Chapter Twenty Four

The Forest, 1997

W hen Mara walks into Lavender Cottage, the answerphone blinks at her. A message from Miss Griffiths, whom Mara was proposing to call with Mr Gregory’s story of the drowned fisherman. Unsure what time the library closes, Mara calls immediately.

‘Mara, thanks for ringing.’ Miss Griffiths’ calm tones are tinged with breathlessness as if she’s been hauling heavy books. ‘My brain finally squeaked into gear and I dug around, came up with whatever it was I was thinking of when you visited.’

‘Brilliant.’ Mara walks with the phone into the kitchen where her handbag sits on the table. She delves into the bag, pulls out her notepad, searches for a pen. ‘Thank you. Please tell.’

‘In the 50’s, a local man with an interest in the supernatural researched and wrote a series of articles for the Dean Forest Guardian about –’ her voice drops to a throaty whisper ‘– unexplained happenings in the Forest.’

‘And?’ Mara waves her pen, eager to record these happenings, whatever they are.

‘The most interesting, for you, is about witches. Starts in the mid 1880s when people reported seeing great flames on the river, and fishermen muttered about ghoulish shrieking.’ The librarian snorts, ladylike. ‘Said to have happened at All Hallows Eve, so must be taken with a pinch of salt.’

‘Yes.’ Mara senses there is more than this unverified and conveniently timely event.

‘There were sightings too, on occasion, of witches flying, at All Hallows Eve and other times of the year, with midsummer a favourite. Over the river.’

‘No flames?’

Miss Griffiths giggles. ‘Not every time.’ She pauses, paper is shuffled. ‘Ah, here we are. This is the one for you.’

Mara’s pen hovers over her pad.

‘In 1891 there was a massive, and highly localised, storm on the river – the river again – in which a fisherman died, one Jem Stokes. Others were with him, had taken two boats up from Shiphaven to Barnley, apparently a lynch mob.’ Miss Griffiths pauses for breath, continues with triumph in her voice. ‘And the person they were after was Hester Williams, purported to have stolen a baby.’

Mara stops scribbling. ‘What happened to Hester? Was she okay?’

‘Hester was unhurt,’ Miss Griffiths says drily. ‘When the police investigated the drowning, the fishermen hadn’t a great deal to say, apparently ashamed of their rash behaviour. Turns out Hester had jilted Stokes a couple of years earlier, literally left him at the altar, and he’d sworn revenge.’

What a tale!

‘He drowned in the storm before the mob could reach her?’

‘The police report records she was there, on the bank. The mob never attacked, because they had to swim for their lives. However, and this is the fascinating part, when the researcher interviewed descendants of the fishermen, some told him Hester and a man, a tall, dark stranger’ – Miss Griffiths sniggers – ‘summoned the storm which caused the boat to rear up, tipping Stokes into the water.’ She deepens her voice. ‘Where he was dragged to his death by a monster with long white tentacles, like arms.’

Mara’s heart thuds like she’s run a marathon. The river nymphs, protecting Hester.

‘Can I come and collect a copy of the article?’ She wants to read the whole story. Hester, the river, the tall, dark stranger who has to be Aaron Appleby. Had Hester seen the nymphs, had Aaron? Did they hear the river’s whispers? Sabrina, goddess. She conjures her mother lying in the hospital in Victor Harbour, murmuring: the river is waiting, has waited long enough for us.

‘Yes, of course,’ Miss Griffiths says. ‘Who knows how much is true? I looked up the Dean Forest Guardian for the time, and there’s a paragraph reporting the death. Nothing else.’

The truth of this story lies in Mara’s gut, visceral. She has seen the nymphs herself, with their coiled hanks of hair and their pearlescent limbs. She has heard the river call to her.

‘It fits with what Mr Gregory, the gardener here, told me yesterday,’ Mara says. ‘In fact, I was going to give you a ring, ask if this was what you were thinking about.’

‘What was Mr Gregory’s story?’

‘Not a lot. Gossip in the village which has never gone away, about a fisherman drowning where the stream here flows into the Severn and witches being involved.’

‘Hmm.’ Miss Griffiths leaves a beat of silence before saying, ‘Good thing it was 1891 and not the 1600s. Such a story would have had your forebears hanged in a heartbeat.’

‘I gather, from what Mr Gregory said, the local folk appreciated Hester’s healing ways too much to think about hanging her.’ Mara laughs. ‘Besides, if the fisherman wasn’t from Barnley, why would they care?’

After the call is ended and Mara is making a pot of tea, she realises she didn’t ask about the purported baby stealing. Whose baby, and why would Hester steal it, if she did, when she had a perfectly good one of her own? Two perhaps at that stage. Made no sense. There might be more in the article, she hopes.

***

Jack is relieved to have Tom in the kitchen at the King’s Shilling in time for the evening session, the family emergency proving not to have been as dramatic as originally portrayed.

‘Mum’s lonely since Dad died,’ Tom tells Jack. ‘Any excuse to ring one of us and have us jumping …’ He huffs and slices lettuce.

‘Mara helped with the clean-up today,’ Jack says, ‘which was nice of her.’

Tom sniggers. ‘Guess what I think?’

‘What?’ Jack has no idea what Tom thinks at the best of times. He continues to pull sparkling glasses from one of the dishwashers. The kitchen smells of onions frying.

‘I think that Aussie is sweet on you.’ Tom gives him a sly glance mid slice.

