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Post by marianne on Apr 17, 2008 1:36:11 GMT
This sample is not to be reproduced without permission of the publisher
The Darkness Within,
Jason Nahrung with Mil Clayton
ISBN 978 0 7344 0971 3
Hachette Australia, 2007.
France, September, 1944.
The knife was sharp and cold under Genevieve LeFevre’s thumb. The thought of it slicing through her flesh made her ill, but it was a small price to pay. Around the world men and women were sacrificing their lives for freedom; why should she expect to risk less?
She caressed the heavy book in her lap, trying to draw comfort from the leather-bound wisdom it contained. Not long now and she would put it to the test.
The moonlight was strong enough for her to see most of the devastated village from her perch on the ruined stairwell. It reminded Genevieve of a cemetery, ruined and desecrated; the ideal setting in which to say goodbye to the life she had known.
Wind whispered like a lonely flute through exposed wires; the smell of dust, ash and cordite still lingered. Genevieve hunched inside her pullover and stroked the amber ring on her right hand to summon warmth and courage. She looked up at the moon and told herself ton concentrate on the task ahead.
Genevieve had chosen the village carefully. It was close enough to the chateau for her to get here quickly and far enough for any of Petr’s patrols not to stumble across her. The wreckage and isolation around her insured there would be no mundane witnesses.
Allied forces had pushed through this area only two weeks earlier, driving eastwards in an offensive that had begun in June when they landed at Normandy. Paris, less than a day’s drive from the village, had been liberated a month ago. That had been her sign that the time to act was now. That, and the nascent life stirring in her womb. It had been surprisingly simple to hide the fact from those who had long stopped looking. In truth, she too had given up. Thirty-five was old to be giving birth for the first time. There were dangers, but she was prepared to face them. At least she would not be alone.
She smiled as Jehail’s tall, thin form picked its way across the devastated room, every footstep silent as he crossed the treacherous mounds of brick and timber.
He kneeled and looked into her eyes..
“All set, ma petite,” Jehail said. His gaze explored her face, the book and the blade on her lap. “Are you certain this is what you want?”
“I have no choice..” Her hand caressed her stomach. “Have you seen the Parisiennes?”
“Not yet, but they will come. My clues were most exact.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That the great Genevieve, having failed to fall pregnant yet again and afraid of her master’s wrath, has fled the cabal. That she would be here – alone..”
“As long as they arrive before Petr,” she said, looking towards the south where the chateau lay untouched by the conflict that had engulfed the continent and the rest of the world.
“Your shields are intact?” Jehail asked.
“For now.” Her hand fluttered to her chest where the pendant hung on a silver chain. She had cast the enchantment herself; no one would be able to detect her presence without her wishing it. Especially Petr; she had used a lock of his hair and a drop of semen to ensure her invisibility, and soon she would enact an even more powerful rite to remove herself and her baby from his world.
“Then have no fear,” Jehail said. “The foe will arrive before Herr Doktor, or any of his minions.” His words were strong and sure, yet his eyes flicked to the side, searching.
Genevieve touched his arm. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I know.”
“There can be no going back, Jehail. No room for doubt or mistrust.”
He took her hands. His fingers were long and thin and pale, yet so strong. She stood and felt his firmness envelop her as they embraced. “Where you go, I will go also,” he whispered.
“It may be far, it may be dangerous,” she said.
“I don’t mind, as long as you are safe. You and your child. Ah, the Paris coven has arrived. And over-confident, too.”
He disengaged himself and faced the north. She heard a muted growl as a vehicle picked its way through the rubble-littered streets. The village had been levelled. The survivors had presumably fled to join relatives elsewhere or perhaps they had gone to Paris to rejoice in the liberation. The motor stopped and Genevieve sent her senses roaming to find them. The hunters had been careless. They had announced their presence, but now they would close in for the kill silently on foot. She withdrew her scrying before they could detect her watching their advance.
“The explosives are set?” Genevieve asked.
Jehail nodded. “There will be little left in the aftermath. I’ll make sure of that. Petr will need magic to be certain of what happened here.”
“He will find a deception. I am confident that the evidence of my death will not communicate my true condition. He will think I died here, alone and barren.”
