I was quite far from the house now. When I turned to look behind me, it was nothing more than a small speck in the distance. As lovely and beckoning as the field of flowers was, I knew that my mother would be worried if I strayed too far. Reluctantly, I started back. It seemed an even longer walk this time, and I had to scramble over the fence to get back into the yard. When I finally arrived back the sunshine had faded, and the air was cool and damp. My mother was no longer sitting on the lawn.
I went into the house, but there was no one there, either. It was quite empty, and desolate, the silence itself more disturbing than any eerie sound I could have imagined. Confused and terrified, I ran, half stumbling, up the street to a friend's house and pounded urgently on the door. My friend answered the summons, but she was no longer a child like me—she was a grown woman, and she stood on the doorstep gazing down at me with pitying eyes.
'I'm so sorry,' she said. 'Hasn't anyone told you? Your mother died years ago....'
The tears were still on my face when the dream ended. I could taste them as I lay there in the darkness, listening to the dripping o{ my bathroom taps and watching the shadow of the poplar dance across my blankets while I tried to calm the frantic beating of my heart against my ribs. When I could breathe normally again, I reached to switch on the reading lamp on my bedside table and sat up, pushing both hands through my damp, tangled hair and drawing them down to cover my eyes.
It was only a dream, I told myself. You're not a child anymore, you're nearly thirty years old, and your mother isn't dead. I picked up my dressing gown from the floor, where I'd discarded it before going to bed, and shrugged my arms into the sleeves, wrapping the belt around my waist as I shuffled out into the hallway. I would not sleep, I knew from experience, until I had shaken off the clinging memory of that dream. At times like these I often wished I had a television, like normal people, but I had given away my own set years ago. It had been too tempting a distraction from my work.
Instead, I settled now for a late-night talk program on my portable radio and a soothing cup of cocoa. When that failed to work, I tried reading. A full hour later, still unable to shake my vague uneasiness and the dull, cold, unnamed fear that had wrapped its tight fingers round my heart, I gave in and picked up the phone, dialing the New Zealand number with an unsteady hand.
My mother answered after eight rings, her voice distracted but carefully precise. Seconds later she was fully alert.
'Julia? Is everything all right?'
I had to admit, rather sheepishly, that it was, and explain that I was only calling to say hello, and to see how they both were.
'At four o'clock in the morning?' My mother made the time calculation, sounding unconvinced.
I sighed. 'I had a nightmare, actually. I dreamed that you were dead.'
'Oh, darling ...' Her voice was like a hug over the telephone line. 'How terrible. Well, I'm not dead, as it happens, and I've no intention of dying in the foreseeable future, so you can stop worrying.' I heard a faint rustling sound and knew that she was settling herself in her chair, propping pillows to cushion her back. 'How are you enjoying life in your village?' she asked me. 'Tommy tells us that your house is absolutely lovely, though he has his doubts about the plumbing...."
Without waiting for a response, my mother plunged easily into a rather one-sided conversation that dealt mainly with the goings-on among our various relatives in Auckland, punctuated with periodic mumblings of an incoherent nature from my father, who was no doubt trying to read or nap beside her.
'What's that, Edward, darling?' she would ask him brightly. 'Oh, yes, I mustn't forget that. And then, Julia, she showed up wearing the most incredible hat....' And off my mother would go again, spinning out another gossip-laden anecdote, cleverly designed to make me forget the terror of my nightmare.
My parents were really quite wonderful, I thought to myself, when I finally replaced the telephone receiver nearly an hour later. Stretching my arms above my head, I looked around the hallway with idle interest. My mother's ploy had definitely worked. I was no longer afraid, nor apprehensive. I was also, unfortunately, no longer sleepy.
Well, I told myself stoutly, if I was going to be up and awake, I might as well get properly dressed. I trudged back up the stairs and exchanged my dressing gown for a pair of jeans and a loose T-shirt, in honour of our recent spell of warm weather. As I brushed my hair in front of the mirror, my eyes fell on the small blackened key that still sat on the dressing table before me. Slowly, my forehead creasing in a studious frown, I set the hairbrush down and picked up the little key, weighing it thoughtfully in my palm.
What hidden secrets was it waiting to unlock for me, I wondered. I remembered Mrs. Hutherson's gentle, knowing face smiling at me yesterday across the kitchen table at Crofton Hall. It's a kind of journey that you've begun, she had said. Closing my fingers around the key for a moment, I looked up at the resolute face in the mirror. There was no point in delaying the inevitable, I thought. It was time for me to take the next step on my journey. It was time to go back.
Downstairs, I lit the candle I had used during my last experimental session and placed it squarely in the center of my table. It was beginning to grow faintly light outside, and the candle flame was less mesmerizing as a result, but I focused on it with an effort and concentrated, half closing my eyes. Time stopped, and wavered. The sound of my breathing was very loud in the quiet room.
'Mariana!' Caroline's voice was sharp, and I snapped my head up, instantly alert. My aunt smiled a little at my reaction, her voice softening. 'You'll be doing yourself an injury,' she warned me, 'dreaming away like that. Did we wake you too early?'