Page 84 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
Midsummer
Proserpina
In the dream, she sits on a blanket in front of the Equinox stones.
In front of her is Thornchapel, looking like a postcard, as immoveable and natural to its landscape as the rocky tors on the horizon. And behind her is Dartmoor in summer: blooming moors rucked up around granite crags; deep, wooded seams tracing rivers and streams; flower-speckled meadows and contented sheep, all divided by walls made of hedge or stone.
“Proceed with your question,” a woman says next to her, and Proserpina realizes she was in the middle of a conversation with her.
“I’m not sure what I was going to say,” Poe murmurs.
The woman reaches out and covers Poe’s hand with hers. “Yes, you are,” the woman says. She has bright green eyes and dark, dark hair. She’s wearing a buttercup-yellow dress that spills around her tucked legs, and a small bracelet of wildflowers.
Estamond.
“You were going to ask me a question, remember?” Estamond prompts. “About John Barleycorn?”
Right, yes. As soon as Estamond says the name aloud, Poe knows she’s right. She’d heard the name in the village earlier, and . . . “Who’s John Barleycorn?” she asks.
Estamond’s hand around hers tightens, and her voice goes low and serious. “John Barleycorn is a memory,” she says, looking right into Poe’s eyes.
This isn’t like the time she said it to Randolph Guest, Poe somehow knows. This isn’t a dismissal. It’s a warning.
“Remember,” Estamond says urgently. “Remember this. You must, because it will happen again.”
“I’ll remember,” Poe promises.
Estamond’s hand goes slack on hers, the sky goes dark. Suddenly, she’s standing in front of the altar in the thorn chapel, and Estamond’s lying on top of it, the torc around her neck and a small knife in the grass.
The altar is how it was before Poe’s mother was found—covered in a gentle swell of earth and grass—and the door, the door is behind it—it’s open—
Poe opens her mouth to scream, and Estamond says, in a voice as dead as old bones, “It will happen again.”
Poe screams. And screams and screams.
John Barleycorn is a memory.
“Poe,” a voice says. Male, American, young. “Poe, wake up. It’s just a dream.”
John Barleycorn is a memory.
Who is John Barleycorn?
Poe bolts upright in her bed, nearly smacking Becket in the face with her forehead as she does.
“Goodness,” Becket says mildly, and then pulls her close to his chest when he sees her shaken expression. “Hey, you’re okay. Shh. I’m here.”
Poe presses her face into Becket’s shoulder, the dream still too real to shake off. She can still feel Estamond’s dead hand in hers, limp and cool, and she can still see the door—open and waiting. Covered in roses blacker than midnight.
“Your father sent me up,” Becket says, stroking her hair. “He wanted you to know that the guests will be here soon.”
Poe nods against his shoulder. Her mother’s funeral the day before hadn’t been large by any means—Adelina had been gone for twelve years after all—but a few friends who had been close had flown in, along with some family, including Poe’s favorite aunt Sarah—a businesswoman from New York. They’re coming to the house for lunch today before they leave town again, and it’s her job to play hostess. Which she doesn’t mind at all, but it does mean getting up and putting on real clothes.
With a long sigh, she straightens away from Becket and swings her feet to the floor. “Okay,” she says, shaking off the dream and the memory of the altar and Estamond. “I’m up.”
It’s another sunny day, hot and relentless, and most of the guests choose to stay in the air conditioning, balancing plates on their laps and setting cups on the floor at their feet as they talk in low murmurs in the living room and sitting room.
Poe mingles as best she can, trying to make sure everyone is comfortable and fed and that her friends aren’t bored. Which they aren’t. Early on, Rebecca found her burning a batch of cupcakes in the kitchen and ordered her out, taking over the job and conscripting St. Sebastian into helping after he unwisely slouched into the kitchen to hide. Becket, Auden, and Delphine, on the other hand, are completely at ease and charming everyone they talk with, keeping the conversations light and flowing.
