Free Lazar by Lawrence Heath Page A

There was nothing there to hit her knee against. She rubbed her
kneecap. Instinctively?
    Jan held up her hand in front of, but away from, her face. She
moved it forward tentatively. Her fingers touched a wall. That is, her fingers
touched the cold, rough, unyielding surface of dressed stone – but there
was nothing there for her eyes to see. She put her other hand forward. It
touched a wall. She reached out in all directions. Where her eyes could see
only the weathered fragments of a wall up to the level of her knees, her hands
could feel the fabric of a whole one.
    She moved sideways, feeling her way as though blind, until
she came to the point at which the invisible wall met the west end of the
church. She turned the corner, and dragged her fingers with her. She stared at
them. The west wall was still standing – she could see it – but her
fingers could not touch it. Although she pushed as hard as she could, until her
fingertips bulged outwards with the pressure, they remained resolutely at least
one centimetre away from the weathered surface of the ancient edifice.
    It was as though she was able to experience the wall, through
her sense of touch, as it had been when first built, in medieval times … when
Margaret was alive.
    Jan scrambled toward the doorway, never once taking her hands
away from the wall. She felt her fingers run over the ornately carved stone
jamb, and then along the grainy surface of a heavy wooden door – presumably
the door that she had bumped into when she entered. Halfway across the opening
her fingers met thin air – the other of the double doors was seemingly open.
Jan fell through it and then stumbled down a step she could not see. She
regained her footing straight away. Where was Margaret? Jan turned sharply to
the right. She was nowhere to be seen. Jan hurried along the wall and quickly
turned the corner of the church – and nearly ran straight into Margaret.
    The girl screamed and dropped her basket.
    Jan took a sharp intake of breath and placed her hands across
her mouth as if to never let it out again. She stared at Margaret. Her face!
    It was beautiful.
    Her complexion was fresh and softly tanned; her eyes were
wide and bright and blue; her nose was … perfect. There were no marks or scars
to spoil its gentle curves and arches. The skin was flawless. The only blemish
on the young girl’s face was the expression of sheer terror that twisted her
pale lips and cut furrows in her brow.
    Margaret was the first to speak.
    “Who are you?” Her voice was hardly louder than a whisper. Jan’s
answer was just as tremulous.
    “I’m Jan, don’t you remember? You gave me this –” She
held up her hand and showed the girl her half of the ring. Margaret’s eyes grew
even wider, then narrowed.
    “Where did you get that?” The question scythed the summer air
with the cold, hard edge of interrogation.
    “Over by the city wall.” Jan pointed past Margaret in the
general direction of the ditch. “I found it in the dyke, right next to the west
gate.”
    “That was where I lost it.”
Margaret’s frown had turned to one of anguish. Tears rushed into her eyes. “I
should never have taken it off my finger. The rings should never have been
parted – not until I had found the one with whom I wished to share my
life.” Her piercing light blue eyes glared directly into Jan’s. “That ring is
mine to bestow, not yours to steal.”
    She lunged forward and grabbed Jan’s wrist. Her fingers felt
like ice upon Jan’s skin. Both girls recoiled immediately and snatched their
hands away from one another. Margaret let out a yelp of pain.
    “Aargh! Your flesh – it burns! In God’s name, who or
what are you?” she screamed – there was nothing cold or hard about her questions
now. “Are you some spirit of the dead or a messenger sent from Heaven or come
from Hell? And why, oh why, by all that’s Holy, have you chosen me? Did I
summon you here when I lost my ring? Is it that that has brought