Genevieve gripped the knife with a trembling hand. Dying here was a real possibility. She had never attempted to cast a spell this powerful. For the sake of her child, she had to try. Better to risk death on her own terms than face the certain fate awaiting them both in the clutches of Petr’s cabal. Ever since her mother’s murder, Genevieve had prepared for this moment: researching magic, defying Petr and subverting his most trust servant. It was time to put her abilities and Jehail’s loyalty to the test.
Jehail’s eyes glowed red as he conjured his supernatural abilities. “The Parisiennes are coming down the main road, probably just entering what’s left of the square. Four, perhaps six; it is hard to separate their footfalls at this distance when they are shielded.”
“Then let us delay no longer, mon cher.” She held out the knife, a butcher’s blade she had taken from the chateau’s kitchen, and opened the book where she had written the rite. He took the blade from her and wet his lips with his tongue. She saw the white points of his fangs and couldn’t help the shiver of fear that passed through her. “Time for you to help me disappear,” she whispered.
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Post by marianne on Apr 17, 2008 1:36:46 GMT
Chapter 1
Another rain squall splashed across the windshield, as hard and thick as guilt, and yet again Emily wondered what in the hell she was doing out here on a night like this.
The radio crackled with static – damn CD player was on the blink again and she could no more afford to repair it than replace it. Emily could barely hear The Eurythmics, singing about the rain coming on..
“No shit,” she said, stabbing at the off switch. Not even ’80s FM could make her feel better tonight.
Emily peered through the station wagon’s windscreen, shivering in the sudden quiet.. Here she was, locked in her steel cage with the sound of the windscreen wipers, the drumming rain on the roof, the sluicing of water under the tyres. The beat of the wipers has to be the loneliest noise in the world, she thought. Like a metronome, indefatigable, counting down… counting down what?
She reached for the cigarettes in the tray. Giving the fragrance bear hanging from the rear-vision mirror an apologetic grin, she worked a long, thin stick from the packet.
“This is my last pack, promise,” she muttered as she popped the lighter. She needed the boost.
The message on the answering machine kept replaying in her mind: I have your grandmother’s journal. I must give it to you tonight. Meet me at the church – O’Brien’s church.
The voice had been deep and accented, possibly disguised, but still resonating with vague sensuality.
“Mysterious prick,” she said, blowing a calming waft of smoke at her reflection on the windshield. Probably some prank, but she couldn’t resist. Her eyes flicked to the plastic bag on the seat beside her. It contained a copy of The Hobbit, waiting to be gift-wrapped for Madeline’s eighth birthday next week. Nanna had wanted Madeline to have the journal the stranger on the phone claimed to have, expressly requesting it be given to the child when she turned eight. The timing was uncanny.
How had the caller got the journal anyway? And yes, Emily’s life was that boring. So dull that a cryptic message on her answering machine was capable of hauling her out into torrential rain at ten o’clock at night on a road to nowhere.
A white flash by the roadside reefed her attention back to the present. “Sonofabitch!” Emily braked and almost dropped her cigarette as she fought to control the car’s sliding halt. She looked back through the rivulets on the rear window. Morrison Road. Damn near missed her turnoff.
She threw the wagon into reverse and speared back to the intersection. The wipers fought to clear the windshield as she stared at the signpost, curiosity battling with the niggling suspicion that she was being played for a sucker. But he had mentioned the journal and Father O’Brien… the Father O’Brien, who had buried both her maternal grandparents and had told her to call him if she ever needed anything. She hadn’t.
Now Emily sat, engine idling, remembering the last time she had driven out here. It had been to attend her grandmother’s funeral. One of the last conversations she had had with Nanna had involved the old lady’s journal. The words were so fresh in her mind it was as though her grandmother was sitting in the back seat talking to her.
“When I’m gone, I want you to look after my journal until Madeline is old enough to read it,” Nanna Margaret had said. “Don’t let your sister know; she won’t approve. And don’t let her sell off my jewellery.” She stroked the gold band on her right finger, absently toying with the amber gem set flat in the metal. “I know Darcy thinks it’s just junk, but I want Madeline to have it. Maybe you should keep it and give it to Maddy when she turns eight. She should be old enough by then, don’t you think?”
Emily had agreed to the unusual request, but when Nanna had gone so too had the book. While Darcy pleaded ignorance about the journal, she had no qualms admitting she had taken Nanna’s jewellery – something for Madeline to play with as she got older, she’d said. It had been a trying time. The relationship between Emily and her older sister had been tense at best. Darcy increasingly threw her weight around as their mother Wendy’s already tenuous hold on reality had further unravelled. Finally Darcy and Emily had agreed to have Wendy committed full time to the institution. And now, a mysterious man was offering the heirloom to Emily on a now-or-never basis. Well, he could sure pick his nights.
