Book Club Reads: 3-Book Collection: Yesterday’s Sun, The Sea Sisters, Someone to Watch Over Me
hand, discarded it on the table and then wrapped Holly in her arms.
‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ Jocelyn pleaded.
‘I can’t,’ whispered Holly. ‘I’m so scared, Jocelyn! I’ve never been so scared in all my life.’
Jocelyn squeezed Holly tighter to her as she felt her friend’s body shaking with fear. She started to rub her back. ‘It’s all right, I’m here. Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right, I promise.’
Holly looked up at Jocelyn. How different her life would have been if she’d had a mother like Jocelyn. But at least she was with her now, and Holly didn’t have to deal with her living nightmare on her own, not any more. ‘I’m going crazy, but I know if I say it out loud it’ll just make it real and I don’t want it to be real,’ she explained, fighting the suppressed tears that were burning the back of her throat.
‘Oh, sweetheart, tell me what’s wrong. You can’t keep it all to yourself. I promise you I won’t judge.’
Holding her breath in an effort to bring her shaking body under control, Holly hiccupped back a suppressed sob. She looked into Jocelyn’s eyes and the steeliness in her gaze gave Holly the strength to speak the unspeakable. ‘I’m going to die,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to die and I don’t want to. I don’t want to leave Tom in such a mess. I don’t want to leave Libby without a mother.’
Finally she took a breath, but as she paused, she noticed that Jocelyn had tensed her body. Jocelyn released her grip and took a step back to look Holly in the eye.
‘How do you know all of this?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘I’ve seen it. I don’t know how,’ Holly hiccupped. ‘I don’t know how it works, but it has something to do with the moondial. It isn’t broken at all. It works and I think it showed me my future. I’m going to die in childbirth on September twenty-ninth next year.’
‘You need a glass of water for those hiccups,’ Jocelyn said as she unravelled Holly from her arms and turned towards the kitchen sink.
‘Did you hear what I said? I’ve either gone completely crazy or the moondial has helped me travel forward in time and it showed me that I’m going to die,’ whispered Holly, horrified that she might have just made a fool of herself. Of course Jocelyn would think she had lost her mind, what else was she supposed to think?
Jocelyn’s hand trembled as she handed Holly a long glass of cold water. Holly was too upset to notice. She took the glass but, rather than sip it, she put it to her forehead to cool her brow. She couldn’t look Jocelyn in the eyes.
‘Would it help if I told you that I died too?’
The glass in Holly’s hand slipped between her fingers but she saved it just in time to prevent the table from being damaged further. She sat down again when she felt her legs about to give way. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, stumbling over her words but in her heart a spark of hope ignited.
‘I used the dial too, Holly.’ Jocelyn sat down on the chair next to her and grabbed her hands. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I should have said something when I saw that you’d resurrected the dial, but I hoped you wouldn’t work out how to use it, that you wouldn’t need to use it.’
‘You saw your own death and you changed it?’ Holly squeezed Jocelyn’s hands, holding onto the hope that was now glowing brightly. It was almost enough to know that she wasn’t going mad, that the whole thing wasn’t just her mind unravelling. Yet Jocelyn wasn’t simply telling her that the moondial really did have the power to look into the future, but that the future could be changed.
Jocelyn nodded and Holly felt a sense of control she hadn’t felt for days. ‘Tell me, tell me what happened.’ She bit her lip and waited for Jocelyn to explain.
Jocelyn let go of Holly’s hand and visibly sagged in her chair. She was quiet for the longest time and Holly wasn’t sure if she was going to speak. When she did, it was in a barely audible, trembling whisper.
‘I’ve already told you about Harry, what he was like and why I left. Well, that was only partly true. Harry was bad enough, but it was only through the moondial that I saw how things would get worse, so much worse …’ Jocelyn’s head was bowed down and she sat staring at her hands as she recalled her time in the gatehouse. ‘That was why I left him, you see, to avoid the trouble that would come.’
Holly sat mesmerized as she watched Jocelyn lift her eyes towards the kitchen window. It may have been the height of summer, but it seemed a cold, mournful day outside. Jocelyn couldn’t see the moondial from where she was sitting, but she obviously felt its presence bearing down on her.
‘It’s been such a long time and I tried to convince myself it was just a weird and complicated dream,’ offered Jocelyn. ‘It was so much easier than living with the guilt.’ Jocelyn glanced at Holly and gave her a weak smile before returning her gaze to the window.
‘What happened?’ Holly asked.
‘I was horrified when Harry plonked the dial in the middle of the garden, which was just what he wanted. The garden was my escape, the only part of my life that I felt I could control, and he wanted to destroy that too.’
‘Why did you stay with him?’
‘I was an unskilled, unloved housewife and Harry had spent more than enough years eroding my self-confidence. I just didn’t believe I could fend for myself and, more importantly, provide for Paul.’
‘And the moondial showed you that you could?’ Holly asked.
‘No, the moondial showed me what would happen if I didn’t.’ Jocelyn paused, still trembling with fear. ‘To cut a long story short, I saw a future where I hadn’t been able to endure any more of Harry’s mental and physical torture. I took my own life, Holly. It was the ultimate act of selfishness, not least because, without me to deride and humiliate, Paul became Harry’s new target.’
Despite the horror of the story Jocelyn was revealing, a story that had been played out in this very house, Holly felt her heart lighten. ‘So you can change the future that the moondial shows you?’ Holly was aware that she was repeating herself, but she had seen a flicker of hope and she needed to hold onto it.
‘It’s not easy; everything comes at a price.’
Holly shook her head, dismissing Jocelyn’s warning. ‘I’d do anything to change what I saw. In my vision, I walked into this house and had to watch Tom suffering so much, grieving for me. The worst part about it was that I was standing there, right in front of him, and he couldn’t see me. The thought of him looking straight through me still sends a shudder down my spine.’
‘Ah, reflection is the key, remember. That’s how the moondial works. The light from the sun is reflected onto the surface of the moon and it’s this borrowed light that is reflected further into the future through the moondial. But you are a reflection, you’re not really there.’
‘So that’s why Tom can’t see me. But I still don’t understand – because Libby could see me, I’m sure of it.’
‘Libby? Is she the baby you had?’
‘Oh, Jocelyn, she’s beautiful. You should see her. In fact you already have, she’s the baby I based my sculpture on,’ added Holly proudly.
Jocelyn smiled. ‘Then yes, she is beautiful. Holly, I wish I could explain why she could see you but I don’t know everything. Even Charles Hardmonton never understood exactly how it worked.’
‘He was the explorer I read about, wasn’t he? So he did make the moondial from the Moon Stone.’
Jocelyn nodded. ‘I know your presence will be stronger when you’re in direct moonlight, but I think sometimes it doesn’t matter how strong the reflection is, people will refuse to see what’s right in front of them. An adult in particular can’t accept what shouldn’t be there, but a child just might.’
‘Did