Vision In Love (Legends of The North Book 1) (16 page)

She sprang up, screaming, reaching for her ankle. The sheets were twisted around her legs, clinging to her wet feet.

"Emma, it's okay. You're okay."

Matt's calm voice beside her, his warm hands on her arms stopped her screams. Her chest rose and fell as she tried to calm herself with deep gulps of air. He pulled her against his solid, warm chest, stroking his hand up and down her back slowly as she matched her breaths to his rhythm.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

She nodded. "It wasn't even that bad, not like the last one. Nobody was dying, there was no blood, but that just seemed to make it worse. Like when you know something bad is going to happen but the wait is the worst part. I was walking across the fields, where I walk Barney in the mornings. Everything seemed normal until this mournful wailing started. I don't know where it came from or what was making it. It was just ... soul-destroying. It sounded inhuman." She shivered as the sound echoed in her head.

"That's all? No one else was around? No flowers or helmets or anything?"

Emma shook her head. "No. There was nothing except this scream that sounded like someone having their essence sucked from them, that's all."

"I didn't mean that that wasn't bad enough. It's just ..." Matt exhaled with a loud sigh.

Emma turned in to him, wrapping her arm around his waist. "What?"

He leaned back against the headboard taking Emma with him. "It's just I'd started to think I was beginning to understand your visions."

Emma waited for him to finish but he said nothing. "And? What? Now you don't understand them?"

"I thought they were Roman related. The helmet, the fort–they were obviously Roman. But then more than that, there was the symbolism to the Roman gods. The lightning and oak tree are symbols of Jupiter, the king of the gods, god of the sky. The poppy and white rose are both symbols of the Goddess Proserpina, but then how does a wedding at my parents' house and my brother tie into that? And this last one? I don't know. That has nothing to do with the Romans
or
my family. It doesn't even make sense historically. Altenbury Hall has nothing to do with Stydon Lane. They're not even close to each other, at different ends of the village. Sorry, I'm just ranting now."

Emma tightened her arms around him. She could feel the frustration in him. "Maybe you're trying to approach this too logically."

"What?"

She sat up so she could see his face, taking his hand in hers. "If you take the visions, the attacks, there's nothing logical about them. I'm not about to start broadcasting the fact I have these visions, much less what's in them. I don't want a visit from the men in white coats. You get attacked by something animal-like, yet end up with frostbite. None of that is logical or makes sense, and we don't even know if the two things are related to each other."

"But how am I supposed to understand your visions and stop them if there is no logical explanation to them?"

Emma sat up on her knees between his thighs so she could, in the dim light there was, gaze straight in his eyes. The look she saw in them scared her with its intensity.

"What?"

She could feel his hands fisting and unclenching around the bed sheets, and she placed her own gently over them. "Did you ever think that maybe you aren't supposed to stop them? How about you try to figure out what keeps attacking you? Or maybe, just maybe, we're supposed to figure all this out together?" She felt rather than saw him slump, the frustration leaving his body.

"You're right, Ems. Why didn't I see that before? The two
are
related." He sat up, his hands gently cradling her jaw, cupping her face in his hands. Tenderly, he pressed his lips against hers, a chaste but sweet kiss before he abruptly pulled back. "It's not just those two that are related though, Emma. It's everything."

"What do you mean?" She leaned back quickly as he jumped out of bed and started pacing the room.

"It's everything! How did I not see it before?"

"I still don't understand, Matt."

He turned to face her before sitting on the edge of the bed. "Your visions started when you moved back here, didn't they?"

She nodded, but he wasn't really asking and didn't wait for an answer.

"I wasn't attacked until we got together. But it's not just us. Your visions were about James, about Altenbury Hall. Somehow, all this–“ he waved a hand around in the air, “–whatever this is, it's all connected. My family has something to do with it. Which means Jess could be in danger, too. What if she gets attacked next?"

She grabbed his hand to try and calm him. "I haven't been attacked, so what makes you think Jess would be?"

