Yesterday's Sun (16 page)

It wasn’t laughter she heard now but the sound of a familiar, friendly voice as a hand reached out to her to help her to her feet.

“Holly? Are you all right? What happened in here?” Jocelyn asked anxiously.

Holly looked up helplessly and as she met the older woman’s eyes she couldn’t help but feel safe, at least for the moment, and she brought her thoughts back to the present. She even managed a smile as she looked at the proffered hand, knowing that the gesture was more likely to result in Jocelyn being pulled down with her than helping Holly to her feet.

She stood up without assistance and took a deep breath. “I burned the cake,” she told Jocelyn. Her hands were curled into fists and her fingernails dug deep into her palms. Tears sprang to her eyes but she refused to let them fall.

Jocelyn frowned but then gave Holly time to collect her thoughts by turning to the kitchen door and opening it wide to drive away the smell of smoking sugar and incinerated sponge cake.

“Well, it’s a good job I brought some scones from the tea shop with me,” Jocelyn said, once the room had cleared of acrid smoke. She picked up her shopping bag and took out a cake box before turning back to Holly. “What happened?” she said, repeating her question but expecting a proper answer now.

Holly lifted a dishcloth up from the kitchen table to reveal a circular scorch mark.

“Oh, I see,” replied Jocelyn cautiously. She knew even this disaster wasn’t enough to justify Holly’s near-catatonic state, but she said nothing else. Instead she bided her time and busied herself tidying away some of the mess left in the aftermath of Holly’s culinary disaster. With the ease of an expert homemaker, Jocelyn managed to clear away the chaos and brew up a strong pot of tea in a matter of minutes.

Lifting a trembling china cup to her lips, Holly took a sip of the sweet tea. She looked at Jocelyn over the rim of her teacup and wondered not just where to begin but whether she had the guts to begin at all. How was she going to explain why a scorch mark on the table had filled her with such terror?

“I need Tom to come home,” whispered Holly.

“You’re missing Tom? Oh, sweetheart, he’ll be home soon. He is due home soon, isn’t he? Or has something changed? Is that why you’re upset?”

Holly shook her head. She had so far refused to allow herself to make sense of her visions. Every time something in her present life created a link with her visions, she had explained it away. The conservatory, Tom’s haircut, the doors changing position, even the pink teddy bear—she had dismissed them all as coincidences and mind games. But the scorch mark was something else. The scorch mark, it would seem, was the final nail in her coffin. Amid the chaos of the burning toffee sauce and the thoughtless act of transferring the hot pan from the stove to the table, Holly hadn’t changed her future; she had confirmed it.

Still trying to push away her thoughts, there was only one constant. “I just need Tom with me right now,” she told Jocelyn.

“His traveling won’t last forever and you’ve said yourself how it will help his career. It’ll be worth it in the end when he’s got a good job based back in London. You’ll have the rest of your lives to make up for lost time then, and you’ll look back and long for the peace and quiet once you’ve got a house full of kids,” added Jocelyn with a jovial laugh, which was meant to lighten Holly’s mood but sent it spiraling down further into the murky depths of despair.

As Holly went to put her teacup down on the saucer with trembling hands, it slipped from her grasp, splashing remnants of her tea across the table. “Why do I make such a mess of things?” cried Holly, leaping up to grab the dishcloth before the spillage reached Jocelyn’s side of the table.

As she turned back around, Jocelyn was already standing there beside her. She took the cloth from Holly’s hand, discarded it on the table, and then wrapped Holly in her arms.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Jocelyn pleaded.

“I can’t,” whispered Holly. “I’m so scared, Jocelyn! I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”

Jocelyn squeezed Holly tighter to her as she felt her friend’s body shaking with fear. She started to rub her back. “It’s all right. I’m here. Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right. I promise.”

Holly looked up at Jocelyn. How different her life would have been if she’d had a mother like Jocelyn. But at least Jocelyn was with her now, and Holly didn’t have to deal with her living nightmare on her own, not anymore. “I’m going crazy, but I know if I say it out loud it’ll just make it real and I don’t want it to be real,” she explained, fighting the suppressed tears that were burning the back of her throat.

“Oh, sweetheart, tell me what’s wrong. You can’t keep it all to yourself. I promise you I won’t judge.”

