For me, sleep is fleeting.
I long for nothing more than to sneak out of my bedroom as we had during our blissful summer. But alas, I cannot. My father does not sleep either. The rotary phone rings throughout the night, bringing news from London regarding the advancements in Germany. He has friends from Stonewell visit Hanbury at all hours of the day. The manor does not rest, because my Father does not. And it is killing him. The stress, the worry. I see it in the gaunt carving of my father’s cheeks and the heavy shadows that cling beneath his eyes. But even I can recognise that death is our one constant – the terrible truth that is going to bind us all together.
The reason I have found the time to write to you today is because I have some positive news. At least it is a type of news that makes the cage of butterflies within me flutter. Earlier today, I bumped into Teddy in the gardens. I use the term bumped rather loosely since I knew exactly where he was, and there was nothing accidental about our just-so-happen-to-bump incident. In fact, I planned it. He was tending to Mother’s Honeysuckle, pruning it with the arrival of autumn. Although the world beyond Hanbury is bracing for the war, life still moves on here. It is Mother’s way of keeping some lick of normality. I am thankful for her in a strange view of the world.
I kept my interaction with Teddy brief, already aware that my father had been noticing something between us. I dropped a spare leather-bound journal – much like the one I write to you in – into the wicker basket he used for his pruning shears. It was wrapped in cheesecloth, so in case my father was watching, it looked as though I was simply providing some lunch to Teddy whilst he worked.
Inside of the journal I left a note. A set of instructions for Teddy. He was to write his daily happenings, his thoughts and feelings, onto paper and in a matter of days we were to exchange our journals. This way he could read everything I am unable to say to him, and vice versa.
So Teddy, if you are reading this, I yearn for you. And if you are not reading this, reader I apologise for a second time. But it is true. My yearning for Teddy is so potent I want nothing more than to scream it across oceans and forests, demand the sky to listen and the stars to paint our faces upon the blanket of night. But alas, we cannot. Not yet at least.
Now, I must go. Teddy’s birthday is shortly upon us, and I have been dreaming up what I am to give him as a gift. Something special. I will give you a hint though, just in case Teddy is reading this as I do not want to spoil all my hard work.
He once said to me that he wished to see the world from my eyes, just so he could experience what it is I see when I look at him.
That is one wish I can grant.
I am going to show him just what I see, the nuance of his beauty and the subtle ways he has made me fall in love with him. All I will say is thank goodness for these long, sleepless nights. It awards me the time I need to complete the gift.
My only hope is that Teddy is around at Hanbury long enough to reach his birthday. I have heard the whispers from behind my father’s closed study door. Mentions of conscription… the horror of it. But I dare not even contemplate it, murmurings of war and the part we may have to play in it. If I do, maybe it will become true.
Father told me not to worry. He promised me that I would never be touched by such evil, not like my dearly departed brother. However, Teddy is another matter.
I will do anything to keep Teddy here with me, reader. War or no, the threat – or promise – of conscription. He is not going anywhere. I refuse it.
As my mother always said, where there is a will, thereisa way.
PART 4
Wednesday
Normally, when a person found themselves in a nightmare, they don’t proceed to then wake up only to find themselves in middle of another one. Then again, there was nothing normal about William Thorn. When he opened his eyes and surveyed the change in the world around him, he realised just how terrible his reality was.
William couldn’t remember falling asleep. He wasn’t exactly tired as he read Robert Thomas’s journal, nor was there the threat of heavy eyes or chest-quaking yawns. One moment, he was reading, and the next, he wasn’t. In fact, it was no different to blinking. William must’ve closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his world had tilted on an axis.
He was outside, soaked to the bone, surrounded by nothing but darkness. Knelt on the sodden ground, William tried to lift his hands only to find them forged down.
He blinked away his horror, choking back a scream.
His fingers were buried two inches deep in the mud. Rain lashed down upon him, blinding his vision and making his harsh reality impossible to grasp. Winds whistled past his ears as though the night was taunting him, the gale forcing his back to bow forward, pressing him deeper into the soil.
The scream that built inside of him refused to leave. When he opened his mouth, gasping like a fish out of water, it was only to try and fill his lungs. Breathing was as impossible of a concept as what was happening to him.
Snapping his head around, William surveyed the ominous landscape. He saw Hanbury Manor at a distance. It was so far that if he’d screamed, the wind and rain would’ve swallowed the sound away.
Edward, his mind cried.Help me.
A handful of lights glowed from the windows, like watching eyes. The more he looked at the manor’s stone frame outlined by the moon, the more it seemed to stretch further and further away from him.
There was only one answer to what had happened.
William had sleepwalked, again.
Finally, adrenaline reared its head, flooding his trembling body with enough energy to pull his hands free from the ground. His fingers were caked with dirt, his under-nails blackened with the soil that’d been stuffed beneath him. It was as if he’d been… digging. His trousers were covered, as were his bare arms. At some point, he’d rolled his sleeves up as if his unconscious mind wanted to prevent him from ruining his T-shirt.
Little good that did.
Upturned earth waited in piles beside him. In the moon’s glow, William could see how vigorously his fingers gouged at the mud, leaving tracks deep in the ground like scars. Already, the rainwater was pooling in his handmade holes.
