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I dreamed about the tree again last night. I’ve had the dream for as long as I can remember. Not every night, not every dream. In fact weeks can go by, sometimes months, without it rising from my subconscious to torment me. But it’s frequent enough and vivid enough that the after-image haunts me for days. Weeks. Months.
When I was little I would excitedly tell my mother every detail and she would sit and listen in that indulgent, solemn way parents listen to the ramblings of a three-year-old. She’d hold my hands together, wrapped in hers, and smile. When I’d finished she would breathe out slowly, as if I had reached the end of translating some ancient epic, or performed a feat worthy of a hero, and she’d smile.
‘Well,’ she would say. ‘That’s something, isn’t it?’
And I’d be happy with that.
But that was before she vanished. Everything changed after that.
I never told my father. He wouldn’t want to know. I understood.
The tree is taller than a redwood. Taller than a mountain. As tall as the sky. I’m certain that there are clouds threaded through its branches while the uppermost golden leaves are tangled with stars. It stretches beyond understanding, and so very far beyond my dreams. It feels eternal.
But for something so tall, it is strangely fragile. The trunk is slender, knotted with a million old black scars. Its branches twist like a contortionist, like the end of a corkscrew, or the whorls and spirals carved on a standing stone. And the bark is pale silver, opalescent, peeling away from the tree like paper. It’s so fine, so delicate, that it crumbles if touched with even the gentlest caress.
The shadow beast flits around the base of the tree, in and out of the mighty roots which plunge into the ground, rise again and then dig even deeper. It leaps from the great flat rock at the foot of the trunk to the earth. I can never quite see it, but I know it. I’m not afraid of it. I never have been. It’s a guardian, that’s all. It was created to protect the tree. I’m no threat to it.
It is always the leaves that entrance me. They’re golden, not merely yellow. They shine. They dance in breezes I can’t feel, moving and whispering, singing a strange sibilant song that winnows its way inside my mind and becomes my ear worm for the rest of the day. It’s a tune I know like my own heartbeat, like the rushing of my blood, but I can never quite capture it. All the same I find myself humming snatches of it for days afterwards.
The leaves that fall, twisting like a girl on a flying trapeze, glimmer with light, with fire. The sunlight eats into them and I can see markings on them. Words perhaps, although the little crow-scratch symbols are not in any language I, or anyone else on the earth today, might know.
Or perhaps I do.
They’re familiar, like something half forgotten. They glow with their own life, capturing the eye, lines of fire which eat away at the leaves’ surfaces even as they appear, devouring the very thing that supports them. But no matter how much I run and leap and try to catch them, the moment I do the glow dies away and the leaf, that shining glowing perfect thing, turns to ash in my hands.
My mortal, earthbound hands.
I wake up sobbing, my face silver and wet.
With ashes on my hands.
The cream envelope felt thick and heavy, that sort of cotton-rich, handmade paper sold in the most expensive stationers. It lurked on Sophie’s hall table, waiting to be read.
The address was written with that kind of elegant penmanship learned only as part of the most exclusive education. A deep red-brown ink, such a contrast against the cream paper. Like old blood. Sophie couldn’t take her eyes off it. As she carefully put on her coat, tucked her necklace beneath her scarf, and made sure she had everything ready for work, it drew her eye back to it.
‘Haven’t you opened that yet?’ Victor asked, walking by her on his way out of the door.
‘Not yet,’ she admitted.
‘Looks posh. Could be an invitation or something.’ He lingered there, obviously hungry to find out what it said. ‘Want me to read it for you?’
It sounded like a kind offer, which was how he always made things sound. He said he liked to watch out for her. Which was true, she supposed. He had stopped her making some terrible mistakes in the early days of their relationship.
She saw the gleam in his slate grey eyes, and the twist of his mouth. She knew she ought to say, ‘Yes please, Victor.’ But somehow she couldn’t.
He had never gone so far as opening anything without her permission, she knew that. Nor would he. He respected her privacy.
