Free The Greenstone Grail by Jan Siegel Page B

them, but there was a large section left, and Annie, Bartlemy and Hoover sat by the fire at teatime (it was not yet too warm for a fire to be unwelcome) and munched their way through a respectable portion of it. Annie talked about Nathan, as she so often did, proud of his academic achievements, but still happier at the person she felt he was growing into. ‘I’m being boring,’ she said, catching herself up short. ‘Boring on about my son.’
    ‘What mother doesn’t?’ Bartlemy smiled. ‘You know I’m not bored.’
    ‘It’s at times like this,’ Annie continued after a few minutes, ‘birthdays, and family times, that I wonder most about hisfather. Not – not Daniel, I can’t fool myself that he’s like Daniel. Maybe in nature, in some ways, but not looks.’
    ‘He could be a throwback,’ Bartlemy said lightly. ‘You shouldn’t worry about it.’
    ‘A throwback to what? And I don’t worry, that’s not the word. I just feel I ought to
know
. One day soon he’s going to ask, and I’ll have to tell him, but I’ve no idea
what
I’m going to tell him. Have you … thought about it any more?’
    ‘I’ve thought about it a great deal,’ Bartlemy said.
    ‘Will you tell me what you’ve thought?’ Annie said a little shyly.
    Bartlemy set down his plate with the remainder of a piece of cake. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But you must understand this is pure speculation. We may never know the truth.’
    ‘I understand.’
    ‘We spoke once before of the Gate of Death. It has always been so called because death was supposed to be the only way to open it, but love, so they say, is stronger than death, and it may be that your love opened the Gate, and in a moment lost to memory you passed through, and returned with a child in your womb. Such unexplained pregnancies have happened before: I need hardly mention the most notorious case.’
    Annie glanced up in bewilderment; then her face cleared. ‘I
really
don’t think Nathan’s the new Messiah,’ she said. ‘My God, I hope not!’
    ‘I too … but he
is
special. There is a maturity, a strength of character which distinguishes him. He’s a teenager now: it will be interesting to see if he displays the wayward behaviour usually associated with that age.’
    ‘What if he doesn’t?’ Annie said. ‘If he doesn’t start being rude to me, and having moods, and playing very loud music in his bedroom, and smoking pot and taking E, and treating me as an embarrassment? Is
that
when I should worry?’
    She wasn’t quite joking, and Bartlemy smiled only a little. ‘If you want to,’ he said. ‘Worrying doesn’t achieve anything, but we all do it. If you need to worry that Nathan gives you no real cause for anxiety … Exactly. Where were we? You passed the Gate, or may have done, and became pregnant, so you believe, in that moment.
Not
your boyfriend’s child: that seems fairly obvious. There are worlds without number beyond the Gate, Powers which rarely touch our lives so nearly. Once in a while, however, those Powers concern themselves with our immediate affairs. Not in my experience, nor that of anyone I know; but it
has
happened. Maybe there is some task to be done, some destiny to fulfil – mind you, I’ve always had my doubts about Destiny: she’s a temperamental lady. I feel Nathan was born for a purpose, though I don’t know what it is. Perhaps there is a doom which only he can avert. Time will show. Whatever the truth, it seems clear Nathan has a father from outside this world, a being superior to us, in intellect and quality if not in essence, possibly one of the Powers themselves – anything is possible. You both have enemies, we know that much, enemies on what might be termed a supernatural plane; but a child that unique would attract attention from birth. The circumstances of his conception – the Gate opening for someone still living – would cause ripples that the sensitive might feel. Certainly there is – interest – in him, from