“Ah, what the hell,” Emily mumbled, and steered the car off the bitumen on to the narrow, unsealed road. She wouldn’t be much of a wannabe photojournalist if she let something like this go uninvestigated.
The muddy surface was slippery as soap. Dark trees crowded the road and brown water rushed down the shallow ditches on either side. The tyres thumped over rocks and slid in the red muck. If she got stuck, it would be dawn before the roadside assistance guys got here. Assuming her mobile even worked this far outside Sydney. Hard enough to get a signal in the suburbs, let alone out here in the boonies. Out here, on her own.
Emily slowed down even further. Her face reflected a sickly green in the windscreen’s dashboard glow. The glint of her nose ring distracted her from the angry scowl she wore. This was a mistake. She should have asked Brett to come with her instead of leaving a message on his home phone. He would have come, if she had asked. But it was his squash night, and she did not want him to know how desperate she was for a date on a Friday night. He would have laughed if he had known, maybe warned her not to come. She was tempted to turn around and go back, but she couldn’t. The road was too narrow, the verges too soggy. She could not risk getting stranded out here.
Lightning flashed, making her flinch as the car lit up. A nearby gum tree glowed pale, then vanished back into the storm-dark murk.
“Screw you, Mister Mysterious. First chance I get, I’m turning this bucket around and going home.” The thought of a hot shower comforted her. She rounded a corner, relieved to find an open space. Then her spirits sank. A sign: St Patrick’s. A familiar short gravel driveway, an overgrown yard, a stone building. The white rocks placed at regular intervals along the drive were all too suggestive of headstones. “St Patrick’s,” she mumbled. Her rendezvous.
The small stone church looked forlorn as it huddled under its angled, tiled roof in the downpour. The front porch was in darkness.
Damn if it was not raining harder. She could barely see the building. But she had come this far. The least this guy could do was tell her why.
A light went on. She squinted. Couldn’t see anyone, just the glimmer of the bulb on the porch.
“Well, that’s bloody hospitable of you,” she grumbled, then retrieved a can of mace from her vinyl bag. The spray made her think of Martin. It had been his idea of a gift smuggled back from a trip to the US. Should’ve given him a taste of it before he’d abandoned me, she thought. She put the tube in her pocket where she could reach it easily, just in case. Maybe she could give her mysterious caller a squirt just for the inconvenience.
Emily took a deep breath, opened the car door and stepped out. Her shoes were going to be disgusting by the time she got to the porch. But she had dressed for the weather, and her Docs were not going to complain in the morning.
Hard rain made her flinch and she pulled her overcoat’s collar higher and tighter around her throat. She felt horribly exposed as she ran, bent against the wind, her long, thin shadow jumping before her in the car’s headlights.. Maybe she should have turned the lights off. If the battery went flat, she’d be stuck here.. The thought made her quail, but she needed the dubious security the lights offered.
Emily clomped up the few stairs on to the porch landing. It was dry. No one had come here since the rain had started. Not that it meant anything. The porch light was suspended in an old coach lamp, wired for electricity. The bulb was pathetically underpowered, barely illuminating the iron-bound door. Two crosses were carved in the timber at face level. She traced them with a finger. It had been four years since Nanna’s funeral, but the feeling of loss made her chest ache. She could still remember the scent of candle wax and flowers, and the disbelief that someone as warm and loving as her grandmother could attract so few people to her funeral.
Water dribbled inside Emily’s coat, down the back of her skivvy She shivered and dismissed the surging emotions with a toss of her bobbed hair, no doubt already starting to curl now that it was wet. Time to find out what this guy’s game was and get back to that hot shower.
Numb fingers pushed against the chill timber. The door moved only slightly. The hairs on the back of her neck tried desperately to be elsewhere. She leaned against the door, feeling its resistance. Heavy sucker. Hinges creaked as it reluctantly opened, just enough to let her slip inside before refusing to open any farther.
Shoulders hunched, she listened intently as her eyes adjusted. Just the rain; water dripping somewhere close; the pounding of her heart. Musty, stale air, and now, she could see dull shapes. Cardboard boxes? And, on the other side of the small vestibule, another door, smaller and of paler wood.