He just liked to know.
Sophie picked up the letter, the paper soft as a caress on her fingertips, and slid it carefully into her handbag. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll deal with it later. I don’t want to be late for work. What would Dr Bellamy think?’
But as she moved to go by him, Victor wrapped his arms around her, holding her in place. His voice was unbearably gentle.
‘You shouldn’t have gone back so soon. You weren’t ready. Take the day off. They’ll understand. You’re still grieving.’
Was she? It didn’t feel that way. It had been months and she felt numb. She was happy to be back at work, to be honest. She couldn’t stay away forever, not even if Victor thought she still needed time. She had already managed a couple of weeks.
Normality, that was what she needed. The Academy offered it and the library there was her safe space. It always had been.
‘No, I’m fine, I just—’
‘Of course, of course. I understand. Whatever you think is best. But if you keep hiding from your loss…’
Her loss. Yes, it was her loss. After her father had died, she had barely left the apartment. But she couldn’t keep staying home, staring at the ceiling, at the photos, cooking for Victor and cleaning like an obsessive. The kitchen had never sparkled quite so much. She knew he liked the apartment to be clean. It was easier to do it herself, and so she’d let the cleaner go. She had been at home anyway.
But now… now…
She breathed in carefully and rested her head on his shoulder. His arms tightened a bit too much but she didn’t complain. He was trying to look after her.
Victor was grieving too. Sophie’s father had been his mentor, his friend. And the source of a thousand painstakingly restored rare books to sell.
‘Take a break,’ he’d say. And then, ‘Why not set up a little studio here on your own? I could sell your work for a fortune.’
And he could too. He had the contacts. She had the expertise. They had gone over it a thousand times. But if she did that, he’d never want her to go back to work.
‘It’s all right,’ she told him. ‘Don’t worry. I’m fine.’
It was a normal conversation. Just a normal conversation. Why did she feel the need to second-guess everything? He was being nice.
‘I’ll come and meet you for lunch,’ he replied with an annoying grin.
Sophie hesitated. The girls at work had been planning to go out for lunch but she hadn’t mentioned it to him. Nothing special. A sandwich and a picnic in the park near the Academy, but he’d hate that. Outside like peasants. And Victor didn’t exactly get on with her co-workers. Silly, he called them, frivolous. Not like you, Sophie. You’re so much more responsible. So much more sensible.
She chose her words with care. She didn’t want to upset him, and it was a kind offer really. ‘It’s such a hassle for you to come all the way across town, and you’re so busy right now. Why don’t I come and meet you for a coffee this evening? Then we can come home together. Like we used to.’
For a moment she thought he might argue, or say something cutting, but he relented, smiling in delight. ‘What a lovely idea. Let’s do that.’
Sophie kissed him demurely and fled out of the apartment before he could change his mind. She was most of the way down the street outside before she could breathe evenly again.
Sophie laid the piece down on the glue, and then found a large soft brush to smooth it out, chasing away any bubbles and creases with a determined but gentle hand.
‘Are you busy?’ Lucy asked.
Sophie blinked as her concentration broke and she tried to focus on the interruption instead of the work.
‘Almost finished. Is everything okay?’
Lucy shifted from one foot to the other and twisted her fingers together. It wasn’t like her to be so nervous. As the personal assistant to Sophie’s boss, Dr Bellamy, Lucy guarded the studio like a lioness. No one gained access without an appointment. The Conservation Department was a restricted area. The Academy’s damaged children deserved the greatest of care and the strongest of security. And the work ought to be uninterrupted.
Even Victor couldn’t bully his way in here.
It was Sophie’s refuge.
Fragile and delicate volumes came here to be repaired, from torn pages and cracked spines, to new covers and re-stitched text blocks. One lecturer had told Sophie’s class they were training to be the trauma surgeons of the book world. The Academy championed both the arts and science, and the collections in its library were extensive – and old. Sophie and her colleagues kept those pieces intact and preserved them for the future. She would never lack for work rebinding, repairing, restoring the works housed here. The Academy was hundreds of years old, and everything about it made her feel like she was standing on a rock securely anchored and safe. The staff were an important part of that.
