And at that moment it had dawned on Harry that he really could be – if there weren’t other matters more pressing.
But then, in the first week in November as winter crept in, his mother had dropped something of a bombshell . . .
Harry was feeling better than he had ever felt in his life before, capable of taking on the entire world, the night she had come to him in his dreams. In his waking hours he must always contact her if he wished to speak to her, but when he slept it was different. Then she had instant access. Normally she respected his privacy, but on this occasion there was something she must talk over with him, something which could not wait.
‘Harry?’ she’d stolen into his dream, walking with him through a misty graveyard of great, looming tombstones standing as high as houses. ‘Harry, can we talk? Do you mind?’
‘No, Ma, I don’t mind,’ he’d answered. ‘What is it?’
She took his arm, held it tightly, and knowing now that she had firmly established rapport let her fears and her urgency spill out of her in a veritable torrent of words:
‘Harry, I’ve been speaking to the others. They’ve told me there’s terrible danger for you. Danger in Shukshin, and if you should destroy him terrible danger beyond him! Oh, Harry, Harry – I’m so dreadfully worried for you!’
‘Danger in my stepfather?’ he held her close, tried to comfort her. ‘Of course there is. We’ve always known that. But danger beyond him? What “others” have you been talking to, Ma? I don’t understand.’
She drew back from him to arm’s length, grew angry with him in a moment. ‘Yes, you do understand!’ she accused. ‘Or would if you wanted to. Where do you think you got your talent in the first place, Harry Keogh, if not from me? I was talking to the dead long before you came along! Oh, not as well as you do it, no, but well enough. All I ever managed were vague impressions, echoes, memories that lingered over – while you actually talk to them, learn from them, invite them into yourself. But things are different now. I’ve had fifteen years to practise my art, Harry, and I’m much better at it now than when I was alive. I had to practise it, you see, for your sake. How else was I going to be able to watch over you?’
He drew her close again and wrapped his arms about her, staring deep into her anxious eyes. ‘Don’t fight with me, Ma, there’s no need. But tell me now, what others are you talking about?’
‘Others like myself, people who were mediums in life. Some, like me, are dead only recently in the scale of time, but others have been lying in the earth a very long time indeed. In the old days they were called witches and wizards – and sometimes they were called worse than that. Many of them died for it. These are the ones I’ve been speaking to . . .’
Even dreaming Harry found the idea chilling: dead people talking to other dead people, communicating between their graves, considering events in a waking, living world from which they themselves had departed for ever. He shuddered a little and hoped she didn’t notice. ‘And what have they been telling you, these others?’
They know you, Harry,’ she answered. ‘At least, they
know of you. You’re the one who befriends the dead. Through you, the dead have a future – some of us, anyway. Through you, there’s a chance some of us can finish the things we never finished in life. They look to you as a hero, Harry, and they too worry for you. Without you there’s nothing left for their hopes, you see? They . . . they beg you to give up this obsession, this vendetta.’
Harry’s mouth hardened. ‘You mean Shukshin? I can’t do that. He put you where you are, Ma.’
‘Harry, it’s not… not so bad here. I’m not lonely any more, not now.’
He shook his head and sighed. ‘That won’t work, Ma. You’re only saying that for my sake. It only makes me love and miss you more. Life’s a gift and Shukshin stole it from you. Look, I know it’s not a good thing I’m doing – but neither is it unjust. After this it will be different. I have plans. You did give me a talent, yes, and when this is finished I’ll use it well. That’s a promise.’