The Greenstone Grail: The Sangreal Trilogy One. Jan Siegel
Maybe in nature, in some ways, but not looks.’
‘He could be a throwback,’ Bartlemy said lightly. ‘You shouldn’t worry about it.’
‘A throwback to what? And I don’t worry, that’s not the word. I just feel I ought to know. One day soon he’s going to ask, and I’ll have to tell him, but I’ve no idea what I’m going to tell him. Have you … thought about it any more?’
‘I’ve thought about it a great deal,’ Bartlemy said.
‘Will you tell me what you’ve thought?’ Annie said a little shyly.
Bartlemy set down his plate with the remainder of a piece of cake. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But you must understand this is pure speculation. We may never know the truth.’
‘I understand.’
‘We spoke once before of the Gate of Death. It has always been so called because death was supposed to be the only way to open it, but love, so they say, is stronger than death, and it may be that your love opened the Gate, and in a moment lost to memory you passed through, and returned with a child in your womb. Such unexplained pregnancies have happened before: I need hardly mention the most notorious case.’
Annie glanced up in bewilderment; then her face cleared. ‘I really don’t think Nathan’s the new Messiah,’ she said. ‘My God, I hope not!’
‘I too … but he is special. There is a maturity, a strength of character which distinguishes him. He’s a teenager now: it will be interesting to see if he displays the wayward behaviour usually associated with that age.’
‘What if he doesn’t?’ Annie said. ‘If he doesn’t start being rude to me, and having moods, and playing very loud music in his bedroom, and smoking pot and taking E, and treating me as an embarrassment? Is that when I should worry?’
She wasn’t quite joking, and Bartlemy smiled only a little. ‘If you want to,’ he said. ‘Worrying doesn’t achieve anything, but we all do it. If you need to worry that Nathan gives you no real cause for anxiety … Exactly. Where were we? You passed the Gate, or may have done, and became pregnant, so you believe, in that moment. Not your boyfriend’s child: that seems fairly obvious. There are worlds without number beyond the Gate, Powers which rarely touch our lives so nearly. Once in a while, however, those Powers concern themselves with our immediate affairs. Not in my experience, nor that of anyone I know; but it has happened. Maybe there is some task to be done, some destiny to fulfil – mind you, I’ve always had my doubts about Destiny: she’s a temperamental lady. I feel Nathan was born for a purpose, though I don’t know what it is. Perhaps there is a doom which only he can avert. Time will show. Whatever the truth, it seems clear Nathan has a father from outside this world, a being superior to us, in intellect and quality if not in essence, possibly one of the Powers themselves – anything is possible. You both have enemies, we know that much, enemies on what might be termed a supernatural plane; but a child that unique would attract attention from birth. The circumstances of his conception – the Gate opening for someone still living – would cause ripples that the sensitive might feel. Certainly there is – interest – in him, from many sources.’
‘Now you really are frightening me,’ Annie said. ‘Otherworldly beings – Nathan – a mythical task – all this can’t be true … can it?’
‘Someone sent the things which followed you,’ Bartlemy pointed out. ‘They may even have slipped into this world after you when the Gate opened: such shadows might do that. But of one thing you can be sure, if you have need of comfort. Whoever fathered Nathan has power of a kind we cannot imagine – the power to break the rules – and such an individual would never leave his son unprotected. Somehow, he will be watching over Nathan. Believe me.’
But do I want an alien power watching over my son? Annie asked herself. She finished her cake, and stroked Hoover’s rough head, and tried not to feel the future touching her with its shadow.
The sailors had made it to the sea via the little harbour of Grimstone, and enjoyed themselves very much learning how to tack out in the bay, where a brisk wind whipped the waves into scuds. The river journey back took more than two hours, since the Glyde was winding, and Michael observed the speed limit, so it was dark before they reached the mooring outside Riverside House. They had left the breeze behind in the bay and it was a clear still night with a young moon not bright enough to obscure the stars.
‘There’s the saucepan,’ Hazel said. ‘And Orion’s belt.’
‘Do you know your stars?’ Michael asked.
‘Nathan does.’
‘Not much,’ Nathan disclaimed.
‘You can navigate by the stars,’ Michael said, ‘if you’re out at sea. Look, there’s the Pole Star, and the Evening Star. They tell you what direction you’re going in. It’s like a route map up there.’
‘I thought you had radar,’ said George.
‘Yes, but a good sailor doesn’t need them. Not that I’m a good sailor – I don’t know the sky well enough.’
‘Do you know what that star is?’ Nathan asked, pointing. ‘The one just under Orion.’
‘No idea. I told you, I’m not really an expert. I just remember the easy ones.’
‘Is that the new star we found last year?’ said George. ‘The one that wasn’t on the chart?’
‘You found a new star?’ Michael was amused. ‘Well, it’s a busy sky up there. Maybe it was an old one that had popped out for a tea break when the chart was drawn up.’
Nathan found the opportunity to tread on George’s foot. ‘My star chart’s pretty basic,’ he said.
It was back, the unknown star, hanging above the village; he was almost sure it hadn’t been visible further downriver. He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t prepared to discuss it with grown-ups yet – not even a grown-up as nice as Michael. It was their star, they had located it, a private star shining over Eade.
‘Like the star of Bethlehem,’ Hazel said later.
‘That’s silly,’ George objected. ‘There’s nothing special about Eade. Even if it was the second coming, Jesus would have to be born in the hospital at Crowford, like my cousin Eleanor. That’s where the – the maternity unit is. And the Bethlehem star was big and sparkly: the three kings followed it from another country. Ours isn’t really noticeable at all. I still think it’s a UFO.’
‘Why would a UFO be interested in Eade?’ Hazel retorted scornfully. She thought George was getting much too assertive.
‘Why would a star?’
‘Shut up arguing,’ Nathan admonished. Michael joined them (he had been locking up the boat), and they cut through the gardens of Riverside House and set off along the lane towards the village. Nathan tried not to keep glancing upwards, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself, and he half fancied the star was looking back at him, gazing down from its viewpoint in the night like an unwinking eye.
Annie wondered a good deal about her conversation with Bartlemy and his theories concerning Nathan’s conception. On the one hand she dismissed them as bizarre, on a par with the worst of New Age mysticism, crystal power, geomancy, and the sort of people who talked about former incarnations. On the other hand, Bartlemy was not that kind of person, and the fold in her memory – the timeless moment locked away – was something she felt, dimly now, but still real even after the passage of over thirteen years. She could recall clearly the deep shock she had experienced, less from Daniel’s death than from her own involvement in it, her journey to another place, forgotten but still sensed, forever a part