If Lucy looked so agitated, it had to be huge.
‘There’s someone here to see you. He says he expected you at a meeting two hours ago. That you have an appointment.’
Sophie didn’t try to hide her confusion. ‘I do?’
She was fairly certain she had nothing on her schedule for the day. Or for the week. She never missed a work appointment. It was unprofessional and her father would never have stood for that. So who was demanding her presence?
‘He’s from the Special Collection. In Ayredale. He’s…’ She leaned in, her face flushing. ‘It’s Dr Talbot. Sophie, what on earth is the Head of Acquisitions of the Ayredale Special Collection doing here, asking for you?’
‘Dr Talbot?’ That wasn’t possible. ‘Dr Edward Talbot? Are you sure?’ She laid down her brush, pushing herself back from the workbench.
‘Sophie…’ Lucy paused, clearly flustered. Then she made some kind of decision and pressed on. ‘He says he’s your uncle? And that he sent you a letter.’
Uncle Edward. She hadn’t seen him in years. Her mother’s brother. He and her father had fallen out around the time her mother vanished.
She closed her hand around the pendant that hung from her neck. Her mother’s. The only thing she had left of her.
Sophie didn’t know much about what had happened. Her father didn’t talk about the Special Collection. Or her mother. Or her family, the Talbots.
For hundreds of years the Special Collection had held a place at the heart of the library and archival world. It was the library. The rest of the world might not know it, but the fact remained inviolate. Everyone Sophie had ever met, at the Academy and other institutions, wanted to work there, if only for a few weeks on a placement. There were precious few permanent roles and it was a place where open competition never applied: invitation only. The rivalry for the single six-month internship there which came up when she had been studying conservation had been extreme. She was the only one who didn’t apply for it and the rest of her year thought she was insane. None of them got it anyway.
People stared when they found out she had grown up there. At least for a while. Then the questions came in an avalanche, few of which she could or would answer.
The frustrating thing was, she could barely remember the place. There was just a sense, an echo, like a dream that faded the moment she woke up. She knew it must be trauma. It had messed with her memory. Well, that was her explanation, her excuse. What she told everyone because then, finally, they stopped asking.
In the world of libraries and archives, the Ayredale Special Collection was up there with the Library of Alexandria or the Vatican Secret Archives. A legendary place, with a thousand stories surrounding it and very few facts. In Sophie’s memory it was the place she had grown up. And a huge, gaping hole of loss.
Suddenly Sophie remembered the letter in her bag. The one she hadn’t wanted to open in front of Victor. The one she hadn’t wanted him to touch.
Rich, cream, handmade paper. Oxblood red ink. Exquisite penmanship.
There had been birthday cards, once upon a time. They tended to have scenes from literature or classical art rather than anything frivolous, with an entirely handwritten interior. Sometimes there were famous quotations or snippets of poems. Nothing as light-hearted as ‘Happy Birthday Sophie’.
And the man who’d written them, her uncle, was here now, all the way from Ayredale. Waiting to see her.
‘Damn,’ she said, too loudly. Several of her colleagues were looking, fascinated, earwigging. She grabbed her bag and her coat, but didn’t pause to put it on. Instead she bundled everything together and tried not to run out of the Conservation Unit with Lucy close behind her.
‘Please tell Dr Bellamy I’ll be back as soon as I—’
‘He’ll understand. It’s Dr Talbot. Sophie, what was in the letter?’
Sophie glanced at her friend. Lucy seemed breathless with excitement. The news was going to be all over the Academy in no time. They’d all be gossiping about her by lunchtime.
Sophie Lawrence is related to Dr Edward Talbot. Why would she keep that quiet?
Why? Because it was never a thing. Because she didn’t see him or speak to him and hadn’t in years. She didn’t really know him. She didn’t know any of them. Her father had been clear.
