Blackbird spoke gently to Claire. 'If I'm going to help him, I will need his name.'
She looked uncomfortable and then said, 'I know,' earning a puzzled look from Elizabeth.
'It's Jerome David Checkland. Jerry for short,' Elizabeth said.
Blackbird moved back around the bed, bypassing Elizabeth and focusing instead on the young woman beside the bed.
'And you are his daughter, yes?' she asked.
The young woman nodded. 'Deborah Checkland,' she confirmed.
'May I? I need to hold his hand.'
Blackbird moved to sit on the edge of the bed and Deborah released her father's hand. Blackbird lifted it from the covers, cradling it in her own. She closed her eyes and the room warmed, taking on the heaviness that comes on long languid days. For a moment, the air over the bed shimmered like heat haze.
'Jerry?' Her voice sounded muffled, suppressed by the heavy air. 'Jerome David Checkland, can you hear me?'
The silence deepened, so the background noise of the hospital faded, replaced by a summer day's laden stillness. The figure on the bed lost some of his pinched expression. His face relaxed and the lines smoothed on his forehead.
'Jerome David Checkland, I summon you to me. Be called.'
The heaviness deepened and then relaxed. Blackbird opened her eyes again.
'Well, that would have been too easy, wouldn't it?' she told us.
'What's wrong with him?' asked Deborah.
'He's trying to return, but he is either being prevented or he doesn't know the way. I suspect he is being held against his will. If he is to break free then he will need our help.'
'What can we do?' asked Elizabeth.
'I can bring him here, but only for a few moments. If we are to release him then we must persuade the one who holds him to let go, and they have every reason to keep him.' She stood again.
'What will persuade them?' Elizabeth said.
'We need to offer them something sweeter, something to tempt them.'
'Like what?'
'Like your daughter.'
Deborah looked at Blackbird, and then at her mother, who was standing with her mouth open.
'No!' Elizabeth said. 'I am already losing my husband. I will not lose my daughter as well. Deborah doesn't need to be involved in this,' Elizabeth said firmly, walking around to join her and finding Blackbird positioned between them.
'On the contrary,' Blackbird replied. 'She may be just the lever we need.'
'I'll do whatever needs to be done,' said Deborah.
'Wait, child, until you know what the price may be,' Blackbird told her.
Deborah stood up and it became suddenly apparent how tall she was. She stood a head-height above Blackbird. 'I am not a child and I won't be treated like one. I'm twenty-two and quite capable of making my own decisions, thank you.'
'Stay out of this, Deborah,' said her mother.
'He's my father,' she told them.
'Unfortunately, she has the right of it,' said Blackbird, 'and I called you child, not because you are childish but because you are his child and his bloodline. Blood calls to blood, and the ties of marriage mean that you are not of his bloodline, are you, Elizabeth?'
'No, well, obviously not,' Elizabeth admitted, stepping forward to take Deborah's arm. She shrugged free of it, turning away to stand alone with her back to the wall. Elizabeth looked hurt by the snub but stayed by the bed.
'I am not suggesting we trade one for the other. Your daughter's presence will tempt her away from your husband. Blood calls to blood, as I told you. At the moment when that becomes apparent, I will have the opportunity to distract her and we should be able to pull them both back without getting caught.'
'Who do you mean 'her'?' Claire asked.
'Niall knows of whom I speak.' I had been standing in the corner unnoticed, but now they all focused on me. 'Niall has stood where your husband now stands.'
'Have you?' Claire asked.
I realised, then, what Blackbird meant when she said Jerry was lost. I knew where he was. He was standing in the cold glade, bare feet prickled by pine needles, surrounded by a ring of thorns. He was listening to a voice as dry as dust, trapped there by a woman dressed all in grey, arms held open in a chilling embrace.
'She won't let him go,' I told them. 'She'll leech the warmth from his bones until nothing remains.'
'I'll do it,' said Deborah.
'You will not!' Elizabeth snapped.
'It's my choice. Isn't it?' she said to Blackbird.
'Understand what you risk,' Blackbird said to her. 'If she touches you she can bind you there and we will have lost both of you.'
Elizabeth moved to stand next to her daughter. 'I couldn't bear to lose both of you. I simply couldn't.'
'There's no one else, is there?' said Deborah. 'If I can't bring him back, then no one can. He would do the same for me, whatever the risk. You know he would.'
Elizabeth shook her head, staring up into her daughter's face as if she couldn't believe the words were coming from her mouth. Then she turned away, still shaking her head. Claire stepped forwards, drawing Elizabeth away from the bed.
'It's better than sitting here watching him waste away,' Deborah said to her mother's back.
'When I call him back,' Blackbird explained to Deborah, 'the one holding him will know it. She won't release him without a fight, so she will come to claim him back. She won't be able to materialise fully so she should be weak. When she appears, you distract her, make her see you. She will understand the tie of blood, and hopefully that will be enough for her to try and take you both. When she does, the ties on your father will be weak enough to break. If we can close the circle while her hold on him is weakened then we can break her hold on him before she can get her claws into you. Once her hold is broken, there's nothing to anchor her here. She won't be able to stay.
'What if she doesn't want me?'
'She's old, arrogant and greedy. Don't worry, she'll want you. Just don't let her touch you, understand?'
Elizabeth stepped forward again. 'Don't let her do this. Let me do it. I'm his wife. That should count for something.'
'It does, but it's not the same. If you do it then there's every chance she will go for your daughter anyway. Blood calls to blood. It always has and always will.'
'I must be able to do something.'
'Stick to the plan and we'll be fine. Distract your daughter at the wrong moment and you could lose your husband and your daughter forever.' She turned to me. 'Niall, can you pull the bed out from the wall a little?'
I nodded and took the brakes off the bed so that it would wheel forward. Blackbird pulled the flowers unceremoniously from the vase on the side table and dumped them on the floor in the corner. Then she walked in a slow circle, dribbling water from the vase onto the floor but leaving a gap at the end of the bed.
'This is the gap we have to close, once he's free. Stay in the circle. Don't let her tempt you out of it.'
'Do we have to be in the circle too?' Elizabeth indicated herself, Claire and I.
'She won't notice you as long as you don't make any noise or touch any of us. You should be fine.' She completed the partial circle and returned to stand next to Deborah.
'Are you ready?' she asked her.
Deborah looked at her mother and then back at Blackbird. 'I'm ready.'
Blackbird dipped into her bag and produced a long thin spike of yellow bone. 'Give me your hand.'
Deborah looked warily at the spike and then hesitantly offered her hand. Blackbird took it by the fleshy part at the base of the thumb and stabbed the point of the bone into the flesh of her thumb, eliciting a gasp of pain and a corresponding flinch from her mother. Blackbird screwed the bone into the thumb.
