in his pocket, was standing by the walls of what had once been a mighty castle. The taxi that had brought him out from Colchester had gone. He was alone. Slowly he walked over the grass, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground a few yards in front of him. There had to be something he could do, but his mind was a blank.
Nick and Sam Franklyn. He should have known. He should have trusted his instincts. He should have warned Jo while there was still time. Now it was too late. Whatever was to happen was already in train, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing.
He looked up at the sky. “Oh, God, Jo, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so very sorry.”
31
Ann Clements was fifteen years younger than her husband, a plump, very blond woman with large teeth and a warm, irrepressible smile. She kissed Jo as if she had known her for years.
“Are you going to interview me or shall I interview you?” she said cheerfully as they picked their way into the house over the two small toddlers, a vast quantity of scattered Legos, and a large white rabbit with pink eyes.
Jo laughed as she patted one of the children on the head. “Perhaps we’d better toss for it.”
“All right.” Ann smiled at her. “That is Polly you’re stroking. The other one is Bill and the rabbit is called Xerxes. Sit down. I’ll make us some coffee. Once Ben comes in I’ll start lunch.” She turned to an immense heap of unwashed dishes, searching for two mugs. “Ben told me all about you, of course. Put that down, Polly.” She had not turned around and Jo concluded with a grin that she had eyes in the back of her head as the little girl with her mop of blond curls guiltily put down the milk jug. “I’ve seen people being regressed back home in the States-it’s practically a minor industry there-but your case sounds absolutely amazing. Ben tells me you intended to write a book about it.”
Jo nodded.
“But you changed your mind?”
Jo shrugged. “I thought I had when I saw Ben. Now I’m undecided again. I went straight from here to Brecon on Tuesday after I’d seen him. I regressed there, and once again yesterday in Hay. Both times deliberately. But I just don’t know what to think anymore. If it were just me, I’d go on. It is all so real to me, and someone has proved I was speaking real old Welsh, and that clinched it for me, but then some rather unpleasant things happened.”
“And you found other people muscling in?” Ann rinsed out the two mugs.
“I found that, after all, the whole thing could have been orchestrated by someone else.” Jo bit her lip “And if that’s true, his motives terrify me.”
Ann glanced up at her. “Can you tell me about it?”
Jo shrugged. “It’s all so involved. There’s one friend…a colleague really. Tim Heacham. He has been regressed-quite independently. He was one of the people in Matilda’s story.”
Ann raised an eyebrow. “Could be true, you know. Or it could be strong autosuggestion. Has he gone into the detail you were able to?”
Jo shrugged again. “I don’t think so. The experience seems to have been very different for him, but he’s afraid of getting any more involved. He wants nothing to do with it. And now I’ve found out there is someone else-a man I’m very fond of. He seems to have been regressed as well.”
“Sounds as if the habit’s catching.” The dry comment was all but drowned by screams from Bill as his sister tugged a great handful of his hair. Ann calmly picked up a child under each arm.
“If you were to ask my advice I should say leave your friends out of this. Let them all work out their own problems. And you concentrate on yours.”
“And go on doing it?”
Ann straightened, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “Do you think you can stop?”
Jo rescued the box of coffee filter papers from Bill, ruffled his hair absently, and handed the box to his mother. “No, I don’t think I can.” She gave a half-embarrassed smile.
“Then you must go on with the book idea.” Ann put the pot on the stove. “It’s a good way of approaching it. Writing is one of the best therapies there is, you must know that. And it gives you a justification for following the story on without being afraid it is becoming an obsession. It kind of justifies your actions, forces you to stop and analyze them, and gives you an excuse for doing it all in one. It also gives you a natural cutting-off point at the end.” She looked at Jo closely. “That’s kind of a safety valve. It’s something I think you must have. But there are other precautions you must take-I’m surprised your therapist hasn’t made them clear to you. You must stop either trying or allowing yourself to regress when you are alone. For two reasons. The brain enjoys excursions of this sort. They take on an almost narcotic compulsion and become easier and easier to do, and from what Ben tells me, you are finding that already. All you need now is some sort of trigger-a place, an association even, or, as you told Ben, an electrical storm to stimulate the brain cells. You don’t want to end up finding the past is more compelling than the present! The other reason is self-evident. You are alone and unmonitored. That could be dangerous.” She glanced at Jo and smiled. “If you go into a trance in the middle of the M4 you just might get run over!”
Jo gave a shaky laugh. “That had occurred to me. But I can’t always stop it happening.”
“I think I can teach you how. If you let me.” Ann picked the pot off the stove and poured coffee into the two mugs. “I hope you don’t mind me saying all this, but it’s an area that interests me and I had a feeling you might just find it easier to talk to a complete stranger about it all. But if you want me to drop the subject, say so. I won’t be offended-”
Jo glanced out of the window at the view across the mountains. “No,” she said slowly. “You’re right. I do need someone to talk to. And it’s strange but I feel you know more about this than Dr. Bennet.”
Ann shook her head. “I doubt it. I think it’s more that I can put myself in your shoes better than he can. He’s a man, after all. He’s probably all excited about the mechanics of what is happening to you and has forgotten that there’s a human being here, getting all screwed up in the process.”
Jo gave a wry smile. “I haven’t told you the worst yet. The newspapers got hold of the story-perhaps you saw them. If not I’ll show you the cuttings. You might as well read them. Everyone else in England has.”
“This is not England,” Ann rebuked gently. “As you of all people should know! No, I haven’t seen them. We get papers with the mail, but there never seems time to open them in the summer.” She gave each of the children a glass of pressed apple juice and then threw herself down on a chintz armchair. “Now, sit down and show me before Ben comes in.”
She found some glasses and read both Pete’s articles without comment. Then she handed them back to Jo. “If this Pete Leveson was a friend of mine, I’d cross him off my Christmas card list,” she said succinctly. “You can do without publicity like that. Your Nick Franklyn must be spitting blood.”
“He’s in the States.” Jo smiled faintly. “He probably doesn’t even know about it.”
Ann gave her a long shrewd glance over her glasses. “Don’t take this too seriously, Jo. Hysteria is one of the most catching conditions. These men-and it’s unusual for men”-she interrupted herself thoughtfully-“they are fond of you. They see you deeply involved with something they cannot be part of, and they try, consciously or not, to join you in your past.”
“So you don’t think they’ve been reincarnated too?”
She shrugged. “I think it’s unlikely. I haven’t met them, so I can’t form an opinion as to how genuine they are. But I still hold by my advice. Ignore them if you can. And work out your own destiny. And leave them to work out theirs.”
“But supposing my dreams aren’t real either!” Jo stood up restlessly. “This is where all my doubts come back. Supposing Nick’s brother has implanted King John in Nick’s mind. Supposing he has done the same to me with Matilda.” She shook her head wearily. “There’s something almost evil about Sam these days. Something strange. He’s very clever, Ann. He frightens me.”
“Is he clever enough to have taught you ancient Welsh in three easy lessons?”
Jo looked down into her coffee mug. “I don’t see how he could have.”
“Neither do I.” Ann relaxed back into her chair. “I believe you have tapped into another life somehow. Maybe this Sam Franklyn is trying to manipulate you and his brother for some reason of his own, but if he is, he’s working on something that is already there, at least as far as you’re concerned, believe me.” She sat forward suddenly. “Can you hear the geese chattering? They’ve seen Ben. We’ll talk about this some more after lunch, okay?”
