Читать книгу Daughters of Fire - Barbara Erskine - Страница 26

Meryn sat for a long time after Hugh left, staring deep into the smouldering embers of the fire, reaching with tentative fingers into the past. Hugh had left him a postcard of the brooch, its exquisite craftsmanship obvious in the intricate swirls of gold and the jewelled colours of the enamels as it sat on its black velvet plinth in the museum showcase. The card rested on his knee as his mind quested the darkness behind the glowing logs at his feet. The craftsman who had made it had been proud of this his most beautiful achievement. It was an artefact fit for a god. But it had not been given to a god. Meryn frowned. The shadowy figure who was stalking Hugh was not alone. There were others there, drifting in the room, conjured from the otherworld by the very thought of this piece of jewellery. Who else had been affected by it, he wondered. He shivered as his thoughts strayed to the museum where it had lain, the malign chill of its presence cut off from the world by its glass case. Conservators and curators had admitted to him more than once in private that they could feel the vibes coming off some of the treasures in their care. Alone, when the public had gone, in the empty galleries or the work rooms behind the scenes they saw and felt echoes of the past which were far from dormant. This brooch had probably done the same.

He lifted the picture off his knee and studied it in the flickering glow of the firelight. At some point in its existence it had been imbued with power which, whatever the original intention, was now malign. Why? By whom? How? Why had these sticky threads of danger remained to contaminate all who touched it? He looked back into the fire. Tendrils of grey smoke were seeping out into the room and he screwed up his eyes with a frown, sensing a swirl of conflict, of love and hate, of fear and tragedy as the last of the logs collapsed into the bed of ash and for the time being the window into the shadows closed.