He looked her straight in the eyes. "Because you're not an Altenbury. She is. Whatever it is doing the attacks, it seems to be pretty focused on its victims. It could have attacked you by now, there have been plenty of opportunities, but you're not an Altenbury. God, I hate to say this, but I think I might need to speak to my parents. Somehow, this ties back to my family."

Matt sat on the edge of the bed, his arms resting against his thighs as he hung his head. Emma wrapped herself around his back, trying to comfort him.
So much for the calm over Christmas.
 

Clearly, January wasn't going to be as quiet.

***

Emma woke the next morning feeling like she'd forgotten something. She reached her arm out to be met by nothing but cold sheets. Where was Matt? Glancing at her alarm clock, she realised it was too early for him to have left for work. She swung her legs out of bed then winced as she tried to stand. Falling back onto the bed, she twisted her leg and saw a lovely red bruise trailing around her ankle. With a little more care that time, she managed to stand and slowly headed to the bathroom. By the time she had made it downstairs, Matt looked like he was about ready to leave.

"Morning. I thought I'd let you have a lie in. Figured you might need it," he said before leaning over to give her a quick kiss.

"Thanks, but I need to take Barney out," she replied as she leaned over to scratch Barney's head. Matt handed her a cup of coffee, which she gratefully accepted.

"I thought I might take him out for you."

She looked at him over the top of her coffee cup. "You've never taken Barney out on your own before."

Instead of answering, he turned away from her to put his cup in the sink.

"Is this to do with last night?"

The only answer she received was a slight lift of his shoulders as he stared out of the kitchen window.
 

Putting her cup down, she went over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning her cheek against his back. "You know, if we walked Barney together, I could show you exactly where I was last night." She loosened her arms as he turned to face her, resting his chin on her head.

"If you want to show me where it happened, I guess we could both walk him."

Emma smiled but didn't say anything in response.

Releasing his arms from around her, she took her coffee back upstairs with her to get dressed. Ten minutes later, she was back downstairs where Matt stood waiting with Barney, his lead already clipped on his collar. "Come on then," she said as she headed for the door.
 

As Emma made her way slowly across the field, she let Barney off his lead, and Matt walked back toward her.

"Are you okay? You're normally much quicker than this."

"I'm fine. My ankle's just a bit sore from last night."

"You want me to carry you?"

Emma laughed and shook her head. "We're here now, anyway. I was standing here, on the bridge, when I heard it." She pointed down toward the riverbed visible through the shallow stream. "And that's where I ended up."

Matt turned toward her. "You fell off the bridge?"

Emma nodded. "Yeah, but I don't hear anything today," she said as she slowly turned in a circle. "And I don't see anything, either. Just fields and a stream. Nothing unusual, nothing helpful."

Matt didn't say anything, just turned to follow Barney across the field, shoulders down, hands tucked into his pockets.
 

She trailed behind him silently across the field, noticing the thick, grey clouds overhead as a cold wind whipped at her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw nothing except an empty field, but she picked up her pace after Matt anyway.

After thinking about it all day at work, Matt made his way down Altenbury Lane toward the house he grew up in, his head filled with the many other times he had made the journey. How many times had he walked that lane on his way home from school? Either with friends or James? How many times had he walked that way after parties, or staggered back after a night at the pub? He hadn't expected to be walking that way again so soon. If he was honest, ever, actually. He'd have been quite happy to never set foot inside Altenbury Hall again. Or, more accurately, never see his parents again.
 

As he reached the end of the lane, he turned through the gate and looked across the field that led to Altenbury Hall. And suddenly, he was back to being a boy again, being chased across the field by James, Jess close on their heels. Climbing the tree to hide out in the tree house where James always found him. And there they would spend many an afternoon together, away from prying eyes, away from adult eyes. Adults who expected best behaviour at all times because they could never forget that they were Altenburys. The whole village was watching, judging. And God forbid the kids gave them anything to talk about.
 

