definitely creepy about her.’
Hazel shivered. ‘Mum says she has the Sight, whatever that means. I remember she knew, the week before, when Uncle Gavin was going to die.’
‘When was that?’
‘Ages ago. Nearly a year. It was while you were at school.’
‘Was your uncle ill?’ Nathan inquired, looking sceptical. ‘After all, if someone is really ill, it’s fairly easy to guess when they’re going to die.’
‘No, he wasn’t. It was a – a neurism, or something. Very sudden.’
They walked on a while in silence. Nathan was frowning. ‘What did she mean,’ he said, ‘when she told you, you too are a Carlow?’
Hazel didn’t reply.
‘She thinks you’ve got power too, doesn’t she? Something you’ve inherited, like a gene for witchcraft.’
‘I’m normal,’ Hazel said abruptly. ‘I’m normal as normal. I don’t want to be like her. Anyway, Mum doesn’t have any powers that I know of. If she did, she’d be able to deal with Dad.’
‘Genes can sometimes skip a generation,’ Nathan said knowledgeably. ‘If they’re recessive. We learned about that in biology.’
‘Look, I’m not a witch, okay?’ Hazel said, her voice growing deeper as it always did when she was upset. ‘I don’t believe in witches – not even Great-grandma Effie. I’m just a girl.’
‘Pity,’ Nathan remarked. ‘Being a witch would be cool. We haven’t made much progress on other worlds, have we?’
Hazel was silent again, scuffing her feet as she walked. She still seemed to be disturbed by the imputation of witchcraft.
I’ll have to ask Uncle Barty, Nathan thought. But not yet. Not unless I have more dreams.
But time passed, and though he dreamed of the cup, and woke with the whispers in his ear, he did not revisit the alien world again for a long while.
Annie, too, neither heard nor sensed her unseen pursuers, though as spring mellowed into summer she often walked alone through wood or meadow, half daring the shadows to follow her. She was friendly with Michael, but she didn’t go to his house again, troubled by her one afternoon there and its consequences. Rianna was seen in the village, between engagements, and once came into the shop. Annie had noticed her a couple of weeks before on television in a repeat of an old drama, and she was privately taken aback at the contrast between her glamorous on-screen persona and the off-screen reality. Her face was gaunt, almost ugly, the eyes naturally shadowed, the mouth, without lipstick, pale and ill-defined. She wore no jewellery, not even a wedding ring. She scanned the shelves with no real interest and then asked for a particular book, but Annie had the impression she was making conversation, checking her out. Maybe Rianna had heard some village gossip, coupling Annie’s name with Michael’s; but she was fairly sure there had been none – and how would Rianna hear gossip, when she avoided local chit-chat and was almost always away?
‘I hear you have a son,’ Rianna said. ‘Twelve or thirteen?’
‘Twelve.’
‘They say he’s very unusual, for a boy of that age.’
‘I think him special,’ Annie confirmed with some warmth.
‘Part Asian, I understand?’
There was a nuance in her words, Annie believed, and she did her best to suppress a tiny spurt of anger. ‘Do you?’ she said.
If she was hostile, Rianna didn’t appear to notice. ‘Who was his father?’ she asked. There was a note of boredom in her voice, as if the question was automatic rather than inquisitive, but the narrow eyes were intent. Or so Annie imagined, though in the sombre interior of the bookshop it was difficult to be sure.
‘He was my husband,’ she answered, and there was an instant when Rianna appeared to freeze, perhaps recognizing the snub, but it passed, and she turned away, and left the shop without further questions.
She seemed more interested in Nathan than in my friendship with Michael, Annie thought, and she found this so baffling that she determined to mention it to Bartlemy, when a suitable opportunity arose.
In the kitchen at Thornyhill Bartlemy listened to the story in his usual unruffled manner. The cauldron of stock still simmered on the stove; Annie couldn’t recall a time when it hadn’t been there, and she had a sudden fancy that it was the same as the night she arrived, its contents stirred, sampled, augmented, but never changed, growing richer and more flavoursome over the years. The smell that drifted from beneath the lid still made her mouth water, and a mug of that broth – something Bartlemy doled out only rarely – satisfied hunger and warmed the heart like nothing else. ‘Do you ever change your stockpot?’ she asked him.
‘Good stock needs time,’ he said. ‘The longer the better.’
‘How long?’ Annie inquired; but he didn’t answer.
‘Don’t worry about this Rianna Sardou,’ he said at last. ‘She’s probably just curious.’
‘Why should she be curious about Nathan?’ Annie persisted. ‘She must know of him through Michael, but … why ask about his father?’
‘It may have been just a shot in the dark. She may be the inquisitive type. Has she ever seen him?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. He likes Michael, so I expect he would’ve mentioned meeting his wife.’
‘Mm. Well, no doubt the truth will become evident in due course. Events – like this stock – take time to mature. You are young, and impatient.’
‘Not that young,’ Annie said. ‘I’m thirty-six.’
‘How old is Rianna Sardou, do you suppose?’
‘Late thirties … forty … Older than Michael, I think. Why?’
‘I just wondered,’ Bartlemy said.
When she had gone, he sat in the living room with Hoover, drinking sweet tea and gazing into the fire. ‘Why did I come here?’ he asked of no one in particular, but Hoover cocked an ear. ‘I read the signs, but I have never been one to follow such things. There have been few portents for me, over the years. All I ever wanted to do was heal sickness, and cook. Two sides of the same coin, Rukush. Drugs and potions cure illness, good food makes the body strong, and great food – ah, great food nourishes the soul. I can prepare a dessert that will turn a peasant into a poet, I can soothe the tyrant’s rage with soups and sauces, I can roast a sirloin so tender that it would make a proud man humble and an atheist believe in God. That was all the power I ever wanted. But when I saw a fantasy in the smoke I came here, and I waited. And the day Annie knocked on my door I knew that was what I was waiting for. Annie and the child. But still I don’t know why. There are always more questions, less answers. I think it is time to draw the curtains close, and make a different fire.’
When the last of the logs had burned down he cleaned out the grate and pinned the curtains together against prying eyes. Even so, it was far into the night before he lit a new fire, feeding it not with wood or coal
