The Macbeth Prophecy (12 page)

Jason Quinn moved impatiently. “But you're not suggesting this is a common occurrence, surely?”

“It might well be, Mr Quinn, and it's certainly not confined to a fortune-teller's booth. Going back in history we have many examples of its effectiveness when used by false prophets, dictators, witch-hunters –”

The camera flicked back to the interviewer in time to catch him glancing at his watch. “Gentlemen, this is fascinating but I'm afraid we're running out of time. One last comment from you, Mr Quinn?”

“Merely that I'm interested in the professor's thesis but regrettably unconvinced. I'm unable to accept predestination in any form. If –”

“Sorry, Mr Quinn, I'll have to cut you off there. Thank you very much, gentlemen.”

The camera switched to another part of the studio and I turned off the set.

Into the silence Madeleine said, “You might know the professor was wasting his breath. Jason Quinn would never accept anything that didn't comply with his own rigid formula.”

“And do you?” Philip asked quietly. “Do you accept what the professor was saying?”

“If he's done so much work on it he must know what he's talking about, as anyone but Jason Quinn would admit. I can't say I like the idea, but I suppose we're all guilty to some degree of manipulation by flattery. This is just going one step further. I'd be interested to read his book. Anything to do with the mind is fascinating, isn't it, telepathy and so on? I read that identical twins have it to a greater degree than other people, because their brain-waves are similar. When there's a change of brain rhythm in one twin, a matching change occurs in the other. Weird really, as though genetically they were the same person.” She looked up with a smile. “I don't know why I'm telling you this – you must know it already.”

“We have our moments,” Philip said dryly. Moments of susceptibility too, I reflected with misgiving, for we should not have made our home in Crowthorpe had Janetta Lee not promised us such power here, nor striven so actively to achieve it. We were ourselves snared by a Macbeth prophecy.

During that cold wet spring Madeleine, Philip and I drew a little closer but she still gave no sign that she might love me. I had to be content with held hands and brief, snatched kisses, and it was not enough. Sometimes I thought she seemed equally fond of Philip, and for the first time in my life found myself resenting him.

“Did you know Philip's twins have started school?” she said one day after the start of the new term. “Their elder sister's in my class – Cora Smith. She's a nice little thing but she insists on following me round all the time and she never stops talking! I suppose she doesn't get much attention at home.”

“It's something that they come to school at all. Isn't there an elder boy as well?”

“Bobbie, yes. He's with me too; there's barely a year between them. They're strange children. They seem younger than the rest in some ways but incredibly mature in others, probably because they've had to fend for themselves.”

On the Sunday of half-term I found myself alone. Madeleine was spending the week in Lancaster and Philip had been called out to a difficult confinement. More from force of habit than any other reason I walked up to the Gemelly Circle in reflective mood. How quickly the years had passed since we'd first met Eve here and she'd told us about the Crowthorpe twins. She had known even then that we would stay. Once twins came to Crowthorpe they were unlikely ever to leave.

At the back of my mind a long-forgotten memory stirred. Hadn't she said, though, that first day, that one pair of twins
had
moved away? I felt suddenly that it was imperative I should learn about them. Leaning back against a stone, I closed my eyes and willed Eve to come to me, and twenty minutes later she appeared over the brow of the hill.

“I hope this is important,” she greeted me. “Douglas was expecting me to mow the grass and he wasn't best pleased when I announced I had to come out.”

“I think it's important, yes. Didn't you tell us once that a pair of twins had moved away from here?”

“That's right, the Carters – Miss Sarah and Miss Jane. They're in a mental home near Carnforth, poor loves; the same one as Mark Saunders.”

I felt a sense of shock. “How long have they been unbalanced?”

“All their lives, but they were pretty harmless. They lived here with their mother for many years. She didn't die till she was over ninety, and she wouldn't allow them to be sent away. Once she'd gone there was no-one to care for them, so they had to go.”

