‘He’s an earthbound spirit who still has earthly emotions,’ Natalie said gently. ‘He still feels anger and fear and bitterness – those are the things which I suspect anchor him here – but perhaps he also feels loneliness and even love. We don’t understand these things, Joss, so we must use our intuition. It’s all we have.’
Joss was staring down at the water again. A memory had surfaced out of nowhere. The cellar; a face; a pair of arms …
‘Joss? Joss, what is it? What’s wrong?’ Natalie’s arm was round her shoulders. ‘Joss, you’re white as a sheet. Come on, it’s cold out here. We ought to go in.’
‘No.’ Joss shook her off. She was trying to think, to remember, to grasp at a sliding mirage, a chimera at the edge of her mind, but already it had gone and the wall was once more firmly back in place, leaving nothing but the sour aftertaste of blinding panic.
Natalie was watching her carefully. She could see the fear and the revulsion like a cloak around the other woman and suddenly she began to understand. ‘Dear God,’ she whispered. ‘He’s made love to you too.’
‘No!’ Joss shook her head violently. ‘No, of course he hasn’t. How could he? That’s disgusting. It’s not possible! No!’ She was growing increasingly agitated. Running a few steps along the bank she stopped. Under the warm layers of jacket and sweater and shirt her skin was ice cold and she could feel crawling shivers of disgust. Another memory flashed before her. Eyes. Blue, warm eyes, close to her face and a swirl of soft dark velvet then they were gone again and she was standing by the lake with Natalie under the lowering November clouds.
There was another long silence, then, ‘Are you all right?’ Natalie said softly. She had followed her and her eyes met Joss’s sympathetically.
Joss gave a weak smile. ‘Let’s go back in.’
‘All right. If that’s what you want.’ Natalie hesitated. ‘I could try and speak to him on my own, but –’ she paused, ‘it would be better if you were with me. You belong to the house, you see. You’re part of it all.’
Joss nodded. Walking slowly back up the lawn she stared at the house in front of her. It looked strangely blank, the study windows shuttered, her bedroom curtains only half open, the glass deadened and unreflective beneath the heavy sky. ‘David Tregarron is coming up sometime this afternoon,’ she said at last. ‘He’s a friend of ours – Ned’s godfather. He was with Edgar Gower when he had his heart attack. He’s been studying the history of the house. He’s the one who found out about Margaret de Vere.’
Natalie stopped dead. ‘Does he see?’
Joss shook her head. ‘Not that I know of. He loves the history and romance of it all. And the mystery, of course.’
‘Of course.’ It was said somewhat dryly.
‘I asked him to come so I could find out what really happened that night with Edgar and also because he believes it all. Unlike my husband, who questions my sanity. He believes Margaret de Vere really was a witch. Not a poor silly misguided old woman, but an educated clever practitioner of some kind of black magic. There’s a brass to her in the floor of the church here, did you know?’
Natalie stopped in her tracks. ‘A brass? In the church?’
‘Under that old rug in the chancel.’
‘She can’t be buried there. It must be just a monument.’
‘Why not? Why can’t she be buried here?’
‘Not if she was a witch.’
‘Of course not.’ Joss hesitated. ‘Do you want to come and see the brass?’
‘Now?’
‘Why not.’ Joss gestured towards the church. She shuddered. It would at least put off for a while the need to go back inside the house.
A few cold drops of rain were beginning to fall as Joss grasped the iron ring to lift the latch and pushed open the door. The church was very dark. Behind her, Natalie hesitated. ‘Wait, I’ll switch on the lights.’ Joss moved ahead, and a few seconds later those in the nave and the chancel came on, illuminating the vaulted roof.
‘It’s over here. See?’ Joss was standing near the rug. ‘Natalie?’ Natalie was still hesitating in the doorway. ‘What’s wrong?’ She stooped to lift the corner of the rug.
‘Don’t touch it!’ Natalie called sharply. Slowly she stepped away from the door and began walking up the aisle between the pews. She could feel the thick miasma of hatred coming from the spot where Joss was standing. It was like a tangible object in the centre of the floor.
By the time she was beside her she could feel the sweat standing out on the palms of her hands. ‘She is buried here, and whoever did it, did so against the wishes of the church and with her they buried the tools of her trade,’ she whispered. ‘They must have been very powerful or very influential to have managed to do that.’
‘They were a powerful family,’ Joss murmured back. ‘In with the king.’
‘Indeed,’ Natalie replied grimly. She hooked her foot under the corner of the rug and nudged it backwards, exposing a little of the beautiful filigree metalwork in the stone. ‘I don’t remember ever seeing this before; ever feeling anything before. Something has awoken the evil.’
Joss grimaced. She gave a small shudder. ‘There’s another brass over there – a tiny one let into the wall, to her daughter, Katherine.’
Natalie glanced at her. She too shivered. The church was cold.
‘Margaret was accused of bewitching the king to win him for Katherine, but then she died. Natalie?’ Her voice sharpened suddenly. ‘What’s that? It smells like smoke.’
‘It is smoke.’ Natalie was staring down the church towards the door through which they had just come. A column of smoke, wispy, smelling of autumn bonfires, was slowly revolving in the back of the church.
Joss caught her arm. ‘What is it?’ she whispered.
Natalie gave Joss a small push. ‘I don’t think we’re going to wait to debate about it. Let’s get out of here.’
‘We need to turn off the lights – ’
‘Forget the lights! Come on, quickly.’ She dragged Joss down towards the side aisle as the column of smoke began to move towards them. In thirty seconds they were out, pulling the door shut with a crash.