‘Abi? Abi, are you all right?’
Abi was kneeling in the wet leaves, the crystal still between her hands. She looked up. Cal was standing a few feet away from her, holding a torch. It was dark.
But Mora was still there, standing in the shadows, looking at Abi, her hands outstretched. There was no sign now of Yeshua or Romanus.
‘Abi?’ Cal touched her arm. ‘Are you OK?’
Mora was still there, but she was fading. Abi reached out, grasping at the air. Already the figure had gone, fading back into the dark. In seconds the night was empty.
She looked up at Cal, her eyes blank. ‘I’m fine.’ She staggered stiffly to her feet. She was clutching the crystal, her fingers rigid with cold. ‘Let me put it back. The tree kept it safe, just as you said it would.’ She was shivering. How long had she been kneeling there as the evening drew into night? She had no idea. Behind them the house was ablaze with lights. They spilled out across the grass, drilling pools in the gathering mist. Tucking the crystal out of sight again and covering it with dry leaves, she followed Cal back inside and went upstairs to have a hot bath to soak the ache of cold out of her knees.
It was about nine o’clock when Ben rang her. ‘Justin just got back to me,’ he said. ‘He’s agreed to come tomorrow to talk to you. Can you be here about ten?’
She bit her lip. Was this what she really wanted? ‘Abi?’ Ben’s anxious voice rang in her ear. ‘Can you make it?’
‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘Yes, of course.’
Athena was sitting on the sofa in her living room, once more attired in her red dragon dressing gown, her bare feet tucked up under her. She was reading one of the books on crystals from her shop. She leaned forward and took another sip from the whisky glass on the table, hearing the ice cubes chink companionably as she set it down again. Outside she could hear voices and laughter from the courtyard below. Someone let out a shout and she heard a glass breaking on the paving stones. She sighed and picked up the book again. Did she believe in ghosts? Did she believe in the goddess? Did she believe in Atlantis? If she did, she read, it was possible that the priestesses of Atlantis used crystals as repositories of their wisdom. Sort of primitive tape-recorders. No, not primitive. Up to the mark. The latest thing. Crystal technology. Was that it? Was that what Abi’s crystal was? A record of past events, events so momentous that someone had felt they should be dictated into the rock and kept forever. She thumbed through the pages. There were dozens of photographs of all the different crystals and their structures. Complicated, intricate, multi-formed. Then came the instructions on how to decode them. Ah, that was the rub, of course. How to decode the secrets. Something Abi seemed to have stumbled on by accident, and now seemed to have lost. Perhaps she had just switched off the machine. Reaching for the glass she took another sip. Tim had always hated her drinking whisky. It was man’s drink, he used to say. She gave a rueful smile and raised the glass in a toast to the dear departed. ‘My drink still, my dear, and I’m all the better for it,’ she said out loud. ‘Unlike you, it seems.’ She let the book drop on her lap. ‘Bloody crystals.’
Abi woke to find the eastern sky flooded with crimson. She lay in bed staring towards the window, still lost in her dream, but already it was going. ‘Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning,’ the words ran through her head like a mantra as she recalled the vision of the sacred spring on the hillside beneath the ancient yews. And this had been a dream, she was sure of it. And yet.
Mora and Yeshua had been standing at the foot of a processional way. Abi could see it stretching through an avenue of yew trees winding through the ancient orchards up towards the Tor. There was a mist hanging over the fenland, shrouding the reedy waters. Mora glanced at Yeshua and smiled as she recognised the distant look in his eyes. So much about him was familiar to her now, the mysticism, the tendency to dream, the profound inner life, the constant need to pray and then the sudden mood swings when anger and frustration bubbled up in the face of the injustices and pain they saw around them.
‘It’s time to go,’ she said gently. She walked up to him and, facing him, took his hands in hers. ‘Yeshua?’
