Witch’s Honour. Jan Siegel

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ She was just a classic London type, more woman than girl, discreetly power-suited, elegantly pretty, aloof, so inscrutable that she appeared almost bland.

      She asked: ‘Where?’ and he didn’t know how to answer. He could not tell this cool sophisticate that he had seen her in his dreams. Instead, he was conveniently distracted by a waitress, ordering coffee and whisky for himself and, at Fern’s request, gin and tonic for her. Then he adopted boardroom tactics, changing the subject before she had time to repeat her question.

      ‘It was good of you to come. You said you were busy, so I won’t keep you. If I could just tell you about my sister—’

      ‘And then what?’ Fern knew he had deliberately evaded her earlier demand and was beginning to feel uneasy in a totally different way.

      ‘I don’t know. I was hoping it might strike a chord of some kind. I’m going on instinct here. I don’t have anything else to go on.’

      ‘I honestly don’t think I’ll be much help. What you need is some kind of support group…’

      ‘No. What I need is someone who’s been there—wherever Dana’s gone. Can’t you just try and talk to me?’

      ‘All right.’ Fern felt cornered. ‘What exactly happened to your sister?’

      ‘We had a New Year’s Eve bash at my father’s place in the country. I wasn’t in the room at the time, but I’m told Dana fell and hit her head. Not very hard. The doctors said she shouldn’t even have had concussion. When she passed out—well, I thought it was drink or drugs. She’s had a problem with both. I took her to the hospital, but they said she hadn’t taken anything and her alcohol level was high but not excessive. She just didn’t come round. They couldn’t understand it. They waffled about “abnormal reactions”, that sort of crap, but it was obvious they were stumped. She hasn’t even twitched an eyelid since then. Her pulse is so slow she’s barely alive. I heard it was like that with you.’

      ‘A little,’ Fern acknowledged. ‘I was very drunk, I blacked out, I stayed out. Then a week or so later, I came round. That’s really all I can tell you.’

      His eyes looked lighter, she noticed, because of the shadows beneath. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he said. ‘I know it isn’t. Tell me where you went, when you were unconscious.’

      He noted with interest that her expression became, if possible, a shade blander. ‘Answer my question,’ she said.

      ‘Which question?’ he queried unnecessarily.

      ‘The one you dodged.’

      He paused, thinking it over. ‘You might not believe me: that’s why I didn’t answer. I saw you in a dream. Twice. Nothing sentimental, don’t get that idea. The second time you were in a hospital bed, regaining consciousness. I only saw you for an instant, but the picture was very sharp. Too sharp for dreaming. You looked…intensely alive. More than now.’

      He realised too late that he had been offensive, but her manner merely cooled a little further. She inquired noncommittally: ‘Do you often have such dreams? Dreams that stay with you?’

      ‘Occasionally. Did you dream, when you were in a coma?’

      ‘No.’ Their drinks arrived, covering a momentary stalemate. When the waitress had retreated, Fern pursued: ‘You said you dreamed about me twice. What happened in the first one?’

      ‘It didn’t make sense. There was a city—an ancient city—a bit like Ephesos in Turkey, only not in ruins—and a girl asking me for help. Then it changed suddenly, the way dreams do, and we were in the dark somewhere, and the girl turned into you. She looked much younger—fourteen, fifteen—but it was definitely you. The strange thing…’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘I recognised you. I mean, the person I was in the dream recognised you. Whoever you were.’ When she did not respond, he added: ‘Do you follow me?’

      ‘Yes.’ Both expression and tone seemed to have passed beyond circumspection into a realm of absolute detachment. She sounded so remote, so blank, he knew that his words had meant something to her. Her drink was untouched, her hand frozen in the act of lifting her glass.

      When he saw that she wasn’t going to elucidate he said: ‘Your turn.’

      ‘My…turn?’

      ‘You were going to tell me what happened when you were comatose. If you didn’t dream…?’

      ‘I couldn’t,’ she said slowly. ‘I wasn’t there. I was—outside my body, outside the world.’ She concluded with a furtive smile: ‘You might not believe me, of course.’

      ‘Where were you?’

      ‘Under a tree.’

      ‘Where? In a wood? A field? What kind of tree?’

      He knew the questions were meaningless, but she answered them. ‘The only kind of tree—the first tree. The Tree all other trees are trying to be, and failing. No wood, no field. Just tree. Under the Tree, there was a cave, with three witches. It’s always three, isn’t it? The magic number. I was the third.’

      ‘Are you a witch?’ he asked, unsmiling. She looked very unmagical, with her sleek short hair and svelte besuited figure. But it troubled him that she did not either affirm or deny it. She glanced down at her hand—her left hand—as if it did not belong to her, and remembered her gin and tonic, and sipped it, slowly, as though she were performing an exercise in self-restraint. He had developed similar methods in business, learning to curb his occasional impetuosity, to suppress any inner weakness or self-doubt, to control every nuance of his manner. But she does it naturally, he thought. Without trying.

      ‘What happened next?’ he persisted. ‘You woke up?’

      She gave a small shake of the head. ‘I had to find the way back. It was difficult. Dangerous. I had a guide…At this party, when your sister passed out, do you remember anything unusual? Or peculiar?’ He saw the alteration in her attitude, a new alertness in her looks, and experienced a pang which might have been hope, or might have been fear.

      ‘There were people taking coke and E. They were drinking thirty-year-old Scotch and forty-year-old brandy and absinthe and champagne. Some were discussing literature and French cuisine, religion and sex. Others were talking to the furniture. Many were incapable of talking at all. Nearly everyone was in fancy dress. How unusual do you want?’

      If he was witty, Fern did not laugh. (No sense of humour, he thought.) ‘Did anyone see…a bird, an animal, a phantom? Something unexpected or uncanny?’

      ‘At least six people saw a headless ghost in the old tower—one or two had a conversation with it—but I understand that’s par for the course. Several of the guests wore animal costumes. I noticed a woman with a bird mask, rather beautiful and predatory, but—no, not that I know of. Nothing real.’

      ‘What is real,’ sighed Fern. It wasn’t a question.

      There was a silence which he felt he should not break. She was looking at him in a way people rarely look at each other in a civilised society, as if she were assessing him, without either animosity or liking, fishing for clues to his character, СКАЧАТЬ