Don’t, whatever you do, get involved with that place. It will destroy you. Eventually it destroys everyone.
She barely remembered the Special Collection at Ayredale. After her mother vanished, she’d been traumatised. At least that was what the various therapists had said. Sophie herself tended to be more blunt about it. She’d had a breakdown. Though she had been fifteen when they left, she had only a hazy memory of Uncle Edward – a young man then, in a perfectly tailored suit, with a sweep of dark hair and a smile. Such a smile. It promised wonders. He’d made her laugh. He’d reminded her of those heroes in old black and white movies, suave and elegant, a gentleman from a bygone age. She remembered thinking he could do magic.
But that was almost fifteen years ago. Half her life.
Except, when she followed Lucy around the corner and burst through the doors out to reception, she recognised him in an instant. Her uncle had not changed at all.
He got to his feet as she approached, smiling, that same incorrigible smile that she used to love. He was a tall man, with a presence, not quite in his fifties, and he didn’t really look much older than she remembered. He’d have been just a little older than she was now.
In her small world of academia and libraries, there were few people so well known as him.
The suit wasn’t the patched and tattered, smudged and sagging fabric of half the male library world, or the starched things that lived on hangers, in the wardrobes of men who didn’t wear suits except for interviews and funerals who made up the rest of them. This suit probably cost more than her monthly salary. It looked like it had been made for him, hand-sewn.
For a moment Sophie thought he might spread his arms wide and hug her. But she hesitated, a little too long, and instead he thrust one hand out as if that was what he had always intended to do. She had to juggle her bag and coat to free a hand of her own so she could shake his.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she babbled, suddenly panicking. What did you say to a relative you hadn’t seen in years, let alone one who was as important as he was and you had just inadvertently snubbed? ‘I never got around to opening the letter and then I—’
‘Sophie!’ His voice was rich and tender with affection, so deep it sent ripples of recollection through her mind. ‘Sophie, I’m here now. No harm done. Where can we talk?’
Where? She didn’t have a clue. The canteen maybe or—
‘The tutorial room is free,’ Lucy cut in, seamlessly. ‘If you’d like to follow me. Shall I arrange some tea or coffee?’
Sophie shot her a grateful glance.
‘Tea would be delightful, Miss Harding. Thank you,’ Edward said and ushered Sophie into the room ahead of him. He pulled out a chair for her to sit in, as if entirely familiar and at ease with the place. ‘Well, Sophie, my dear, where have you been hiding all this time? And what exactly do you think you have been hiding from?’
Sophie stared across the expanse of the oval table in front of her. She hadn’t answered her uncle. Not because she didn’t want to but because she couldn’t think of an answer. Not one that wouldn’t paint her father in a bad light, or reveal her to be the coward she was. Abruptly her vision swam and tears stung her eyes. She blinked them back hurriedly. Her uncle’s gaze was still on her, but it had softened.
‘I was sorry to hear about your father’s passing,’ he said gently, as if she had managed some sort of reply after all.
Sophie dipped her gaze again, back to the table. Her father hadn’t spoken to her uncle in years. Not since her mother vanished. They had never exactly been friends anyway, she suspected, going from the way her father would clam up when Edward or anyone connected to the Ayredale Special Collection was mentioned.
They had lived there – her mother, her father and Sophie. And her mother had vanished there. It had been 2006, in the winter. Sophie would never forget that. When you had forgotten so much, you clung to the smallest details. There had been a search. A police investigation. But it was a cold case now. Elizabeth Talbot-Lawrence had never been found. And as far as her father had been concerned, the Special Collection had closed ranks, hadn’t done a single thing to help. He had never forgiven them.
‘Thank you,’ Sophie replied, hiding behind formality. ‘It was quite sudden really.’ What would her father say if he saw her here, now, sitting with Edward as if… as if they were family?
