AMANDA BROOKE

Yesterday’s Sun

Dedication

To Jessica and Nathan

For making me what I am

A mother

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

One hand of the clock swept across the other, marking that brief and unstoppable moment where one day ends and another begins. Holly lay in bed rubbing the swell of her stomach and soothing her unborn child against the cold tremor of fear that had swept across her body, as unstoppable as the hands of the clock.

It took Holly a considerable amount of effort to roll from her back onto her side. She had to manoeuvre her bump carefully while at the same time suppressing countless grunts and groans for fear of waking Tom, who was facing away from her, gently snoring. Holly nuzzled closer to him until her nose felt the familiar tickle of his untamed locks. She breathed in deeply, savouring his warm, sweet smell.

‘I love you,’ she whispered. The sound of her voice was barely audible, but then Holly had become an expert at keeping quiet. She had spent so many restless nights lying next to him, fighting the urge to break her silence and to tell him that the day she would leave him was drawing ever nearer.

‘Today’s the day,’ she told him. ‘You’re going to become a father and what an amazing daddy you’re going to be. But it’s not going to be easy. You’ll think you won’t be able to cope, but you will. You’ll be angry with me for leaving you both, but eventually you’ll understand. One day, you’ll look at our daughter and you’ll know what I know. You’ll know that she was worth the sacrifice.’

Tom shifted restlessly in his sleep and Holly held her breath. She didn’t want to wake him, not yet. But she had to give voice to her apology, even if she didn’t want him to hear it. It was one of the last things on her ‘to do’ list. That and give birth, of course.

Holly had spent the last few months preparing for the arrival of her daughter and, just as importantly, preparing for her departure from their lives. Tom loved Holly for her obsession with plans, something that bordered on neurosis, but even he would be shocked to discover how well she had prepared for this day. But how else could she die peacefully?

‘I love you,’ Holly repeated. A single tear rolled down her cheek and she felt the burden of knowledge pulling her down far more heavily than the baby she was carrying. ‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you, couldn’t tell you. However terrifying this is for me, it would have been unbearable for you. I’ve had to take some tough decisions and I’ve learnt the hard way that the best decisions are never the obvious ones. And I’ve learnt something else too. I’ve learnt that love endures, sometimes in the most amazing ways. I promise you, I’ll be there at your side in your darkest hours.’

A sob escaped and this time it was loud enough to stir Tom. He turned sleepily towards her. ‘Are you OK?’ he mumbled sleepily, and then startled himself awake. ‘Is it time?’

‘Time? Not quite yet,’ Holly assured him with a rueful smile despite herself. Time had been her enemy from the moment they had moved into the gatehouse, the house they now called home. That had been only eighteen months ago and her thoughts returned to that pivotal moment when time began to run out for her.

Chapter 1

Holly closed the front door and leaned heavily against it, breathing out a huge sigh of relief. The removal men had been miracle workers, transforming the empty shell they had arrived at that morning into something that Holly could now call home. The house had once been an imposing gatehouse, sitting at the entrance to the majestic Hardmonton Hall, but the Hall was now a burned out ruin and the gatehouse had been all but forgotten, set just outside the tiny village of Fincross. Despite its grey stone walls and peeling paint, Holly had fallen in love with the house. It had stood the test of time far better than the Hall itself and seemed the ideal place to build a home and settle down, perhaps for ever.

Still leaning against the door, Holly took a furtive look at her reflection in the full-length mirror which had been left propped up against the wall, waiting to be hung. The house, correction, her home may have improved its looks during the day, but she was definitely looking worse for wear. Her long blonde hair was usually her crowning glory to compensate for her otherwise average looks, but it was now pulled back in a bedraggled ponytail. The little make-up she had put on at the start of the day was no more than a memory, having retreated into the tiny wrinkles at the corners of her blue, almond-shaped eyes.

She hoped she looked more tired than old. After all, she was only twenty-nine and she felt as if her life was just beginning. Married for only two years, this was the first place she and Tom had actually owned and the first chance they had had to put down proper roots.

Ignoring her reflection, Holly took in her new surroundings. The hall ran down the centre of the house, with a door on the left leading to a small reception room that would become Tom’s study. The door to the right led to a larger reception room, which would be their living room, and the half-open door gave teasing glimpses of familiar pieces of furniture in their new surroundings. The city-living furniture was a harsh contrast to the chintz-inspired wallpaper and hardwood floors, but Holly had rather eccentric tastes and liked the conflict in styles.

‘I’ve checked the list and I think it’s complete,’ Tom said, appearing in the doorway at the furthest end of the hall, which led from the kitchen.

Tom looked even more dishevelled than Holly in his well-worn jeans and T-shirt. The look did nothing to flatter his tall, wiry stature or show off the toned body which Holly knew lay beneath. The difference between the two of them was that this worn-out look was normal for Tom. He was far too interested in the world around him to pay any attention to himself. That was probably why he made such a good journalist. He was warm and approachable, never smarmy, never intimidating, and people opened up easily to him.

Holly had resisted the urge to smarten him up, not least because it was the contrast to her own style that appealed to her. Holly was an artist and, when she wasn’t knee-deep in plaster of Paris and paint, she liked to dress up in carefully contrasting combinations of vintage and contemporary clothes, a style which was also reflected in her artwork. The other reason Holly accepted Tom’s unkempt style was purely selfish. He spent a lot of time working away and she didn’t want him impressing the ladies too much.

‘What list?’ Holly asked suspiciously. ‘There’s still tons of work to do. It’s going to take weeks before we’re properly unpacked and that’s before we even start thinking about redecorating.’

‘Not the moving-house list,’ Tom corrected her, ‘THE LIST.’ He was stepping slowly towards her with his left hand out in front of him, inspecting an imaginary piece of paper on his upturned palm. He stopped two feet in front of her.

‘You do realize that you’re looking at an empty hand?’

Tom ignored her. ‘Find boyfriend. Tick! Find gallery to exhibit your artwork. Tick! Get married. Tick! Establish select clientele to buy said works of art. Tick! Earn enough to give up your job. Tick!’ Each time he said, ‘Tick!’ Tom was using the index finger on his other hand as an imaginary pen to mark off each accomplishment.

‘And finally?’ asked Holly, already knowing the answer.

Tom moved a step closer. ‘Move to the country and live happily ever after.’

‘Tick,’ whispered Holly just before Tom kissed her.

After an indecent amount of time, Tom took a breath. ‘And I do believe, Mrs Corrigan, that you’ve completed your list a whole six months ahead of schedule.’

‘I do believe you’re right, Mr Corrigan,’ Holly answered smugly.

Perhaps smug was the wrong word. Eternally grateful might be better. Holly had worked hard at her five-year life plan but, in truth, her success at finding the perfect husband and blossoming career had been more luck than management. In fact, she owed it all to a drunken accountant.

When Holly was twenty-five, having left art school with an armful of accolades but no real idea of how she was going to make a living out of her talent, she had found herself juggling countless part-time jobs to make ends meet. The jobs had been accumulated as she worked her way through college and, when she left, she’d carried on with them until they began to consume so much of her day that art became a luxury she couldn’t afford, let alone find the time or energy to work on.

Her epiphany arrived one night in the shape of a middle-aged city worker who staggered drunkenly into the backstreet bar she was working in. Her hero, after several attempts, claimed a seat at the bar and immediately took Holly hostage with a lengthy monologue about his wonderful life and recent promotion in a leading accountancy firm. It wasn’t until the drunk told her about how his promotion was all part of his five-year plan that Holly, the neurotic list maker, started to pay attention. Suddenly realizing how aimless her own life was, she had asked herself why, if this good-for-nothing drunk could succeed, couldn’t she? She went home that night and couldn’t sleep until she had set out on paper the goals she wanted to achieve in the next five years.

Within a year, Holly had a new direction. She had traded in her collection of part-time jobs for one full-time job in a television studio, working behind the scenes on production and finally putting her talents to good use. It had also meant that she had enough spare time to develop her artwork and earn occasional commissions through contacts with a local art gallery.

Next on her list was her love life. That wasn’t supposed to happen until year three, but Tom arrived ahead of schedule. He had been visiting the TV studio for a job interview, and left a few hours later not only with a new job but with a new girlfriend too.

Holly had spotted him wandering around the props section, obviously lost. He had emerged from the interview on a high, having being offered a job as a special correspondent on environmental issues, but what started out as a snooping expedition around the studio quickly turned into an endless journey through a maze.

Tom Corrigan wasn’t exactly what Holly had in mind for husband material. On the face of it, they couldn’t have been more different. There was the obvious contrast in their looks. Her pale, mousey complexion was even more pronounced in comparison to Tom’s tall, dark, handsome looks. There were other fundamental differences too. She was organized, he was not. She prepared for and expected failure; Tom saw every setback as an opportunity. She admitted when she needed help; Tom, the man who had just been given the opportunity to travel the country, wasn’t about to admit any time soon that he couldn’t even find his way out of the studio. After bumping into Holly on that fateful tour of the studio, he neglected to mention that he was lost and offered to hang around and help her until she was finished for the day, at which point he would escort her off the premises and take her to dinner.

‘I can see the cogs turning,’ Tom warned her, drawing her out of her reverie. ‘Starting the next five-year plan already?’

‘I’m quite happy working my way through my current lists, thank you,’ replied Holly. ‘The unpacking, the redecorating, my new studio, not to mention the new commission for Mrs Bronson.’

‘Quite happy?’ Tom asked her with mock surprise.

Holly smiled. ‘Very happy. Quite possibly very, very happy.’

‘Quite possibly?’ he said, raising a mischievous eyebrow.

‘Give it up already,’ Holly scolded. ‘Are we going to stand here all day in the hall arguing about the scale of my happiness, or are we going to make use of some of the other rooms?’

‘What a good idea. How about I get the champagne and meet you in the bedroom in precisely two minutes?’

‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ answered Holly, but Tom was already heading back to the kitchen.

The next morning, Tom and Holly were as reluctant to leave their bed as they had been eager to jump into it the night before. Tom was on leave from work for two weeks, so there was no alarm clock demanding their attention, no fixed routine to comply with, nothing to do but finish their unpacking and explore their new surroundings. They just had to get out of bed first.

The bed faced the large picture window, which looked out onto a rambling garden bordered by a rambling orchard and, beyond that, the rambling English countryside. It was a bright spring morning and the sun was doing its best to rouse the new incumbents of the gatehouse out of their deep sleep. The insistent sunshine played patterns across the white linen curtains, fluttered down the pale blue walls, skipped across the polished wooden floor and crept stealthily across Holly’s sleeping face, tickling her into wakefulness.

Her first thoughts quickly formed into a list of all the things that needed to be done, urgent actions vying for attention. Holly silenced those thoughts, mentally folding over the pages of her newly formed list. They could wait. She wanted to savour at least one day with her husband in their new home with no one else’s needs to satisfy except their own. Time at home with Tom was going to be at a premium in the coming months.

No sooner had they closed the deal on the gatehouse, a house which they had chosen specifically because it was within commuting distance of London, than Tom was offered a new job. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse, not least because the studio was going through a painful reorganization and he was one of the lucky ones. At least he was keeping his job, although he would now be expected to do more work front of camera, covering politics as well as environmental issues, and he could also expect to be sent further afield. The further afield clause in his contract arrived sooner than expected and his first assignment was a six-week stint in Belgium, making his commute a little longer than either of them had anticipated.

‘Are you awake?’ Tom asked.

‘Hmmm,’ answered Holly, turning towards him so that they were nose to nose.

‘Whoa, morning breath!’ teased Tom.

‘You can talk, you smell like a man.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I hadn’t finished,’ Holly corrected him. ‘You smell like a man who’s spent the night licking the carpet of one of those really old pubs where your shoes stick to the floor. In fact, I can see you’ve still got half the carpet coated on your tongue.’

