The Wife Before Me(101)
Nicholas climbs the barrier and drops easily to the other side. Amelia looks back over her shoulder and continues walking. What is she doing? Elena, finding her voice, screams at her to run but the wind, rising again, flings the warnings from her. Nicholas is gaining ground and Amelia, finally realising the danger she is in, begins to run. Moonlight infuses the silvery blonde strands of her hair and the folds of her dress are sculpted to her slim form. They are close to the edge of the cliff when she veers right in a zigzagging movement. Nicholas is gaining on her with every second that passes. Amelia will never outrun him. Elena grabs the torch and climbs over the barrier. She screams again but it is too late. Nicholas has caught up with Amelia. They look as if they are dancing together, their bodies entwined in a deadly waltz beneath the standing stone. It reminds Elena of a sacrificial altar; a stark, bleak slab where blood is shed so that others might live.
When it moves Elena is convinced she is caught in the madness of a fantasy. The torch beam wavers wildly over the stone as it falls soundlessly over Amelia and Nicholas. Horror drives her across the grassy plateau. Where it stood, magnificent in its looming solitude, there is now a view of the ocean. The ground that cradled it is as hollow as an empty grave. The stone lies flat upon the space where they had performed their deadly dance. Elena kneels beside it. She is aware that the butterflies have stopped chiming and the waves have a softer wash.
She had envied Amelia, been fascinated by her, yearned for Nicholas to love her with the same passion she used to believe he had felt for his wife. Lies, all of it. When he had wanted was to dominate her, possess her, and, now, unable to succeed in doing so in her life, he had achieved it with her death. Together again forever, and Elena, who had barely begun to know this stranger, is weeping by their grave for the friendship they could have shared. She sees Nicholas’s hand by the edge of the stone. It is visible in the moonlight, his strong, brutal fingers that could clench into a fist or sensuously shiver over her skin. Now, the palm is curled inwards. Was he begging Amelia’s forgiveness, or clasping her slender neck, when his life was wrenched from him? She will never know. Horrified by the sight, she averts her eyes and fights back the nausea that rises hotly in her throat. She hears a siren in the distance. The gardai have arrived, but too late. Two squad cars are visible, blue lights whirring as they are driven onto the viewing platform. As she staggers across the grass, she pitches forward, tearing her knee on the rough shingle. The urge to lie there overwhelms her but she rises and hobbles towards the group of uniformed guards, who are making their way to the barricade.
She tries to explain what has happened but she is sobbing too loudly to be coherent. A policewoman wraps a blanket round her and leads her towards the first car. She is gentle with Elena as she opens the door and assists her into the back seat. Tears blur Elena’s vision. Tears that cause her to hallucinate – for how else can she explain the pale vision who stirs, as if awakening from a deep trance, and whispers her name?
Amelia Madison is also swaddled in a blanket. Twigs are tangled in her hair. Her wrists are grazed and ringleted in red. Her voice shakes as she explains what had occurred after she escaped from Nicholas. How she hid in a wilderness of fuchsia, burrowing deep within the red bells, scrabbling for cover as Nicholas’s footsteps drew nearer then faded. How she was afraid to emerge until she heard the sirens of the squad cars and knew she was safe.
In the months to follow, they will try to find reasons that can logically explain the sighting of a woman on a clifftop, whose power unearthed a boulder that had been rooted in the earth for millennia. And how, when the boulder was finally lifted, there was only one body to be found. Such questions can wait. And does it really matter if they are never answered? As Elena Langdon and Amelia Madison embrace, they are aware that on this terror-stricken night they were not alone. Somewhere in those dark reaches, beyond moonlight and shadows, beyond illusion and comprehension, they had caught a glimpse of the mystery that lies beyond the veil.
Epilogue
Rewind, play, fast forward, rewind… how was I to define these flashes? What were they? Three-dimensional holograms? Light waves, delusions, illusions? I received no guidance when I came here. No divine voice directed me; yet there were moments when I was ether, brimstone, energy. I was the wind and the dark, a face in the mist, the air that brushed against a cheek and brought comfort. I was a siren waiting by the edge of a cliff; a hurtling force that toppled a rock from its slanting stance. I was a web, each strand connecting me to the past, the present and the future.
Before I went to that house of death, I deposited a letter in a bank vault with instructions for it to be handed over to Amelia’s solicitor, if she decides to reclaim her identity. Thanks to Elena, the feverish letters Amelia wrote to me, and which I kept safely until I could give them back to her, are now with him. They will give her the freedom to find herself again. The recording she made in that hidden chamber will be used by Elena’s barrister to exonerate her.
All this I’ve seen, and more. Mark’s struggle back to consciousness; Elena’s joy when she opens her arms to her children, knowing they are back where they belong. Yvonne will mourn the son she never really knew. Henry will mourn the son he knew too well. And Jay, such wonder, such bliss, when he meets his daughter for the first time; this, too, has been shown to me. He will walk with Kayla and Amelia through the garden at Woodbine, where my glass butterflies will glitter between the branches and the low cooing of doves will be the only melody to break the stillness.