Holding her breath in an effort to bring her shaking body under control, Holly hiccupped back a suppressed sob. She looked into Jocelyn’s eyes and the steeliness in her gaze gave Holly the strength to speak the unspeakable. “I’m going to die,” she whispered. “I’m going to die and I don’t want to. I don’t want to leave Tom in such a mess. I don’t want to leave Libby without a mother.”

Finally she took a breath, but as she paused, she noticed that Jocelyn had tensed her body. Jocelyn released her grip and took a step back to look Holly in the eye.

“How do you know all of this?” she asked hesitantly.

“I’ve seen it. I don’t know how,” Holly hiccupped. “I don’t know how it works, but it has something to do with the moondial. It isn’t broken at all. It works and I think it showed me my future. I’m going to die in childbirth on September twenty-ninth next year.”

“You need a glass of water for those hiccups,” Jocelyn said as she unraveled Holly from her arms and turned toward the kitchen sink.

“Did you hear what I said? I’ve either gone completely crazy or the moondial has helped me travel forward in time and it showed me that I’m going to die,” whispered Holly, horrified that she might have just made a fool of herself. Of course Jocelyn would think she had lost her mind. What else was she supposed to think?

Jocelyn’s hand trembled as she handed Holly a glass of cold water. Holly was too upset to notice. She took the glass but rather than sip it she put it to her forehead to cool her brow. She couldn’t look Jocelyn in the eyes.

“Would it help if I told you that I died, too?”

The glass in Holly’s hand slipped between her fingers but she saved it just in time to prevent the table from being damaged further. She sat down again when she felt her legs about to give way. “I don’t understand,” she said, stumbling over her words, but in her heart a spark of hope ignited.

“I used the dial, too, Holly.” Jocelyn sat down on the chair next to her and grabbed her hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have said something when I saw that you’d resurrected the dial, but I hoped you wouldn’t work out how to use it, that you wouldn’t need to use it.”

“You saw your own death and you changed it?” Holly squeezed Jocelyn’s hands, holding on to the hope that was now glowing brightly. It was almost enough to know that she wasn’t going mad, that the whole thing wasn’t just her mind unraveling. Yet Jocelyn wasn’t simply telling her that the moondial really did have the power to look into the future, but that the future could be changed.

Jocelyn nodded and Holly felt a sense of control she hadn’t felt for days. “Tell me. Tell me what happened.” She bit her lip and waited for Jocelyn to explain.

Jocelyn let go of Holly’s hand and visibly sagged in her chair. She was quiet for the longest time and Holly wasn’t sure if she was going to speak. When she did, it was in a barely audible, trembling whisper.

“I’ve already told you about Harry, what he was like and why I left. Well, that was only partly true. Harry was bad enough, but it was only through the moondial that I saw how things would get worse, so much worse …” Jocelyn’s head was bowed down and she sat staring at her hands as she recalled her time in the gatehouse. “That was why I left him, you see, to avoid the trouble that would come.”

Holly sat mesmerized as she watched Jocelyn lift her eyes toward the kitchen window. It may have been the height of summer, but it seemed a cold, mournful day outside. Jocelyn couldn’t see the moondial from where she was sitting, but she obviously felt its presence bearing down on her.

“It’s been such a long time and I tried to convince myself it was just a weird and complicated dream,” offered Jocelyn. “It was so much easier than living with the guilt.” Jocelyn glanced at Holly and gave her a weak smile before returning her gaze to the window.

“What happened?” Holly asked.

“I was horrified when Harry plonked the dial in the middle of the garden, which was just what he wanted. The garden was my escape, the only part of my life that I felt I could control, and he wanted to destroy that, too.”

“Why did you stay with him?”

“I was an unskilled, unloved housewife and Harry had spent more than enough years eroding my self-confidence. I just didn’t believe I could fend for myself and, more importantly, provide for Paul.”

“And the moondial showed you that you could?” Holly asked.

“No, the moondial showed me what would happen if I didn’t.” Jocelyn paused, still trembling with fear. “To cut a long story short, I saw a future where I hadn’t been able to endure any more of Harry’s mental and physical torture. I took my own life, Holly. It was the ultimate act of selfishness, not least because without me to deride and humiliate, Paul became Harry’s new target.”

