My True Love Read Free Page B

finally see her. He seemed to implore her. He spoke, but his words were snatched away by gusts of angry wind. She had stretched out her own hand until she thought their fingers might touch. But instead of coming closer, Anne felt as if she were moving farther and farther away from him. He then looked beyond her and she became frightened by the look in his eyes. She did not have the courage to turn and look at what was behind her. Disaster? Death itself? Anne only knew that she had stood between Stephen and this terrible thing. But whatever it had been, it frightened her and made her fear for him.
    Instead of answering her, Anne asked her own question. “Have you never wanted to leave the island, Hannah?”
    The silence in the small cottage had a sound all its own. Not unlike a bell whose peal deadened all other noise.
    “I leave it often enough.”
    “Once or twice a year. No more.”
    “Why do you ask that of me, Anne?”
    She turned, faced Hannah resolutely. “Because I want you to come with me.”
    “Where?” Hannah came and stood beside Anne. The question was spoken, but the knowledge was already there on the older woman’s face. An odd destination, one of heart more than of place.
    “You do not even know if he’s real,” she said incredulously.
    “He is real, Hannah.”
    “Because you wish him to be? The world would be a fine place if all our wishes would come true, Anne. But it does not happen.” Hannah’s face seemed to change. The anger vanished and in its place was a look of sadness before it, too, was gone.
    “Have you not the sense God gave a gnat? A journey with no destination? Instead of being afraid you were a witch, you should have feared becoming a fool.”
    “Would you have me remain here all the rest of my life, Hannah? Without knowing if he was real or not?”
    “Yes,” Hannah said bluntly.
    Anne smiled. “Give me a week, Hannah. That is all I ask. One week from my life. If I do not find him, then I’ll return to Dunniwerth and be the meek woman you wish of me.”
    “You’ve never been meek a day of your life, Anne Sinclair,” Hannah said wryly. “The idea is madness, Anne.”
    “No,” Anne said softly. “The madness would be in not heeding this feeling.” She turned away, faced the window again. “I can feel him, Hannah.” She placed her clenched fist in the middle of her chest. “As if the spirit of him lives in me as well as in his soul. Don’t tell me he’s not real. Or that this longing I feel is only a dream.”
    He calls to me . Even now, as she stood in Hannah’s cottage, it was as if she could hear him. A voice without sound. Words without speech. A longing so strong that she could not deny it. It was instinct and craving and something even more earthy and elemental. How did she explain it? Perhaps she could not.
    She could not tell anyone what she felt at this moment. Not even Hannah. Perhaps she didn’t know the right words. Or they’d never been crafted. She was afraid and confident. Confused and certain. Extremes. That’s how she measured this feeling.
    She turned. “Come with me, Hannah.”
    “Or else you will do this thing alone?”
    “I am not that foolish, Hannah.”
    “But you will convince someone else,” she said dryly. “Who will explain this idiocy to your parents?”
    “What could I say, Hannah? That I’ve held this from them all my life? Their hurt would vie with their disbelief.”
    “Where will you go? How would you find this man who does not exist?”
    “He exists,” Anne said, closing her eyes as if she saw the route in her mind. “Three days ride due south. A road veers beside a deserted abbey, and there we need to head west.”
    “A vision, Anne?”
    She blinked open her eyes. “Directions, Hannah.”
    By the look on her face, it was clear that she had startled the older woman. “There are not that many places named Langlinais. One of the peddlers I spoke to thinks he knows it.”
    Hannah pursed her lips, frowned again. Then