At the Rectory next morning Ben was scraping the last fragment of boiled egg from its shell, The Times folded open at the leader page on the table in front of him, when Janet came back into the kitchen after answering the phone in the hall. He glanced up.

‘Abi,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t put her off. She sounded distraught.’

He put down his egg spoon with a sigh. ‘Is she coming straight over?’

Janet nodded. ‘I’ve checked the fire in your study and I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.’

He glanced at her. This was a change of tune from last time. Kier had annoyed her so much she was prepared to accept Abi now without comment. Standing up he refolded The Times and handed it to her.

‘Shall I make the coffee now?’ Janet asked.

‘Please. Meanwhile, I’ll go and say a prayer before she comes.’

Ben stood at the window in his study staring out across the grass. The wind in the night had brought down a lot more leaves. Under the maple tree at the edge of the lawn a fresh carpet of gold lay in an exact circle on the grass beneath its branches which were almost bare now. With a sigh he closed his eyes and tried to marshal his thoughts.

Abi waited until Janet had set the tray of coffee down on the side table and left the room before she turned to Ben. ‘I’ve lost her.’

‘Lost who?’ Ben was expecting to talk about Kier.

‘Mora. I can’t contact her. I’ve lost the thread of the story. She appeared to me at the Chalice Well yesterday, just briefly, and she said I should look in the crystal, but the crystal is useless. It isn’t working. I can’t do it any more.’ She paced up and down the room a couple of times. ‘And now Mora has gone. I tried all night.’

Surreptitiously Ben studied her face. She looked drawn and utterly exhausted. ‘And you got no sleep at all,’ he said quietly.

Abi nodded. ‘There is something I haven’t told you.’ She sat down on the edge of the chair.

Ben walked over to the tray and began to pour the coffee. He said nothing for a few moments, waiting for her to go on. When he turned back to her with the cup in his hand she was staring down at the floor.

He put the cup down on the table beside her. ‘What is it you haven’t told me, Abi?’ he said at last.

‘I’ve seen Jesus.’ She looked up at him and he saw defiance in her expression. And fear. Was she expecting him to laugh? To ridicule her? To have her sectioned, or to send to the bishop’s office to have her made a saint?

He turned away and took the chair opposite her. ‘Supposing you tell me exactly what happened.’

‘He was here, at the druid school. Studying. The story, the legend is true. He came here, to England. He spent time here. With Mora.’ She was twisting her hands together nervously as she told him the whole story. ‘Obviously he wasn’t called Jesus. They all call him Yeshua, but that is all right, isn’t it? Some people say that was his real name. Obviously we know Flavius couldn’t have killed him because he went back to the Holy Land to begin his teaching there but what happened when he tried to get near him? Did Flavius kill Mora? Did Romanus help him? What happened in that hut? I have to know.’ There was a hint of something like desperation in her voice.

Ben stared thoughtfully into the fire. ‘It seems strange that suddenly your visions should have been stopped. Did that coincide with Kier’s arrival?’

It was not the response she had expected. Why hadn’t he pounced on her revelation?

She frowned. ‘No. Yes. I don’t know! Why?’

‘I wondered if his presence down here, his belief that this is a demonic visitation, had acted as an inhibitor to your,’ he hesitated, trying to find the right word, ‘your experiences. Your imaginative faculty might have shut down and your rational good sense reawakened.’

She leaped to her feet. ‘My imaginative – you think I’ve imagined all this?’

‘Some of it, possibly. Abi, you know you might have. The ghosts, well Cal has substantiated your reports of those, but this other story – the detail – we have to keep an open mind. Having said that, whatever is happening here was, at least at first, a viable experience for you. It was tied up with experiences of otherworldly beings that others have seen. At the same time it is possible that you have been drawn in to the whole Glastonbury thing, my dear. I don’t want to belittle what you have seen, or think you have seen, but you know as well as I do that the idea that an historical Jesus came to England is complete rubbish. It is not possible. Why on earth would he have wanted to come here, to the ends of the Earth, to study with a bunch of pagan savages who were immersed in human sacrifice?’

She shook her head in despair. ‘No, you’ve got it wrong. You’ve got them wrong. There was no human sacrifice. They were learned men and women, the druids. They were wise, cultured, respected across the world. Jesus went to Egypt to study first, everyone knows that, then he went east, to India and Tibet.’ She ignored Ben’s slowly shaking head. ‘Then he came west. He needed to absorb and understand the learning of the Gentiles as well as that of the Jews. He had come to save the whole world. He needed to understand the scale of what he was undertaking. Everyone thinks he was just focused on the local scene. The small area round Galilee, but he wasn’t. He had visited other countries. He knew about other places, races, beliefs.’