Despite the horror of the story Jocelyn was revealing, a story that had been played out in this very house, Holly felt her heart lighten. “So you can change the future that the moondial shows you?” Holly was aware that she was repeating herself, but she had seen a flicker of hope and she needed to hold on to it.

“It’s not easy; everything comes at a price.”

Holly shook her head, dismissing Jocelyn’s warning. “I’d do anything to change what I saw. In my vision, I walked into this house and had to watch Tom suffering so much, grieving for me. The worst part about it was that I was standing there, right in front of him, and he couldn’t see me. The thought of him looking straight through me still sends a shudder down my spine.”

“Ah, reflection is the key, remember. That’s how the moondial works. The light from the sun is reflected onto the surface of the moon and it’s this borrowed light that is reflected further into the future through the moondial. But you are a reflection; you’re not really there.”

“So that’s why Tom can’t see me. But I still don’t understand—because Libby could see me. I’m sure of it.”

“Libby? Is she the baby you had?”

“Oh, Jocelyn, she’s beautiful. You should see her. In fact you already have, she’s the baby I based my sculpture on,” added Holly proudly.

Jocelyn smiled. “Then yes, she is beautiful. Holly, I wish I could explain why she could see you but I don’t know everything. Even Charles Hardmonton never understood exactly how it worked.”

“So I was right: he did make the moondial from the Moon Stone.”

Jocelyn nodded. “I know your presence will be stronger when you’re in direct moonlight, but I think sometimes it doesn’t matter how strong the reflection is; people will refuse to see what’s right in front of them. An adult, in particular, can’t accept what shouldn’t be there, but a child just might.”

“Did Paul see you?”

Jocelyn shook her head. “He was older and very, very angry.”

“Because you abandoned him?”

It was Jocelyn’s turn to stifle a sob. “He was right to hate me, still is.”

“Why should he still hate you? You saved him, didn’t you?”

“It’s complicated. There’s so much more you need to know about the moondial and its rules.” The tears were flowing freely down Jocelyn’s face.

In a reversal of roles, it was now Holly who was comforting Jocelyn. She went to the cupboard and fetched her a tissue. “Right,” Holly said. “I’m all ears. Tell me everything. Tell me everything I need to do to change things.”

“There’s just so much. Where to begin?” Jocelyn said, almost to herself. She was staring down at the paper tissue in her hands, which she twisted furiously with trembling fingers. “There’s the journal, of course. It was given to me not long after Harry bought the dial and it explains as much as anyone has ever learned about how it works. I haven’t looked at the journal for nearly thirty years, haven’t wanted to. When I left this house, I never wanted to see the dial again, or anything to do with it.”

It was now Holly’s turn to reach out and steady Jocelyn’s shaking hand. “I need to know. I have a five-year plan to keep, remember? How can I become a mum if I don’t live long enough to even hold my baby?”

Holly’s tone was meant to be lighthearted to ease Jocelyn’s sobs, but it simply intensified them. Jocelyn looked up desperately into Holly’s face and shook her head in despair. “I’m sorry, Holly. I’m so sorry. I should have destroyed the dial or at least the mechanism. We weren’t meant to meddle with our futures. It’s too much of a burden.”

“Please, don’t cry,” soothed Holly, determined not to let the older woman’s fear invade her own thoughts. “We have each other now; we can each share the burden.”

“I want to. Oh, Holly I want to help you, and I will,” Jocelyn promised between heavy sobs.

Holly stood up and hurried to Jocelyn, who was crumbling before her eyes. She put her arms around her, frightened that her friend might be on the verge of collapsing, or even worse.

“It’s all right, Jocelyn. I understand. You don’t have to say any more. By my calculation, I’m due to conceive Libby at the end of December, so I’ve still got a good few months to get my head clear and decide, with your help, what I need to do.”

Holly had spoken with a generosity that she didn’t feel. She wanted all the answers and she wanted them now, but she couldn’t put Jocelyn through any more pain, not today at least. Her words seemed to do the trick. Slowly, Jocelyn’s sobs started to subside and her body relaxed a little.

“I take it you haven’t told Tom?” sniffed Jocelyn.

“I couldn’t tell him before because I didn’t know what was really happening and I didn’t want him to worry. I still don’t think I can tell him, not yet at least, not while he’s traveling so much, not until I know everything I need to know.”