Her eyes were as big as saucers. “I saw him, Evan. I saw him,” she gasped.
“Saw who?”
“Randy. I saw Randy.”
“The man from the healing place? Where?” He leaned out of the front door, expecting to see a figure running from Betsy’s cottage, but the street was deserted.
“In my dream.”
“Betsy, what are you talking about?” He wondered for a moment if this was Betsy’s latest excuse to get into his house, but the terror on her face was genuine and she was shivering violently.
“Hold on a moment. Come on inside. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
She put out her hand and grabbed at his sleeve. “No, you don’t understand. I’ve got to get down there and tell them.”
“Betsy, calm down,” Evan said. “You had a bad dream, did you? Well, it was only a dream and your dad’s in the house, isn’t he? What do you want me to do?”
“Come with me, down to the Sacred Grove.”
“At this hour? Can’t it wait till morning?”
“No. I have to get down there now, because he’s missing and I’ve just found him.” Betsy’s teeth were chattering so violently that she could hardly speak. “And Emmy said we should take you with us, just in case.”
“Randy is missing?”
“Yes. Lady Annabel wanted to call you—she wanted to report him missing but Michael said you can’t just go calling the police when someone has only been gone for a few hours. And then I fell asleep and suddenly there he was and I saw the whole thing—him lying there and everything and I ran to tell Emmy and she believed me. She said things are often communicated to psychics through dreams and I should get you.”
Evan looked out of his front door and noticed a car parked by the curb with a figure inside it. He strode out to it. Emmy had the window wound down and was sitting there, bundled in a dark jacket and hood.
“What nonsense have you been putting into her head?” Evan demanded. “You’ve scared this poor kid half to death.”
“I think you should face the fact that this girl has strong powers. You should have seen the test results. She matched eight out of ten shapes. There is no way to fake tests like that. And if she has seen Mr. Wunderlich in her dream, then I think we had better take it seriously. I do anyway. I’m driving her down there now. I thought you should come with us, just in case.”
“Very well. I’ll get dressed,” Evan said. “And Betsy should too. She’ll catch cold the way she’s shivering right now.”
“The psychic experience often does produce intense physical side effects,” Emmy said, “but I agree. She should get dressed. We may be doing some climbing.”
A few minutes later they were driving in Emmy’s rental car down the pass to the coast.
“So what’s this about Randy going missing?” Evan asked. “You’d better fill me in on the facts.”
“I’m sure Lady Annabel can give you all the details,” Emmy said. “I showed up to pick up Betsy yesterday evening and found the place in turmoil. Nobody had seen him since the afternoon before. They’d searched the grounds. Annabel was in hysterics.”
“Wasn’t it just possible that he’d gone off somewhere on a whim, without telling anyone?”
“His car was in the car park. The security guard didn’t see him leave.”
Beddgelert was in darkness and sleeping as they passed through it. A lone cat slunk through the deserted streets of Porthmadog.
“It would have been more sensible to call first.” Evan was just realizing all the things he should have done, including making a cup of tea, as well as checking in with HQ, and he was annoyed at having been hustled into action by this forceful American woman. Emmy sat, tense and excited, staring at the road as she drove. “This will be a first for me,” she said. “I’ve done plenty of research, I’ve read all the books, but actually seeing a psychic experience taking shape. I mean, wow—is that mind-blowing or what?”
Betsy sat in the front seat beside her, huddled in her coat, still shivering. Evan was jammed into the inadequate backseat. The light of the dying moon gleamed from water on either side of them as they crossed the estuary.
At last their headlamps illuminated the wire mesh of the security gate outside the Sacred Grove. Evan pressed the buzzer and hardly expected a reply at this time of the night, but a voice answered almost immediately and at the barked “North Wales Police,” the gate swung silently open.
Lady Annabel appeared in a purple satin robe, looking pasty faced and dazed. Mrs. Roberts, in a sensible gray wool dressing gown, hovered behind her, like a faithful dog. “Now tell me again,” Annabel said as she came down the stairs. “This girl thinks she’s found Randy?”
“She had a dream,” Emmy said at the same moment that Betsy said, “I saw him in my dream.”
“The preliminary tests show she has strong psychic powers,” Emmy said. “I think we should take her seriously.”
“At this stage I’m willing to take everything seriously,” Annabel said. “I’m willing to grasp at any straw if she can only find my husband.” She grabbed Betsy’s arm. “Tell me what you dreamed.” She glanced up at Emmy. “Should we wake Rhiannon? Does the dream need to be interpreted?”
“About as straightforward as you can get,” Emmy said. “Tell her, Betsy.”
“I went into a cave,” Betsy said, “and I saw someone lying on the floor. It was dark in there and it smelled of seaweed. As I got closer, I saw that it was Randy—Mr. Wunderlich. He was just lying there. I went to touch him
