Sleeper’s Castle: An epic historical romance from the Sunday Times bestseller. Barbara Erskine
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for the dream, but it had gone. With a sigh she went downstairs into the living room, and stood there looking at her piles of books. Her head was resonating with the story. So was it the house itself which was the custodian of Catrin’s narrative? And perhaps Rhona’s as well. If so, how? The idea was too exciting to ignore. House as an echo chamber. House as receiver of messages. House as medium for contact, not only with the past, but with parallel present existences.
Sitting cross-legged on the rug on the floor in front of her book collection, Andy began to shuffle through them, pausing every now and then to greet an old favourite, sorting them into different categories, discarding a few as not relevant to her present sphere of interest, piling others closer to read again soon. She had forgotten so much of this stuff, the fascination of combining serious scientific theory with the completely subjective nature of the actual experience.
What she needed was a couple of notebooks to start writing down the experiences so as not to lose the freshness of describing the moment. Even the best scientist must find it hard sometimes to resist the urge to improve on an account of things that had come up in the course of an experiment. She wanted to keep her record accurate.
She sat back at last, pushed her hair out of her eyes, then scrambled to her feet. Scooping up an armful of books, she carried them back to the kitchen and stacked them on the table. She was tempted to go down to Hay now, to buy a notebook. She eyed her car keys, lying on the dresser.
But she was desperate to go back and see what happened to Catrin and Edmund. They were so real in her head. That spark of anger between them had been so spontaneous, his shock as she murmured that spell to divert the thunderstorm so obvious she couldn’t bear to leave them like that, on the road in the middle of nowhere. Where were they going? What happened next? She had to find out and maybe she had had a long enough break to be able to go back to sleep?
But, did she have to be asleep? Could she just retreat into some sort of meditative state as she did when she visited Kew? This was what her books could tell her. Or her father. It was the sort of thing he would probably know. She reached for the phone.
‘How are you, pet?’ Her father’s second wife, Sandy, was a lovely Northumbrian woman who had taken Andy to her heart. ‘When are you going to come and see us?’
Her father it appeared was away at a conference. Sandy promised to make sure he rang as soon as he got back. They chatted for a while and Andy found herself immersed in news of her half-brothers’ school exploits, the adventures of their two border terriers and Sandy’s mother’s operation. When at last she laid down the phone she stared at it sadly, astonished at how lost and lonely she felt.
She sighed. They were far away and part of another life and Catrin was here, waiting for her. Without her father’s help it was up to her to work out a way of travelling back to that thundery Welsh mountain.
Aware that Pepper was sitting on the windowsill watching her with apparent interest, his paws tucked sleepily into his chest, she sat down and closed her eyes.
And found herself in the kitchen of her old home. The room was tidy, the only sign of occupation a carefully rinsed mug upside down in the draining rack beside the sink. She stared at it with a painful pang of nostalgia. It was a mug Graham had bought for her when they visited Chartres Cathedral together. It was decorated with the pellucid blues and reds of the beautiful medieval windows.
Looking down at it, Andy was overcome with anger. She reached out to the mug, intending to throw it on the floor and smash it; it was then she realised that she couldn’t see her hands. She tried to pick up the mug but nothing happened. Her hand, if it was there at all, made no contact with the cold china. Her anger was replaced by irritation and then by a strangely analytical sensation of interest.
Rhona was sitting on the sofa in the living room going through yet another box of papers. Andy’s papers. She looked up with a start as she found herself staring at Andy. For a split second the two women remained unmoving, holding one another’s gaze, then the vision was gone. In the silence of the room someone screamed.
Andy jerked back to reality. Pepper had vanished through the cat flap. Moments later there was a knock at the door. ‘Are you OK?’ Bryn opened it without waiting to be invited. He glanced round. ‘I heard you scream.’
Andy stared at him, confused. ‘I didn’t. At least, I don’t think I did.’
‘Then who was it?’ He closed the door behind him. ‘I saw Pepper running through the garden as though the hounds of hell were after him.’
‘Well, one hound, perhaps,’ Andy muttered sourly. ‘Or if we want to be technical, a bitch.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry. It must have been me, mustn’t it? I must have been the one who screamed. There’s no one else here. I must have been dreaming. I’ve not been sleeping well and I fell asleep.’ She was embarrassed at her stammered explanation and found herself avoiding his gaze. She could feel him studying her.
‘Well, if you’re sure you’re OK,’ he said at last.
‘Yes, I’m OK.’ She gave a weak smile. ‘But thank you for looking out for me.’
He hesitated for a few seconds more, then without a word he turned and let himself out into the garden.
Andy’s mobile rang. She picked it up. The phone had recognised the number. It was her old number. Graham’s number. Kew’s number.
Rhona’s number.
She sat staring at the screen, her heart thudding, then she laid the phone down on the table before reaching out and switching it off. She sat without moving, waiting dry-mouthed for it to ring again. It didn’t.
Andy was furious with herself. She hadn’t intended to go back to Kew. Rhona had caused her enough embarrassment and misery to last a lifetime without aggravating the situation. She had wanted to see what happened to Catrin, not stir up a hornet’s nest.
It wasn’t until later, after she noticed that Bryn had gone home, that Andy realised she hadn’t seen Pepper since his swift exit out of the cat flap. Anxious, she went out into the garden and began to call. There was no sign of him anywhere. The evening was soft with low slanting sunlight and, sure for once that she had the place to herself, she wandered out towards the far end of the garden. It was an irregular shape, roughly trapezoid, one side defined by the brook, the other by the ruins of the old wall and beyond them a high bank topped with wild hedgerows strung with hips and haws and sloes. At the far end of the garden there was an orchard of old gnarled trees, still laden with apples, some already standing over a carpet of windfalls. Behind that was an acre or so of wild meadow, which she was sure would be rich in herbs. The far corner above the brook was a rocky area that climbed steeply into something which would qualify, she reckoned, as a small cliff. She wandered towards it, still calling. She had realised almost at once that she would not be able to find Pepper unless he wanted to be found. This was his home. Hopefully, in spite of whatever eldritch screams had startled him, he would find his way back before too long.
She followed a narrow path towards the cliff, noticing an abundance of unusual plants on either side, thinking how much Graham had loved this place; would have loved to explore it now, at leisure, with her. No wonder he and Sue had been friends. The low sun was throwing deep shadows across the rock face, giving it a texture and shape that she found herself longing to paint. As she drew near she spotted a large fissure in the rock. Intrigued, she crept closer. It was broad and deep enough to allow her to edge sideways into the dark crack in the rock. At once she found herself in a small cave, faintly lit by the last rays of the setting sun. Pepper was sitting on the stony floor, washing his face. He paused in his ablutions for a full second, scanning her carefully, then he went on washing.
‘I don’t suppose you heard me calling,’ Andy commented. She crept further into the cave. It was small, barely a foot above her head in height and perhaps ten feet across, but the far end was out of sight in the darkness and she found herself curiously reluctant to make her way further in to find out how far it went. She glanced up, expecting to see bats hanging from the