The Dream Weavers by Barbara Erskine (best ereader for pc TXT) 📗

her smile eager. ‘Are you joining us for the tour?’ There were several people standing round them now, waiting for it to begin.

‘Not today, Sandra.’ Bea did not want to engage in conversation with anyone at this moment. With a wave of her hand she turned away from the door, heading towards the north transept. There was a special place in this great building that she thought of as her own. A place where she had found a friend and an adviser.

When they had first moved into the Treasurer’s House it had had its own ghosts, terrible, violent memories of a long-past battle, the shouts of men fighting, the clash of iron swords, the scream of horses. Horrified, she had prayed for their souls; she had carried a bowl of burning herbs into every room and she had placed powerful protective crystals, discreetly, so Mark and the girls wouldn’t notice. They had heard nothing. She hadn’t known then what had caused such mayhem here in the peaceful Cathedral Close, but then she had learnt of the ancient skeletons archaeologists had found working nearby. Whoever those poor men had been, Saxons, Viking, Welsh or English, they had been ghosts from an ancient past, long before the houses round the Close had been built, probably before the cathedral itself was there, and they were at rest now. She had told Mark when it was all over and he had brought her here to the little chantry chapel off the north quire aisle to pray together. And it was here, when she later returned alone, that she had seen for the first time the shade of the wise old man she had come to think of as her mentor.

Finding the chapel empty, she sat down, pulled back the hood of her coat and began cautiously to try to find the silence.

For a long time nothing happened. Away from the crowds, no one had switched on the lights and it was dark in the chapel, scarcely any murky light filtering through the elaborate stained-glass windows, but someone had lit a votive candle and placed it on a stone shelf near the altar. The flame was steady, illuminating a small patch of the delicate vaulted roof, throwing the graceful lines of stone into stark relief.

It was only slowly that Bea became aware that the old priest was in the chapel with her. She gave a half glance under her eyelids and saw the reassuring shape sitting against the wall by the altar, the shadow of his robe barely there in the flickering light, his sparse circle of hair white beneath his cowl, his face indistinct, always indistinct.

He never spoke. Once or twice she had tried to link with him; she knew he could hear her, but his was a vow of silence. And peace.

‘What should I do?’ she whispered. ‘Please tell me.’

A swirl of draught entered the chapel as down in the nave someone opened the main door into the north porch. As the candle smoked the chapel filled with the smell of beeswax and surely, just a little of incense.

‘Don’t go back, my child.’ The voice was soft, barely audible. ‘Don’t go. There is danger there.’

Her eyes flew open. The old man had vanished but, for a short few seconds, the sound of his words echoed in her head. Her heart thudding uncomfortably, she stared round the chapel. Danger. He had warned her of danger.

The sound of footsteps outside the doorway distracted her momentarily. ‘And this,’ she heard Sandra’s voice clearly above the shuffling of feet, ‘is our loveliest chantry chapel. These were specially endowed when they were built as sacred places where a priest would sing masses and say prayers for the soul of the donor and his family. Sadly, during the Reformation they were dismantled and the priests chased away. Nowadays it’s reserved for private prayer.’

It took a moment for her to register that Bea was there, sitting in the corner on the furthest of the short row of chairs, and she backed out again, trying to usher the group away, but they didn’t want to be ushered. One or two pushed past her, staring eagerly round the tiny space. Bea leaned forward, her hand over her eyes. She could feel them looking at her, curious. Perhaps prayer was something they did not expect. They were tourists, and tourists tended to be, as Mark had once remarked with enormous sadness, unaware of what a cathedral was for.

Silence descended again as the sound of feet finally died away and she closed her eyes, trying to forget the interruption, concentrating on why she had come, trying to calm the shock and apprehension that had flooded through her at the old man’s words, silently begging him to come back. To explain.

But he had gone, chased away by the Reformation and by the needs of a secular age. There was no shadow now near the altar.

And already she knew what she must do. He was right. She must leave the cottage to its dreams. She must not get pulled in. There was danger there.

But first she must take back the stone.

To her relief, Simon’s car was nowhere in sight. She pulled into the cottage’s parking space and picked her handbag off the passenger seat. In it was the stone, wrapped in a silk scarf. She had not allowed herself to touch it again with her bare hands and even now, as she turned towards the gate, she held the strap of the bag at arm’s length. She had originally picked up the stone seemingly at random on the steps inside the gate and she stood for a few moments allowing herself to sense the right place to put it back. The flower bed beside the steps seemed best. No one would trip on it there. She thanked it for its communications and allowed it to slide out of the silk wrapping onto the cold damp earth amongst the daffodils without coming into contact with it again.