‘So you don’t want a kiss then?’

‘Are you sure you can cope with my morning breath?’ challenged Holly. She deliberately breathed out each word.

‘I’m willing to take the chance if you don’t mind risking a mouthful of old pub carpet.’ Tom poked his tongue out and licked the tip of Holly’s nose.

‘I’ve had worse things in my mouth.’

‘Now there’s a challenge,’ grinned Tom.

‘Not only do you have a tongue that smells like the gutter, you’ve got a mind that’s already there.’

Tom glided his body over towards Holly, sliding his hand across her torso and then slipping his legs between hers. It was a well-rehearsed and familiar manoeuvre that placed him over her and left Holly breathless.

‘I can talk dirty, if you want me to,’ Tom offered.

Holly wrapped her arms around his neck before letting her fingers trail down his spine. Hidden beneath the shadow of Tom’s body, Holly could only sense the dappling of morning light as it played across his back.

‘How dirty?’

‘Well . . .’ Tom said. He drew out the word with a teasing hiss, then he smiled, or was it a smirk? ‘I’m not talking five-year plans here.’

‘I should hope not,’ replied Holly. She was watching the curves of his mouth intently, the dampness of his lips, the glimpse of his tongue. She pushed her body towards him, encouraging him on.

‘Oh, no,’ Tom said, ignoring her blatant desire. ‘I’m not even talking seven years.’ He kissed her nose. ‘Not even ten.’

Holly tangled her fingers in the luxurious waves of his hair. She reached up to kiss him but he moved his head away. He hadn’t finished teasing her yet.

‘I might be talking twenty years here. Hell, no, I’m perverted enough to even count on forty.’

‘You have a sick mind, Tom Corrigan,’ agreed Holly. Her body was tingling with anticipation and she writhed beneath him. She could tease too.

‘I want a plan that takes us right up to our dotage, in this house, surrounded by our family, our children, our children’s children and maybe even our children’s children’s children.’

For a fraction of a second, Holly’s body froze. Then she blinked hard in an attempt to push away the fear that had fluttered across her eyes. She forced a smile, hoping that Tom hadn’t noticed her reaction, hoping that she could resurrect the moment, but the air in her ballooning passion had well and truly popped.

‘What?’ Tom asked with a quizzical look that pierced Holly’s heart. ‘Does the thought of children terrify you so much?’

‘No,’ lied Holly.

‘Yes, it does,’ insisted Tom. He leaned his body over to her right side, resting his arms. The moment for passion had most definitely been lost.

‘I want children,’ insisted Holly. ‘It’s just the being a mother part that I struggle with.’

‘You want to give me children. That’s different from wanting them yourself,’ corrected Tom, his tone a mixture of concern and frustration. ‘And you can and will be a good mum. It’s not hereditary, you know.’

Tom was, of course, referring to her childhood. Holly was the product of a broken home, broken long before the bitter divorce that followed. Her mother had left home when Holly was only eight years old, but rather than feel abandoned, she had actually felt relief. Her mother had had a perverse attitude to motherhood and replaced love with cruelty, nurturing with scorn. After the divorce, Holly saw little of her and by the time she was a teenager her mother had drunk herself into an early grave. Her father by contrast was distant and completely uninterested in his daughter, but in some ways that made him every bit as cruel. He left Holly to bring herself up, so when she moved into student digs at the age of eighteen she never returned home again, not even for his funeral.

‘I know it’s not hereditary, but you learn by example. You really don’t know how lucky you are with your family. Yours is so, it’s so . . .’ Holly just couldn’t find the words. Tom knew all about her childhood, but he could never really know what it was like to grow up without the security of a loving family. ‘It’s so linear,’ she said at last.

‘Linear?’ laughed Tom. ‘What does that mean?’

‘You have a mum and a dad who love and support you, and they had parents who loved and supported them. Your grandparents probably had wonderful parents too, and so it goes on and on, handed down, generation after generation.’

Tom’s parents were wonderful in Holly’s eyes and she was sometimes overwhelmed by the way they had accepted her into their family and loved her like one of their own. Being part of a classic nuclear family had been a steep and very emotional learning curve for Holly. When Tom’s grandmother Edith had died recently, Holly had witnessed first-hand how the family had drawn strength from each other, how their love for Edith had somehow bridged the void that her death had left in their lives.

‘We’re not that perfect,’ Tom replied. ‘We have the odd black sheep in the family.’

‘Oh, but you are perfect. Compared to my family, you are.’ Holly gently touched the side of Tom’s face. ‘What if I’m the weak link that’s going to break the chain in your family? What if I can’t learn to be the kind of mother that your family has been built on through the generations?’

‘Don’t ever think you’re weak. Yes, your parents were weak and that had an effect on you, but it had the opposite effect. You’re the strongest person I know. Your parents were awful at parenting but that just means you’re going to make sure you’re the best mum you possibly could be. You have to believe that.’

Tom’s body had become tense and she could feel a growing anger inside him. Anger that she knew was directed at her parents and at himself for not being able to heal her and banish the demons of her past.

‘I know I have to believe in myself,’ conceded Holly, although she didn’t think she ever would. But Tom wasn’t going to rest until she had her next plan all worked out. Not that he needed a plan to work to. Tom was a free spirit who preferred to make things up as he went along, but he was thirty-two now and he was desperate to be a father or to at least know that he would be one day.

Tears had started to well in Holly’s eyes and the sunlight that surrounded Tom’s head was a blurred halo. The only thing Holly could see clearly was his soft green eyes.

‘Hey, you’re crying,’ Tom said, sounding shocked.

Holly blinked, willing the tears to disappear. ‘I’m not,’ she lied defiantly.

‘Ah, I forgot, you never cry.’

‘I do. Not that I am now, but I do.’

‘When?’

Holly paused, struggling to find a recent example that would prove Tom wrong. ‘There was that film, the one where the dog died.’

Tom frowned as he tried to remember. Then he stifled a laugh. ‘That must have been over two years ago, I don’t think we were even married then.’

‘But I cried, point proven.’

‘OK, point proven,’ conceded Tom. ‘But I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want for yourself. I had hoped that when Lisa had her baby and then Penny, you’d just want to follow suit, but I can see it’s not going to be that simple. If you’re not ready to start talking babies yet, then I understand.’

Lisa and Penny were the closest thing Holly had to friends in London and they’d had their babies within a year of each other. She knew Tom had been disappointed when Holly hadn’t miraculously become broody at the sight of a newborn. Little did he know that her enthusiasm to move to the country had in part been fuelled by a desire to put as much distance between herself and the endless baby chatter.

‘Once I’ve got the house in order, then we can start on the next five-year plan. A joint one this time, and making a baby will most definitely be on the list,’ she told him.

‘A baby? Singular?’ Tom said. His body had begun to relax again and he was back in teasing mode. ‘Have you looked at this body? It’s a well-tuned baby-making machine if ever there was one. You won’t be able to so much as look at me without getting pregnant.’

‘Hold on, tiger,’ smiled Holly, relaxing too. ‘I think that baby-making machine of yours could do with a little more practice.’

‘Your wish is my command,’ replied Tom.

It was lunchtime before they managed to explore the rest of their new home.

The days disappeared in a blur and Tom’s departure was drawing painfully near, painfully fast. They had unpacked everything that needed to be unpacked, cleaned everything that needed cleaning and replaced as many of the things that needed replacing as they could afford. What little savings they had left had already been set aside to pay for the renovation of a small outbuilding at the side of the house that was going to be used as Holly’s studio.

Tom’s parents had visited, bearing gifts and even helping out with the physical demands of turning the gatehouse into a home. Typical of Diane and Jack, they had stayed long enough to help but hadn’t outstayed their welcome. They knew without being told that Holly and Tom had a lot of quality time to try to cram into two weeks.

Diane had made sure the kitchen was organized and fully stocked with a range of cooking essentials before she left. She was keen to support Holly in one of her new projects. Holly wanted to learn to cook. Her dad had been keen to show Holly the basics, if only to keep himself well fed, but the basics had involved how to open tins of beans, how to pierce the cellophane before putting ready meals in the microwave, how to make instant noodles, that kind of thing. Now Holly and Tom were living so far away from the conveniences of fast-food takeaways and restaurants on every corner, she was keen to improve her skills. The move into the country was more than simply a change of address; Holly wanted it to be a change of lifestyle.

‘It’s a beautiful house, Holly. Jack and I are so happy for you both,’ Diane told her as they unpacked a mind-boggling assortment of kitchen utensils. ‘And Mum would be too. It makes the pain of losing her a little easier to bear, knowing that her legacy is to help you and Tom start a new life of your own.’

‘I’m just sorry Grandma Edith isn’t here to see her money being well spent. It means a lot to me and Tom that you’re happy with how we’ve used the inheritance.’

‘It’s all about investing in the future. This is where it all starts for you and Tom. This is where your family will be made.’

Diane gave Holly a hug and didn’t see the cloud of doubt pass over her face. Holly only wished she had the same kind of confidence in herself that the entire Corrigan family seemed to have.

Three days before Tom was due to leave, Holly’s to-do list was complete and the house was officially in order. The builders had already started work on the outbuilding and, although Holly was happy to sit back and let them get on with it, Tom obviously felt some kind of threat to his masculinity so he took up his own physical challenge by clearing the overgrown garden.

Leaving the men to their labours, Holly stayed indoors to start work on the preliminary sketches for her new commission. Mrs Bronson was a young wife with a very rich and very much older husband. To celebrate the birth of their first child together, as opposed to the numerous children her husband had fathered from a variety of previous marriages and dalliances, Mrs Bronson wanted to mark the occasion with a sculpture. It would need to be a substantial piece and would become a permanent and prominent feature in the entrance hall to their mansion.

Naturally, the theme of the sculpture was mother and child. Given the theme, Holly had been reluctant to take on the commission, which would take at least six months to complete, but the money was too good to turn down.

She had set out her sketch pads in the study that morning, full of good intentions but with a distinct lack of inspiration. Money alone wasn’t incentive enough to get her creative juices flowing. She just didn’t have that same depth of feeling she usually had to draw upon. She knew nothing about the miraculous bond between mother and child that everyone else seemed to drone on about.

Holly couldn’t recall a single memory of her childhood where she had felt that kind of bond. She had spent most of her formative years feeling either alone or afraid. Her mother had been in her teens when she had discovered she was pregnant. A hasty marriage and an unwanted child had come as a nasty shock to her and she hadn’t been prepared or willing to give up her freedom.

With a young child to care for, her mother’s social life had been severely restricted, so she often brought the party lifestyle she craved into the house. Holly had vivid memories of a house full of hangers-on, either recovering from the last party or waiting for the next. Her mum was always centre of attention, dancing barefoot through the house whether there was music playing or not. She always looked her happiest when she was dancing and everyone was drawn to her, even Holly, like a moth to the flame, eager to share her mother’s excitement. She could remember one time when her mum had picked her up and twirled her around the room to squeals of delight from her daughter, but Holly was never sure whether that had actually happened. She suspected it was merely a false memory of a longed-for dream. The memories Holly could rely on were those where her mum would stop dancing and point an accusing finger at her daughter before proclaiming to everyone that this was the creature who had ruined her life. The look on her mother’s face was one of pure loathing, and that was the image that Holly recalled when she thought of motherhood.

Until Tom, Holly hadn’t even managed to witness responsible parenting second-hand. In her early years, she had been isolated from other children, their parents having already labelled Holly as a problem child because of her family life. As a teenager, she had been naturally drawn to the other orphaned fledglings that had been pushed out of the nest too soon.

Her art had been her saviour in more ways than one. It had been a form of escapism, a part of her life she could control and succeed in and, in hindsight, it had also been an effective form of therapy. She had put a lot of anger into her earlier work and it was only after meeting Tom that she found she could express positive emotion in her art too. The love between a man and a woman she now understood; the love between a mother and a child she didn’t. She was drawing a blank, literally.

