“What is this?” she cried, whirling on Irene. “What is going on?”
“That is up to ye,” Irene replied softly. She clasped her hands and watched Anna patiently, her dark eyes suddenly seeming full of an ages-old wisdom. “I can only offer choices, my dear. Ye can step through the arch and walk the path that awaits ye on the other side or ye can turn around and keep on the path ye are on. Yer choice, my dear. But know this. If ye choose to step through the arch, if ye choose to take this road, it will be hard. Harder than anything ye’ve faced. Ye will question everything ye think ye know about yerself. But if ye have the courage to answer those questions, it might just lead ye to what ye’ve been searching for all along.”
Anna wanted to scoff at Irene’s words. What a load of nonsense! Total rubbish! Who would believe such tripe? Irene was clearly some old loon who liked to scare tourists. Well it wasn’t going to work on her, thank you very much!
And yet, rather than laughter, what she felt was a rumbling kind of disquiet, as though she was suddenly standing on the edge of a cliff and couldn’t see what laybeyond. But she couldfeelit. The longing had not evaporated and she felt a strange urge to do what the old woman said, to step through that arch and be damned with the consequences.
She stared at the doorway again. Beneath the arch the air still swirled like heat-haze. The images had become distant though, as though they were receding, and the ache in Anna’s heart suddenly intensified.
No!she wanted to shout.Don’t go!
She took a few steps. She was now mere feet from the arch, close enough to reach out and touch the shimmering haze if she wished. She found she was barely breathing as she inched closer, her heart beating wildly.
Anna looked over her shoulder at Irene. The old woman gazed back, saying nothing, only waiting.
What are you doing?Anna thought.This is stupid! You’re listening to some loony old woman!
But what she saw in Irene’s face wasn’t the look of a madwoman or a charlatan trying to trick an unsuspecting victim. This was something else. Something ageless. Somethingreal.
Anna turned back to face the arch, reached out her hand, and stepped through.
Chapter 4
Anna wasn’t sure what she expected to happen. For her fingers to disappear like vapor as they touched the threshold? For a tunnel of light to appear and for her to be zapped into some wormhole?
What actually happened was that as she took a step, she caught her toe on a loose flagstone, stumbled through the arch with her arms pinwheeling, and landed on her knees on the other side.
The smell of mud assailed her nostrils and it felt cold and wet underneath her hands. Damp began soaking through the knees of her jeans.
She felt something bubbling up in her throat and a moment later, she was laughing. Not a small, contained snicker but a disbelieving snort that grew into a gut-busting laugh that echoed around the bleak landscape. Her hands were covered in mud, her jeans were stained with dirt and she had nearly landed face-first in a pile of sheep droppings by the door of the ruined farmhouse.
What an idiot! She was just glad it was only Irene around to see her foolishness.
“Good one, Irene!” she gasped between fits of laughter. “You really got me there. How about I buy us both a drink and we can toast my stupidity?”
She looked around and her laugh died in her throat. There was no sign of the old woman. Anna climbed to her feet, brushing the mud off her jeans. “Irene?”
She went back inside the house but found it empty. What the—? Irene had been here only a moment ago. No woman of her age could move that fast!
Anna walked quickly from room to room, searching. The house looked different somehow. Still a mess, still tumbledown and abandoned, but it looked...newer. The mortar between the stones wasn’t crumbling and the flagstones that made up the floor were neat and even. Eh? That made no sense.