Ben clasped his hands together and studied his knuckles for a few moments. Then he looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Abi. I have no right to denigrate what you are saying. It only shows how rigid are my own beliefs. Maybe you are right.’ He paused again. ‘But I don’t know where to go from here. I know you are praying for guidance as to what the right thing is that you should do, and I will do the same. It’s just that it is an area I know so little about.’

He reached for his cup. Abi was watching him in something like despair. ‘You haven’t asked me what he looked like,’ she said at last.

Ben shook his head. ‘You said you thought he was in his mid-twenties.’

‘Did I?’ She shrugged. ‘He was amazing. Strong, yet gentle. But he was confused. He had a temper. He was a healer, but he was impatient as well. So human. Attractive.’

Ben smiled. ‘Just as I – and perhaps you – would have imagined him to be.’

She nodded. ‘So, I can’t win. You are not going to believe me.’

‘I want to, Abi,’ he said. ‘You have no idea how much I want to.’ He took a thoughtful sip from his cup. ‘There is someone who could help us, perhaps. Someone who could look at this more objectively; who might understand the technicalities of what is happening to you. My brother, Justin.’

‘Justin!’ Abi stared at him in astonishment.

He looked up. ‘You’ve heard about him?’

‘I’ve met him. Twice.’

It was Ben’s turn to look astonished. ‘Where?’

‘At Woodley. He seems to make a habit of breaking and entering in the middle of the night or when he thinks the place is empty. How on earth could he possibly help with this?’

Ben was silent for a moment. ‘Did you speak to him?’

‘Not much. He did help to chase Kier away, for which I am grateful, but he still seems to me to be an arrogant, conceited man, bent on outwitting poor old Mat. I don’t like him, to be honest.’

Ben hid a smile. ‘That sounds like brother Justin all right. Neither of us exactly gets on with him. But he does have certain fields of expertise. The trouble is I don’t know where he lives at the moment. I don’t suppose he told you?’

‘No, he did not.’ Abi shook her head. ‘And Cal and Mat don’t know either. Cal mentioned the fact.’

‘Pity. Well, if you see him again, perhaps you could swallow your pride and ask him to get in touch with me. Or if the moment seems right, talk to him about all this yourself. What he has to say may surprise you.’

It wasn’t until later that day that Abi had the chance to speak to Cal alone. ‘I didn’t want to mention him in front of Mat. Not again. But how on earth could Justin help me with all this? Ben wouldn’t explain when I asked, he just looked quizzical!’

Cal was standing by the back door, a woven willow trug on her arm, a pair of secateurs in her hand. For a moment she reminded Abi almost unbearably of her mother who had so often carried a similar basket round the garden at home. Swallowing the wave of grief which threatened to overwhelm her she pulled on her coat and both women headed into the garden. The stone crystal, retrieved from the drawer upstairs, weighed down Abi’s pocket. ‘Justin knows a lot about local history; much more than any of us. He says he’s writing some sort of book on the area,’ Cal said cautiously. ‘I suppose Ben thinks he could throw light on what you’ve been experiencing. He’s also always been interested in what you might call occult practices.’

‘Occult -?’ Abi stared at her. ‘Black magic, you mean?’

Cal shrugged. ‘Something I think he called the Western Spiritual Tradition.’ They had walked towards the rosebeds and Cal began to select some long-stemmed buds. ‘I don’t even know if he still does it; maybe he grew out of it, but it was one of the things Mat hated. Strangely I think Ben respected him for having any kind of interest in spiritual matters at all. They used to discuss it. I don’t know why Ben and Justin fell out in the end. With Mat it was something that was there even when they were kids – and he was so much older he should have known better. I’ve always thought Justin had a raw deal with the other two.’ She concentrated on reaching some deep red blooms in the centre of the bed.

‘And Justin is a very attractive man,’ Abi said.

Cal glanced at her sharply. ‘You think so, do you?’

Abi blushed. ‘I’m human! But it’s you he fancies. Just a bit?’ she added quietly.

Cal shook her head. ‘No. At least, maybe a long time ago. Yes, I suppose that didn’t help.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I’ve always liked Justin, but not in the same way I liked Mat. The old stick doesn’t seem to realise I still adore him. I always did. Justin never stood a chance. Not like that.’