In The Garden Of Stones by Lucy Pepperdine Read Free Book Online

How’s it going?”
    “ It’s only been two days,” Grace says, sipping at her
coffee. “Give me a chance.”
    “ Have you been doing the breathing exercises to help you
relax?”
    “ As best I can.”
    “ And cutting down on the wine?”
    “ Erm … yes?”
    “ And how is the … visualisation going?”
    “ A bit hit and miss. I have been trying, but I can’t seem to
hang on to the place I’d really like to be. It keeps slipping away.
I was trying for a nice soft beach, something tropical, with clear
blue water and palm trees and nice warm sun, but instead I got a
huge stone wall covered in ivy and brambles. More Gothic than Goa.
It was quite an interesting, if spooky, sensation.”
    Dr Mal
did a passable impression of the Simpsons’ Mr Burns, drumming his
steepled fingers together and murmuring, “Excellent.”
    “ Shall I keep at it?” Grace says. “Even if it’s not going
quite the way I want?”
    Mal nods
enthusiastically. “Oh yes, absolutely. It’s early days, so we
should expect a few hiccups. Keep trying. I think you’ll find it
gets easier and easier as time goes on.”
     
     
    She
tries. Every day she tries.
    Every
day for a whole week the blinds are drawn, the room warm, and Grace
sits cross-legged on the carpet, eyes closed, shoulders and neck
relaxed, hands folded loosely in her lap. She sucks a deep breath
in, holds it for a count of five, lets it out in a slow even
stream, just like Mal instructed, and feels the tension drain
away.
    And in.
And out. And …
    Nothing.
    Every
day she tries, and every day she fails, getting up to make herself
a cup of tea instead
    … until the weekend.
     
     
    After a
quiet Friday evening in, snuggled on the sofa with Alec and Denny
watching a detective drama on TV, sharing fish suppers, bottles of
lager and one of Denny’s rather 'special' hand rolled cigarettes,
Grace is feeling particularly mellow, relaxed and ready for
bed.
    No
sooner has her head hit the pillow than she feels reality slip away
and she is transported back to the wall.
    Not
daring to breathe in case everything vanishes again, she turns her
head slowly from side to side to follow the line of the wall. It
runs off to a vanishing point so far distant it is out of focus.
She is about to turn her head, to check what’s behind her, and
stops herself.
    “ That’s what I did last time. Whatever you do Grace, don’t
look back.”
    She
concentrates on the section in front of her, scanning back and
forth until her eye picks out a thinning of the foliage. Half
hidden by the leaves and prickles is an ornate gate, more than man
height, its ironwork wrought and hammered into stylised flowers and
birds and ears of wheat. The handle looks like a ring of twisted
barley sugar, its black paint peeling, patches of rust showing
through in places.
    It is
solid and cold in her hand. A slow turn, and the sneck on the other
side lifts. A gentle push, and the gate swings on rusty hinges,
setting up an ear-splitting squeal. Grace slips through and lets it
swing closed behind her.
    Gravel
crunches under her shoes as she treads along a broad level path set
between immaculately maintained herbaceous borders. The air carries
the scent of flowers – roses, Sweet William, lavender, the perfumes
heady and sickly sweet, made more so by the humid warmth of a late
summer afternoon. Myriad insects buzz industriously - butterflies,
bees, and the occasional damselfly.
    Ahead is
a tall conifer hedge, clipped flat and smooth, its top completely
level, not a frond out of place. A perfectly executed arch is cut
into its facing edge, and the path leads her to and through it, an
arrow straight walkway dividing an area of grass as close and neat
as a bowling green.
    She
squats to run her hand over the bright green closely trimmed
blades. Soft, like velvet. Someone has worked hard to maintain a
lawn in such a state of luxury. No notice telling her to keep off,
and no one in sight, and so she takes off her shoes and walks out