Book Club Reads: 3-Book Collection: Yesterday’s Sun, The Sea Sisters, Someone to Watch Over Me
one and part of that reluctance was the pressure for him to conform to certain standards when it came to image. It was inevitable that the studio would want him to smarten up his appearance at some point.
‘Well, I could see that one coming,’ laughed Holly.
Tom gasped in mock horror. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence! So go on, say it. Tell me I’ve got the perfect face for radio.’
‘You have a perfect face,’ Holly told him. ‘Your hair, on the other hand …’
‘I know,’ Tom said, self-consciously pulling at a wayward curl that was sticking up on top of his head.
Holly suddenly burst into laughter. ‘They want you to cut your hair, don’t they?’
‘It’s not funny,’ Tom said seriously, but then started laughing too. ‘The studio wants me to have my new image sorted before they start filming my pieces over in Canada.’
Pushing the suitcase out of the way, Holly crawled over the bed towards Tom. She wrapped her arms around him and lovingly began to caress his dark locks. ‘Then I think I’m going to have to kiss every last one goodbye,’ she whispered.
As Tom joined her on the bed he barely noticed the fraction of a second when Holly’s whole body froze. She had just remembered the broken-hearted Tom in her vision. His hair had been cropped short. Holly was tiring of the game the moondial seemed to be playing with her mind and, in that split second, she knew she had to put that particular nightmare to bed once and for all.
On the day that Tom set off for Canada, Holly couldn’t wait for night to fall. The evening was warm and wet as Holly scrambled through the long grass and stood in defiance in front of the moondial. Above her, the waning moon shone down on her and sought out the reflected surface of the glass orb that Holly clasped in her hand. She didn’t want any more time to think about what she was doing so she dropped the orb hastily into the dial, taking care not to let her fingers make contact with the brass mechanism or the stone dial itself.
The orb rattled into place and then remained as still as the night that closed in expectantly around Holly, feeding on her growing tension. She strained her ears for the telltale ticking of a clock, the sound that had accompanied the violent flash of moonbeams the last time she had used the dial, but the only sound that greeted her was the rustling of the tall grasses as they scraped against each other in the gentle breeze. The orb sparkled innocently as it reflected the moonlight but it held no power of its own, nothing that existed beyond the realms of her own imagination.
In the distance Holly heard the occasional hooting of an owl, and she imagined it was laughing at her. She didn’t blame it. She lifted up her head to the skies to expel a huge sigh of relief, but the smile on her face faltered as she stared at the skies above her. On the night of her vision, there had been a full moon, not the partially hidden face that peaked out behind the shadow of the earth. The images of the moon etched on the surface of the dial were all perfect circles. Reluctantly, she understood in that moment that if the moondial really did hold any power of its own it would be by the light of the full moon. Cautiously, using her finger and thumb, she prised the glass orb from the weak grasp of the dial and returned it to its box.
Holly felt defeated and deflated. There were three whole weeks to wait until the next full moon at the end of July, and Holly felt like her life had been placed in limbo. Dealing with the emotional fallout from this latest separation from Tom was bad enough, but living with the nagging doubts and the growing possibility that she had seen a vision of her future and one where she had already died, was just too much to bear.
That night, Holly tossed and turned in bed, trying to make sense of everything she had seen or thought she had seen during her hallucination and the connections she had made to this vision since then. Perhaps the bang on her head when she had fallen in the garden had caused a long-term problem. Perhaps she hadn’t seen a conservatory in her original vision. Perhaps she hadn’t seen Tom with short hair. What if her mind had just altered her memory of the vision when Tom told her about his plans? Didn’t that make more sense? Holly knew this didn’t explain away the parallels between her own experience and the legend of the Moon Stone, but the link between the moondial and the Moon Stone was still a tenuous one. ‘Reflection is the key,’ that was what the inscription said, but what did it mean? The moon reflected the light of the sun into the darkness of the night. The moondial took that light and reflected it where? Into the future?
Holly wondered if she should speak to Jocelyn about the dial. Had she simply imagined Jocelyn’s uneasiness as they stood around the moondial? Did Jocelyn have more secrets to reveal? She couldn’t share her thoughts until she had unravelled the puzzle a little more and she couldn’t do that until the moon was full. Holly shook her head to free herself from the spider’s web of theories that tangled up her thoughts into a silken mess.
It was no surprise that during each and every night that followed Holly seemed to sleep less and less as the moon shrank into a crooked smile that seemed more of a smirk, before beginning to open its wide yawning mouth, ready to swallow up her fading hope that everything could be explained away by a simple bump on the head.
While the moondial occupied her thoughts during the night, it was Mrs Bronson’s sculpture that occupied her days. The baby figure was faultless, its smooth, soft curves had just enough echoes of Libby to tug at Holly’s heart every time she looked at it, which she often did. The mother figure was nearing completion too, cradling the baby in her arms in a way that made Holly’s own arms ache for the weight of her child. The mother’s arms were wrapped around the tiny figure as if it was the most delicate of flowers, but there was also something about that pose that suggested the mother had a grip of iron.
Holly stepped back to review her work. Her hands were covered in dust from sanding and chipping away at any imperfections to reveal smoother lines and refined curves. It was almost finished, but still Holly frowned. She stepped slowly around the sculpture, surveying every inch of the spiralling form and the transition points where the black stone would meet white. It didn’t have the finesse that would be reserved for the final version, but otherwise everything looked as it was supposed to. Still not satisfied, Holly took a few more steps back until she was practically at the door, checking the work from a distance. There was something about the pose that Holly felt was wrong even though it was precisely as she had drawn it in her initial sketches.
Her eyes drifted towards a chisel but she stopped herself from going and picking it up. Instead she released a deep sigh. ‘It’s good enough for Mrs Bronson,’ she told herself with a touch of annoyance.
It was mid July and, although she had until the end of the month to sign off the sample piece, Mrs Bronson couldn’t wait and had been pestering her for days. Holly knew she had to take a leap of faith and accept that this was the best she could produce. She went to lean against the studio door in resignation. Unfortunately, at that precise moment, the door opened outwards and Holly’s body met nothing but thin air.
‘Watch yourself,’ Billy shouted, catching Holly mid fall.
Hovering no more than a foot from the ground and relying on Billy’s arms to keep her from hitting the floor, Holly looked up into the builder’s eyes as he leaned over her. He gave her a sympathetic smile as he shook his head. ‘You women really can’t be trusted on your own,’ he told her with a sigh.
‘I can look after myself perfectly well,’ said Holly with a growl.
‘Women,’ he replied with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
‘You can let go of me now, Bill,’ Holly suggested.
‘You’re the boss,’ he said, letting go of her.
Holly landed on the floor with a clatter of jarred joints. ‘Thanks, Billy!’ she said, rubbing her elbows as she struggled up. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’
‘Reporting for duty, ma’am.’ Billy saluted her. Holly stared at him vacantly so he continued, ‘Your husband has commissioned