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

‘No! When I couldn’t find you, I was worried. I guessed that was where you were.’

‘And now you’ve seen a real ghost you’re probably even more worried.’

He nodded slowly. ‘My first ghost. But she wasn’t scary. She was …’ he hesitated, trying to find the right word, ‘not quite real, but more than a shadow. I thought she was very sad.’

‘And you think she was a nun?’

‘She certainly looked like one.’

‘Are you sure she wasn’t just wearing medieval costume?’ She was thinking back to Eadburh and her prince. If the ghost was an elderly nun, it wasn’t Eadburh. The thought was half comforting, half disappointing. There was a long silence. ‘I know we joked about it,’ she went on at last, ‘but I wonder if Simon’s book really has stirred up something from the past.’ She glanced across at him. She knew that expression, carefully schooled, mildly interested, the face, she always teased him, that he would reserve for hearing really shocking confessions if he ever did such a thing. ‘He’s writing about Anglo-Saxon Mercia. King Offa. She – your nun – wouldn’t fit, would she? I don’t suppose they were even Christian at that period.’

‘Offa was a Christian, Bea.’ He sighed. ‘The minster here in Hereford had already been going a couple of hundred years by the time he became king.’

‘How do you know?’

He laughed. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Bea, I work in a cathedral dedicated to St Mary the Virgin and to St Ethelbert the King, the latter having been foully done to death by none other than your King Offa.’

‘Really?’ That caught her attention. For a moment she forgot her anger. It occurred to her that she had never once wondered who St Ethelbert was, let alone connected him to King Offa. ‘Offa can’t have been a very good Christian if he was a murderer.’

‘Possibly not. The original cathedral is said to have been built over Ethelbert’s tomb.’

‘You would think that would hold him down all right,’ she said drily. ‘When you say original cathedral, do you mean this one isn’t original? What happened to the first one?’

‘I’ll give you three guesses.’

‘The Reformation? Cromwell?’

He shook his head. ‘Long before Cromwell. No, the Welsh.’ He smiled tolerantly. ‘I gather they were always popping across the border to burn Hereford.’

That was what Simon had said. ‘But wasn’t that why Offa built his dyke?’

‘Indeed. But it didn’t work. If your guy Simon is writing a book about it, he must know.’ He stood up. Technically it was her turn to cook, but one look at her exhausted face made him realise that was probably not going to happen. He went over to the freezer and after some rummaging triumphantly produced a pizza. It was his way of apologising. He hated it when they quarrelled. Time to forget about ghosts, at least for now.

When she looked up at him again it was with another question. ‘Mark,’ she hesitated. ‘Have you ever heard of there being ghosts in the cathedral?’

He groaned. ‘Not as far as I know. That’s your department, darling. I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment.’ He switched on the oven.

‘But you’re a priest! You of all people should believe in ghosts. We’ve talked about this before. But now you’ve seen one.’ Now that they had broached it she wasn’t going to let the subject drop.

‘Officially I don’t believe in them. You know what we believe officially. It’s all in the Creed.’

‘But unofficially?’

‘I keep an open mind. I don’t believe they wander round causing trouble. At least,’ he hesitated, ‘I didn’t until you were attacked by a poltergeist.’

‘Forget the poltergeist,’ she snapped. ‘After all these years with me, you must realise—’

‘Yes. Yes, I do believe some spirits wander the earth, inconsolable, and I do believe you can help them, Bea. I also believe they can be dangerous – demonic, even – as you found out in that old house. And if we’re talking about the ghost of Offa of Mercia, who had the most awful reputation as a murdering thug, I would very much rather you never get close enough to find out. If Simon is some kind of a link to him, then I’m begging you, I’m begging you, Bea, to have nothing more to do with this.’

‘But Simon’s ghost is a woman,’ she said softly. ‘A nun. You said so yourself. She would not be demonic.’

She hadn’t been thinking of Simon’s ghost. She had been thinking of the gentle old priest who sat in the side chapel and who had told her not to go to the cottage on the ridge because there was danger there.

Bea lay for a long time that night, aware that Mark was still awake beside her. It wasn’t until at last she felt him relax into sleep that she slid out of bed. Staring at him in the dim light thrown through the bedroom door by the lamp on the table on the landing, she felt a wave of affection. Sleep had wiped the care lines from his face; his hair was tousled by the pillow, making him look young again. They had come very near to having a major row this evening. She sighed. She knew how difficult it was for him, but she was not going to stop her enquiries.

Climbing up to her attic, holding her breath as the stairs creaked under her cautious footsteps, she paused in the doorway. She sensed at once that Mark had been up there. She didn’t really mind – she knew now that he had been searching for her, but still, he had left a raw anxiety in the air. Normally she would light some incense, waft it quickly round the space to soothe it, but she couldn’t do that now. The smell might drift down the stairs and wake him up. Tightly wrapped in her dressing gown, she lit the candle and sat down on the cushion. She had returned