Emily took a step forward, following the grey beam of light coming through the door from outside. If only she had brought a torch! Stupid. What had she been expecting? A candlelit restaurant? Maybe a roaring fire and a bow-tied waiter?
“Hello?” she called, voice rasping. She gathered her breath, and shouted: “You rang?”
No answer.
“Father O’Brien?”
She should leave. This was crazy.. Actually, it was getting a bit scary. Was it too much to ask to be able to find a light switch?
A faint edge of light outlined the internal door. Maybe the man had not heard her call over the noise of the rain, which meant she could leave and no one would be the wiser. But someone had turned on the front light. Someone knew she was here.
Emily bit her lip, then steeled herself and pulled out the mace. She wanted – deserved – answers. Apologies, even. How had Mister Mysterious got her nanna’s journal? And how much would he want for it? He had rung the wrong granddaughter if it was money he was after.
Quietly, Emily crept to the internal door and pushed. It swung open more easily than she had expected, escaped her hand and thumped against the wall. She froze, eyes darting to see if anyone had heard. Silence, but for the dull drum of rain on the roof, the distant rumble of thunder.
Candelabra flickered along the walls, filling the room with a soft, uncertain glow. On the altar, a single fat candle burned like a beacon. It barely illuminated a crucifix above, Christ hanging in serene agony as he regarded the rows of empty pews. Emily straightened and licked her lips, wishing desperately for a light switch, a cigarette and a large gun, but not sure about the order.
A familiar polyphonic tune sliced the quiet. Stairway to Heaven, if you listened closely.
“Jesus Christ!” Her phone.. Not now.. She clutched at her handbag but managed only to knock it from her shoulder Its contents spilled across the floor. A tube of deodorant rattled into the gloom.
Emily snatched up her mobile phone and jabbed the button.
“Yes?” she shouted into the receiver. She scanned the room desperately as she kneeled, phone cradled awkwardly between cheek and shoulder. The church remained empty as she placed the mace beside her and shovelled tissues and tampons and other paraphernalia back into the Tardis that was her handbag.
“Hey! Are you all right?” asked a worried voice over the phone.
Speechless with relief, Emily could not reply.. She just clutched the phone to her ear so tightly it pushed painfully against her earrings.
“Em, it’s Brett. Are you okay? Where are you?”
Emily laughed and ran her free hand through her sodden hair. “Hey, neighbour. You nearly scared the shit outta me!”
“Oh, sorry. I was late getting your message. What’s the story?”
“I dunno,” she said. “I think someone’s playing silly buggers.” Then she said, louder, so her voice echoed in the room: “It’s pissing me off, actually.”
A gust of wind slammed the vestibule doors. The candles went out. Emily jumped, squealed, grabbed for the mace but knocked it away.
“Oh shit,” she whimpered.
“Em! What is it?” Brett’s voice sounded distant. “Are you –?”
The phone died. “Shit!” She shook it, thumped it against her leg “Brett!” On hands and knees, she scrambled after the mace. Her fingers found a cool, smooth tube…
The altar candle flickered into life. She turned. A man.
“Don’t you come any fucking closer!” She pointed the mace at him.
He smiled, features shadowed and orange in the candle flame. “Or what?”
“What?” She looked at the mace. Not mace. Breath freshener. Fuck!
“Don’t worry, Miss Winters,” he said, voice calm as he walked towards her, cradling the candle in his left hand, shielding it with his right. “You and your makeup are quite safe. For now.”
“What the hell does that mean? What do you think you’re doing, creeping around like that?”
“Fulfilling a promise,” he said, and reached down to help her stand. “Your grandmother called me Jay.”
She ignored his hand, stood on quivering knees and dusted down her jeans, then looked him in the eye.
Damn. He was gorgeous. A little older than her, perhaps, but not enough to make a difference. Stylish, too. Knee-high leather boots. Black trousers. A silver belt buckle, its pattern indiscernible in the candlelight. Black pullover, of military style from what she could see under an ankle-length DrizABone.
“You’re the one. The man who rang.”
Long hair, generous lips, dark eyes… Trust her; couldn’t snag a decent man in a year of bars and clubs, but she could find a handsome weirdo at the drop of a phone call.
“You came alone,” Jay said.