He was far away. He didn’t seem to realise she was there. With a fond smile she raised the hands to her lips and dropped a gentle kiss on them. Then she gasped. His hands were sticky with blood. There were gaping wounds in his wrists, blood was pouring down his palms. ‘Yeshua!’ She couldn’t hold back her cry of distress.
He blinked and looked down at her, focusing on her face, seeing her dismay. Slowly pulling his hands out of her grip he reached up and touched her face. ‘Mora?’ The blood had vanished. ‘What is it?’
She shook her head, too upset to speak, turning her head away. Out there on the waters of the mere a stray beam of sunlight pierced the mist, highlighting the ripples to a glittering carpet. ‘You saw something?’
‘Nothing. I saw nothing.’ She blinked away the tears.
He moved round slightly so he was facing her again and she felt his gaze on her face. She refused to meet his eyes and after a moment he sighed. She felt his finger touch her cheek, stroking away a tear. ‘The time has come for me to go home, Mora,’ he said after another moment’s silence. ‘Joseph will soon be arriving in Axiom. I have to go and speak to your father and tell him.’
Somehow she forced a smile. ‘He is going to miss you. He looks forward to your talks together, your exchange of stories.
He nodded. ‘The way of your people, to instruct with stories and poems. Never to write the important things down. It intrigues me. There are clear messages there in the stories for everyone and yet only the initiates understand the hidden meanings. We write down our laws and our histories, the rules of our religion. You remember yours.’ He sighed. ‘Sometimes by writing things down they are cast in stone. That is not always good either.’
She nodded. She lifted her hand and put it over his, where it lay on her shoulder. She felt the muscles and bones, the strong sinews under her fingers, warm and vibrant, without scars, and she quickly brushed away another tear.
Abi slipped out of bed and went to kneel by the window, watching the crimson light flood across the sky. Through Mora’s eyes she had seen a vision of Jesus’ wounds. Out there, on the hillside above the Chalice Well, a druid priestess had touched the hands of Jesus and traced the wounds of the Crucifixion with her finger; felt his blood warm on her hands. Awed, she closed her eyes and began to pray.
It was half an hour later that she was interrupted by a quiet tap on the door. It was Cal. ‘I don’t know if you want to have breakfast before the B & B guests appear? Up to you.’
Abi was out of the house by nine, glancing up at the stormy sky. The old saw was right. It was going to rain. Already the wind was tearing at the leaves, whirling them into the air, and heavy clouds were racing in, piling up into threatening masses over the Mendips. The first heavy raindrops began to fall as she headed for the car.
Justin was already at the Rectory, closeted with Ben in his study. Janet let Abi in and took her coat from her. She had managed to get soaked in the short run from the car. She shook back her hair and ran her fingers through it in an attempt to restore it to some kind of order. She saw her hostess glance at it.
‘Wild weather!’ Janet said brightly. ‘Come in. They are waiting for you.’ Her sudden look of disapproval as she opened the door led Abi to suspect she was not one of Justin Cavendish’s fans either.
Justin was sprawled in one of the fireside chairs, Ben standing with his back to the hearth. Spits of rain were hissing on the logs behind him.
Justin climbed to his feet. ‘Come and get warm.’
‘I’ve been telling Justin a little about the background to your case, Abi,’ Ben said. He glanced at the window as a squall threw leaves against it from the lawn.
‘My case?’ Abi took Justin’s chair. She shivered.
‘Your situation would be a better way of describing it,’ Justin said thoughtfully. He was standing looking down at her.
‘And am I allowed to know what your exact qualifications are for being wheeled in as consultant to my “situation”?’ Abi asked. She was feeling uncomfortable under his intense gaze. Her hair was dripping down her neck. What she wanted was a towel and a hot drink, not an instant launch into theological dispute.
‘My
Ben grimaced. ‘I’m not sure that I did. Beyond saying that you were the expert on matters of an occult nature. What I do is sometimes called deliverance; maybe for you it is something similar?’
Justin moved back and sat down in the free armchair. ‘The word occult always has pejorative overtones I find.
