The Warrior’s Princess. Barbara Erskine

set for two but there was no sign of him.

      ‘Dan?’

      ‘I’m in here.’ His voice came from the dining room. ‘Come and look at this, Jess.’

      Reluctantly she walked over to the doorway and glanced in. He was staring down at the table. ‘It’s gone,’ he said softly. ‘All gone.’

      ‘What has?’ She moved towards him.

      ‘The damage. The scribbles. The blood. Look.’

      He stood back, gesturing at the sketchbook in front of him. His face was white.

      She glanced down and gasped out loud. He was right. The sketchbook was completely undamaged. Hardly daring to touch it she reached out and turned the pages. They were all the same. Her drawings and paintings were pristine.

      ‘I don’t understand.’ She picked up the book and riffled through it. ‘What’s happened?’

      ‘You tell me.’

      She turned and stared round the dining room. Nothing had been touched. Everything was as neat and tidy as it had been before Rhodri arrived.

      ‘We can’t have dreamed it, can we?’ She met his gaze at last.

      Dan shrugged. ‘All three of us?’ He shivered. ‘Let’s go into the kitchen. I made coffee before I came in here.’

      She followed him. ‘We can’t all have imagined what happened, Dan.’

      ‘No?’ He grabbed the coffee pot. ‘Look in the bin.’

      With a quick glance at him she peered in. ‘What am I looking at?’

      ‘Nothing. That’s the point. Where is the broken glass?’

      ‘Oh Dan!’ She dropped the lid and went to sit down at the table, ramming her sleeves up to her elbows, then running her fingers through her hair. Two intact bottles of wine stood side by side on the draining board.

      He pushed a mug of coffee towards her. ‘It looks as though we all suffered some kind of hallucination,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t see how or why, but there is no other explanation. If we had all eaten the same thing I could put it down to magic mushrooms or something, but Rhodri didn’t eat with us.’

      ‘And your hand. Where you cut it? Is the cut still there?’ She reached out and touched his wrist.

      He stretched out his right hand and turned it up to face her. There was no mark.

      ‘Oh God!’ She gave an involuntary shudder. ‘What on earth has happened to us?’

      ‘I’m afraid I am not going to be able to hang around to find out.’ He glanced up at her again. ‘I have to leave pretty soon, Jess. I’ve got a long drive ahead. Shall I ring up your mate Rhodri and get him to come over? You shouldn’t be on your own to sort this out, but I don’t know how my being here can help. Whatever it was it’s over now.’ He gave a small sharp bark of laughter. ‘Next time I see you we’ll joke about this!’ Gulping back his coffee, he stood up.

      For a moment she hadn’t moved. She was still staring at his hand. Then she shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about me, Dan. I’ll give Rhodri a ring later and tell him what has happened.’

      She followed him out to his car and watched as he loaded his bag and his books. In minutes she was waving him out of sight as he headed down towards the lane, his car bumping over the ruts. Strangely she felt nothing but relief at his departure. Had he got up in the night and tested her door handle, she wondered? Probably not. She frowned suddenly. He hadn’t offered to kiss her goodbye.

      Walking back inside she went into the kitchen and straight to the sink. Without knowing why she turned on the tap and slowly rinsed her hands and face, then she reached for a towel.

       Have the nasty men gone?

      The voice was very close behind her. With a cry of fright she span round.

       Can we stop playing now?

      ‘Jesus!’ She took a deep breath. ‘Where are you?’

      There was no reply.

      ‘Eigon? Glads? Was it one of you who did that?’ She was suddenly angry. ‘Did you scribble over my drawings?’ She scanned the room. ‘Did you break all that glass?’

      Outside the blackbird began to whistle from the roof of the studio. The rain had stopped and a stray ray of sunlight reflected off the wet paving stones. ‘Did you hear me?’ Jess called out again. She was suddenly every inch the schoolmistress. ‘I want to see you. Now!’ She held her breath, looking round. There was no sound. ‘I mean it!’

      Was that a gurgle of laughter? She ran to the window and stared out, scanning the courtyard. The house was full of sound. The creak of roof timbers, the rustle of leaves, the drip of rain down the gutters, birds, the baaing of sheep from the hillside on the far side of the track. ‘Eigon?’ Jess used the child’s name without thinking, just as her mother, Cerys, had used it. ‘Come here. I want to speak to you.’

      But there was no response, as she had known there wouldn’t be. She shook her head. Wandering back into the dining room she looked down at the table, half afraid that the sketchbook would once more be damaged. It wasn’t. It lay there untouched.

      ‘Shit!’ She went to the phone, overcoming her reluctance to contact Rhodri again. After about twenty rings the answer service picked up. ‘Rhodri? I’m sorry to disturb you, but can you come back here as soon as you can, there is something I need to show you.’ She paused. ‘Dan has gone. I’m on my own.’

      Pulling the car into a gateway at the bottom of the lane, Dan turned off the engine and rested his forehead against the rim of the steering wheel. He was sweating hard. Fumbling blindly for the door handle he stumbled out into the long grass and nettles, dotted with campion, which fringed the trackway into the field and stood leaning on the gate waiting for the wave of nausea to pass. Then he turned and looked at the car.

      It was empty. But someone had been in there, sitting behind him. Almost as soon as he had turned into the lane and pulled away from Ty Bran he had felt it. He could sense a presence. A solid threatening presence. A man. An angry, hate-filled man.

      He had slammed on the brakes, staring into the mirror. Then he had turned, scanning the back seat. Nothing. Of course there was no one there. He accelerated away again, fast, over the roughly metalled lane, bumping the car over potholes and ridges, skidding over patches of red oozing mud which had leaked onto the road from the steep banks, growing more and more afraid until he had spotted the gateway, somewhere to pull up and throw himself out of reach of the malign shadow that was sharing his car.

      Slowly the palpitations slowed. He wiped his face on his sleeve and turned, leaning on the gate, to stare at the vehicle. It sat there in the sunlight, the windows bright with reflections, the door hanging open as he had left it when he jumped out. Pushing himself away from the gate he forced himself to walk over and pull open the rear door. Leaning down, he peered in. Nothing. Cautiously he reached in, clawing at the empty air over the seat with his fingers as though to prove to himself the space was unoccupied. The film of sweat was drying on his face. He shivered, suddenly chilled. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the wild yapping cry of a buzzard, then near it, aggressive and primitive, the deep throaty croak of a raven. He peered up at the sky. It was up there. He could see it. The raven, a black silhouette against the blue, had set its sights on the buzzard. It was flying fast, on the attack, harrying, bullying, its call a sinister throbbing counterpoint to the alarmed yelp of the larger bird. Both birds angled their wings and swooped away over the fields and in a second they were out of sight over the shoulder of the hill.

      Dan found he was breathing fast, as though he had been running. He swallowed hard, slamming the back door shut. Imagination. That was all. That damned haunted house and Jess with all her hysterical stories. They had got to him. He moved his head uncomfortably, his neck suddenly very stiff. For a moment he felt quite dizzy. He blinked. Something on the