Rites of Spring

4

The deafening noise reverberates inside Thea’s head. She throws herself out of bed, drops to the floor and covers her head with her arms.

The field hospital in Idlib. The explosions from the barrel bombs that tear apart the buildings and the people inside them, burying everything and everyone beneath the rubble. The concrete dust is choking her. She has to get up, put on her helmet. She has to find Margaux, get out of here . . .

David is standing in the doorway. His lips are moving, but she can’t hear what he’s saying. Her brain is still in the flattened hospital. She staggers through the devastation, tripping over the dead bodies . . .

Then she feels his hands on her shoulders, shaking her gently. The nightmare recedes and she regains her hearing.

‘Thea,’ he says softly. ‘Are you awake?’

She manages a nod, and suddenly notices how dark it is. The nightlight by the door has gone out, and the external lights are not on. Only a faint glow of moonlight spills into the room, making David’s face appear chalk-white.

He pulls her close. Only then does she realise her body has started shaking. Just a little at first, then more violently until her teeth are chattering and she can barely stay upright. Her chest contracts, her breathing becomes shallow.

‘It’s all right,’ he murmurs in her ear. ‘It was just the thunderstorm. You’re safe here. Deep breaths now.’

She tries to follow his advice, takes deep breaths and presses herself as close to him as she can. The pressure in her lungs eases, the shaking stops as the nightmare gradually goes away.

‘OK?’

She nods, pulls back and wipes away the last of the tears with her wrist.

‘I have to go up to the castle – the lightning has knocked out the electricity. Do you want to come with me?’

Thea nods again. She definitely doesn’t want to stay here alone in the dark.

‘Do you know where our raincoats are? It’s pouring down.’

She follows him into the kitchen, drinks a glass of water. Something is missing.

‘Have you seen Emee?’

‘She slipped past me when I opened the front door.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Just after the clap of thunder. I stuck my head out to check on the lights up at the castle, and she ran out. It’s pitch black everywhere.’

David sounds considerably more worried about the castle than the dog. His phone starts ringing.

‘Securitas,’ he says, turning away to take the call.

Thea opens the front door. The rain is hammering on the gravel and the decking outside.

‘Emee!’ she shouts, but her voice doesn’t even carry across the courtyard.

‘Both the fire alarm and the intruder alarm have gone off,’ David informs her. ‘Probably a short circuit. We need to get up there right away.’ He rummages in a drawer, digs out a torch.

‘But what about Emee?’

‘I’m sure we’ll find her on the way. Let’s go!’

He runs across to the car, shoulders hunched against the storm. After a few seconds’ hesitation, Thea pulls on her shoes and jacket and follows him.

It’s only two hundred metres from the coach house to the castle. David puts his foot down, steering with one hand and chewing at the thumbnail on the other. Thea keeps a lookout for Emee, afraid that David will run over her. But Emee is a street dog, she reminds herself. She knows all about the dangers of cars.

Somehow the castle looks even blacker than their little house, as if the high walls, turrets and steeply sloping roof make the darkness even deeper.

David slams the brakes on by the kitchen door in the east wing. Holds the torch in his mouth as he struggles with the key. The sound of the alarms bounces off the stone walls inside.

‘There’s a portable emergency light in the kitchen – just follow the glow,’ he calls over his shoulder as he hurries down the cellar steps.

Thea does as she’s told. She finds the light, switches it on and runs with it through the service corridor leading to the main dining room. Could Emee have crossed the bridge and run off into the forest? If so, Thea ought to be able to spot her from the terrace at the back.

The alarm stops abruptly. The dining room is deserted, of course. The new tables and chairs are still stacked in a corner. The walls are covered with gilded panels which have recently been cleaned. She directs the beam of the powerful light up towards the ceiling. Greek motifs, young women in long robes in a forest, surrounded by creatures such as satyrs, centaurs, and others she can’t name. Some of the trees look like living beings. She remembers the face on the Gallows Oak, the Green Man to whom she made her offering of wood anemones. A ridiculous idea, with hindsight.

She opens the glass doors. The cloudburst has abated slightly, and is now an ordinary spring downpour. She pulls up her hood and goes out onto the terrace. Sweeps the beam across the low hedges in the box garden, across the grass.

‘Emee! Emee!’

A flash of lightning illuminates the whole garden, a blue-white core with red edges that slices through the night and comes down in the forest on the far side of the moat. The thunderclap is almost simultaneous, and so loud that it takes her breath away.

The nightmare returns. The blast wave, the panic, the feeling of not being able to get up, of suffocating. Her body begins to shake again. She crouches down, lowers her head, tries to slow her breathing.

In, out. In . . . out.

Something nudges Thea’s back. It’s Emee. The dog pushes her nose into Thea’s hand and whimpers. Thea pulls her close, and to her surprise Emee doesn’t object, but simply allows herself to be embraced.

The rain seeps inside Thea’s jacket. She continues to take deep, slow breaths, and after a couple of minutes the panic attack is over. She wipes away the tears and the raindrops with her sleeve.

‘Good girl,’ she murmurs in the dog’s ear. ‘It’ll be all right in a little while. Nothing to worry about.’

A light flickers in her peripheral vision. It’s coming from the west wing, and for a moment she assumes it’s David. But he doesn’t have access to the west wing, and even if he did, he couldn’t have got there in such a short time. Plus the glow is too faint and unstable to come from a torch.

Someone is standing at one of the windows up there – a little man holding a candle. He is half-hidden behind a curtain. Their eyes meet through the rain.

Thea recognises the look in those eyes – she sees it in the bathroom mirror every morning and night.

Sorrow.

The man nods to her, then blows out the candle and is swallowed up by the darkness.