Sepulchre

  The air was still. At the same time, the room wasn’t damp or cold like a space left empty. Time jumped forward. Now Meredith could hear the piano again, except this time distorted. Like the sound of a fairground or a carousel, menacing and sinister.

  Her breath came faster. Her sleeping hands clutched at the covers as she reached out and grasped the cold metal latch.

  She pushed open the door. Stepped up over the stone step.

  No birds flew up, there was no whispering of voices, hidden, behind the door. Now she was standing inside some kind of chapel. High ceilings, flagstone floors, an altar and stained-glass windows. Paintings covering the walls, immediately recognisable as the characters from the cards. A sepulchre. It was utterly silent. Nothing but the echo of her footsteps disturbed the hush. And yet, little by little, the air began to whisper. She could hear voices, noises in the darkness. At least, voices behind the silence. And singing.

  She moved forward and felt the air part, as if unseen spirits lost in the light were standing back to let her pass. The very space itself seemed to be holding its breath, beating in time with the heavy rhythm of her heart.

  Meredith kept walking until she arrived before the altar, at a point equally placed between each of the four windows set inside the octagonal wall. She was standing now inside a square, marked in black upon the stone floor. Around it, letters inscribed upon the ground.

  Help me.

  Someone was there. In the darkness and the silence, something was moving. Meredith felt the space around her shrinking, fold in upon itself. She could see nothing, yet she knew she was there. A living, breathing presence, in the fabric of the air. And she knew she had seen her before - beneath the bridge, on the road, at the foot of her bed. Air, water, fire and now earth. The four suits of the Tarot, containing within them all the possibilities.

  Hear me. Listen to me.

  Meredith felt herself falling, down into a place of stillness and peace. She was not afraid. She was no longer herself, but instead standing outside, looking in. And, clear in the room now, she heard her own sleeping voice speak calmly out.

  ‘Léonie?’

  It seemed to Meredith now that there was a different quality in the darkness around the shrouded figure, a movement of the air, almost like a wind. At the foot of the bed, the figure gave a slight movement of her head. Long copper curls, colour without substance, unveiled as the hood fell from her hair. Skin translucent. Green eyes, although transparent. Form without substance. A long black dress beneath the cloak. Shape without form.

  I am Léonie.

  Meredith heard the words inside her head. A young girl’s voice, a voice from an earlier time. Again, the atmosphere in the room seemed to shift. As if the space itself gave a sigh of relief.

  I cannot sleep. Until I am found, I can never sleep. Hear the truth.

  ‘The truth? About what?’ Meredith whispered. The light was changing, loosening.

  The story is in the cards.

  There was a rushing of air, a fracturing of the light, a shimmering of something - someone - withdrawing. The atmosphere was different again now. There was a threat in the darkness, which Léonie had held at bay. But the gentle presence of the ghost had vanished, replaced by something destructive. A malevolence. It was now oppressively cold, pushing in upon Meredith. Like an early morning mist at sea, the sharp tang of salt and fish and smoke. She was back in the sepulchre. She felt the need to run, although she did not know what from. She felt herself edging towards the door.

  There was something behind her. A black figure or some kind of creature. Meredith could almost feel its breath on the back of her neck, puffs of white clouds in the frigid air. But the stone nave was shrinking. The wooden door was getting smaller and more distant.

  Un, deux, trois, loup! Coming to get you, ready or not.

  Something was snapping at her heels, gaining speed in the shadows, getting ready to leap. Meredith started to run, fear giving power to her shaking legs. Her sneakers were skidding, sliding, on the flagstone floor. Always behind her, the breathing.

  Nearly there.

  She threw herself at the door, feeling her shoulder crashing into the frame, sending pain ricocheting down her arm. The creature was right behind, the bristling of its fur, the stench of iron and blood, melting into her skin, the surface of her scalp and the soles of her feet. She fumbled at the latch, rattling, tugging, jerking it towards her, but it wouldn’t open.

  She started to bang on the door, trying not to look over her shoulder, trying not to be caught in the gaze of its blue, hideous eyes. She could feel the silence deepen around her. Could feel its malevolent arms coming down around her neck, wet and cold and rough. The smell of the sea, dragging her down into its fatal depths.

  CHAPTER 68

  'Meredith! Meredith. It’s all right. You’re safe, it’s all right.’

  She woke with a massive jolt that left her gasping for breath. Every muscle in her body was alert, every nerve screaming. The cotton sheets were tangled and mussed. Her fingers were locked rigid. For a moment she felt subsumed by a devouring anger, as if the rage of the creature had forced its way down through the surface of her skin.

  ‘Meredith, it’s OK! I’m here.’

  She was trying to prise herself free, disorientated, until gradually she realised that she felt warm skin, holding her tight to save her, not harm her.

  ‘Hal.’

  The tension fell from her shoulders.

  ‘You were having a nightmare,’ he said, ‘that’s all. It’s all right.’

  ‘She was here. She was here . . . then . . . it came and . . .’