She had spent two hours going through the motions of sketching images, but still hadn’t come up with any ideas that were sufficiently original or thought-provoking. She’d sketched out some obvious images of a mother holding her child, a mother nursing her child, a mother kissing her child. Desperate for a new perspective, she’d even sketched out an image of the moment of birth. Possibly not the kind of statue Mrs Bronson would want greeting her guests in the entrance to her home.

Holly had a meeting scheduled with Mrs Bronson in less than a week’s time and she was starting to debate whether or not to cancel the commission altogether. If she went ahead and produced a sub-standard piece of work then that would damage her reputation, which was still in its embryonic stages. On the other hand, reneging on a deal would be equally damaging to her career.

Putting down her sketch pad, Holly headed into the kitchen. The room was large, with enough space for a dining table at its centre. It might have been the outbuilding which had drawn Holly to the property, but it was the kitchen that had sold the place to both her and Tom. The wooden units were painted white, the walls were green and the terracotta floor tiles extended out through the back door and across to a small terrace, which led onto the immense if slightly untamed garden and the countryside beyond.

Holly peered out of the kitchen window, searching for Tom. She couldn’t see him through the tangle of shrubs and trees, but she knew where he was from the sounds of snapping branches and occasional expletives. Ignoring the urge to go and investigate, she started chopping up vegetables – locally grown produce, of course – and set to work making a large pan of soup to try out on Tom and the builders.

‘And what do you think you’re up to?’

Holly jumped, narrowly avoiding chopping a finger rather than a carrot. A pair of arms closed around her waist. Tom had spied her from the garden and crept into the house.

‘Don’t you know better than to frighten a woman when she’s armed and dangerous?’ warned Holly, brandishing her kitchen knife.

‘You’re always dangerous. You can cut me to the wick, knife or not.’ He leaned down and kissed the back of her neck.

‘Don’t go getting sidetracked. I want that garden looking spick and span before you disappear off into the sunset.’

‘Look, woman!’ gasped Tom in amazement, pointing towards the garden. ‘Can’t you see the transformation already?’

Holly peered towards the garden, putting a hand up to shade her eyes for effect. ‘No, not at all,’ she laughed.

‘I’ve practically made a small mountain from all the bracken and deadwood I’ve cleared. I’ve even trimmed your bush.’

‘A man renowned for his literary prowess and he still lowers the tone with childish innuendo,’ remarked Holly. ‘And the garden looks like a heap to me.’

‘Well, it’ll look better when all the garden waste’s been cleared,’ Tom replied sulkily. ‘I just need someone to use their womanly charms on the builders to see if they’ll help me get rid of it.’

‘Well, I’m busy, in case you hadn’t noticed. Go use your own womanly charms on them, I’m sure they’ll be impressed.’

Holly let Tom beg a little longer before giving in. She was secretly happy to have an excuse to check on the building work. The outbuilding was set back and to the side of the house and looked like it had been used as a workshop at some point in the past. It was a one-storey brick building about the size of a double garage. Thanks to Billy the foreman, they had made a good start in the last week and had already filled two skips gutting the place. Thankfully the roof hadn’t needed to be completely replaced, but Velux roof windows were being installed to add more light. Interior walls had been knocked through and new windows knocked out of the outer walls. Each time Holly checked on their progress, the studio seemed to be getting lighter and lighter.

The studio was a hive of activity and Holly found Billy piling rubble into a wheelbarrow. The foreman was probably nearing retirement but showed no signs of acting his age as he picked up huge blocks of cement with ease. He had round features that did their best to hide the wrinkles on his weathered face and he still had a good head of hair which was quite possibly grey, although Holly could only guess at this because he always seemed to wear a permanent layer of dust that made his hair almost white.

‘How’s it going, Billy?’ Holly shouted over the din of power tools.

‘The electrician is coming over tomorrow, so I’d say we’ll be plastering the walls by early next week and putting the final touches to the job.’

‘You’re a miracle worker, you really are.’

Billy beamed a smile at her. ‘Glad to be of service. You can always count on me,’ he told her. ‘Not like that husband of yours. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, he shouldn’t be leaving you on your own to fend for yourself.’

‘Yes, Billy, you have said it before, many times. And like I keep telling you, I can manage perfectly well on my own,’ admonished Holly. She was now used to Billy’s old-fashioned views and, rather than take offence, she quite liked being treated as the fairer sex, especially when it meant she could wrap him around her finger.

‘If there’s anything you need, you only have to ask,’ he assured her with a kindly twinkle in his eye.

‘Well, there is something,’ she began. ‘But it’s that husband of mine who needs the help.’

‘We’ve been watching him hack away at that jungle of yours,’ Billy said. ‘Kept us amused all morning, it has.’

‘Any chance a couple of your lads could help clear away the debris? There’s a pan of soup on the go and a ton of crusty bread for your trouble,’ pleaded Holly, fluttering her eyelashes for effect.

‘Your wish is my command,’ agreed Billy. ‘But while you’re here, you might want to take a look at this. We found it during the clear-out.’

Billy picked up a wooden box from among a heap of building materials stacked up in a corner.

The box was the size of a small shoebox and, although it was difficult to tell underneath the layers of dust, it seemed to be made of oak with brass hinges and a simple clasp. There were engravings around its sides, but again the dust was obscuring the detail.

‘Have you opened it?’ Holly asked with growing excitement. The box didn’t exactly look like it was going to contain a hoard of jewels, but it was ornate enough to suggest it held something of value.

Billy turned the clasp and lifted the lid. Holly’s excitement dissipated in a puff of ancient dust as she peered at the assortment of mechanical-looking objects within. Split into two sections, the box held some kind of glass ball on one side and a selection of brass cogs and brackets on the other. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Haven’t got a clue,’ Billy answered. ‘Consider it a gift, from me to you.’ Again, he winked at her.

‘Thanks, Billy, you really know how to spoil a girl.’

Holly took the box with her back into the house and put it to one side so she could concentrate on getting lunch prepared.

The soup was a success, judging by the speed in which it was devoured by the workers, and with their lunch break over the builders set to work helping Tom clear the garden. Holly wasn’t in a hurry to return to her sketches so she decided to occupy herself with the mysterious wooden box. Having laid some old newspaper on the kitchen table, she set about gently cleaning the box and its contents with soapy water and an old toothbrush. Technically speaking, the toothbrush hadn’t been old that morning when Tom had been using it, but it was now.

The box itself gave nothing away as to its purpose, other than some pretty carvings of the sun, moon, stars and what looked like clock faces. The glass ball was the easiest item to clean. It was about two inches in diameter and as Holly wiped away the dust, she could see that it was made of something other than clear glass. The orb had a perfectly smooth surface but, at its core, there was a small, silvery prism that reflected light out from its centre. It glinted softly in the warm sunlight. Setting the orb to one side, Holly concentrated her efforts on the cogs. Beneath the dust and grime the brass shone and that was when she noticed an inscription running around the edge of one of the larger cogs. The inscription was well worn and unreadable in places, but she could just about make out a few words. Reflection, was one, Key, another and she guessed another said Time.

‘Found something else to do to avoid the dreaded Mrs Bronson?’ Tom asked her. He was covered in scratches from his hard labours, but as Holly peeked out of the window at the garden she had to admit it was starting to take shape.

‘Billy found it in the outbuilding. I’ve cleaned it up, but I’ve still not got a clue what it is.’ Holly showed him the inscription on the cog.

‘“In time, reflection is the key to travelling”,’ Tom read.

Holly’s jaw dropped open. ‘How on earth did you read that? Some of the words have completely worn away.’

Tom beamed with superiority. ‘I keep telling you, I have hidden depths.’

‘Is it a well-known saying? I’ve not heard it before, what does it mean?’ she demanded.

‘Haven’t the foggiest.’ Tom shrugged.

‘Tom?’ Holly asked, eyeing him with suspicion now.

‘You know that stone plinth stuck in the middle of the garden with no apparent use? Well, I found a matching top hidden in the overgrowth. It has the same inscription written on it.’

‘Show me,’ Holly insisted, leaving the array of freshly polished brass cogs to sparkle on the kitchen table.

The stone slab was face-down in the dirt, half buried by years of leaf-fall. It was a deep grey colour with sparkles of quartz glistening through it. Despite working with a wide range of materials in her sculptures, Holly didn’t recognize the type of stone at all. The slab was perfectly round and, as Tom had described, it had an inscription, currently upside down, around its outer edge. There was also a large hole in the centre which looked like it would match the top of the plinth perfectly.

‘Considering it’s been buried beneath all of this mulch, I can’t believe how clean it is,’ Tom told her, shaking his head in disbelief.

Holly traced her fingers across its cold, smooth surface. Her fingers tingled as if a faint charge of electricity had flowed up from the stone and she pulled her hand away.

‘Does it feel weird to you?’ Holly asked, unsure if she had imagined it.

Tom gave her a puzzled look and then stroked the surface of the slab. ‘Feels like stone to me,’ he assured her. ‘What were you expecting it to feel like?’

Holly tentatively touched the stone again and this time there was no tingling sensation. She shook her head, dismissing the thought. ‘Nothing, it’s just me. Can we move it?’

‘And do what? You seriously think we can lift it onto the plinth?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Holly could visualize the stone circle balanced perfectly on top of the plinth and taking centre stage in the garden. It belonged in its rightful place and Holly wasn’t going to rest until it was moved.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to ask the builders?’

‘Are you a man or a mouse?’ Holly stood with her hands on her hips, challenging him.

‘I’m a man, of course. But it doesn’t help that my only partner in crime is a feeble woman.’

‘Just get on with it,’ warned Holly.

Holly put her hands on the stone again, almost hoping its latent power would help them with the task that lay ahead. Tom joined her and they dug their hands deep into the dirt to find a hold. As they lifted the slab, Tom’s face went a beautiful shade of puce and he grunted and groaned. Holly matched him groan for groan and could feel the veins in her neck throbbing with the effort. After what seemed like an eternity of laborious shuffling, they dropped the stone to the ground to take a rest.

‘Not bad,’ panted Tom.

‘Sure,’ gasped Holly. ‘We’ve moved it all of six inches.’ She looked over at the plinth, which was still about twenty feet away. ‘At this rate, we’ll get there in three days and two hernias.’

There was a tut-tut of disapproval behind her. Holly turned to see Billy shaking his head.

‘Mr C, I’m disappointed in you. You should know better than to treat your lady like a common labourer,’ he said, before turning around to his workmates who had followed him into the garden. ‘No offence, lads.’

Holly was about to tell Billy that heavy lifting was an occupational hazard as far as she was concerned, but then she thought better of it. ‘My knight in shining armour,’ she said.

Tom groaned as he tried to straighten his back. ‘Mine too,’ he said, winking at Billy.

Billy and his crew of builders lifted up the stone slab as if it were made of balsa wood and two minutes later they were lifting it over the plinth.

‘Hold on a minute,’ Holly shouted. She had realized that the inscription was still upside down.

With a little more effort, the slab was turned over and placed on top of the plinth. It was a perfect fit. Everyone gathered around the newly formed table and stared at it.

‘It’s a clock,’ one of Billy’s lads said.

‘And it’s telling me it’s time to get back to work,’ replied Billy pointedly.

The builders disappeared as quickly as they had arrived, leaving Holly and Tom alone with their puzzle. Billy’s lad had been right about it looking like a clock. The top had a large dial carved with Roman numerals in much the same way as a traditional clock. There was still a gaping hole about two inches deep in the centre of the dial where the top of the plinth didn’t reach the surface. It was only now that Holly noticed that there were grooves and notches in the upper surface of the plinth and this must be where the dial’s mechanism would fit, the mechanism which was no doubt made up from the box of gizmos Billy had discovered. As well as the inscription running around the outer edge, there was an assortment of symbols, similar to those on the box, etched beautifully into the stone surface.

