Chapter Eleven

Jay was aware of the taxi driver studying her in his rear-view mirror. She had seen the recognition in his eyes when he’d picked her and the dog up. She shut him out of her mind and prayed that Anna would be alright. As though in sympathy, the dog licked her hand. The dog? She couldn’t just call it the dog. She needed to give it a name. He wore a collar, but there was nothing engraved on the small brass plate fixed to it. She knew, as she searched her imagination for a suitable name for the dog, that she was trying to divert her mind from worrying about her grandmother. He looked like a Labrador, she thought, like the one in the film version of The Odyssey.

“Troy,” she said, and he wagged his tail in approval.

They arrived at the hospital and the taxi pulled up outside the accident and emergency block. Cassie and Ben were waiting for her outside the main entrance.

Jay flung open the door and Cassie came to meet her, while Ben paid the taxi driver. One look at Cassie’s face verified Jay’s deepest fear.

“I’m sorry, Jay,” Cassie said. “Your grandmother passed away a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, please no!” Jay cried. But through eyes suddenly stinging with tears, she saw the pain etched on Cassie’s face. Jay had to get to Anna. She had to get to her Grandma. Perhaps she could heal her, like she had healed David and Sophie. She tried to rush past Cassie but the older woman caught her in an embrace and touched Jay’s brow with her lips.

“No, Jay. Wait,” she whispered gently. “There’s nothing you can do. Your grandmother’s gone. Your grandfather is still with Anna, talking to her and saying his goodbyes. So give him a little more time alone with her, before you go in.”

A great sob burst from Jay’s throat and, feeling that her heart would burst, she rested her on Cassie’s shoulder and gave in to her grief.

She was vaguely aware of Cassie comforting her and Ben’s gruff words of condolence, but she was even more aware of the fact that she was to blame for her grandmother’s death.

“If I hadn’t been born some kind of freak—”

‘Don’t you go thinking such nonsense, ever again, Jay!’ Silver Fox’s voice thundered in her mind. ‘Your grandmother’s heart attack was not your doing. It was her time to go on, that’s all. Everyone dies, even as we will, but our spirits will live on and don’t you ever forget that. Death is the price we have to pay to enter the world of the spirits, that’s all.”

Troy whined and then gave a gruff bark of welcome.

Jay stiffened and stared over Cassie’s shoulder in shock. Her grandfather was standing behind Cassie, absently stroking the dog’s head. He seemed to have suddenly grown very old and frail. His broad shoulders sagged and he seemed bowed under the weight of his sorrow. She pulled herself out of Cassie’s arms and ran into his.

He hugged her in what felt almost like a hug of desperation. “Anna’s dead, Jay,” he said. “It was her heart…”

“I know,” Jay sobbed. “I want to see her, Granddad.”

He smiled through his tears. “I’ll take you to her in a minute, love,” he said. “They’re moving her to the hospital chapel now and I’ll be staying with her until the funeral directors arrive. You’d best ring Mary and ask if you can stay the night at her house. I intend to take Anna back home to be buried, Jay. Back home to where she belongs in Catherstone Village.”