'Yes,' I said, 'quite certain. It's almost as if—and I know this is going to sound idiotic—but it's almost as if I've been drawn to Greywethers for a reason. That I somehow belong there.'
'Hardly idiotic. I believe everything happens for a reason.' That was the vicar speaking. 'And I think you're right. You need to go back and face up to this thing, if you're ever going to have any peace. You need to find out everything you can about this Mariana person. If you can do that, then you might learn why all this is happening to you now. Some bit of unfinished business, maybe, that needs to be completed.'
'It's possible, I suppose' 'Or,' he added with a grin, 'maybe my past-life theory is all wet, and you are just going quietly insane, after all. Like Great-aunt Sarah.'
I pulled a face. 'A comforting thought.'
'What are big brothers for?'
'Although,' I conceded, 'perhaps the insanity defense is the most practical one. I'm still not sure I believe in the concept of reincarnation. It does seem a little unlikely, don't you think?'
Tom flicked me a sideways glance. Seemingly dismissing the subject, he turned his gaze back out over the wide green lawn, where the long shadows of the early evening were spreading across the freshly mowed grass like gentle caressing fingers. 'Sixteen sixty-five, you said, was the plague year? Who was on the throne then?'
I frowned. 'Charles the Second, I think.'
'Oh, right. Another of the ill-fated Stuart kings, wasn't he? Did you read the bit about his coronation?'
'No. I didn't go back that far.'
'Well'—Tom leaned back—'you want to talk about bad omens. It rained the whole day, cats and dogs.'
I shook my head vaguely. 'It didn't rain until that evening,' I corrected him. 'After the ceremonies were over.'
'It was a Saturday, I believe.'
My answer came more slowly this time. 'No. A Tuesday.'
'And the ground was carpeted in red.'
'Blue ...' I turned my head, stunned, to meet his knowing eyes.
'You're right,' he told me. 'There probably isn't much point in exploring the reincarnation angle.'
I had stared back at him, unable to reply at first, my mind amazed and numb. 'Bloody hell,' I had said slowly. For, after all, vicar or no vicar ...
'Precisely,' Tom had said, and, smiling, he'd returned to his sermon.
The traffic cleared ahead of me, and the sudden blare of a car horn pulled me instantly out of my reverie. Still wrapped in warm serenity, I coaxed the little Peugeot into the faster lane and depressed the accelerator, squaring my shoulders against the driver's seat with a barely audible sigh. I drove the rest of the way in silence.
As I bumped across the little bridge that marked the approach to Exbury, the blanket of contentment tightened and a small thrill of anticipation raced through my travel-weary body. Almost home. The words filled my brain like a spoken voice, soft and soothing.
There was that word again, I thought. Home. It sprang so easily and naturally to mind, almost as if ...
'I don't know,' I said aloud to the spotted windshield, 'have I lived here before, really, in some other life?' The reply flowed back, prompt and simple, from what might have been either my imagination or the deepest recesses of my subconscious: Yes.
The road curved and my house rose majestically from the landscape to welcome me, beautiful in the late-morning sunlight with the forsythia bursting into bloom along the north wall. It always came back to the house, I thought, as I turned up the narrow drive. I had not chosen this house, as others choose, with a free and rational mind; the house had chosen me. And if I had indeed been drawn here for a purpose, then I had better do my best to find out what that purpose was, starting today. Starting now.
'All right,' I said firmly, lifting my chin to a determined angle. 'I've come back. Now show me what it is you want me to do.'
It was a shameless bit of bravado, really. I wasn't even sure as I spoke the words whether I was addressing a ghost, the house, or myself. And I certainly wasn't expecting an answer.
But as I parked in the converted stables at the back of the house, a glimmer of movement caught my eye, and turning my head, I saw the figure of a young woman standing in the dovecote garden. The still, poised figure of a young woman in green. For a moment I panicked, my chest tightening, and then the woman turned and smiled and waved, and I saw that it wasn't a ghost at all, only Vivien wearing a shapeless old green coverall, with her fair hair tumbled anyhow around her shoulders and her face glowing with healthy color. Relieved, I walked slowly across the long grass toward the ruined dovecote. Vivien stopped working and leaned on her rake, watching my approach with friendly eyes.
'You're home, then,' she said, unnecessarily. 'Is everything all right with your family?'
'Yes, thanks.' News traveled quickly. She looked as though she wanted to know more, but I changed the subject. I never had liked lying, much. 'I didn't know you dabbled in gardening, as well,' I said.
'I don't normally. I'm just lending Iain a hand with the weeding. Such a beautiful morning,' she explained, gesturing up at the flawless blue sky. 'I hated to be cooped up indoors.'
'You're not lending much of a hand, love,' Iain Sumner's voice said dryly. I couldn't see him for the stone wall, but as I drew nearer the garden he stood upright and stretched. 'You've been raking that same bit of soil for the past twenty minutes,' he accused Vivien.