Eglantine by Catherine Jinks Page A

ruefully, ‘dreams don’t mean much, in the circumstances. I was already thinking about Bethan’s dream. My mind was probably responding to the power of suggestion.’ Suddenly Richard leapt to his feet, and scurried out of the room. He seemed to have the jitters, and looked quite awful, all red-rimmed eyes and drawn, white face.
    But he still seemed very enthusiastic about the possible results of his investigation. Before he packed up his equipment and left, he thanked Mum again and again for her hospitality. And he assured her that he would ring us as soon as he had anything at all to report.
    As it happened, however, I was the first one with something to report. Because after Richard had gone, and I went up to Bethan’s room, I discovered that Count Osric was begging Princess Emilie to run away with him. Lady, he said, hast ever a trusty page in thy train ? When Emilie replied that she did have a trusty page, he urged her to disguise herself as her page’s brother, and go forth at night from the palace’s northern gate . Once through the gate, she was supposed to traverse the city’s great street until a forest was at her left hand; then she was to enter a path that would appear, and follow it until her dear foot should press a cliff above the sea.
    ‘I don’t think those PRISM people are paying enough attention to the story,’ I remarked to Mum, after informing her of these latest developments in Eglantine’s fairytale. ‘That Richard guy didn’t say anything about it. But it must have some meaning, don’t you think?’
    Mum grunted. I soon learned that she was losing faith in PRISM’s ability to help her, because that afternoon Trish came over and spent two hours discussing Bethan’s bedroom with Mum. They decided that its chi must be all wrong. Mum wondered if she should hang a crystal over the window, or place a light in the ‘seventh house’ to counteract all the thunder energy. Trish began to talk about the Predecessor Law.
    ‘I’d forgotten about it,’ she said, ‘until I read my books again. Basically, the overall vibration that remains in a space from those who lived there before you controls much of what’s happening now. That’s the Predecessor Law. And it’s beyond anyone’s ability to change the Predecessor Law by installing cures or studying the bagua .’
    ‘Then what am I supposed to do?’ Mum demanded. ‘For heaven’s sake, Trish -’
    ‘It’s all right. Calm down. There is a solution.’ No doubt Trish began to describe what the solution was, but at that point I wandered away to look at a nature program on the television. So I missed what she said, and as a result I was very surprised when I came home, on Monday afternoon, to find Mum and Trish in Bethan’s room, performing a purification ceremony.
    They were both dressed in white. Trish wore a long, fluttery white dress. Mum had dug up a pair of old tennis shorts, a white T-shirt and a pair of white socks. They were sitting on the floor, cross-legged, with their eyes closed, making a long, low, breathy noise that sounded a bit like ‘suuuuu’.
    ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, and Mum frowned without opening her eyes.
    ‘Go away, Allie,’ she said.
    ‘But what -’
    ‘It’s all right, Allie,’ Trish murmured. ‘You can watch from the door, as long as you’re very, very quiet.’
    At first I thought they must be meditating. Mum does that, every so often, though usually not in white clothes. But then Trish began to speak. Not to chant – to speak. Her voice was low and soothing.
    ‘Thank you very much for your life,’ she said. ‘Whoever you are, whenever you lived in this house, I’m sure you left it more beautiful than it was when you arrived. Wherever you are now, we hope that you can be happy and at peace, and we’ll try to help you. Don’t worry about this house. We love it, and we’ll care for it, so you don’t have to stay here any longer. We wish you well. Don’t worry about us, either, because