No, an Altenbury couldn't draw attention to themselves by disappearing, for example. No, that was beneath them. Much better to pretend that nothing had happened. "Just off on another one of his jaunts. You know how James can be." He could hear his mother saying it in his head to anybody who asked where James was. Even after he'd involved the police, they were still in bloody denial. How could they not care more about their own son than the bloody family name?

With a start, he realised he was leaning over the gate to the graveyard at the back of the house. Generations of Altenburys laid at peace, his grandmother included. The stone markers of his ancestors ranged from grey to mottled green, indicators of their age even without the carved epitaphs to date them. The whisper of the oak tree had him searching the shadows it cast, calling to him. But the tree was smaller than he remembered; someone had cut a lot of its branches back. Without thought, he found himself at his grandmother’s grave. Instinctively, he bent and started to tidy the grave, removing the dead bouquet someone had left.
 

His hand grazed the headstone, his eyelids lowered as the sound of jazz music surrounded him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he could hear voices carrying over the music, the clanking of heavy cutlery, the smell of roasted meats and family history. Slowly, he opened his eyes and, although not exactly as he remembered it, it was still similar enough for him to recognise Altenbury Hall. As he tried to understand how he was inside the hall and who the guests were, his gaze was caught by a woman with golden hair. The family resemblance was obvious as golden eyes reflected back at him.
Gran?
He shook his head as the impossibility of that hit him. He had just been at her graveside.
 

Her eyes slipped past him to a young man he didn't recognise, a man she didn't look too happy to see. The man stopped in front of her, his hand out in invitation. She bowed her head fractionally before placing her hand in his. Matt's breath caught as the movement lifted her arm and he could plainly see it, recognised it even though he had only seen it once before. As the man led her away, Matt stared at the mark that circled her wrist. The skin, raised and pink, was so reminiscent of his neck in the days after he had been attacked. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Had she seen him? She'd made no sign to indicate she had.
 

The sound of the jazz music was replaced by the thrum of his blood racing through his ears. He opened his eyes to be greeted by the rows of gravestones again. Letting out the breath he had been holding, he couldn't stop the shudder that ran across his shoulders. His arms broke out in goosebumps, even under the layers of clothing he had on. If that had been his gran then she had been young, younger than he was in that moment. Whatever had attacked him could have attacked her, too. If that was the case then this monster was well over seventy years old! That couldn't be true, could it?

***

Matt pushed to his feet, his hand firmly gripping the headstone, needing to feel something solid beneath him. Standing in the shadows of Altenbury Hall, he knew the last thing he wanted right then was to speak to his parents. Maybe he wouldn't need to. The one place he needed to be at that moment was Emma's. Preferably with her but if not, Jess would probably be in.
 

Skirting the back of the big house, he made his way across the field, questions flying through his head. He tried to recall the times he had spent with his gran, of any mention of anything remotely linked to what was happening to him and Emma. But he came up blank. Surely anything remotely related to what was happening would stick in his memory. But maybe Gran had decided to confide in James? As James was the eldest, it made sense, but he had become close to Gran towards the end and found it difficult to believe she hadn't mentioned anything.
 

So engrossed in his own thoughts, he never noticed the blackness descend until the grass beneath his feet disappeared. He spread his hands out in front of him, trying to feel for anything around him. His hands hit a cold patch and he recoiled. Turning slowly, he became completely disorientated as he realised he was cut off from the world around him. Trapped in a black nothingness, his skin started to itch like a thousand spiders were crawling across him. He tried to breathe through it but could feel his heartbeat pick up, the rapid pulsing in his temple becoming an aching throb.
 

Whatever it was, he could feel it close to him, thrumming like a cat purring. Not in contentment but in anticipation of the thrill of the hunt. He imagined its claws out, poised for attack. Then he heard the scratch of nails through the turf, felt its hot breath on his face, the smell of rotting leaves clogging his nostrils and mouth. His ears were filled with a piercing cry. He could feel the pain in it as the sound vibrated through his chest.