“They must be quite elderly, then?”

“In their sixties, certainly. Anita and I used to visit them fairly regularly at first. They were twins after all, and there weren't any others then except the Marshalls, who were only toddlers. But since you and Philip came I'm afraid we've not bothered. I haven't even thought about them for years. You make me feel guilty.”

“How ill are they? What form does it take?”

“Basically they're just simple. They can't talk properly – only a succession of grunts – and occasionally, through frustration I suppose, they have odd spells of violence. That was really why none of us could cope when their mother died. She was always able to calm them down.” She paused, looking round her. “They were very fond of the stones. They used to move round patting them and making those odd sounds. It gave you quite a funny feeling, as though they were actually – communicating with them.” She looked at me closely. “Why this sudden interest in the Carters?”

“I think Philip and I should meet them.”

“If you want to, of course. We can salve our own consciences at the same time. But why?”

I said, “You didn't by any chance try to reach them telepathically?”

She stared at me, her eyes widening. “My God! Do you think – ?”

“Did you?”

“No, of course not. We never bothered much with that in those days. There were just odd flashes between Anita and me. Certainly it never occurred to us that –”

“It might be worth a try.”

“Matthew –” She hesitated. “I don't want to risk hurting them in any way. I mean, if they got overexcited or anything –”

“But couldn't it be the most tremendous relief to them, if after all these years behind a barrier, they could suddenly communicate?”

“I suppose it could, but that's not the main reason you're interested, is it? Nothing so altruistic!”

I smiled a little. “How well you know me, Eve. It just occurred to me that here might lie another as yet untapped source of power.”

Her answering smile faded. “Don't you think we've enough already? So much, in fact, that we regularly have to – to empty it into the stones.”

“The point is that we've no way of knowing how much we'll need. We mustn't overlook any opportunity of increasing it.”

“But what will we need it
for
?”

“I don't know. Sometimes when I'm up here I get an inkling, but it always fades before I can grasp it properly. I just know we must go on amassing it so that we're not caught unprepared when the time comes.” She shivered. “I wish you wouldn't talk like that. It frightens me.”

“It frightens me too, but it has to be faced. How soon can you arrange a visit?”

“Relatives go more or less any time, but I think other visitors are restricted to weekends. The patients get disturbed if there's too much coming and going.”

“Then shall we make it next Saturday? We can all drive down together.”

The week that followed seemed to crawl past. It was incredible that my subconscious should have allowed me to overlook the Carter twins for so long, and I was impatient now to rectify the omission. Consequently I was absent-minded even with Madeleine, and finally, sitting on the grass of the playing field one lunch hour, she tugged at my sleeve.

“Matthew, will you please listen to me!”

“Sorry, darling. What did you say?”

“I was telling you about Cora. I mentioned before how she keeps chattering all the time.”

“So?”

“I never really bothered to listen but when I did I had a shock. It was about the twins, Davy and Kim.”

She had my attention at last. “Yes?”

“They seem to get up to some very nasty tricks, particularly for such young children. They ought to be stopped, though I'm not sure how.”

“What do they do, Maddy?”

“For one thing they catch small animals – with their bare hands, I gather – and cut their throats in some grotesque kind of ceremony and smear the blood over the stones in the Circle.”

I stared at her, my own blood suddenly thundering in my ears. “Cora told you that?”

“In passing, yes. She didn't seem to attach much importance to it. And apparently there's a most peculiar atmosphere between the twins and the old woman up there. Is she their grandmother? The twins told Cora that she'd tried to kill them once, but you know how children exaggerate. They were probably only trying to make an impression.”

In the recesses of my mind I saw again the small damp bundles wrapped in my jacket and Philip's. “Probably,” I agreed out of a dry mouth.

“It doesn't seem a very healthy environment for children to grow up in,” Madeleine went on. “I hate to think of those poor little animals, quite apart from the effect it must be having on the twins themselves. Since Philip seems to have so much influence with them, I was wondering if you'd ask him to speak to them.”

