Lacybourne Manor (30 page)

Money was scarce in the
voluntary sector, he knew that, his company received dozens of
requests a week for donations and he, personally, was asked to
become a benefactor on a regular basis.

It would likely take a small
community centre on a deprived council estate years to raise the
funds to buy a bus.

Sibyl had seen her chance and
grabbed it.

“You should know you have two
tails.” Robert was continuing. “The woman out there…” He jerked his
head to the door of Colin’s office. “And I think someone else,
though can’t get a lock on them. Both have been watching you and
Miss Godwin pretty closely. Do you want me to find out why?”

Colin was reeling with the
information he’d learned, the fact that Beatrice Godwin,
reincarnated had finally walked into his life and he could barely
process any more.

“Look into the other one,” he
ordered distractedly. “I’ll talk to Mrs. Byrne and I’ll phone you
if I need anything further.”

Robert put the file on his desk
and stood. “Can I say, Mr. Morgan…?”

Colin was staring at the
file, knowing Sibyl’s remarkable life was inside.

He opened it randomly somewhere
in the middle. He saw a copy of a newspaper clipping announcing,
“Local Girl Wins Volunteer of the Year Award.” A younger Sibyl was
shown in the photograph, holding up a plaque and smiling at the
camera with her dazzling smile.

“Mr. Morgan?”

Colin’s head came up sharply.
“What is it?”

His voice was impatient. He had
things to do.

He calculated the time.

Colin’s mother and sister were
at Lacybourne now, meddling and needling him about the American
woman named Godwin. A woman he had not expected, three weeks ago,
that they would ever meet.

Now, he knew, they most
definitely would considering they’d be grandmother and aunt to that
woman’s children.

Robert continued. “I know it
isn’t my place to say but your Sibyl, she’s a bit… well, she’s got
her heart in the right place but sometimes…” He stopped and then
repeated himself, obviously uncomfortable. “It isn’t my place but
you should keep an eye on her. She gets herself into trouble
sometimes. Well… a good bit of the time.”

Colin nodded
distractedly.
That,
as well as many other things about Sibyl, was
now stunningly clear.

“Please send Mrs. Byrne in on
your way out,” Colin ordered.

Dismissed, Robert left and
Colin sifted through the file on his desk, watching Sibyl’s life
pass by. On the last page there was a picture of her with four
young girls aged around ten or eleven. They were staring at her
with rapt attention as if she was the centre of the universe and
she was smiling at them, her arms in full gesture, almost like she
was dancing.

They needed
me,
she’d said.

“Jesus,” he growled.

“Mr. Morgan?”

He looked at Mrs. Byrne who was
walking into his office.

“Please have a seat, Mrs.
Byrne,” Colin invited, firmly controlling his thoughts, all of
which damned him to hell, and he closed the file carefully.

She was watching him but she
sat in a chair opposite his desk.

“
Before you tell me
what’s so urgent you’re here first thing in the morning, could I
ask you one question?” he enquired politely.

“Certainly, Mr. Morgan,” she
replied agreeably.

“Your story, about Sibyl, you
met her the night before she came to my home, is that true?”

She watched him for a moment
and then she nodded. “I told you, I know you may not believe me –”
she began.

“Oh, I believe you,” Colin said
smoothly.

This announcement startled her
but she recovered quickly.

“But the reason I’m here is to
tell you what my part is in all of this,” Mrs. Byrne explained.

“All of what?”

“You, Sibyl and Royce and
Beatrice Morgan,” she announced.

He did not show any
reaction to this.

Colin had a great deal to do
and did not have the patience to sit through this interview.
Considering she was just a meddling National Trust volunteer who
had very clumsily, not to mention with the addition of with
unneeded mystery, instigated a meeting with him and an American
woman who looked like the portrait of Beatrice Godwin, Colin lost
interest in her.

“Do you know of Esmeralda
Crane?” Mrs. Byrne asked.

That
got his attention and his eyes focussed on
her.

