Alys Clare - The Way Between the Worlds

Just then I was far beyond trying to think who had tried to kill her: who had wanted her dead and out of the way and so had attempted to dispatch her, just as he — perhaps she — had done with the man in the fen and poor little Herleva. All I could think of was that she was my sister, and I loved her, and I might be about to lose her.

Had I had someone’s loving arms around me to support and comfort me, it might not have been so bad. Full of self-pity now, I thought miserably that at least my aunt had had Hrype to hold her when she cried. I had nobody.

The man I loved had tried to reach me via my dreams. He had called out to me, several times, but now he called no more. My dreams of him had stopped. He had been in terrible danger, and whatever had threatened him had overcome him. He was dead; I was sure of it.

Grieving for Rollo, already dead, and for my dear Elfritha, about to join him, I crossed my arms on my sister’s bed, dropped my head and wept.

I am dreaming. .

It is twilight, or perhaps dawn. The light is unnatural; half-light. Magic light. I am close to water, for I hear it and smell it. My feet are on firm ground, but I know that the path is very narrow and that it twists and turns. It is up to me to find the safe way. Then I become aware that there are others with me, many of them, on the path behind me and depending on me to keep them from harm. The weight of responsibility sits heavily on my shoulders, pushing me down. With a great effort, I straighten my spine and stare anxiously ahead.

The safe way goes along the top of a spit of pebbly ground that snakes through the perilous sand , a spectral voice says in my head. You know this. You have the gift of finding it, and you will not go astray .

I do not know whose voice it is. I do not recognize it. But the words give me confidence, and I move on. I can feel the others, eager now, right behind me. I peer through the gloom. Where are we going? I look over my shoulder, and I see that, halfway down the long procession, there are big, broad-shouldered men who carry a heavy load. There are four of them, walking slowly, one at each corner of a sort of platform.

Proceed , says the voice.

I obey.

A cloud moves away from the moon, and now I can make out the landscape ahead. We are on the foreshore, a wide stretch of salt marsh that extends away to the distant sea. Between me and the water line there is a building of some sort. It is formed out of tall timbers, set in the damp, sandy ground in the shape of a circle. We go nearer, nearer. I begin to make out details, and I see that the timbers form an unbroken wall, in which there is one door that faces us. The voice intones, Behold, the shrine of the crossing place.

I glance up. I can tell from what I can see of the stars in the cloudy sky that the season is autumn, and that we are approaching from the west.

I can see through the open doorway into the interior of the wooden circle. Right in the middle there is the thick stump of a huge oak tree, the wide span of its roots up in the air and its short trunk bedded down deep in the sandy soil. The splayed roots look like open arms, ready to hold a precious offering up to the sky.

My dreaming self is puzzled, and for an instant my conscious mind breaks into the dream and whispers: you know what that is!

I am confused now. It feels weirdly as if there are two of me: one who walks through the dream and is unbelievably old, a figure from the ancient days of my own bloodline, and one who lies in a little room in Chatteris Abbey and wants so badly to communicate what she knows.

Then I feel my feet sink into the ground. I know in that instant that I have made a fatal mistake. I try to wrench myself free, but the shivering, sinking sands have me in a firm grip, and the more I struggle, the faster I sink. The wet sand reaches my ankles. My knees.

I look round desperately for help, but I am all alone. I try to cry out, but it is as if the deadly sand is already in my mouth and I can make no sound. Wildly, I wrestle with my silent enemy, twisting this way and that, as far as my imprisoned legs allow. There is no sign of the wooden circle. And the sea, inexplicably, is suddenly much, much closer.

The tide is coming in. .

As the terror jerks violently through my whole body and soul, I hear a voice: Lassair, LASSAIR! I need you!

I woke in a sweat of horrified fear. In my dream I had been trying to scream, and it appeared that whatever had held me mute in my dream had also prevented any sound in my living body.

Had he really called me? Oh, and if he had, and it wasn’t just some cruel element of my awful dream, then did it mean he was alive? I didn’t know !

But I had other things to think about.

My aunt still slept, as did my sister. Trying to shake off the awful visions, I gave myself a stern reprimand for falling asleep when I was meant to be watching over my patient. I bent over Elfritha, putting the flat of my hand on her forehead and listening to her quiet breathing.

It might have been my imagination, but I thought she felt cooler. More relaxed. Very tentatively, I sent a gentle thought probing into her mind. Elfritha? Are you there?

There was no response. But then, as I knelt with my eyes fixed on her white face, I thought I saw a tiny smile stretch her lips, so brief that if I hadn’t been watching so closely, I’d have missed it.

She had been lying on her back, corpse-still. Now I saw her give a little frown, then turn on to her right side. Her eyelids fluttered, and she muttered something — I could not make it out — then sank back into sleep.

Was this a hopeful sign? I had no idea. In my heart I felt that it was, but it could easily have been wishful thinking. Without taking my eyes off Elfritha, I reached out and took hold of Edild’s foot, giving her big toe a firm squeeze. She made a sort of snort, mumbled something, and then sat up and glared at me.

‘You told me to wake you if anything happened,’ I said, trying to keep my tone neutral.

Instantly, she was at my side. She ran her hands over Elfritha — her face, her chest, her arms — and, opening one of Elfritha’s eyelids, stared into her eye, repeating the action with the other one. I dared not speak, for I sensed how hard she was concentrating.

After an eternity, she said, very quietly, ‘Lassair go and fetch some fresh water, and make sure it is not too cold.’

I did as she ordered. I filled a cup, put the spoon in it and held it out to her. She was supporting my sister’s head with one hand, and with the other she put a little water on the spoon and held it to Elfritha’s lips.

‘You must drink, Elfritha,’ she said softly. ‘Your body needs water, and I have some here. Drink.’

This time, it was not just a question of a single drop. This time, my sister gulped down the entire spoonful.

She had barely stirred, and now, as Edild gently laid her head back down on the pillow, she went straight back to sleep. Quite soon she was making small snuffling noises, like a baby.

I met Edild’s eyes. After a long moment, she permitted herself a small smile. ‘We must not hope too much,’ she said, ‘but I believe that water may stay down.’ She glanced back at Elfritha. ‘We will just have to wait and see.’

I was burning to speak to Edild about my dream. I knew she could help; I knew it with absolute certainty. I pictured the strange wooden circle again, readily able to bring the vivid dream-vision back to mind.

I had once seen something similar; only, that one was off the east coast and it was a mere ruin, battered down by centuries — millennia — of wind, sand and sea. When I was first told of it, I had recalled, with a shiver of dread, that Edild had described another. Hers was up on the coast to the north of the fens, and it was one of the most sacred locations of our ancient ancestors, a people who had lived so long ago that even Edild, wise as she is, had not been able to tell me how many thousands of years stretched between them and us. Our memory of them was in our blood and our hearts rather than our minds; sometimes, my aunt had said, they could feel very, very close. .