“I'll see what I can do,” I said.

As I'd anticipated, Philip was greatly excited to learn of the doings of his protégés. “So that's what they get up to, the little devils!” he exclaimed, with an unmistakable note of pride in his voice. “I wonder what the significance is. Blood for the stones to replace the old-time sacrifices? I'll ask them about it but they won't tell me anything they don't want to and they're very adept at raising the mental block in a flash to prevent any probing.”

“I suppose you never said anything about our rescuing them that night?”

“Of course not. Why?”

“I was just wondering how they knew.”

Philip smiled irritatingly and did not reply.

Saturday came at last and after an early lunch Anita, Eve, Philip and I set off for Carnforth. It was a glorious summer day and the surrounding countryside lay rich in its new greenery. Our route took us through some of Lakeland's loveliest scenery, alongside the blue waters of Thirlmere, through Grasmere and Ambleside, whose narrow streets were already blocked with tourists, past Windermere and so down to the outskirts of Carnforth and the grey stone building we were seeking.

“The Miss Carters are in their room,” the nurse at the desk told us. “We weren't expecting any visitors for them and they prefer to be alone. Would you like them to be sent for?”

“We'll go up, if that's all right,” Anita said quickly. We were all anxious to have no onlookers at this meeting.

“Of course. It's room nineteen, on the first floor. There's a nurse on duty up there.”

In silence we went up the wide, linoleumed staircase. There was a murmur of voices from the common room below and a sudden, high inane laugh. For the first time I wondered how I'd react to this latest pair of twins. Philip was used to illness and the other two knew what to expect. I alone was likely to be out of my depth.

“The Miss Carters,” Eve said to the enquiring eyebrows of the duty nurse.

“Room nineteen. If you need me, just press the bell by the door.”

We knocked, paused – although hardly expecting an answer – and went in. The two women were seated side by side on one of the beds. They wore neat grey skirts and cardigans and their hands were resting in their laps. They had short grey hair and pale blue, inward-looking eyes, which showed no emotion whatever as the four of us entered the room.

Eve and Anita went forward, talking quietly, apologizing for their absence as though time had meaning for the women sitting there. Then suddenly the pale eyes lifted and seemed to register Philip and myself for the first time. A flicker of interest crossed the smooth, unlined faces.

Without opening my mouth, I said inwardly, ‘Good afternoon. I hope you're well.'

Both women stiffened, their faces turning towards me like flowers to the sun, a look of wild, unbelieving hope flooding over them which was painful to see. The answer came hesitantly, ‘Who are you?'

Anita replied, also silently. ‘I'm sorry. May I introduce Matthew and Philip Selby? They live in Crowthorpe too.'

Excitement snaked across the room, stinging my mind with its whiplash.

‘Matthew? Matthew?'

Eve glanced at us with a startled frown. ‘Yes, Matthew and Philip.'

‘Not-Philip.'

Philip said, ‘Sorry, but that is my name.'

The level of excitement was by this time distressing to us all. The grey-haired women hadn't moved from the bed, but eyes, brains, consciousnesses were examining us minutely, stretching towards us in search of something we couldn't grasp. It occurred to me that if this meeting had taken place downstairs, we would have seemed to any onlooker merely to have been staring at each other.

Their concentration was still centred on Philip. ‘You have perhaps another name?'

I half-smiled, knowing how Philip detested his second name. He said reluctantly, ‘I was called Arthur, after my father.'

Their fervour became tangible, swelled, exploded. ‘Artio and Matunus! We were not mistaken! Hail, all hail!'

And before we could stop them, the elderly women had slipped off the bed and prostrated themselves on the ground. Instinctively I reached for the buzzer to summon help, but Eve caught my hand.

“No – wait a minute!” She'd spoken aloud and her voice was shaking. “Tell them to get up, for God's sake.”