Jack’s stomach curls. He should joke the comment into oblivion, but in an act of masochism he says, ‘Why?’

‘Call it instinct.’ Tom becomes serious. ‘Or call it the way I’ve caught her admiring the manly way you pull a beer.’

Jack is about to spill the news there can never be anything beyond friendship between himself and Mara because they’re related. Second cousins. He sighs softly, stacks glasses on a tray to take to the bar. He checked it out, pathetic as he is. Apparently second cousins can be items, can marry, do it all the time. Yet it feels morally wrong to him. Which misses the more pertinent point.

‘She’s married,’ he says.

‘She is.’ Tom is cheerful. ‘And hubby is ten thousand miles across the wide, wide oceans.’

Jack bristles. ‘Mara’s not like that,’ he says shortly. ‘Watch your manners, Tom.’

‘Oooh.’ Tom grins, brandishes the chopping knife. ‘Who’s touchy?’

Jack glares, takes the tray and stomps from the kitchen.

The evening is busy, the continuing good weather and summer holidays sending people unerringly down the non-signposted rutted lane searching out a drink and a meal under balmy skies. Jack has no time for anything except serving food and drink, although each time the door opens his eyes swivel towards it. She won’t come twice in one day. There are other pubs to eat at, he reminds himself.

When the night is done, the pub cleared, cleaned and locked up, Jack takes a whiskey to the moonlit beer garden and slumps onto a bench. The lack of human noise is blissful. The gentle whooshing of the rising water in the pill soothes his tired mind. An owl hoots, another answers.

What’s Mara doing at this moment? It’s past eleven, so likely tucked up, sound asleep. He imagines her in the double bed in the cottage bedroom, the one with the window overlooking the lane and the mahogany wardrobe which has stood there for decades. A good old Narnia style wardrobe. Jack should fill it with old fur coats, for a joke, wait for the holiday-makers to complain. His mouth twists. The idea of other people sleeping, cooking, eating and drinking in Lavender Cottage disturbs him. Mara and the cottage fit together perfectly, as they should, given their shared history.

What fate, what chance, has brought her to his door? Literally, to the King’s Shilling’s door the day after she set foot in the Forest. He lifts his glass in a toast, first to the heavens, and then, changing his mind, to the river. Thank you, goddess, he murmurs.

His thanks are tainted, however, for this is a double-edged blessing, delivering a woman whom he could easily fall in love with – has fallen in love with, he corrects himself – and who is doubly unavailable. Jack rolls the smoky whiskey on his tongue. A husband ten thousand miles away, as Tom pointed out.

A husband, it dawns on him, Mara never speaks of. The daughter is Josie, and Mara talks of her with pride. The husband? What does he do for a living? Jack has no idea even what the man’s name is.

His heart can’t help its tiny jolt of optimism. Yes, he can dream of her marriage being on the rocks, except wishing her unhappiness is the last thing he wants to do. The family relationship … an uncomfortable barrier which cannot be dissolved …Jack swallows the last of the whiskey, stretches, yawns, and makes his way inside.

He will have to make do with Mara’s friendship, for the short time she’ll be here. He will make the best of what he’s been given.

***

‘Jack, fancy seeing you here.’

Jack pulls his head out of the refrigerator cabinet in the Shiphaven store and gazes at Mara. Despite the fact she’s holding a loaf of bread and a carton of local eggs, she oozes elegance. Her tailored linen trousers, white shirt and light jacket, with a scarf which has to be silk, are far too stylish for a local shopping expedition. He glances at his scruffy jeans, and then to Mara.

‘Going somewhere?’ he asks.

‘The library in Cinderford. Why?’

‘Bet they haven’t seen such a well-dressed customer in a long time, if ever.’ He smiles, emphasising he’s teasing. She is beautiful, with her shiny hair and dark, tawny-flecked eyes. Stop it, Jack.

Mara blushes, says, ‘Exciting developments in the Hester story. The librarian there is incredibly helpful. She’s found a story you’ll appreciate. Going to get a copy to read for myself.’

‘Good.’ He throws out his hands. ‘Can I buy you lunch at a great pub near here, and you can tell me everything?’

‘A brilliant idea except I plan on doing more research with the local papers while I’m there.’ Mara bites her lip. ‘If you don’t have plans this afternoon, why don’t you come by for a cuppa? It’s gorgeous under the oak in this sublime weather.’

Jack’s supposed to be going over last month’s accounts, but, hey, as Mara says, the weather is sublime and accounts can wait for when the sunshine inevitably gives way to rain. He tells Mara she has her own brilliant ideas, and yes, he’ll be there.

They say their goodbyes and see you laters, and Mara takes her bread and eggs to the counter, where the shop assistant on her high perch winks at Jack over Mara’s head. Heat warms Jack’s cheeks. Is his attraction to Mara obvious to the whole village? Thank God Mara doesn’t see the wink, because she’s turned around to face him.

‘I forgot to remind you the other day,’ she says. ‘About Aunt Dorrie. I’d love to meet her, as well as pick her brains.’

Jack recovers fast. ‘I haven’t forgotten. The old lady’s been a bit under the weather, in full recovery mode now. She’d enjoy a visitor, especially new blood. I’ll sort it.’

He restrains himself from watching her make her purchase and leave, not wanting to feed the gossip mill, and spends far longer than it should take choosing which of the new local sausages he will try out before getting Tom to thrill the producers with a bulk order. His is an exciting life.