The sensation grew and swelled like a storm cloud, reaching out to embrace her. Lucy stumbled backward and came up against the wall, smooth against her hot palms. Now it seemed the whole barn was filled with this terrible sense of grief and loss. She wasn’t sure how she could escape it. Her heart was racing. It felt only a step away, and then it would engulf her, suffocate her...

With her right hand she reached out and her fingers brushed the door handle. She grabbed it like a lifeline, turned it awkwardly and realized in horror that nothing had happened. The door remained firmly closed.

The bolt.

She groped for it, pulled it back, and almost fell sideways out of the door and into the courtyard. Immediately she felt the fresh air cut through the oppressive sensation that had threatened to stifle her. Her head cleared and she felt awake and alive again. She put her hands on her knees and drew in several deep breaths.

What the hell was that?

She didn’t know whether it had come from within herself—a reaction to the shock and pain of playing the violin—or whether it was something else entirely, but whatever it was, it had terrified her.

She straightened up. The air was cooling a little as evening crept closer, the sun dropping toward the horizon again. In her paddock next door, Clarabelle the donkey munched her way through a pile of hay and Lucy could see some hikers coming down the path from the village. It was all so normal yet she felt as though time was disjointed, as though she had taken a misstep in the dark.

The door of the barn was ajar and she hesitated before pushing it wider. She really didn’t want to go back inside. A different sort of fear swelled in her, the fear that she was losing herself in some way, losing her mind, or at least losing what seemed to be her tenuous grip on reality. That in itself was so frightening that it stole her breath.

Squaring her shoulders she pushed the door wide and walked inside, poised to flee the moment anything weird happened. But there was nothing; nothing but the tick of the clock on the wall, and the sun pouring in at the high windows, and the rich scent of the sweet peas and freesias filling the air.

Eight

Anne Catesby

Ashby St. Ledgers, Northamptonshire
April, 1595

“My very dear Lady Catesby,” Catherine wrote from Oxfordshire, in her careful, rounded hand, “I do hope that both you and Sir William are in good health. I thank you very much for the conserve of orange that you sent me as a cure for my recent ague. I slept for a number of days and am much recovered now.”

I smiled, remembering the Seville orange jelly that I had sent to Catherine when I had heard she was ailing. The oranges, expensive but deliciously fragrant, were mixed with sugar and sack wine, enough to make anyone sleep for any number of days. I had been concerned for her; she had been frail since she had taken ill with a fever a few months ago and had yet to properly recover her strength. I knew that she was anxious for a child and dreaded that she might conceive before she was strong enough to go through pregnancy. I kept my fears to myself, though, knowing they were more to do with my experience of losing my firstborn, little William, than anything else. Childbirth was, in my opinion, far more dangerous than any of the activities boasted of by men, the wars and duels and tournaments that they thought proved their worth. We women knew the truth of it. And once that little scrap of new life entered the world, we wanted to guard it with our lives and protect it against all ill. That that was not always possible was the hardest lesson of all.