‘It’s a sundial,’ Holly said.

‘It’s going to make a great feature in the garden.’

‘All I need to do now is work out how to fit all the cogs into it and get it to work,’ Holly replied, eager to return to the kitchen to retrieve the wooden box and its contents.

‘Well, I’ve done all the hard work, so I’ll leave the rest to you. I’ve still got plenty of clearing to do. Unless you want to help me?’ offered Tom.

‘Didn’t you hear what Billy said? I’m not a common labourer,’ grinned Holly.

Holly spent the rest of the afternoon fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. When she had finished, all the cogs were in place in the centre of the dial. Uppermost were four claws, pointing towards the skies, reaching out and waiting desperately to grasp the glass orb. Holly dropped the orb into the claws and it rattled into place, although the claws were opened too wide to hold it snugly. The reflection from the sun as it glinted off the prism deep inside the orb was painfully bright. Holly called Tom over and they both stepped back to admire their new garden centrepiece.

‘I thought a sundial was supposed to use shadows, not reflections from the sun,’ Tom said as he squinted at the orb. He tried to push it down further into the mechanism to see if the claws would close further around it, but the dial creaked stubbornly and refused to move. ‘Looks like you didn’t put it together properly.’

Holly thumped him.

‘What was that for?’

‘You’re not supposed to force the claws like that.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Tom.

‘I just do,’ replied Holly, a frown appearing on her brow. She didn’t know anything about sundials, but this one made her feel uncomfortable. She removed the orb and put it back in the box.

‘I’ll put this somewhere safe. I don’t suppose it’s a good idea reflecting sunlight across the garden when there’s so much deadwood still around.’

‘If that’s a hint, then I’ll get back to work. Time is running out.’

Tom’s words sent a shiver down Holly’s spine. She had a sudden sense of foreboding that she couldn’t quite explain.

Chapter 2

The house felt empty. Tom had left for Belgium in the early hours of the morning. Holly had clung onto him until his taxi arrived and Tom had had to prise her fingers away from her vice grip on the lapels of his jacket as she gave him one final kiss, a kiss that would have to last her for six whole weeks.

‘It won’t be for long. I’ll be back before you know it and, besides, it’s less than two hours away by plane. If you need me, I could be back in no time at all.’

‘I should come with you. Whose stupid idea was it anyway for me to stay at home?’

‘Yours,’ answered Tom, as kindly as he could.

He was right, it had been her idea. She had to accept that she was at a critical point in her career. Moving out of the city when her work was starting to receive critical acclaim had been a huge risk. Moving out of the country would be vocational suicide.

She had retreated to her bed, where she allowed herself to wallow in self-pity as she sensed the distance growing between them by the minute. She knew she was being self-indulgent; it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been on her own before. She could quite easily fend for herself, but that wasn’t the point. Her dream had been to move into the village with Tom, not to be on her own. As she lay in bed, the cheerful birdsong that accompanied the dawning of the new day only served to mock Holly. At least the weather was a little more sympathetic as the storm clouds gathered overhead. Holly pulled the bedcovers over her head and did her best to go back to sleep. It was Sunday so at least there would be no builders to look after today.

The birds had recovered from their early morning hysteria and settled into just the occasional midday tweets by the time Holly pulled on her sweats, tied back her hair and dragged herself into the kitchen to make a strong cup of coffee. She spotted Tom’s half-empty mug of coffee abandoned on the kitchen table and bit her lip to stifle a sob that appeared from nowhere.

‘You pathetic idiot,’ she told herself. ‘Mrs Bronson’s sculpture isn’t going to create itself.’

She took a deep breath and pulled her shoulders back, willing herself to find the motivation to start moving. As she exhaled, her body sagged like a deflated balloon. She tried again and, before her resolve was allowed to falter a second time, she picked up Tom’s mug, gently washed it and put it away, out of sight.

Armed with her coffee, Holly shuffled into the study, where her heart sank a little further. Although this had temporarily become Holly’s domain while the studio was being finished off, it was always intended to be Tom’s room. Tom, however, wasn’t around to make it his own.

The study was at the front of the house and had an open fire, a large bay window and pastel-coloured, flowery wallpaper, all the essentials for a warm and welcoming country cottage feel. In her current mood, however, Holly could see only a cold and uninviting, heartbreakingly empty room. The clean, modern lines of the city-living furniture Holly and Tom had brought with them no longer seemed like a quirky contrast but rather a violent clash of two alien worlds. She was starting to think she was never going to adjust to country life.

The distraction of the decor was too much, so after a half-hearted attempt to make a start at her work she picked herself up and shuffled into the more spacious living room. It had windows to both the front and the back of the house, but even with so much more natural light to work in, she still couldn’t settle.

Eventually Holly returned to the kitchen, which was the one room she had no intention of changing. The only furniture they had added was a large wooden kitchen table that had belonged to Grandma Edith. The table had history, a good history.

At last, Holly’s thoughts turned to her commission. The showdown with Mrs Bronson was now only three days away. She had a couple of concepts she thought would suit her client’s taste, but she still hadn’t been able to find something that she personally could put her heart into. She needed to believe in the piece if she was going to bring the chosen design to life. Taking the job had been purely financial and she wasn’t proud of that fact. The end result wasn’t going to be just about the money, though: her conscience wouldn’t let it. She wasn’t prepared to produce something that she wouldn’t want to put her name to.

Holly picked up the two sketches which were on the short list so far. One was of a mother and child, their arms curved around each other in an unbroken circle. The concept wasn’t exactly original, but she intended to make the piece by merging etched black stone with white, which was a trademark she was becoming renowned for. The second sketch showed a swirling image of a mother twirling a child through the air. It had more energy than the first and of the two it was the one Holly preferred. There was still something missing, though. She suspected it lacked the emotional connection between the two figures, something which she knew too little of and it showed in the sketches.

Startled from her inner thoughts by a knock at the door, Holly crept down the hallway and did a quick check in the mirror, which was now properly hung in place on the wall next to the door. She seriously considered running back into the kitchen to hide rather than frighten off her unknown caller with her sullen features and unkempt hair. If she had still been in London it would have been an easy option to take, but here in the village, she felt obliged to welcome her visitor. Reluctantly, Holly opened the door.

‘Hello, you must be Holly. I hope I didn’t disturb you.’ A grey-haired woman with deep brown eyes was sheltering under a huge blue-and-white polka dot umbrella. The rain was thumping savagely against it but, despite her frail appearance, the old lady kept the umbrella firm in her grasp.

‘Not at all,’ lied Holly, unconsciously rubbing her cheeks to bring some colour to her complexion. She opened her mouth to continue but then had a lengthy internal debate with herself, wondering whether or not to invite this woman into her home.

Was she an old, lonely lady looking for company, a nosy busybody on the hunt for gossip to spread across the village, or a well-disguised saleswoman selling something? Of course, she might simply be what she appeared. A friendly face, welcoming Holly to the community. Whatever the answer, Holly could write off the rest of the afternoon if she let the old lady cross the threshold, but failure to do the right thing now could see her ostracized from the village. She’d been warned by her fellow townies that if you upset the wrong person then a village feud could last generations. Those particular townies had never set foot outside the city and Holly knew it was just scaremongering, but then Holly didn’t want to take any chances.

‘Perhaps it’s the wrong time to call,’ the woman suggested sympathetically. ‘I’m Jocelyn and I live just down the road in the village. It was only a quick call to introduce myself, but please, tell me to go away if you want. Really, I’ve got the skin of a rhino, I won’t be offended.’

‘No, please, where are my manners? Come in.’

Holly relieved Jocelyn of her umbrella and her overcoat and led her into the kitchen. She quickly cleared away her artwork and made space for Jocelyn to sit down. Jocelyn was looking around the room and a gentle smile curved her lips.

‘Would you like a hot drink to warm you up?’ offered Holly.

‘No, honestly, I won’t put you to any trouble.’

‘It’s no trouble, I was about to get another cup for myself.’

With the polite debate laid to rest, Holly put the kettle on and rummaged through the cupboards for proper teacups and some biscuits to offer her guest.

‘I heard you’re a successful artist and now I can see why. These drawings are amazing,’ Jocelyn said, tapping one of the sketches Holly had put to one side.

‘Thank you. It keeps me out of trouble.’ Holly had only met a handful of people from the village so far. For the last two weeks, she and Tom had been too wrapped up in their own company to pursue introductions with their neighbours beyond the occasional polite ‘hello’. It shouldn’t have surprised her, however, that the village grapevine had already sized them up.

‘Billy has been telling me all about your new studio. He’s quite proud of it.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Holly didn’t see really and was trying to make the right connections. Jocelyn must know Billy quite well, but she looked at least eighty years old, while Billy was perhaps early sixties. ‘You’re not Billy’s wife, are you?’ Holly blushed at her own bluntness.

‘Good grief, no,’ laughed Jocelyn. ‘He’s a good friend and I love him to bits, but I can only take Billy in small doses.’

Holly laughed. ‘I think I know what you mean. He does seem rather set in his ways. He certainly gave Tom a hard time for going off and leaving me.’ Presuming that Jocelyn wouldn’t know Tom was working away, Holly explained herself more. ‘Tom left for Belgium this morning and he’ll be away for six long weeks.’

‘Yes, I know, it’s why I called around, really,’ Jocelyn admitted with an awkward smile. ‘Billy thought you might need a shoulder to cry on and it was either me or him.’

Holly wondered if there was anything in their lives that would remain private. It was certainly going to take her a while to get used to village life. Perhaps there was a village committee that would need to ratify her next five-year plan, she thought to herself.

‘Well, thank you for being so thoughtful,’ replied Holly, and she actually meant it. Tom’s parents had promised to check on her regularly, but they were two villages away. The few friends she had were all in London and she was just starting to realize that the emptiness she had felt when Tom left was as much to do with feeling isolated as it had been to do with the absence of bodies in the house.

‘It’s not a problem,’ Jocelyn said, taking a sip of her tea and allowing a small hesitation before saying what she said next. ‘The truth of the matter is I fancied a sneaky peak inside the house. It’s been a long time since I was here last.’

‘Really?’ asked Holly. ‘Did you know someone who lived here before?’

‘I was someone who lived here.’

‘Really?’ gasped Holly. ‘When? What was it like? Why did you move?’ The questions kept tumbling out of Holly’s mouth.

‘Oh, it must be at least twenty-five years now,’ explained Jocelyn. ‘Last time I was in this kitchen it was fitted out in top-of-the-range Formica and the colour scheme was orange and brown.’

‘Seventies at its best,’ observed Holly.

‘You guessed it, although it was the early eighties when I left. My husband wasn’t exactly one for decorating.’

‘So why did you leave? Who had the house after you?’ Holly was eager to know the full history of the house she now called home.

‘That’s a long story,’ sighed Jocelyn. ‘I left because I left my husband. He lived in the house a few more years and then it was sold on.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’ More questions were queuing up in Holly’s mind, but she had the good grace to curb them.

‘That’s all right. This house holds some really good memories for me and some,’ Jocelyn continued, scrunching her face as she prepared herself for the confession: ‘Well, some not so good. I just hope you find happiness here. In fact, I’m sure you will.’

Jocelyn was more keen on telling Holly all about the village than she was about her life in the gatehouse. She offered to introduce her to village life whenever she was ready, whenever she felt like she needed the company. She told her all about the quiz nights at one of the local pubs, the karaoke night at the other, not to mention all the fundraisers and bingo nights at the village hall.

‘And then of course there’s my teashop, which is opposite the church. Now I will only insist on one thing and that is that you stop by this week so I can treat you to afternoon tea.’

