One look at her face and he knows.
‘Mother?’
‘Yes, son.’
Constance and Verity steal away, quietly shutting the doors. In the kitchen they work silently with their own thoughts between them as they cut and slice, brew and stir.
After some time, the sisters find their voices again.
‘I’m so happy for them,’ Verity says.
‘It’s wonderful.’
‘The other one. Is she gone now?’
‘Yes. This morning.’
‘Good.’
The sound of the gate opening has them scurrying to the door.
‘Ava. I’ll head her off so she doesn’t go barging into the sitting room,’ Constance says.
A few moments later they put Ava to work with them in the kitchen and update her on all the latest events.
‘Willa must have been terrified. I don’t think I could have done it,’ Ava says.
‘We should do something for her, sister.’
‘Yes, we must, Verity. Surely she won’t want to stay in that house.’
‘Perhaps some sort of property for her work and a nice flat.’
‘Ava, would you make some enquiries?’
‘Of course, after you ask her permission to change her life.’ She smiles.
‘Do you think it’s all right to go in now?’ Verity asks.
‘Let’s give them a little more time,’ Constance says.
‘Oh, please, I’m like a child at Christmas hiding in here. I want to see them happy and laughing. Ava, pop your head in and offer tea. Sister, let’s have champagne. Just a wee glass.’
Ava knocks softly on the doors to the sitting room.
‘Yes, do come,’ Rafe says, expecting his aunts.
Ava opens the doors.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he says. ‘Hello again!’ He finds that he can’t stop smiling at her.
‘Hello again.’
‘Mother, this is the woman I told you about. This is Ava.’
‘You did?’ Ava asks.
‘He did.’ Elísabet smiles at her warmly and beckons her to come near.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
At dusk Stefán collects the water from the pool behind the waterfall. The liquid has no preference – glass, wood, plastic, it performs its inexplicable work sloshing in any sort of carrier. He rides Glossi today, forsaking his car for the innate intelligence of his eternally beautiful horse. He bows his elegant neck down towards the pool, but does not drink. The drops sustain him as well.
His old friend makes an appearance this evening. Long arms droop from his shoulders, his fingertips reach his knees. A lean torso and the alarming length of his legs create a rail for his homespun clothing.
‘Stefán, son of Hilmar. The day may come when a foreigner drinks from the pool.’
Stefán smiles. ‘You mean a tourist? Perhaps, though they like the west of our country best of all. Tourists pass here but rarely stop.’
‘My point is that there must be no complacency. Especially now that you are to become a father again.’
‘I won’t ask you how you know.’
‘There are those who still believe in the old people’s existence. Remain watchful.’
The man’s serious tone cuts Stefán. ‘We will. It takes only one. How well I know that now.’
‘You, Stefán, will become the Watcher one day. You alone will judge the stranger who stumbles on this pool. You will decide who should be given instruction and who should not. And on that day, you will see me no more.’
The tall man stretches his legs. Another year has passed in a blink of his eye.
Finn Fowler and Owen Mockett sit at a table in a riverside pub with a window view of the Thames. It is rare that they would miss an evening out in ever-sprawling London. They speak of business and the weather. They don’t speak of her. Perhaps they will one day, but for now, the topic is too raw.
Finn destroyed all of her belongings. He removed the keys from her chatelaine before he destroyed her talisman of their imprisonment. One item, however, was curiously missing. The small picture frame on her dressing table is empty of their faded images of 1914. The photograph had always made him uncomfortable, but the thought of her concealing it in Iceland sends a shiver through him.
Finn and Mockett share a half-pint, their daily allowance, while they wait for their food. Often on these nights the same unspoken thoughts join them for dinner. They think how damned lucky they are to have survived. The fearsome Icelandic men who took her away and escorted her to her punishment scared the bejesus out of them. Finn and Owen were unable to form a defence to present to their accusers, who were also their judiciary. When they were pardoned for their culpability, Willa said that she had never heard men weep like that before.
No one in the pub pays much attention to them. They seem to meld into the polished woodwork; their voices mingle with the screen announcing the football scores.
The odd ship and barge pass their view in the rising tide.
Ancient waste will return to the Thames’s anaerobic mud, and its power to tell of the past is buried once more, until the moon releases its pull again.
Iceland.
England.
Perhaps elsewhere.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks for the support, energy, creativity and not least, the patience of my brilliant agent, Oli Munson. Thanks to all at A.M. Heath, including Florence Rees and Jennifer Custer. And a special mention for Becky Brown, for early reading and suggestions.
Great appreciation and respect for my editor, the stellar Jenny Parrott, whose care and attention coaxed more out of me than I thought possible, and whose close work helped bring the manuscript to more vibrancy. She did all that with amazingly good humour. Thanks to Paul Nash and all the dynamic team at Point Blank/Oneworld including the wizard Mark Rusher, and James Jones, Margot Weale, Thanhmai Bui-Van, Cailin Neal, Kate Bland and James Magniac. Kudos to my copyeditor, Emily Thomas, whose eagle-eyed, thoughtful and face-saving (mine) attention to detail was remarkable.
Warm thanks for her encouragement and expertise to Denise Stewart, who kindly and generously drew upon her impressive, vast experience to steer me away from pitfalls.
How fortunate and grateful I was for the facilities and staff of the British Library, the Wellcome Library, the Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, and to the