“So?” she asked, risking a glance over her shoulder. No one was there. So it was just the two of them, as far as she could tell. “Where’s Father O’Brien?”
“On an errand.”
“At this time of night?”
“Time is short,” he said, then gestured to the nearest pew. “Shall we sit?”
“Sure,” she said, and snatched up her handbag before plonking herself down at the end closest to the aisle – and the door.
“So what’s with the candles?” she asked.
He pointed to the roof. “The rain. It has affected the wiring. I prefer the candles.” He shrugged. “The light is less harsh… more intimate, no?”
Heat rose within her, surprising and annoying. Fortunately, annoyed she could do. “Well?” she demanded. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
“I’m sorry.. I had no choice but to call you here tonight.” His voice carried an air of despondency well suited to the church’s dilapidated condition: neglected, but still noble. His smile turned sad, like that of someone bearing bad news. Like Nanna’s friend, Bill, when he’d told Emily her grandmother had died.
Jay sat near her, candle cupped in one hand. His fingers were long – a pianist perhaps. A tough pianist, uncaring of the molten wax dripping on to his hand. He leaned forward, gaze fixed on hers. The hint of melancholy had been replaced by cold determination; the man was a wolf, not a puppy.
Goose pimples covered Emily’s arms.
“Lives are at stake,” he said.
“Lives? Are you threatening me?” She tried to inch away; she could not let him see her growing apprehension. Her anger, she realised, was all she had.
“Threaten you? No, not me. Never me.” He placed the candle on to the pew, leaving his hands free. “But those who would are closing in. I have done as much as I can. Now, the rest is up to you. ”
The hard timber of the seat pressed into Emily’s back and she realised she could retreat no farther. “Who’s coming? Tell me what this is all about, or I swear I’m walking out of here right now” She clasped her bag tighter, aware of the black hole where her mace should have been.
“You don’t trust me,” he began. A series of smart retorts jammed in her throat and she sat, frustratingly mute, as he continued: “Your grandmother’s name was Marguerite. She died four years ago, when the jacarandas were blooming.”
Nanna. Margaret.. “So? What’s your point?” Emily seized on her frustration, letting it override her mounting fear. “Why have you dragged me out here with all this mysterious bullshit? Couldn’t we have just had a coffee?” Somewhere dry and warm, with lots of people around?
“I am sorry. I had no choice. I do not know how much longer this place will be safe from their eyes, even with the storm’s protection. No one must see us.”
He reached into his overcoat and Emily held her breath, body tensed. Here it comes, she thought. The knife, the gun… And in a church, for pity’s sake.
She gasped when he brought out the book, as thick as a Bible, smaller than a phone book. The familiar leather cover, soft and wrinkled and still smelling like a new sofa somehow, the corners anchored by scratched silver triangles. For a moment, her fear was overwhelmed by a montage of memories: flowers and incense, white curtains, shelves of family portraits and porcelain knick-knacks. She remembered her nanna, eyes tired but still alight, propped up on big white cushions as Emily told her about being accepted into art school. “You’ve got to follow your talent,” Nanna had said, and then told Emily about the cancer. She would see Emily graduate, she had said. She’d been wrong.
“Where did you get that?” Emily demanded, throat hoarse and tight. Anger washed over her anxiety in a red wave. That book had been by the side of Nanna’s bed, the old lady’s hand patting it like a favourite dog. And now this creep had it.
“I knew Marguerite, very well,” Jay said. “We were friends for … a long time. She gave me the book, to keep it safe until the time was right for it to be passed on. You must take it. Read it. Receive your inheritance.”
Emily searched his face for deceit, for bullshit, for some arrogant torture. But all she saw was urgency and, to her surprise, sorrow.
“It was supposed to go to Madeline. It was never meant for me.” Was that bitterness in her voice? Or just suspicion? Was she bitching to him?
“Marguerite was wrong,” he said. “We all were. It should have gone to you, and much sooner. And now, there is so little time…”
“Nanna never mentioned anyone called Jay,” she said.. Her accusatory tone was rewarded with a blink.
“I was her… secret friend. I am in here.” He indicated the book.
“Secret friend?” she said, the edge of mocking laughter in her voice. “How about you just give me the damn book and we get out of here, whaddya say?”
“In good time,” he said. “You will need the Grimoire to continue Marguerite’s work.”
