Colin was staring at the file, knowing Sibyl’s remarkable life was inside.
He opened it randomly somewhere in the middle. He saw a copy of a newspaper clipping announcing, “Local Girl Wins Volunteer of the Year Award.” A younger Sibyl was shown in the photograph, holding up a plaque and smiling at the camera with her dazzling smile.
“Mr. Morgan?”
Colin’s head came up sharply. “What is it?”
His voice was impatient. He had things to do.
He calculated the time.
Colin’s mother and sister were at Lacybourne now, meddling and needling him about the American woman named Godwin. A woman he had not expected, three weeks ago, that they would ever meet.
Now, he knew, they most definitely would considering they’d be grandmother and aunt to that woman’s children.
Robert continued. “I know it isn’t my place to say but your Sibyl, she’s a bit… well, she’s got her heart in the right place but sometimes…” He stopped and then repeated himself, obviously uncomfortable. “It isn’t my place but you should keep an eye on her. She gets herself into trouble sometimes. Well… a good bit of the time.”
Colin nodded distractedly. That, as well as many other things about Sibyl, was now stunningly clear.
“Please send Mrs. Byrne in on your way out,” Colin ordered.
Dismissed, Robert left and Colin sifted through the file on his desk, watching Sibyl’s life pass by. On the last page there was a picture of her with four young girls aged around ten or eleven. They were staring at her with rapt attention as if she was the centre of the universe and she was smiling at them, her arms in full gesture, almost like she was dancing.
They needed me, she’d said.
“Jesus,” he growled.
“Mr. Morgan?”
He looked at Mrs. Byrne who was walking into his office.
“Please have a seat, Mrs. Byrne,” Colin invited, firmly controlling his thoughts, all of which damned him to hell, and he closed the file carefully.
She was watching him but she sat in a chair opposite his desk.
“Before you tell me what’s so urgent you’re here first thing in the morning, could I ask you one question?” he enquired politely.
“Certainly, Mr. Morgan,” she replied agreeably.
“Your story, about Sibyl, you met her the night before she came to my home, is that true?”
She watched him for a moment and then she nodded. “I told you, I know you may not believe me –” she began.
“Oh, I believe you,” Colin said smoothly.
This announcement startled her but she recovered quickly.
“But the reason I’m here is to tell you what my part is in all of this,” Mrs. Byrne explained.
“All of what?”
“You, Sibyl and Royce and Beatrice Morgan,” she announced.
He did not show any reaction to this.
Colin had a great deal to do and did not have the patience to sit through this interview. Considering she was just a meddling National Trust volunteer who had very clumsily, not to mention with the addition of with unneeded mystery, instigated a meeting with him and an American woman who looked like the portrait of Beatrice Godwin, Colin lost interest in her.
“Do you know of Esmeralda Crane?” Mrs. Byrne asked.
That got his attention and his eyes focussed on her.
Of course he knew Esmeralda Crane. Anyone with any knowledge of the legend of Royce and Beatrice knew it was Esmeralda Crane, the local midwife rumoured to be a witch who discovered the bodies of the newlyweds. She was also rumoured to be the one who cast the spell on them, linking their souls for eternity.
He sat back in his chair and raised his eyebrows but did not respond.
She inclined her head. “I’m her great, great… let’s just say, many ‘greats’ granddaughter.”
Colin decided the old woman sitting across from him was clearly unbalanced.
“You are?” he asked out of politeness because he was not at all interested in her tale and was trying to figure out a way to get rid of her.
Quickly.
“Yes, Mr. Morgan. And I, like my mother and her mother and so on, back to Granny Esmeralda, am a witch.”
Yes, Colin decided, clearly unbalanced.
He lost his patience but held onto his good manners.
Barely.
“Mrs. Byrne –”
She interrupted him. “Did anything unusual happen to you yesterday, Mr. Morgan?”
Colin froze.
She was watching him knowingly. What she saw while regarding him answered her question.
“I was in your offices yesterday, as your secretary told you. I should apologise for what I did but I don’t think there were any unpleasant consequences. It has been vowed down the line of Granny Esmeralda to do whatever needs to be done to –”
“What were you doing in my offices yesterday, Mrs. Byrne?” Colin cut into her rambling.
She fiddled with the straps on her handbag and hedged, “It was for a good cause.” But when he leaned forward menacingly she rushed on, “I put a potion in your coffee.”
She couldn’t have surprised him more if she got up and danced a jig on his desk.
Then he realised what she was saying and the implications and he began to lose his temper.
His tone was low and even when he asked, “What kind of potion?”
“A magical potion to bring forward a past life, in your case the life of Royce Morgan,” she explained.
He stared at her in disbelief.
There was, he knew, no such thing as magic.
She carried on. “For a time, a brief time, Royce, through you, would be in this world again. Using your body to exist in this time, he would be you but he would be you as Royce.”
Colin felt his fury building as he stared at the woman and realisation dawned.
The kiss.
If this bizarre explanation was true then he had, as Royce, been in Sibyl’s small chalet in her back garden most likely kissing who he thought was Beatrice.
And Sibyl had kissed him back.
You weren’t yourself, Sibyl told him.
He wasn’t himself; he was Royce f**king Morgan, kissing Sibyl. Kissing Sibyl in a way that made tears come to her eyes.
Colin felt a searing jealousy tear through him even though he knew it was ridiculous, because it had been him but also, it had not.
Fury he could no longer contain made Colin slowly stand.
Mrs. Byrne watched him, her calm never leaving her and she stood as well.
“I had to do what I did,” she defended herself. “You and Sibyl did not have a very good start and things were not progressing very smoothly.”