Holly could offer no better response than continuous nodding. Jocelyn was turning out to be the perfect medicine for a lonely heart. ‘I will,’ she promised.

‘Don’t go getting all polite on me. I’m sure you think I’m nothing but a hopeless busybody,’ Jocelyn confessed. ‘But I know from experience how easy it is to become isolated in a small village. You seem to be an independent and determined young lady, but sometimes that can work against you. It worked against me.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Holly, hoping Jocelyn would reveal a little more about her history.

‘You remind me a little of myself. Maybe it’s the connection with the house. I hope that’s all it is. I was born and raised in the village, but I had dreams of carving out a career for myself just like you, making my own way in the world.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I didn’t have any talents to rely on, not like you. I put off marriage as long as I could but, eventually, I conformed to tradition. I didn’t come from a time or a place where it was the done thing for women to have a career of their own, or a life of their own, for that matter.’

‘So you became a housewife? In this house?’

‘Yes. In the beginning it was actually good. My son was born and my husband had a good job. He ran his own carpentry business.’

‘And the outbuilding was his workshop,’ guessed Holly. ‘So what went wrong? Sorry, is that too personal?’

‘It’s a long story. A long, long story and I won’t bore you with it now. I’ve taken up enough of your time,’ replied Jocelyn, draining the last of her tea.

Holly was a little disappointed. Her interest in this woman’s past life had been piqued. She wanted to know the details and she didn’t mind if it took the rest of the day.

Jocelyn stood up, clearing up the plates and cups before putting them on the tray. ‘No, please, I can’t let you do that. You’re my guest,’ reproached Holly.

‘Indulge an old lady,’ Jocelyn said with a half-hidden grin. ‘I like to clean up after myself. Besides, I wanted to have a better look out the window and into the garden.’

‘You can have a full tour of the house if you like,’ laughed Holly.

‘Now that would be cheeky and I really do have to be getting along.’

‘It’s still raining,’ warned Holly. ‘Are you sure you want to go yet?’

‘A little rain won’t do me any harm. Besides, it’s good for the garden.’ Jocelyn turned and peered out of the window. Her body imperceptibly sagged.

‘Tom made a start on it, but I don’t think it’s been touched for quite some time,’ explained Holly, feeling the need to apologize for the ramshackle state of the garden.

‘I see you’ve resurrected the moondial.’ Jocelyn was looking intently at the stone table.

‘Moondial? Do you mean the sundial?’

Before Holly had a chance to quiz Jocelyn further, the phone rang. It was Tom. He had arrived safely at his new digs in Belgium.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ mouthed Jocelyn.

Holly was torn between being a gracious host and speaking to Tom. For the brief time Jocelyn had been there, Holly had forgotten how lonely she had been, but those feelings crashed against her chest once more. Holly put a hand on Jocelyn’s shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

With a series of determined hand signals, Holly was ordered to stay in the kitchen and Jocelyn saw herself out of the house. ‘I’ve just made a new friend,’ Holly told Tom. ‘She’s almost made today bearable.’

Holly treated herself to a large glass of wine and a deep bubble bath before bedtime, a combination which she hoped would guarantee a peaceful night’s sleep. Although it wasn’t unusual for Tom to spend nights away, their current separation was going to be the longest of their marriage. To ease their shared loneliness, Tom had promised to set time aside each and every morning and evening to speak to Holly on the phone, so with glass in hand, surrounded by soft pillows, Holly let Tom whisper sweet nothings to her as she lay in bed.

When they could put it off no longer, Holly reluctantly said goodnight and put down the phone. She turned off the lights but didn’t manage to switch off her mind so easily. Holly’s best-laid plans of a peaceful night became snagged in a tangle of thoughts. The separation from Tom, the new house, the village, the commission she couldn’t find inspiration for, all of these kept her tossing and turning long past midnight. To her surprise, it wasn’t thoughts of Tom and more particularly Tom’s absence that preoccupied her mind most of all. It was Jocelyn.

Holly had taken an immediate liking to Jocelyn. When the old lady had arrived on her doorstep uninvited, it had been the last thing Holly had wanted. But as it turned out, she had been sorry to see her go. There was still so much she wanted to know about the gatehouse’s previous occupants, and Jocelyn intrigued her. She had the distinct feeling they were going to be good friends. The thought comforted her and in some ways appeased her curiosity.

Try as she might to clear her mind, the effort simply made her concentrate even more on the thoughts she was trying to ignore. The hours slipped by as she tossed and turned until she eventually admitted defeat and stretched her arms wide then opened her eyes. The digital glow of the clock revealed it was 2:07 a.m. Moonlight was seeping through the window blind, filling the room with nature’s very own lunar mood lighting. Holly’s heart skipped a beat as Jocelyn’s words echoed in her mind. ‘I see you’ve resurrected the moondial,’ she’d said, just as Holly had been distracted by Tom’s phone call. Was that what had been playing on her mind? If it was, there was only one way to chase away the demons that had kept sleep firmly out of reach.

Holly tumbled out of bed and opened the blinds. A perfectly formed full moon had risen above a bubbling sea of clouds. The storm that had plagued the day was now a distant memory, receding into the night. Holly drew her eyes away from the moon and looked down towards the garden, which was painted in a hundred shades of grey. It wasn’t the white speckled blossom winking at her from the orchard or the occasional daffodil bobbing its ghostly white head against the night that drew her attention but the moondial. It was positioned perfectly in the centre of the garden to catch the full effect of the moonlight. It practically shone.

Though she couldn’t explain why, Holly felt drawn to the dial as it glinted invitingly at her. Once the idea of taking a closer look had formed in her mind, she couldn’t ignore it. She almost laughed at her own foolishness as she slipped into a T-shirt and jog pants and headed downstairs. She slipped on a pair of trainers and then, before going out through the kitchen door, Holly had another, equally bemusing idea. She retrieved the wooden box that contained the final piece of the moondial puzzle and took it with her out into the garden.

Spring hadn’t quite chased away the winter chills and Holly shivered against the cold April night. The ground was damp and the grass was so long and overgrown that her jog pants soon became soaked up to her knees.

Holly felt a knot of anxiety building inside her as she approached the dial. The garden that had seemed neglected and forlorn by day took on a more menacing feel by night as the wind stirred up the dead bracken strewn across the outer edges of the garden so that it rustled with the echoes of extinguished life.

She could almost believe that she was being controlled by an invisible puppeteer as she placed the box on top of the dial and opened it. She lifted the orb up to catch the moonlight and it glimmered with excitement as shards of light reached out like beacons from the prism embedded in its core.

Carefully placing the orb in the centre of the dial, where it clattered against the brass claws, Holly was mesmerized as she watched it absorbing the fragments of moonlight until the orb glowed into life, becoming a miniature moon caught within the claws of the dial. Her heart jumped as the mechanism seemed to come to life too and with an ancient clunk, the dial snatched the orb greedily in its claws. In a split second, thin strands of light spread out from the glowing orb, beams of light that started to turn like the frenzied hands of a clock spinning out of control. At that same moment, Holly put out her hand to hold onto the dial for support and an electric current shot up her arm.

Instinctively, Holly pulled her hand away as a shower of moonbeams sparked around her. Reeling from the shock, her legs went from under her and as she fell, her head glanced off the side of the dial. Holly landed on the ground with a thump and stars joined in the merry dance that flittered across her closed eyelids. She could hear the steady ticking of a clock fading into the distance, the sound replaced by the furious beating of her heart.

Winded and badly shaken, she tried to calm herself by taking deep breaths. She leant over, putting her hands on the ground to steady and compose herself. The grass beneath her fingers felt soft and lush as if she was kneeling on a well manicured lawn, not the tangled overgrowth she was expecting.

Holly had an irrational fear that she wasn’t in her garden any more, but she was still half blinded and could only use her hands to find her bearings and explore her surroundings. She wondered if the force of the moondial’s light show had knocked her further than she had realized, but then she touched the hard surface of the plinth beneath the moondial. It was hard, cold, but reassuringly familiar. Using the top of the dial for support, Holly pulled herself unsteadily to her feet.

Although white worms of light were still crawling across her vision, she could make out vague outlines of other familiar landmarks. The orchard, the studio, the house. Then Holly glanced at the moondial and her heart froze. The orb and the brass mechanism had disappeared, as had the wooden box which had been left on top of it. Holly spun around, scanning the ground in case they had fallen nearby, but all she saw was a perfectly cut lawn. Her heart would have hammered harder if it wasn’t already beating to maximum effect. What just happened? she asked herself.

Shaking uncontrollably, Holly suddenly realized that it wasn’t only the shock that was making her shiver. The temperature had dropped by a good few degrees and her T-shirt felt pathetically thin. She tried to bring calm to her shaking body by concentrating on her breathing, which came out in icy vapour clouds that swirled in the air in front of her eyes. The calm was short-lived as she turned to face the house, seeking the comfort of her home. When she had walked across the garden earlier, her path had only been revealed by the soft glow of the moon. There had been no artificial lights leaching from the house because she hadn’t switched any lights on. Now the kitchen window was ablaze with light.

Holly could only imagine that the knock on the head had affected her senses and perhaps her memory was playing tricks on her. She took a deep breath and gave herself a moment to take a more thorough look around her. It didn’t help.

Something was wrong with this picture: correction, so many things were wrong with this picture, but she didn’t seem able to process her thoughts properly. As she neared the house, her mind could no longer deny the one thing that her sanity had refused to acknowledge. There was a conservatory slap bang in front of the house, running the full width of the living room up to the back door. The conservatory was in darkness, but soft light glowed from the living room beyond.

With faltering steps and a sense of lost reality, Holly crept towards the door that led through to the kitchen. Rather than walk straight back into what was supposed to be her home, she peeked through the window like a thief. To her relief, it was empty, but as she took in the detail, her growing confusion was ramped up to spine-chilling terror, skipping right past the niceties of growing anxiety. The kitchen was still her kitchen, same cupboards, same cooker, same fridge, even the same table, but it was most definitely not the kitchen she had just left. Holly started to wonder how bad the bump on her head must have been to explain away the vast assortment of baby equipment stacked up on every available surface.

Holly could only make herself move by convincing herself that what she was experiencing was some form of hallucination. She just wanted to get into the house and take refuge in her bed, blocking out the alternative universe her mind seemed to have created around her for her own private terror. She stepped towards the back door and tried to open it, but the door handle wouldn’t budge. Although the handle felt cold and solid, her hand didn’t seem to be applying pressure on it at all and Holly wondered if it was an after-effect of the shock she had received from the moondial. She wrapped her fingers tightly around the handle and, with the kind of effort it would take to open castle gates, Holly finally opened the door and stepped deeper inside her nightmare.

The room smelled different, a mixture of home cooking and warm milk as opposed to the smell of instant noodles and stale wine that she would have expected. Holly didn’t feel strong enough or confident enough to go too far into the kitchen, so she rested against a nearby cupboard. She waited and listened, hoping at least one of her senses was still working rationally. She wanted to hear nothing but the familiar silence of an empty house, but it wasn’t long before her hearing joined in the game that was pushing her sanity to the limits. She heard distant voices coming from one of the other rooms but moving closer. Whoever was in the house had just entered the hall. Holly’s eyes shot between the back door, which was her only means of escape, and the door that led into the hall and which could open at any moment.

Holly stood her ground. This was her house and she had every right to be here. So why did she feel like a stranger in her own home? There were two voices she could make out, one male, one female. They were soft and muffled and Holly couldn’t quite hear what they were saying above the thumping of her own heart. She did hear the now familiar squeak as the front door opened.

With a brief moment to relax from the threat of imminent confrontation, Holly tried to do a reality check. What was happening to her? Could this really be a hallucination? Had the bump on her head made her delusional? Had she been knocked out longer than she thought? Had she spent days unconscious in the garden while squatters had taken up roost in her house? As implausible as it sounded, Holly almost preferred to believe that option rather than consider the state of her mental health.