Of course he knew Esmeralda
Crane. Anyone with any knowledge of the legend of Royce and
Beatrice knew it was Esmeralda Crane, the local midwife rumoured to
be a witch who discovered the bodies of the newlyweds. She was also
rumoured to be the one who cast the spell on them, linking their
souls for eternity.

He sat back in his chair and
raised his eyebrows but did not respond.

She inclined her head. “I’m her
great, great… let’s just say, many ‘greats’ granddaughter.”

Colin decided the old
woman sitting across from him was clearly unbalanced.

“You are?” he asked out of
politeness because he was not at all interested in her tale and was
trying to figure out a way to get rid of her.

Quickly.

“Yes, Mr. Morgan. And I, like
my mother and her mother and so on, back to Granny Esmeralda, am a
witch.”

Yes, Colin decided, clearly
unbalanced.

He lost his patience but held
onto his good manners.

Barely.

“Mrs. Byrne –”

She interrupted him. “Did
anything unusual happen to you yesterday, Mr. Morgan?”

Colin froze.

She was watching him knowingly.
What she saw while regarding him answered her question.

“I was in your offices
yesterday, as your secretary told you. I should apologise for what
I did but I don’t think there were any unpleasant consequences. It
has been vowed down the line of Granny Esmeralda to do whatever
needs to be done to –”

“What were you doing in my
offices yesterday, Mrs. Byrne?” Colin cut into her rambling.

She fiddled with the straps on
her handbag and hedged, “It was for a good cause.” But when he
leaned forward menacingly she rushed on, “I put a potion in your
coffee.”

She couldn’t have surprised him
more if she got up and danced a jig on his desk.

Then he realised what she was
saying and the implications and he began to lose his temper.

His tone was low and even when
he asked, “What kind of potion?”

“A magical potion to bring
forward a past life, in your case the life of Royce Morgan,” she
explained.

He stared at her in
disbelief.

There was, he knew, no such
thing as magic.

She carried on. “For a time, a
brief time, Royce, through you, would be in this world again. Using
your body to exist in this time, he would be you but he would be
you as Royce.”

Colin felt his fury building as
he stared at the woman and realisation dawned.

The kiss.

If this bizarre explanation was
true then he had, as Royce, been in Sibyl’s small chalet in her
back garden most likely kissing who he thought was Beatrice.

And Sibyl had kissed him
back.

You weren’t
yourself,
Sibyl told him.

He
wasn’t
himself; he was
Royce fucking Morgan, kissing Sibyl. Kissing Sibyl in a way that
made tears come to her eyes.

Colin felt a searing
jealousy tear through him even though he knew it was ridiculous,
because it had been him but also, it had not.

Fury he could no longer contain
made Colin slowly stand.

Mrs. Byrne watched him, her
calm never leaving her and she stood as well.

“
I had to do what I did,”
she defended herself. “You and Sibyl did not have a very good start
and things were
not
progressing very smoothly.”

His hands were clenched into
fists but he held himself in check, though his voice was
dangerous.

“
Do not
ever
do
that again, particularly, do not give such a…” he could barely make
himself say it because he could barely believe it,
“
potion
to Sibyl.”

“Of course not! I wouldn’t
dream of it!” she cried, clearly affronted at the very thought.

“
But you not only dreamt
of it, you
did
it, to me,” he shot back.

“You’re a bit more difficult
than Sibyl. She’s a sweet woman,” Mrs. Byrne replied calmly.

“
I know
that!”
Colin thundered and, surprisingly
in the face of his fury, Marian Byrne smiled.

“Well, finally. I thought you
thought we were a couple of con artists. Hardly complimentary of
myself but certainly not Sibyl…”

He stopped listening to her,
sat back down in his chair and buried his head in his hands,
resting his elbows on his desk.

This, although he didn’t know
it, was a posture Mrs. Byrne was familiar with as she’d seen Sibyl
do precisely the same thing.