“Nanna never worked,” Emily said, eyeing the book. What had he called it? It sounded French, maybe a fancy name for a journal. That would explain his accent, his manner.
“Marguerite did more than you can ever know, but, sadly, it was not enough. And now you must take her place.” Jay cocked his head, lips parted, as the candle by his side flickered in a sudden draft. She heard only the storm outside. “Too late,” he said, resignation tugging the corners of his mouth into a hard line. “I thought that, between the storm and the wards on this place, we would be hidden, but again, I have underestimated the foe. I had hoped for more time, a gentler entrée for you, but… I pray you are half the woman Marguerite proved to be. You still have the pendant she gave you for your thirteenth birthday?”
Emily’s hand reflexively touched the locket at her throat. “I never take it off,” she said, half to the lingering memory of Nanna, half to him. “How did you –?”
“Good. Keep it that way,” he commanded, his voice resonating with restrained urgency. “It will help hide you from their sight. And Marguerite’s ring?”
It took Emily a moment to catch up. “No, I didn’t get any of her jewellery.”
Jay frowned, then leaned forward and held out the book. “This will have to do for now. Guard it, read it. Your life, and the lives of a great many others, depends on it.”
She faltered, eyeing the book as confusion again threatened to overwhelm her. “What do you mean, lives depend on it?”
“Take it!”
She grabbed the end he thrust towards her but he kept hold, stabbed his finger at the silver sigil on the cover. “Remember, the symbol is the key,” he said urgently.
Emily thrust the book into her bag and asked, “What the fuck do you mean, the symbol –?”
Jay hauled Emily to her feet and shoved her down the aisle before she could strike out or protest. “Quickly. They are here..”
“Who?”
Without answering, he propelled her towards the vestibule. On the way he stooped, grabbed something from the floor and thrust it into her hand. “Take this, you might need it.”
Her mace. She gripped it, drawing strength from the hard cylinder.
Jay stood by the door, listening. Then he stepped back and drew a sawn-off shotgun from under his DrizABone. He worked the pump action with a metallic snick-snack.
Emily gasped and backed against the wall, arms up before her in a pointless gesture of protection. He shook his head with an angry thrust of his chin indicated the door to the vestibule.
“Open it and step back,” he said.
She stumbled in her haste to open the door. Jay pointed the shotgun into the vestibule. Nothing moved but a few leaves, scuttling like bugs over the floor in the cold wind gusting through the outer doorway. Jay motioned her into the vestibule, then followed. The porch light glowed wanly.
“You have to leave,” Jay urged. “I can’t hold them for long.”
Emily’s car seemed a long way away. The headlights were still on. She studied Jay, searching for an explanation. He peered past her, scanning the churchyard, his lips drawn back, eyes red in the headlights. The whole time she had wanted nothing more than to find out what he wanted and leave. Now that he was telling her to go, the last thing she felt like doing was to run, alone, into the cold and rain.
He said, “Go, and don’t look back.”
“What about you?”
He shook his head. “I can’t let them catch you. Remember, the symbol is the key. Now go!”
A sound from the back of the church made her turn. Most of the nave was in darkness, but in the narrow beam shining through from outside, she saw black shapes darting past the pulpit. Flitting dark bodies, giving an impression of big dogs, but somehow wrong, sliding over and through and around the pews. Jay pulled the internal door shut, then seized Emily’s upper arm. He thrust her out on to the porch and slammed the outer door behind her.
“Run,” he shouted, voice muffled by the thick timber.
Emily splashed to the car, opened the door and paused, one foot in, one out. A gunshot, inside the church. And again, the sound unmistakable despite the rain, the roar of her fear. And again. In her head, Jay’s voice: “Run!”
Emily threw her handbag in, slammed the car door behind her, hit the lock, fumbled to get the key into the ignition. The wagon fishtailed as she whipped it around on the sodden gravel, full acceleration spitting pebbles and muck in a wide arc. Something struck her window, making her recoil. She heard a deep scraping sound as she gunned the car towards the highway. Then she was alone with the rain and the wipers and the pounding of her heart as she concentrated on keeping the station wagon on the road.
Finally she hit the bitumen and, as the rocks and mud gave way to the wet thrum of tarmac, Emily had time to take stock. Her handbag had fallen open, spilling her nanna’s journal on the passenger seat, the only proof she had to show this wasn’t some ridiculous dream.
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