She walked across the kitchen and was about to take a chance and peek into the hallway when the door opened wide in front of her. Holly gasped and took stumbling steps backwards as a figure loomed in front of her.

‘Tom!’ Holly cried. ‘Thank God you’re here.’

She reached both arms towards him but then she froze. The man in front of her looked like her Tom, but there was so much about him that wasn’t familiar that it startled her. His hair was cropped short, much shorter than at any other time Holly had known him, but it wasn’t this that startled her most. He didn’t just look dishevelled, which would have been normal for him, he looked gaunt. But even this wasn’t what froze Holly’s heart to the core. It was his eyes. His beautiful green eyes looked towards Holly and then right through her. His eyes looked vacant, dead even.

Tom turned away from Holly without even registering her presence. He picked up a pair of ladies’ leather gloves which were lying on the kitchen table on top of a notebook. ‘Got them,’ he called out before turning and leaving the kitchen.

As the door closed and Holly was left on her own once more, she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. Finally, she remembered to breathe. With every ounce of composure she had left, Holly staggered towards the door Tom had disappeared through and with more effort than she knew it deserved, she managed to open it by just a fraction. Tom was standing at the front door with his back to her. Diane was there too, standing on the threshold with her hand on Tom’s arm, talking to him. Partially reflected in the hall mirror, there was a third figure and, although she couldn’t be sure, Holly guessed it was her father-in-law, Jack.

Holly held herself back from a burning desire to rush into Tom’s arms and demand that he make everything right. Then she remembered the way he had looked right through her and fear kept her rooted to the spot.

‘You know where we are if you need anything,’ Diane was telling Tom.

‘I know, Mum. We’ll be fine.’

‘I know we’ve all agreed now is the right time to let you fend for yourself, but if you need me . . .’

‘I know,’ insisted Tom. ‘I know where you are.’

‘Will you leave the boy alone, Di,’ Jack said. An arm appeared around Diane’s waist as he tried to pull his wife away.

‘She’s such a fragile, little thing. Now if you’re ever unsure about what to do, I’ve written everything down in the notepad on the table. And I’m always at the end of the phone. If you need anything, ring me.’

‘I will, but you know everything’s organized. It’s not like Holly didn’t have everything planned right down to the last nappy for Libby’s arrival. You’d think she knew she was never coming home from hospital.’ Tom’s voice cracked with emotion and there was a pause as he gulped back a sob. ‘I know I can’t replace her, Mum, but I promise you, I’ll look after our baby. She came at such a high price.’

‘Poor Holly. It’s just so wrong. She would have made such a good mum. Why did she have to . . .’ Diane couldn’t finish her sentence, she simply let the tears roll down her cheeks.

‘You can say the word, Mum. It’s not like I could forget,’ Tom told her. ‘She died. Holly died.’

Holly gripped the door handle. Whether it was fear or determination, her sense of touch seemed to be recovering slightly and the handle felt firm in her grasp, unlike her sanity. Holly could barely gasp in shock because the wind had been knocked out of her body and she felt utterly weak. She wanted to run but couldn’t draw her eyes away from the horror that was being played out in front of her like a car crash in slow motion.

‘No more of this,’ Jack was insisting. ‘We said we would go home today. We agreed it was for the best.’

‘But it’s been less than a month. Tom’s world’s been turned upside down,’ argued Diane.

‘Dad’s right,’ Tom said, straightening his back in firm resolve. ‘If we don’t do this now, then it’s just going to get harder and harder.’

‘And if you keep on blubbing, you’re not going to be able to see your way down the path to the car,’ warned Jack.

‘At least let me help you with your case,’ insisted Tom, taking a step over the threshold.

‘What about Libby?’ Diane sobbed.

‘She’s safe enough in the living room and I’ll put the snip on the door.’

No sooner had the figures retreated from view than a sound came from the living room. It was a sound so alien to the house that Holly released the door handle as if, like the moondial, it too had been charged with electricity.

She wanted to turn and run but something about the sound of the baby crying caught her around the chest. Never before had Holly felt a reaction like it to a baby’s cries. Instead of moving away, she stepped into the hallway and entered the living room.

The baby was in a bassinet in the corner of the room. Her eyes were open wide and alert. They were bright green, a mirror image of Tom’s. When the baby saw Holly, she didn’t just stop crying, her whole body relaxed and she stilled herself. She was the most beautiful thing Holly had ever seen. She had wisps of blonde hair and a handful of tiny curls licked her forehead. Her cheeks were perfectly round and her pink lips the cutest Cupid’s bow. Holly couldn’t resist and she gently stroked the side of her angelic face. The baby responded by moving towards her hand, her little mouth searching for nourishment.

‘So what’s a tiny wonder like you doing in a nightmare like this?’ whispered Holly.

The baby wriggled and gurgled and Holly instinctively reached out to her. She paused only briefly as the urge to hold the baby consumed her. She had never in her life had any desire to hold a baby and she couldn’t recall a time when she actually had held one. She slipped her hands beneath the baby’s body, her fingers sweeping over the soft, warm folds of the blanket she was wrapped in and Holly went to pick her up. Her fumbling fingers met no resistance and Holly could feel no weight against her hands as she tried to lift the baby out of the bassinet. Holly frowned in frustration as the need to hold the baby overwhelmed her. But no matter how hard she tried, the baby remained firmly in the bassinet and sensing Holly’s frustration she began to cry, much louder than before.

‘I’m coming,’ called Tom’s disembodied voice and Holly heard him rush down the hallway and into the kitchen.

Holly stepped away from the bassinet and looked around the room with rising panic. The stack of sympathy cards lined up across the mantelpiece didn’t escape her notice but she was more intent on finding a hiding place. She scurried over to the large patio windows which led into the conservatory and slipped into the shadows just as Tom appeared with a baby’s feeding bottle in his hand.

He picked the baby up and sat down on the nearest of the two sofas to feed her. He was practically facing Holly and although she knew she wasn’t completely hidden, there was still no sign that Tom sensed that she was there.

‘Alone at last,’ Tom sighed as the baby guzzled her milk urgently.

The room fell silent other than the sound of the baby’s gulps and Holly’s ragged breathing. She thought her breathing must be so loud that Tom would surely hear her, but still he didn’t acknowledge her. She could feel herself withdrawing into the relative comfort of a shock-induced numbness. Her brain had all but stopped trying to make sense of what was happening to her. She chose instead to concentrate on the regular gulps of satisfaction she could hear coming from Libby and it soothed her.

‘I know you’re there, Holly,’ Tom said.

Goosebumps coursed up Holly’s arms and down her spine. As if in a trance, Holly stepped out of the shadows and into the living room.

‘I’m here Tom,’ she said.

Tom was looking towards the patio window, just to the left of Holly, but he had that distant look in his eyes again. Wherever he was looking, it was some place far from the confines of the room. ‘I hope you can see me, sweetheart. I hope you can hear me, because I don’t think I could go on if I thought you’d completely left me.’ Tom’s voice was a crackled whisper and he closed his eyes tightly, suppressing the tears that had sprung to his eyes.

Holly rushed forward and knelt in front of him, grabbing his arms and willing him to open his eyes and see her. ‘I’m here, Tom! Please, please look at me!’ she sobbed.

Tom opened his eyes and Holly shuddered as once again his gaze passed right through her, cutting her like a knife. Holly recoiled from Tom for the very first time in their lives together.

‘It hurts, Holly, it hurts so much. Every time I wake up, I remember I’m never going to see you again and my stomach lurches. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. You were fine. You were fit and you were healthy; pregnant, yes, but healthy. You were there one minute and then you just weren’t. Every bone in my body aches for you and it hurts so much.’

Tom paused, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. ‘Mum keeps saying I should let go, let myself cry, but I can’t. I’m so scared, Holly, because I swear if I did cry, I don’t think I’d be able to stop.’ Tom kept gulping for air, drowning himself in unshed tears.

Libby started to wriggle in his arms so Tom pulled the half-finished bottle from her mouth. His face softened slightly as he looked at his daughter and he smiled at her before lifting her onto his shoulder and patting her back. The painted smile disappeared and a look of pain returned to his eyes. ‘I’m not ready for you to leave me, Hol. I’m not ready to accept that you’re never going to walk back into the room. All your things are exactly as you left them, everything is there, ready for you to come home. Come home, Holly, please just come home.’

A sob escaped and Tom bit his lip to hold himself together. ‘I don’t want to feel like this any more, it hurts too much. If it wasn’t for Libby, I don’t think I could go on without you,’ he said. Libby gave a huge burp in reply, and Tom forced a smile. He cradled her again in his arms and started feeding her once more.

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, Libby,’ he whispered, and the love for his daughter warmed Holly’s heart and thawed the numbness that had engulfed her. ‘I love you so much and your mummy loves you and she’s watching over you.’

Holly couldn’t resist stroking the top of Libby’s head and as she leaned forward she could feel Tom’s warm breath on her face. Her whole body tingled and she knew that this was more real than any dream she had ever had.

‘Promise me you’ll never leave me,’ Tom whispered.

‘I promise,’ Holly answered, willing Tom to hear her, but he made no response.

Holly rested her head on Tom’s lap in submission and closed her eyes. ‘This isn’t real, Tom, this isn’t happening. It’s going to be all right.’

Silence filled the room and time ticked by. Holly stayed where she was until the baby finished her bottle and then she reluctantly withdrew as Tom made a move to stand up. She stood up too, facing him as he perched Libby on his shoulder and then picked up the bassinet.

‘Bedtime for us, I think,’ Tom said with false bravado.

As he turned and headed for the door, Holly put her hand on his shoulder, not wanting him to leave. ‘Stay with me,’ she pleaded as the sense of panic returned.

Tom paused. ‘Stay with me,’ he whispered, but then he left the room.

Holly felt close to breaking point and she was paralysed by fear. Her breathing was getting faster and deeper and she started to feel woozy. She was on the verge of hyperventilating. She heard Tom’s footsteps going up the stairs and then the creaking of floorboards overhead. For the second time that night, the sound of the baby crying sent her whole body into spasm.

The combination of the need for fresh air and the overwhelming desire to run away was enough to give Holly the strength to leave the house. She stumbled through to the kitchen, fumbled with the door handle before eventually letting herself out of the house and across the garden. It was still cold, much too cold for late April, and the wind whipped around her.

Holly’s eyes darted from one side of the garden to the other, wondering what demons lurked in the shadows to strip away the last shreds of her sanity. In answer to her challenge, Holly’s attention was drawn towards the orchard. The trees that should have been on the verge of blossom were now forlornly hanging onto withered leaves, fragments of a summer long gone. Holly stumbled on until she reached the moondial.

‘I’m not dead, I’m not dead!’ she cried out. She sank to her knees and curled herself up into a ball. ‘I’m here, Tom. Why can’t you see me?’ she pleaded.

Holly wasn’t sure how long she remained curled up in a ball beneath the moondial. Exhausted and cold, terrified and confused, she didn’t know what to do next. It was only when the kitchen light was switched off and the garden was etched in grey once more that Holly lifted her head and looked towards the house.

A few seconds later, a light appeared from her bedroom window. It was the soft glow of a bedside lamp. The bedroom blind was open. Holly tried to remember if she had left the blind open or closed. She sighed deeply. What did it matter? Everything had changed and Holly felt trapped in a world she no longer belonged in. But Tom was in there. If she didn’t belong with him, then where did she belong?

Holly rose to her feet and, beneath the watchful gaze of the full moon, felt an urge to go back into the house and run to Tom. She was about to take a step forward when the unmistakeable silhouette of her husband appeared at the bedroom window. He was rocking from side to side and although Holly was raging against the impossibility of it all, she knew he had the baby in his arms. The slow rocking motion of his body suddenly froze. Holly couldn’t see his eyes but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was looking at her.