His carefully controlled life
had just turned over.

He was sleeping with a
real life avenging (if somewhat misguided) angel, willing to raise
shotguns at abusive husbands and sell her body for old people. This
same angel was, apparently, the living reincarnation of the woman
he, and his entire family, thought would magically enter his life
at some point, not only to be his wife, but also to fulfil some
longstanding legend of true love. He was right then sitting across
from a “witch” who thought she was, and could even be, the
descendent of the famous Esmeralda Crane. And she’d given him a
magical potion that evidently worked, very well. He’d just decided
to marry Sibyl, though he could not imagine, considering her
spectacular temper, how she would react to all of this. And in the
midst of that, how he’d convince her to bind herself to him in holy
matrimony at the end of it, considering what he’d done to
her.

Mrs. Byrne cut into his
thoughts by asking, “Mr. Morgan, are you quite all right?”

His head came up with a
jerk.

“Mrs. Byrne,” he starting,
making a quick decision, “what are you doing for dinner next
Tuesday evening?”

Colin had finally broken her
steady calm and she blinked in surprise.

“I… I… don’t have any plans,”
she stammered.

“Good, then you’ll be able to
join my family, and Sibyl’s, at dinner at Lacybourne.”

She stared.

She smiled.

She accepted.

“I’d be delighted.”

Real Dream Man

It was sing-along day at the Day Centre
Pensioner’s Club.

Not that the oldies ever sang
along, every once in awhile the organist would play something they
liked and they’d all sing but that only happened about once a
month. They usually just talked and smoked but they always clapped
for the hardworking organist after she finished a song.

Sibyl never got any work done
on sing-along day. The organ was too distracting.

Today, she was simultaneously
creating a flier that advertised the Talent Show while she was
writing a letter to the Council to beg them to rewire the
building.

Neither of these were going
very well.

She was also considering the
astonishing possibility that she was, and always had been, a witch
with magical powers.

She was also thinking about
what happened in her Summer House Laboratory with Colin, this she
seemed to be able to concentrate on (with great focus).

Lastly, she was just
plain old thinking about Colin and this she seemed to be able to
concentrate on very well (with even
greater
focus).

And Royce, of course.

But mostly Colin.

Last night, she’d picked up the
phone to call her mother (and then put it down) at least a half a
dozen times. She desperately wanted to explore the idea of magic,
dreams and premonitions but her mother would eat it up. She’d be
too excited actually to help Sibyl make any sense of it and Sibyl
desperately needed it to make sense.

Since she couldn’t ask
Mags and she couldn’t look in the phonebook under “witch” or
“magic” or “clairvoyants” to get a professional opinion, she was on
her own.

This all so prayed on her mind,
Sibyl was considering coming clean with Colin, telling him about
her nightmare and all the dreams since.

But if she did, he’d leave her.
He’d think she’d gone around the bend. Even though she had the
feeling he liked being with her (and definitely knew he liked being
in bed with her), she wasn’t certain (indeed she was quite
uncertain) that was strong enough to withstand her admitting to him
she thought she had magical powers.

She shouldn’t worry about him
leaving her, but she did. Especially after how he’d treated her
yesterday in that strange, sweet way.

And that was all there was to
it. She couldn’t deny it and she couldn’t lie to herself about it
although she really wanted to.

She had months with him and she
decided she was going to hold on to them and then…

Well she’d worry about life
after Colin when it happened.

“Hey Billie,” Jemma was at the
door of her office, “come out here for a second.”

Her friend’s eyes were dancing
and Sibyl smiled despite her unhappy thoughts.

“What is it?” she asked,
following Jem into the Day Centre.

“Just come into the Day Centre,
I’ll be back,” Jemma walked behind the huge tables that were all
shoved together in the middle of the room. The oldies sat around
the tables to have their lunch and then lounged the hours after in
conversation. Jem waved at the people who called out a greeting to
her, gave Sibyl a gesture that told her to wait and sidled through
the sliding doors.