she rushes off into the dark again they might not find her so easily next time. All this talk of ghosts and the murder of St Ethelbert, galloping horses and knocking on doors, and the fact that her father is quite obviously scared stiff, has got to her, and we can’t risk anything happening to her, Bea.’

She nodded. ‘We’ll talk to Simon tomorrow.’

Mark slept at once; she used to tease him about the sleep of the righteous as night after night he was snoring almost as soon as his head hit the pillow while she would lie awake, worrying about the day gone by and the day to come, Anna and Petra, the parish and, from time to time, the people who had come to her with their problems from another world and another time. And now, as she lay beside him, she couldn’t get the vision of the horse rearing above her out of her head, the man in the saddle, leaning forward, dragging the horse’s head sideways so it would avoid hitting her with its hooves. He wore no head covering, she realised now as she pictured him behind her closing eyes, his hair blowing across his face, dressed in dark clothes, a cloak of some kind streaming behind him, caught at the shoulder with a round silver disc. The horse was black but there was the echoing glint of metal on the headband of its bridle. She could smell the horse even now, feel its hot breath on her face, and again she was aware of the ground shaking beneath the thunder of its