CHAPTER 67
In her dream, Meredith was sitting at the piano at the foot of the stairs. The chill of the keys and the melody were familiar beneath her fingers. She was playing Louisa’s signature piece, better than she had ever played it before, sweet and yet haunting.
Then the piano vanished and she was walking along a narrow and empty corridor. There was a patch of light at the end and a set of stone stairs, dipped and worn away in the centre by the passage of feet and time. She turned to go, but found herself always standing in the same place. It was somewhere within the Domaine de la Cade, she knew, but not a part of the house or grounds she recognised.
The light, a perfect square, was coming from a gas jet on the wall, which hissed and spat at her as she passed. Facing her at the top of the steps was an old and dusty tapestry of a hunt. She stared a moment at the cruel expressions of the men, the smears of red blood on their spears. Except, as she looked with her dream eyes, she realised it was not an animal they were hunting. Not a bear, not a wild boar, not a wolf. Instead, a black creature, standing on two legs with cloven feet, an expression of rage on its almost human features. A demon, his claws tipped red.
Asmodeus.
In the background, flames. The wood was burning.
In her bed, Meredith moaned and shifted position as her dreaming hands, both weighed and weightless, pushed at an old wooden door. There was a carpet of silver dust on the ground, glinting in the moonlight or the halo from the gaslight.
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.
