The Dream Weavers Barbara Erskine (e ink ebook reader txt) 📖

they were Bea’s, but the woman had had no time to empower these plants. Bea shivered. She should burn them, but still she sat unable to tear her eyes away from the wilting leaves.

Emma waited, holding her breath. Felix’s gentle snore went on uninterrupted as she tiptoed across the living room. She looked back over her shoulder. His sleeping figure was a hump under the bedclothes in the corner of the shadowy room. Taking her jacket from the coat hooks behind the front door she slipped it on and then, holding her breath, she eased the door open. It was bitterly cold outside, for all it would soon be May, and still dark, though there was a faint light in the eastern sky. Under her hand she felt the hard ripple of ice on the gate as she pushed it open and headed up the lane towards the hill.

Climbing into bed the night before she had visualised the bubble of protection around herself exactly as Bea had taught her, then she had lain there, waiting. She wasn’t sure what she had expected – figures battering the outside of her bubble perhaps, but nothing had happened. The bedroom had grown cold as she lay there, rigid, staring up at the ceiling. She didn’t dare shut her eyes. She heard her father and Felix chatting quietly downstairs, then the sounds of them pulling out the bed for Felix and making it up. She distinctly heard her brother laughing quietly as Dad said something, then Simon’s footsteps coming upstairs. The crack of light under the door disappeared as he switched off the landing light and she heard his bedroom door close, then the creak of floorboards as he wandered around the room getting ready for bed. In minutes the house was silent. It was too dark. She wanted to turn on her bedside light and she turned her head cautiously to look towards it. If she put out her arm, would it pierce her bubble of protection? What would Bea tell her to do? But she couldn’t lie there in the total darkness, it was too scary. Cautiously she reached over and groped for the switch. As the fire downstairs died the house became colder. There were heaters in each room but they didn’t seem to make any difference. She pulled the covers up even more tightly under her chin and very cautiously she closed her eyes.

In her dream it was nearly dawn. As she tiptoed downstairs all she could think about was the need to get out onto the ridge.

He was waiting for her on the edge of the wood, his horse tethered to a tree. Behind him the dawn was flooding across the sky, slowly spreading across the landscape far below, leaving a pattern of intense shadow and bright sunlit peaks. In the distance far away in the valley under the hill she could make out the outline of a tiny stone chapel hidden amongst the trees, spotlit by a sunbeam. Its very presence seemed to bless their meeting. Around them the air was loud with the songs of birds. She paused, looking at him, then she held out her arms. She saw the smile in his eyes as she ran towards him and heard the whicker of his horse as if it too recognised her, and then she was there, in his embrace, pressed against his chest and her lips were raised, seeking his. For a long moment they stood together looking out towards the distances. ‘There, do you see that little church?’ Elise was pointing into the distance with its pinpoints of sunlight striking a squat stone tower. ‘One day you and I will go there together and we will find the priest and we will ask him to make us man and wife.’ Gently he pulled her towards him and he kissed her again.

He led her through the edge of the wood towards the sheepfold and there he pulled her down onto the bed of bracken. Swathed in his cloak they made love as the sunlight warmed the land and slowly the frost melted on the grass, unaware of the wandering sheep that peered through the entrance at them with mild astonishment before turning away to crop the grass on the hillside, or of the croaking of the raven as it flew high towards the west.

‘Emma! Breakfast!’ The voice from downstairs was an intrusion, an unwelcome interruption like the stone on the ground under her hip. ‘I have to go,’ she murmured, but already she was alone. As her eyes opened she saw that she was in her little bedroom at the cottage. She looked round, lost and confused. Her body felt strange. It felt warm and heavy and aroused. Her breasts were tingling and her lips felt sore and bitten. Her bedside light was on though outside the curtains it was daylight and she was, she realised, fully dressed. She sat up, running her hands through her hair and saw her thick padded jacket lying on the end of the bed. Reaching out towards it she drew her hand away sharply. It was wet with melted ice.

‘She looked a bit odd at breakfast. Strained. Tired, but otherwise OK.’ Simon’s voice message had been left at 10.04. Bea listened again. ‘She didn’t say anything to worry me. We were planning to drive over to Ludlow for the day. Then when I called her about half an hour ago there was no reply. I went up to her bedroom and there was this note saying she had gone out for a walk and we shouldn’t worry. Not worry! Do you know where she might have gone?’

When Bea rang Emma’s phone it went straight to messages.

Simon was waiting on the cottage steps when Bea drew in next to his car.

‘You don’t think she has gone out for an ordinary stroll?’

He shook his head. ‘She knew we were all going out for the day together.’

‘The important thing is she left you