It felt as if the world was closing in around her when she fell under Tom’s gaze. There was a crushing weight pushing against her chest as the rhythmic sound of a ticking clock grew closer and then stopped with a thud. Whether it was the wind that whipped around her or just sheer exhaustion, Holly stumbled and reached out to the moondial to steady herself. The moment she touched the dial, a host of dancing moonbeams scampered around her. The garden became a blur and the air became heavier and a few degrees warmer.

Holly needed both hands on the dial to keep herself steady. She closed her eyes in an effort to stem the waves of dizziness that ebbed and flowed through her. One of her hands touched something on the dial. Holly blinked to chase away the shadows of light left by the moonbeams. It took a while before she could safely pick up what she had touched. She held it in her hands and a sense of relief washed away the terror. It was the wooden box. The dial mechanism and the orb had all reappeared too. The orb trembled benignly in the loosened grasp of the brass claws. Everything was as it should be.

The wind had eased and as Holly looked towards the orchard, the telltale white buds of spring sparkled against the night. Below her feet, the long grass was just as overgrown as it ever had been. Holly’s head snapped towards the house. Her bedroom window was in darkness, as was the whole house, minus one conservatory. The bedroom blind was rolled up but no figure looked down upon her.

Holly snatched the orb from the dial and threw it urgently into the box as if holding it would burn her fingers. Taking the box with her, she ran through the grass, not stopping until she was back in the kitchen where she quickly turned the light on. A quick check confirmed that there was no baby equipment, no notepad on the table.

The tentacles of Holly’s living nightmare were slowly releasing their grip on her heart and her mind. Stepping more tentatively into the hallway, Holly checked both reception rooms before heading upstairs. Her bedroom was empty, her bed a writhing mess of bed linen just as she’d left it. The digital display on the clock read 3:21 a.m.

Holly stripped out of her clothes, her jog pants still sodden from the wet grass. She crawled into the comfort of her bed and wrapped herself in her duvet. Unable to even begin to make sense of the last hour, Holly closed her eyes and closed down her mind. The sleep that had previously evaded her came swiftly and mercifully.

Chapter 3

The ominous glow of the full moon had surrendered to the harsh spring sunlight by the time Holly was shocked into consciousness by someone banging on the front door. Jumping from her bed, she ignored the discarded clothes on the floor and grabbed her dressing gown. Her body ached all over as she made her way downstairs.

‘Sorry, Billy, I must have slept in,’ she apologized as she rubbed the last remnants of sleep from her eyes.

‘Now, now, Mrs Corrigan,’ tutted Billy. ‘You can’t go answering the door in your slinky nightie when there are builders around, you’ll have my lads dropping hammers on their toes.’

‘It’s an old dressing gown, Billy, and I think I’m more likely to frighten them off than anything else,’ retorted Holly. She knew she must look a state but was silently grateful for Billy’s gallantry as she tried to scrape back her hair into some kind of order.

Billy’s mischievous smile dropped and his playful tone was replaced by one of concern. ‘Hey, what happened to your face?’ he asked.

Holly leaned back and took a look at herself in the hallway mirror. The right side of her cheek was bruised and grazed. ‘It’s nothing,’ Holly said in a robotic tone as the memory of her moonlit walkabout replayed in her mind for the first time since waking.

‘If that man of yours has been knocking you about then we’ll be having serious words when he gets back,’ Billy growled.

‘Don’t be daft,’ Holly said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘I’m just a weak and feeble woman who can’t be trusted on her own. I tripped in the garden, that’s all.’

‘Well, it sounds like it was a good idea of mine to send Jocelyn around. I knew you’d need looking after.’

Holly was in no mood for Billy’s usual banter, but if she didn’t appear her usual self, who knew who else he would be sending around to check on her.

‘I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, but yes, it was a very good idea. She’s a lovely lady,’ replied Holly with a smile that was more genuine this time.

‘You need to get out more, visit people.’

‘Now if I promise I will, could you stop nagging and get on with your work?’

Billy saluted. ‘I aim to please. We should have the internal work finished by the end of the week, so if you want to start thinking about those bells and whistles you wanted to add, now would be a good time. After that, if there’s anything else you need, you only have to ask.’

‘Is that a proposition, Billy?’ gasped Holly with a half smile.

Billy actually blushed. ‘Erm, well, I was actually thinking, well, what I meant was, erm, the garden could do with a proper makeover. We don’t want any more accidents, do we?’ he stammered.

Holly shivered as she recalled the sensation of kneeling on the soft lawn. ‘Thanks, Billy, but I’m not sure I want to let Tom off the hook with that particular job just yet.’

She brought her chat with Billy to a swift end, promising to make him and his lads a nice cup of tea. With Billy dispatched to the studio, Holly took another look at her reflection in the mirror. She wanted desperately to believe that the events of the previous night had just been a weird and not-so-wonderful nightmare, but the physical evidence was difficult to dismiss.

As she went through the motions of getting showered and dressed, her mind remained focused on finding a rational explanation for what had happened the night before. There was absolutely no doubt that she had left the house during the night. The open kitchen door and the wet jog pants proved without a doubt that she had gone into the garden. The wooden box left abandoned on the kitchen table confirmed that she had been playing with the moondial. But at what point did reality end and her imagination take over?

Everything had a rational explanation up until the point when she had banged her head. Mild concussion might explain her bizarre vision of the future; in fact, it was the only explanation Holly was willing to consider.

Refusing to waste any more time thinking about the hallucination, she readied herself for a full day’s work. She went downstairs and made the promised pot of tea for the builders and then a strong cup of coffee for herself. She set out the tools of her trade on the kitchen table, determined to spend the day focused on Mrs Bronson’s commission. Being organized and disciplined sometimes conflicted with her creativity, but today she needed something to concentrate her mind on. No distractions.

Tom phoned. There were some distractions that were an exception to the rule and Holly needed the comfort from simply hearing his voice.

‘Good morning, my light, my life,’ Tom chirped.

‘Good morning, my compass, my anchor,’ replied Holly, and she was surprised at how relieved she was to have Tom hear and acknowledge her. She thought of the man she had seen the night before, bereft and lost, but quickly pushed the image from her mind.

‘Haven’t disturbed you, have I?’ Tom asked.

‘No, not at all. You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve missed you.’

‘Not got the substitute installed yet, then?’ Tom asked playfully.

Holly smiled, enjoying the normality of the conversation. The tension she had been carrying with her all morning slipped from her body. ‘It was a bit fraught earlier,’ she told Tom, ‘but I’ve managed to kick the rugby team out of my bed.’

‘Only one rugby team? Your stamina must be slipping.’

‘So how about you? Sourced out a string of hussies to keep you busy?’

‘Oh, there was extensive auditioning last night but no one compares to you.’

‘I miss you,’ Holly whispered, unable to keep up the pretence any longer.

‘I miss you too.’

‘I don’t think I can bear to be away from you for so long. To hell with Mrs Bronson, I should come and join you.’

There was the longest silence. Holly sensed Tom’s agreement but neither of them wanted to break their resolve to see it through.

‘No, ignore me,’ Holly added quickly before Tom could answer. ‘I’ve had a bad night, that’s all and it’s only been one day. I’ll be fine, honest. It’ll take a few days for me to settle and after all, I’ve got this damned commission to do. Throwing in the towel just isn’t an option. I’ve only got today and tomorrow left to get the designs right. I’ll throw myself into my work and I’ll be fine. Ignore me. I’ll be fine. Honest.’

‘Holly.’

‘Yes?’

‘You’re rambling.’

Holly sighed. ‘Sorry.’

‘So didn’t you have a good night?’

‘Now that’s an understatement.’ Holly paused, not sure about how much she could tell Tom without worrying him. ‘Now don’t go freaking out, but I had a bit of an accident and no, I don’t mean I wet the bed.’ She hoped the levity in her voice sounded genuine.

‘What kind of accident? Are you OK?’ Tom’s voice was laced with anxiety.

Holly did a quick editing exercise in her mind. Tom was level-headed about most things, but he’d be sending her off for a brain scan if she mentioned hallucinations. ‘I was in the garden and slipped. It’s just a graze on the cheek, nothing major.’

‘You banged your head? Did you knock yourself out? Did you lose consciousness?’

‘I watch the medical dramas too, you know. No, I didn’t lose consciousness. No concussion, doctor, honest,’ Holly said with an air of confidence she didn’t feel. ‘Although I may have dented the moondial with my head.’

‘What do you mean the moondial? Don’t you mean the sundial? Are you sure that knock to the head didn’t affect your senses?’

‘I’m fine,’ repeated Holly, a little too curtly. Tom was closer to the truth than he realized. ‘It was Jocelyn who called it a moondial and she should know, she lived here first.’

Holly had already told Tom all about her unexpected visitor and mentioning Jocelyn again was a good way to change the subject. Holly hadn’t exactly lied to Tom about her fall but she hadn’t told him the whole truth either. ‘She wasn’t very impressed with the rest of the garden though and I was actually embarrassed. So when are you going to spend time at home long enough to get it sorted?’ she asked.

It was Tom’s turn to be cagey, which eased Holly’s conscience. He told her there was still lots of upheaval at the studio and reminded her that everyone there was fighting to keep their job. Demanding where he went and what he did simply wasn’t an option.

They chatted a while, until eventually work couldn’t be put off any longer for either of them. Holly put the phone down and reluctantly picked up her sketch pad. Her plan was to continue to work up more sketches based on the two designs she had already settled on.

When she opened her sketchbook to the first of her drawings, the one of a mother holding a baby, her eyes were immediately drawn to the image of the baby. Her sketch had only subtle suggestions of form but even so, when she traced the baby’s face with her finger it brought to mind the baby of her hallucination. Libby. With a warm rush of emotion, she recalled the moment that she had looked into Libby’s eyes and felt an instant connection. Was this what maternal instinct felt like, she wondered, or was she just desperately trying to justify Tom’s belief in her?

Holly’s gaze turned to the figure of the mother. With new eyes, the pose was all wrong. The figure she had sketched was holding the baby tentatively, almost as if it were a box of spiders ready to crawl up her arm. Holly scored a line through the drawing before she knew what she was doing. Then she turned to the second sketch, which she had thought was the most promising in terms of concept. She still liked the spiralling form of the mother spinning the baby around, but again the pose seemed all wrong and the mother might just as well be twirling her handbag. She scored a line through this drawing too.

With a flutter of panic, Holly knew the pressure was on and she was going to have to work solidly for the next two days to get her proposal ready in time.

The trip to London was a dramatic gear change from the country life Holly was slowly becoming accustomed to. She left the serenity of the village to catch the early morning train from a nearby town and then battled in vain for a seat, losing it to one of the more seasoned commuters.

The meeting with Mrs Bronson was to take place at the gallery where Holly exhibited and sold her sculptures. It was a small gallery but ideal for her work, partially because of its prime position and select clientele, and partially because she worked well with the proprietor, Sam Peterson. Sam had been extremely supportive of her fledgling career when she had first arrived in London and had played a large part in Holly’s success as an artist.

Holly had met Sam through one of the many part-time jobs she had taken after leaving art college. She had worked for a pet-care agency, walking dogs, babysitting rabbits and, in Sam’s case, feeding his cats while he was away on one of his many tropical holidays with his partner James. Sam had taken a keen interest in her artwork and had not only encouraged her to keep up with her art after she left college but had eventually offered to exhibit her work in his gallery.

It was a short journey to the gallery on the tube and then on through the bustling crowds, but Holly was starting to feel energized by the hustle and bustle. She was wearing a smart fifties-style tunic dress with matching jacket. The outfit was a shade of pale blue that set off her long blonde hair, which was swept back off her face with a matching headband. It had been a while since Holly had worn something other than jeans and T-shirt, and dressing up made her feel part of the crowd again.