  ‘Ssshh, it’s OK,’ he said again.

  Meredith stared at him. She reached up her hand and with her fingers traced the contours of his face.

  ‘She came . . . and then, behind her, coming to . . .’

  ‘There’s no one here but us. Just a nightmare. It’s all over now.’

  Meredith looked around the room, as if expecting at any moment someone to step out of the shadows. At the same time, she knew the dream had passed. Slowly, she let Hal take her in his arms. She felt the warmth and the strength of him holding her closer, holding her safe, tight against his chest. She could feel the bones of her ribcage as they rose and fell, rose and fell.

  ‘I saw her,’ she murmured, although she was talking to herself now, not Hal.

  ‘Who?’ he whispered.

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he repeated gently. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  He began to stroke her head, smoothing her bangs back from her forehead like Mary used to do when she first went to live with her, soothing away the nightmares.

  ‘She was here,’ Meredith said again.

  Gradually, beneath the repetitive and gentle motion of Hal’s hand, the terror faded away. Her eyelids became heavy, her arms and legs and body too, as the warmth and feeling came back.

  Four o’clock in the morning.

  Clouds had covered the moon and it was completely dark. The lovers, learning to know one another, fell back to sleep in each other’s arms, shrouded in the deep blue of early morning before the day comes.

  PART IX

  The Glade October-November 1891

  CHAPTER 69

  FRIDAY 23RD OCTOBER 1891

  When Léonie woke the following morning, the first thought that came to her mind was of Victor Constant, as it had been the last before she went to sleep.

  Wishing to feel the fresh air on her face, she dressed quickly and let herself out into the early morning. Evidence of yesterday’s storm was all around. Broken branches, leaves sent flying into spirals by the agitating wind. Everything was quite still now and the pink dawn sky was clear. But in the distance, over the Pyrenees, a grey bank of storm clouds, which threatened more bad weather to come.

  Léonie took a turn around the lake, pausing a while on the small promontory that overlooked the choppy waters, then walked slowly back towards the house across the lawns. Th
e hem of her skirts glistened with the dew. Her feet left barely an imprint on the wet grass.

  She walked around to the front door, which she had left unbolted when she had slipped out, then stepped into the hall. She stamped her boots on the rough-haired mat. Then she pushed the hood from her face, unhooked the clasp, and hung her cloak back on the metal hook from which she had taken it earlier.

  As she walked across the red and black tiles towards the dining room, she realised that she hoped Anatole had not yet descended for breakfast. Although she worried for Isolde’s health, Léonie was still sulking about their headlong and premature departure from Carcassonne the previous evening, and did not wish to be obliged to be civil to her brother.

  She opened the door and found the room deserted apart from the maid, who was setting the enamel red and blue patterned coffee pot on the metal trivet in the centre of the table.

  Marieta gave a half-bob. ‘Madomaisèla.’

  ‘Good morning.’

  Léonie walked round to take her customary seat on the far side of the long oval table, so that she was facing the door.

  One thought preyed upon her mind. That if the ill weather was continuing in Carcassonne without respite, then the patron of the hotel might be unable to deliver her letter to Victor Constant in the Square Gambetta. Or indeed that, due to the torrential rain, the concert would have been cancelled. She felt helpless and thoroughly frustrated at the realisation that she had no way of being certain whether or not Monsieur Constant had received her communication.

  Not unless he chooses to write to tell me so.

  She sighed and shook out her napkin. ‘Has my brother come down, Marieta?’

  ‘No, Madomaisèla. You are the first.’

  ‘And my aunt? Is she recovered after last evening?’

  Marieta paused, then dropped her voice, as if confiding a great secret. ‘Do you not know, Madomaisèla? Madama was taken that bad in the night that Sénher Anatole was obliged to send to town for the doctor.’

  ‘What?’ Léonie gasped. She rose from her seat. ‘I had no idea. I should go to her.’

  ‘Best to leave her,’ Marieta said quickly. ‘Madama was sleeping like a baby not thirty minutes past.’

  Léonie sat down again. ‘Well, what did the doctor say?’ she questioned. ‘Dr Gabignaud, was it?”

  Marieta nodded. ‘That Madama had caught a chill, which was threatening to develop into something worse. He gave her a powder to bring down the fever. He stayed with her, your brother too, all night.’

  ‘What is the diagnosis now?’

  ‘You will have to ask Sénher Anatole, Madomaisèla. The doctor spoke with him in private.’

  Léonie felt dreadful. She was guilty about her previous uncharitable thoughts and that she had somehow slept through the night without having the first idea of the crisis taking place elsewhere in the house. Her stomach was full of knots, like a ball of thread tangled and twisted out of shape. She doubted that she would be able to let even the smallest morsel pass her lips.

  However, when Marieta returned and placed in front of her a plate of salted mountain bacon, fresh eggs from the pullets, and warm white bread with a turned roll of churned butter, she felt she might manage a little.