Which was crazy because they were family. She just hadn’t seen him in almost fifteen years. Hadn’t heard from him. Hadn’t even tried to contact him. And yet here he was. Come to find her.
Clearing his throat, he tried again. ‘I wrote to you when I heard. Several times.’
‘You did?’ She hadn’t received any letters from him. All she’d seen arrive was bills, and Victor generally dealt with them. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get them. Did you have the right address?’
Edward smiled softly, a little too knowingly. ‘I did. I made sure of that. I found your home number and tried ringing that.’
That surprised her. ‘You rang me? At home?’
‘Yes. Ah…’ He paused, picking his words carefully. ‘Your… um… friend, Victor Blake, informed me not to telephone again. He was most insistent.’
Oh. She dropped her gaze to the table again. Victor. He hated it when the telephone was tied up in any way. He paid for it, after all. What if there was a work call for him? An important deal? Of course he had a mobile as well, but still. His work was important.
It didn’t matter. People didn’t tend to ring her anyway. She often switched her own phone off and forgot to put it back on, if she was honest.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I… I’m sorry.’
How many times had she said that now?
Her uncle shook his head. ‘Don’t be sorry. It isn’t your fault. Victor is… well known.’
‘You know Victor?’
‘Everyone in this business knows Victor. He’s grown quite the reputation as a finder of rare and valuable things, for a price.’ That was true. And people often said it in a lot less flattering terms. Victor was a rare books dealer. One who didn’t really care too much about how he got the things he sold.
Her first urge was to apologise again. Or maybe try to explain. But Edward was looking right at her and she felt so awkward. Like she would be lying to him.
‘I should have phoned you when Dad passed away. I just…’ There wasn’t an explanation. Not really. If she was honest, she had never been able to work up the nerve. What would her father have thought? What would he think now?
‘Your father and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms,’ Edward said, ignoring the way her voice trailed off. ‘Well, we never exactly were on the best of terms to begin with. I was Elizabeth’s little brother and, to be honest, I wasn’t exactly thrilled that she married him at the time.’ His voice softened and he smiled at her. Sophie felt the warmth of affection in that smile wash over her. ‘But then there was you. Do you remember Ayredale? I don’t imagine so. It was a long time ago. I managed to keep an eye on your career, made sure you were doing okay. Not that I needed to worry about you. I hear only the very best things. Now, do you have any questions about the letter?’
The letter. She’d completely forgotten about the letter again. She pulled it out of her bag and placed it on the table in front of her. Edward glanced at it, clearly taking in that it was unopened.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Right. I see. Well, why don’t you read it and I’ll go and help that sweet girl with the tea.’
‘That sweet girl’? Lucy? He’d better not try to refer to her that way in person. Mind you, judging by the star-struck way Lucy had acted around him, he would probably get away with it. He had all the charisma Sophie remembered.
She remembered that, and so little else about Ayredale. Funny what the trauma did. But how did Edward know that? He must have had some contact with her father if he knew about her patchwork memory.
Sophie picked up the envelope, turned it over in her hands, once more relishing the quality of the paper. There was a seal on the back, still intact, heavy red wax with a crest bearing the image of a tree pressed into it. She peeled it back carefully and unfolded the letter.
It was addressed to her, Miss Sophia Lawrence, and it was a job offer.
There it was, written in that same blood red ink, in the same beautiful hand. Why they didn’t type like everyone else was a bit of a mystery, but still…
Usually handwriting would be a bit of a trial for her. Dyslexia made it that bit more difficult, like everything. Usually she contended with that by working harder, forcing herself to focus. She’d even studied the palaeography of old manuscripts. But for some reason the writing seemed perfectly clear to her. It was a joy to behold.
As was the offer it conveyed.
Conservator and specialist binder at the Ayredale Special Collection, at a salary twice what she was paid now, and two grades up from her current position within the Academy. Not to mention accommodation and board included.
She stared at it in disbelief. It was the offer of a lifetime. A chance to escape. A chance to get some answers about a part of her life which had been wiped away.
