'I don't know. I'll have to ask Aunt Freda. Probably sometime in the last century. Not many people eat pigeons anymore, do they?' 'I don't. I suppose those little niches are where the birds nested.'
Vivien leaned forward to look, slipping her hand into one of the narrow holes between the stones. 'Yes. You can hardly see them anymore, can you, the stone has been worn down so much. The holes get bigger behind the opening, you see, and the birds could—' She broke off abruptly, her expression changing. 'Well, I never!'
'What is it?'
'There's something in here.' She frowned. 'I can't reach it from this position, I'm afraid. Do you want to try? It's something metal, I'm sure of it, right at the back of the nesting hole.'
She drew her hand out and I stepped forward, sliding my fingers across the damp, weathered stone. The narrow entrance of the hole executed a sharp right-angled turn and opened up into a cavelike space, presumably designed to give the nesting pigeons an illusion of privacy.
My fingers brushed across a gritty layer of dirt, and a small tuft of what felt like moss or lichen, before touching metal. My hands were small, but my fingers were conveniently long, and by scraping my wrist slightly against the constricting walls of the opening I could just grasp the object between my searching fingertips.
I withdrew my hand and stared down at the small object on my palm with unbridled curiosity.
'It's a key,' Vivien said, unnecessarily. 'What an odd place for it.'
I heard a faint humming sound in my ears, felt the first faint twinge of dizziness, and closed my eyes resolutely, clenching my teeth with determination. Not now, I told myself firmly. It can't happen now.
The ground rocked and then steadied, and I opened my eyes again to find Vivien bending down to look at our find, unperturbed. I was still riding a rush of relief when she asked, in an offhand manner:
'Is that Geoff coming?' I looked up and toward the back of my house, and saw a familiar dark figure striding across the grass toward us. How she could possibly have been aware of his approach, with the turf absorbing his footsteps and her back turned to him, I did not know. Either Vivien Wells had very sensitive hearing, I ruminated, or else her aunt Freda wasn't the only witch in the family.
'Yes,' I said simply, 'it is.'
He was wearing a black sweater over dark jeans, and his hair had been trimmed since I'd seen him last. He drew level with the ruined wall and leaned his elbows on it, squinting into the sun.
'Good morning,' he said. 'And what are you ...' His face fell suddenly as he took in my rough, dirt-stained clothing and the pile of weeds at my feet. 'You're not messing about in Iain's garden, are you?'
I felt irrationally guilty.
'I just pulled a few weeds.'
'I warned her,' Vivien said, in self-defense, 'but she didn't listen.'
'Well'—Geoff gave me a faintly pitying look—'what's done is done. We'll make sure you have a proper funeral, at any rate.'
I was opening my mouth to respond when he caught sight of the tarnished bit of metal in my hand.
'What on earth is that?' He arched an eyebrow.
'It's a key.'
'We found it in one of the nesting holes in the wall, here,' Vivien supplied, when I failed to offer any further information. 'Quite intriguing, don't you think?'
He held out a hand. 'May I see it?'
It looked even smaller in his hand than it had in mine. He turned it over once or twice and scraped at the metal with his fingernail, frowning. 'It's brass, I think. It could be a door key, I suppose, though it doesn't seem big enough. How interesting.' He studied it a moment longer, then handed it back to me. 'I didn't know that pigeons collected keys.'
'Someone could have put it there,' Vivien suggested.
'But why would they bother?' Geoff asked.
I pocketed the key and shrugged. 'I guess we'll never know.'
We were all three silent for a minute or so, reflecting on the possibilities, and then Vivien swung her head back and smiled brightly.
'So, you two are off to that estate sale near Calne, are you?'
'Yes.' I nodded. I turned to Geoff. 'I'm not late, am I?'
He shook his head. 'I think I'm early.'
'I've got to change, anyway,' I told him, looking down at my gardening clothes. 'Do you mind waiting a few minutes?'
Vivien waved me off. 'Take your time,' she said. 'I'll keep him amused for you. I don't have to open up the Lion for another half hour, yet.'
'Thanks.'
I scurried across the yard and into the house, pausing just inside the back door to kick off my tattered shoes, my heart racing. I was more excited by the fact that I had been able to stave off an impending 'experience' by the force of my own willpower, than I was by my discovery of the mysterious key.
That the key held some connection to Mariana Farr, I had no doubt, but I knew I would have to wait for that connection to be revealed to me. In the meantime, I could revel in the knowledge that I was capable not only of triggering my own flashbacks, but of preventing them as well. For the moment, at least, I was in control, and it was an exhilarating sensation.
No less exhilarating, I thought, than the promise of spending the rest of the day in the company of a handsome young man, basking in the sunshine of a glorious English spring afternoon. Upstairs, I placed the key carefully on my bedroom dresser and smiled into the mirror.