  She ate in silence, her thoughts flipping backwards and forwards like a fish thrown upon the riverbank, first worrying about her aunt’s health, then more pleasurable thoughts of Monsieur Constant, then back to Isolde.

  She heard the sound of footsteps crossing the hall. Tossing her napkin to the table, she leapt to her feet and ran to the door, coming face to face with Anatole in the hall.

  He was pale and had hollow circles under his eyes, like black fingermarks, betraying the fact that he had not slept.

  ‘Forgive me, Anatole, I have only just heard. Marieta suggested it would be better to leave Tante Isolde to sleep than disturb her. Is the doctor returning this morning? Is—’

  Despite his wretched appearance, Anatole smiled. He held up his hand, as if to deflect the volley of questions.

  ‘Calme-toi,’ he said, placing his arm around her shoulder. ‘The worst is over.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Isolde will be fine. Gabignaud was excellent. Gave her something to help her sleep. She is weak, but the fever has gone. It’s nothing that a few days’ bed rest will not cure.’

  Léonie shocked herself by bursting into tears. She had not realised how much affection she had come to feel for her quiet, gentle aunt.

  ‘Come, petite,’ he said affectionately. ‘No need to cry. Everything will be fine. Nothing to get worked up about.’

  ‘Let’s not ever argue again,’ Léonie wailed. ‘I cannot bear it when we are not friends.’

  ‘Nor I,’ he said, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket and handing it to her. Léonie wiped her tear-stained face, then blew her nose.

  ‘How very unladylike!’ he laughed. ‘M’man would be most displeased with you.’ He grinned down at her. ‘Now, have you breakfasted?’

  Léonie nodded.

  ‘Well, I have not. Will you keep me company?’

  For the rest of the day, Léonie stayed close to her brother, all thoughts of Victor Constant pushed to the side for the time being. For now, the Domaine de la Cade and the love and affection of those sheltering within it was the sole focus of her heart and mind.

  Over the course of the weekend, Isolde kept to her bed. She was weak and tired easily, but Léonie read to her in the afternoons, and, little by little, the colour came back to her cheeks. Anatole busied himself with matters concerning the estate on her behalf and even sat with her in her chamber in the evenings. If the servants found such familiarity surprising, they did not remark upon it in Léonie’s hearing.

  Several times, Léonie caught Anatole looking at her as if he was on the point of confiding something. But whenever she questioned him, he smiled and said it was nothing, then dropped his eyes and carried on with what he was doing.

  By Sunday evening, Isolde’s appetite had returned sufficiently for a supper tray to be taken to her room. Léonie was pleased to see that the hollow, drawn expression had gone and she no longer looked so thin. Indeed, in some respects, she looked in better health than before. There was a glow to her skin, a brightness to her eyes. Léonie knew that Anatole had noticed it too. He walked around the house whistling and looking much relieved.

  The main topic of conversation in the servants’ quarters was the severe flooding in Carcassonne. From Friday morning to Sunday evening, town and countryside alike had been racked by the sequence of storms. Communications were disrupted and in some areas suspended altogether. The situation around Rennes-les-Bains and Quillan was bad, certainly, but no more than one might expect during the autumn season of storms.

  But by Monday evening, news of the catastrophe that had struck Carcassonne reached the Domaine de la Cade. After three days of relentless rain, worse on the plains than in the villages higher up in the mountains, in the early hours of Sunday morning, the River Aude had finally burst its banks, flooding the Bastide and the low-lying river areas. Early reports had it that much of the quartier Trivalle and the quartier Barbacane were completely under water. The Pont Vieux, linking the medieval Cité to the Bastide, was submerged although passable. The gardens of the Hôpital des Malades were knee-deep in black floodwaters. Several other buildings on the left bank had fallen into the torrent.

  Further up the swollen river, towards the weir at Païchérou, whole trees had been uprooted, twisted and clinging desperately to the mud.

  Léonie listened to the news with increasing anxiety. She feared for the well-being of Monsieur Constant. There was no reason to believe any ill had befallen him, but her worries played remorselessly upon her. Her anguish was all the worse for being unable to admit to Anatole that she knew the flooded neighbourhoods or that she had some specific interest in the matter.

  Léonie reprimanded herself. She knew it was perfectly absurd to feel so strongly for a person in whose company she had s
pent little more than an hour. Yet Monsieur Constant had taken residence in her romantic mind and she could not shake her thoughts free of him. So whereas in the early weeks of October she had sat in the window and waited for a letter from her mother from Paris, now, at the tail-end of the month, she instead wondered if there was a letter from Carcassonne lying unclaimed in the boxes at the poste restante in Rennes-les-Bains.

  The question was how she could make the trip to town in person? She could hardly entrust so delicate a matter to one of the servants, not even the amiable Pascal or sweet Marieta. And there was another concern: that if the patron of the hotel had not delivered her note to the Square Gambetta at the appointed time, in the event the concert had not been postponed, then Monsieur Constant - who was clearly a principled man - would be honour bound to let the matter drop.