Free The Empty Frame by Ann Pilling Page B

cried, “Oh, come to me! Tell me why you are not at peace in this world,” strange words that did not feel like his own, words that had been given him to speak, by another being.
    At once the figure vanished and the blue water surged up in a great wave and splashed over the edges of the swimming pool. Magnus felt weak, he had to clutch on to the edge of the window in the door to stop himself sagging down. He felt bitterly cold, great goose pimples stood out all over his arms and legs and his teeth were chattering. He took one last desperate look through the swimming pool door to see if the vision had really gone away, but found he could not see through because the glass in the windows was skinned with ice.
    He walked very slowly after the others. He wouldn’t tell them yet. He believed a very important pattern might be forming, a pattern that involved them all. But to understand what it all meant they would have to be patient, like bird-watchers sitting quietly in their hides or anglers waiting for the fish tobite. The most significant thing about what had just happened was that for the first time when the ghostly woman had been present he hadn’t felt afraid, and that she had communicated with him – or at least there had been the beginnings of a communication. His banging on the glass, which he regretted now, had frightened her away and that meant she was not locked in her own time, as he had understood from Father Godless was the usual way of ghosts. For a few minutes in the swimming pool building she had stepped from her time into his, perhaps because she needed the modern people in the Abbey. Or could it be that she just needed Magnus?
    They found Wilf making sandwiches in the buttery. He knew all about the costs of the day-to-day running of the Abbey, and he was able to explain about the swimming pool.
    â€œIt costs a lot to run, a pool like that,” he said. “It’s the maintenance. And with nobody coming on these courses any more there’s no point in keeping it open, not all the time. But the Colonel goes in every day, briefly – swimming’s good for his injury, stops him stiffening up. And your Aunt Maude insists—”
    â€œ Cousin Maude,” said Magnus.
    â€œThe lady insists on letting folk from the village come, now and again. The nearest public pool is inHigh Wycombe and they don’t all have transport. The Colonel’s not keen of course, but he can only stay on here because of her money, so he’s got to give way on some things.”
    â€œDid he really not want us to come here, Wilf?” asked Magnus. “Doesn’t he like children?” He felt very emotional. Sam and Floss’s parents had given him a lot of love since he’d come to live with them and although he could not forget what had happened in his own family, and still dreamed terrible dreams about it, the way this new family treated him seemed to be healing something inside him, healing it with their love. Colonel Stickley had been quite kind to him, when they’d been on their own in the middle of the night, but most of the time he was grumpy and irritable. Magnus found it very hard to trust him and he very much wanted to.
    Wilf, seeing tears in his eyes, patted him on the shoulder. “No, lad, he doesn’t dislike young people, not at all. But he has this sadness to cope with, about his son.”
    â€œThe one who’s missing? Cousin M told us,” Floss explained.
    Sam said, “Do you think he’s dead, Wilf?”
    The little man paused, then let out a big sigh. “It seems pretty likely, to me.” He slapped big chunks of chicken between slices of bread, sprinkling on lemonjuice and a dash of curry powder, and feeding scraps to Arthur who was sitting hopefully under the table. “About this swimming lark,” he said. “Your only chance is the early morning.”
    â€œWhat time?” asked Sam suspiciously. He liked lying-in