She needed all the energy she could muster, because she was practically running on empty. She had worked nonstop on her designs, sketching into the wee small hours of the night with nothing to keep her company except the waning moon, which peeped through the kitchen window like a brooding monster, narrowing its eye in concentration over Holly’s shoulder.

Whilst she had managed to keep most of the details of her hallucination out of her thoughts, she couldn’t quite erase the picture of Libby from her mind’s eye. She used this to her advantage and breathed new life into the sketches she was creating. At long last, Holly felt a connection with the art piece she was trying to create. The downside to this was that she had also developed a connection with Libby. She may have only been a figment of her imagination, but Libby was the first baby that Holly hadn’t been terrified of, the first baby she had wanted to reach out and hold. Libby had sneaked into her heart and there was a part of Holly that almost wished that she was real.

The tinkling of the brass bell over the door announced Holly’s arrival at the gallery. The expanse of space that greeted her was bright and modern. White walls reflected the natural light streaming from the glass-fronted gallery, while strategically placed spotlights picked up the selection of brightly coloured and contrasting art pieces to entice the buyers.

The receptionist waved to her and picked up the phone, no doubt announcing her arrival to Sam. As Holly waited, she took the opportunity to do a quick stocktake of the work she had on display and to check out the competition. Holly sold a range of small sculptures through the gallery; some were figures, others more conceptual, but all had Holly’s distinctive style of mixing contrasting textures and colour. Holly’s work seemed to be becoming more commercial and it was the income from this type of work that paid for her and Tom’s luxuries. Holly felt a twinge of disappointment as she noted that only a few pieces of her work were being displayed in this front-of-house section of the gallery.

‘Looking for something?’ came a soft voice from behind her. Holly turned around to be greeted by the portly features of a middle-aged man with an obvious obsession for tweed.

‘Hello, Sam,’ beamed Holly, giving her old friend a kiss on each cheek. ‘I was just looking for some art pieces by the up-and-coming artist Holly Corrigan, but for the life of me I can’t see the kind of collection I was hoping for. Keeping them in a darkened room somewhere, are you?’

‘Oh, Holly, Holly, Holly. What suspicious creatures you countryfolk are,’ he admonished. ‘So you think as soon as you traded in your stilettos for wellies, I’d be putting your artwork out to grass too, do you?’

‘Well . . .’ grimaced Holly, feeling guilty that she would even suggest that Sam wasn’t taking care of her best interests.

‘There’s one of your pieces over there,’ Sam sniffed, pointing to the window front. Holly wasn’t sure if his stance reminded her of a school teacher or an air steward.

‘Another to the right there and two to the left, there and there.’

Definitely air steward, thought Holly suppressing a grin. ‘And the rest?’

‘S-O-L-D, sold!’

‘All of them?’ gasped Holly.

‘All of them,’ confirmed Sam. ‘The recession is officially over. You heard it here first.’

Holly grabbed his arms and they did a little celebratory jig in the middle of the gallery.

‘Well done, Sam!’

‘Well done, Holly!’ corrected Sam. He stopped still and peered at Holly’s face. ‘Is that a black eye I see beneath the camouflage of make-up? Has that man of yours been beating you up?’

‘Why does everyone keep saying that!’ demanded Holly. ‘Of course he didn’t. I fell in the garden, that’s all.’

‘Hmm,’ replied Sam. ‘Well, you can tell me all about your new country life later. First we need to deal with your favourite client,’ he whispered.

‘Oh, God, is she here already?’ Holly broke out into a cold sweat at the thought of what she was about to face. ‘Is Bronson Junior with her?’

‘Thankfully not,’ replied Sam, who shared Holly’s relief.

Holly was of course referring to Mrs Bronson’s offspring or, as Holly tended to view the baby, her latest fashion accessory. Holly might not be an expert in maternal matters, but each time she saw Mrs Bronson with her son it brought to mind a precocious child playing with a new kitten. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her client had turned up with the poor child peaking out of one of her oversized handbags.

‘Onwards and upwards,’ Sam told her, directing her up the stairs to his private office.

The meeting with Mrs Bronson went better than expected. Holly had two fully worked up designs to show her client, but there was only one that she felt able to put her heart into and fortunately for her it was the one Mrs Bronson opted for. It was a spiralling form, depicting not just a mother cradling a baby in her arms, but a whole series of figures below them, symbolizing past generations swirling up through the black stone base towards the two white figures. She would still need to complete a scaled-down version first of all for Mrs Bronson to sign off, but for Holly the hardest part was now over with. She had managed to create the concept and she was as happy with it as she could be under the circumstances and given the struggles she had put herself through.

The bell above the door of the gallery settled into silence and both Holly and Sam breathed a sigh of relief as Mrs Bronson disappeared into the distance.

‘Well, that went well,’ Holly said cautiously.

‘Don’t sound so surprised, the design is beautiful. Well done, you. I know it can’t have been easy.’ Sam knew Holly better than most and he knew all about her troubled childhood. ‘I did wonder if it was the right thing for you to take on, but you pulled it off. I don’t think I could have bluffed my way through it. Remind me never to play poker with you.’

‘What do you mean, bluff?’ Holly demanded, although she knew exactly what he meant.

‘Holly, I love you dearly, but, well, you’re not exactly mother-making material, are you? To pull off an art piece of this scale it takes some insight into all that mother-and-child nonsense and I’m afraid you’re just as bad as me: clueless on the subject.’

‘New home, new life. Who says I’m not mother-making material?’ Holly argued. She could feel the colour rising in her face. A week ago she would have agreed wholeheartedly with Sam, they’d had similar conversations before. But now, with Libby’s face appearing like a watermark over everything she saw, Holly didn’t want to hear it.

Sam laughed and hugged her to him. ‘Maybe you’re right, and I hope you are. Just promise me one thing . . .’

‘What’s that?’ Holly asked suspiciously as she unravelled herself from his embrace.

‘For goodness’ sake, don’t bring it with you when you come visit. What’s made in the country, stays in the country.’

‘I promise!’ laughed Holly. ‘Now enough of this, let’s get down to business. How am I going to replenish your stock?’

Although she loved the idea that her work was becoming sought after, she wasn’t prepared to simply churn out sculptures on a conveyor belt to meet demand. Taking on Mrs Bronson’s commission had been bad enough. Sam was persuasive however so she went through some ideas with him and promised to get to work on them if time allowed, once her studio was up and running in the next week or so. In truth, a heavy workload was going to be a welcome distraction during Tom’s absence.

Sam did his best to persuade Holly to stay longer but she was on a mission. She had one more job to do before she left for home. Holly said her goodbyes and then weaved her way back across London, heading for the British Library, where she hoped to get some inspiration for the type of stone she would use in Mrs Bronson’s sculpture. At least, that was the reason she kept giving herself.

The library was vast and Holly would have felt lost if she hadn’t already spent countless hours if not days searching through its obsessively stacked and indexed treasures. She wasted no time in tracking down the reference books she needed to decide upon the stone and even less time on deciding which type of stone to use. Holly closed the last book she had been leafing through and stacked it up with the rest on the reading desk she was occupying. She tapped her fingers distractedly on the stack of books. She hadn’t fooled herself. She had already known she would choose black marble for the base of her sculpture, it was the obvious choice, and the upper section would be formed from clay.

A man at the next table cleared his throat and stared meaningfully at Holly. Holly’s hand froze mid tap. She hadn’t realized she had been tapping so loudly. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed.

Holly returned her books and asked a library assistant for help looking up any records of Hardmonton Hall. It wasn’t the Hall that interested her as much as it was the origins of the moondial. Her desire to find out more about the dial had nothing to do with her hallucination, she told herself, she was simply doing research on what was a very interesting, if not mysterious, centrepiece in her garden. It took Holly quite a while, with the occasional direction from one very patient and helpful assistant, to gather all of two books on the subject. Sitting back at her reading desk, Holly opened the first book. It was a collected history of English architecture, specializing in Tudor manor houses, and Hardmonton Hall was listed in its index. Holly flicked through until she came to the relevant section. There were only a handful of pages devoted to the Hall, most of which were illustrations and plans of the buildings and grounds. It was in a plan of the ornate gardens that flowed from the back of the Hall that Holly eventually found evidence of the moondial. It was, or had been, located in what appeared to be a large stone circle. The circle was divided into four segments with an inner circle where the moondial would have been sited. From this centrepiece, four wide stone paths led outwards, separated by flower beds of some sort.

The second book was a wild card and Holly held out little hope that it would uncover any more of the dial’s history. It was a book on great archaeological expeditions in the nineteenth century and although there was no reference to the Hall itself, there was a reference to one of the previous Lord Hardmontons. Leafing through the book, Holly found the chapter she was looking for. She frowned as she skimmed through page after page of text. Charles Hardmonton had been a renowned explorer involved in expeditions all over the world and, as interesting as this local history was to Holly, she could feel a growing frustration building inside her.

Her impatience grew as she tracked Lord Hardmonton’s adventures from one side of the globe to the other and she prepared herself for disappointment as she turned each page. In a fit of pique, she skipped through to the last paragraph. Lord Hardmonton’s career as an explorer had come to an abrupt end when he fell out of favour with his sponsors during his last recorded expedition to central Mexico in search the Temple of Coyolxauhqui, the Aztec moon goddess.

Holly’s eyes narrowed in concentration as she read the name again. Could this be the connection to the moondial? Retracing her steps, Holly leafed backwards through the book, checking through the text again to see if there were any other references, but her efforts went unrewarded.

Never one to accept defeat easily, Holly knew she had reached a dead end. She closed the book with such force that the contents of the entire table rattled and then she stood up quickly and her chair scraped against the tiled floor.

‘Shush!’ hissed the man at the next reading table. It was the same man who had coughed at her earlier. Holly glowered at him.

‘Shush yourself,’ hissed Holly as she stomped past his desk. ‘I’d have been better off at home searching on Google, at least the company would have been better.’

Holly stopped in her tracks as her words echoed across the room and then she did an about turn. Ignoring the snooty glare from her fellow reader, she returned to her desk and reopened the book, found the reference to the name of the Aztec goddess and scribbled it down. Googling for information wasn’t such a bad idea.

It was only in the bright May sunshine that Holly started to relax again and her thoughts returned to the day’s successes. She had plenty of work to keep her out of trouble and she was keen to return to the village. As Holly entered the train station, she spotted a gift-shop window crammed with teddy bears and she was reminded of Sam’s cutting remarks about her lack of maternal feelings. Sam had inadvertently given her the push she needed and, without a moment’s hesitation, she strode into the shop and bought her unborn daughter the brightest, pinkest teddy bear she could find.

Holly hadn’t eaten since breakfast and her stomach was rumbling by the time she returned to Fincross late that afternoon. It made the decision to take a detour and pay a visit to Jocelyn’s teashop an easy one. She would be fulfilling her promise to the old lady and, besides, she wanted to celebrate her day’s achievements and she couldn’t do that on her own.

The teashop was picture-postcard perfect with gingham curtains, lace tablecloths and the smell of freshly baked pastries and brewing tea and coffee to entice customers. It was busier than Holly had expected, but she managed to grab a table just as a young couple were leaving.

‘What a lovely surprise!’ gushed Jocelyn, scurrying from behind the counter to give Holly a bear hug. ‘Are you hungry? What can I get you?’

‘I’m starving,’ Holly confessed. ‘What do you recommend?’

‘Oh, you’ll have to have a cream tea. I’ve just taken a fresh batch of scones out of the oven so they’re lovely and warm. Or, if you’re really hungry, you could try an open sandwich, there’s plenty to choose from. Or you could have both? You look like you could do with some pampering,’ she said, looking purposely at Holly’s bruised cheek.

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