There was nothing in her manner to suggest she found anything at odds with his appearance. Adam could only infer that just as Claire's imagination had lent shape to her earlier visions, so her submerged memories must be coloring her present perceptions. And the fact that he had been drawn into her vision at all suggested that Annet Maxwell had something to convey to him, having recognized another soul with a historical past.
"If your name is Maxwell, then these people buried here must have been your family," he said, directing his gaze toward the tomb. "I'm sorry. Was it the plague that took them from you?"
Annet Maxwell nodded wistfully. "My Thomas was an attorney-at-law. He had dealings with many folk from outside our borough. When the plague came, he was one o' the first to take sick, and our bairns with him. Why I wasnae ta'en too, I dinnae know. But I count myself fortunate that my daurlins found room here in the churchyard, with Our Lady herself to watch o'er their rest."
Her gaze flicked toward the frieze above the church door. Looking more closely, Adam saw that the scenes carved there depicted episodes from the life of the Virgin. But he glanced back at Annet as she stood up and shook her skirts back into place.
"Were ye looking for anyone in particular?" she asked. "If none o' the names here belong to ye, ye might try the burial ground across the river, on the north side o' the common. Many o' the later plague victims found rest there, when there was nae more ground left here to take them. It was a grim, bare place at the time, but the grass has since grown o'er the mounds, and the dead sleep there at peace."
"I thank you for that suggestion," Adam said, adding, "You sound as if you have come to terms with your loss."
Annet shrugged. "What would ye, sir? I couldnae bring the dead back to life again by any excess o' grieving. Besides, the kirk teaches that we shall all be reunited at the Resurrection on the Last Day. An' in the meantime, there are others who need me."
It was a more vigorous response than Adam had dared to hope for. If Annet Maxwell's words were any true indication of acquired inner strength, the potential resources available for Claire Crawford might well be considerable. Curious to see how far that strength might be tested, he asked, "Did you never wonder who might have been responsible for bringing the plague to town in the first place?"
"Ye mean, did I look for someone tae blame?" Annet smiled and shook her head. "Looking for some scapegoat wouldhae been so much wasted effort, when sae many people were dying. An' e'en if the spread o' the disease could hae been traced back to one man," she continued reflectively, "what good would that hae done? That one man would ne'er hae willed this disaster upon us knowingly, e'en had it been within his power to do so. And where there is nae premeditated will, e'en if the grief that follows is great, surely we were better advised, for the good of our own souls, tae forgive rather than tae demand retribution."
So saying, she turned away and waved a hand to attract the attention of the children playing down at the far end of the green. The girl was first to notice, and called the two boys to order. Watching as the three began picking their way up the hill through the grass, Adam was moved to ask, "Whose children are those?"
Annet answered him over her shoulder. "Mine, now. The same plague that left me childless left them without parents. Between us, we manage to make up our losses. But then I've heard it said that a will to love will always find a worthy object.''
As she spoke, Adam noticed a telltale blurring in the air along the peripheries of his sight. When he looked out beyond the river's embankment, there was no longer anything of the town to be seen. With a smiling nod of farewell, Annet Maxwell turned away and went to rejoin her adopted sons and daughter. A moment later, their forms disappeared from view in a wave of silvery mist.
Adam's return to his senses was gentle. When he opened his eyes, his left hand still lightly clasping Claire Crawford's wrist, Noel McLeod was standing over him, looking more than a little concerned. As soon as he saw that Adam's eyes were open, an expression of relief crossed his craggy features as he mouthed silently to Adam, Are you all right?
Adam blinked and nodded. Though the sunlight was still warm, he felt chilled all over. It was one of the common aftereffects he had come to associate with astral travel; nevertheless, he could not repress a slight shiver. He glanced over at Claire Crawford, but she was still sitting quietly, her face becalmed in deep trance.
"Claire, I want you to rest for a few minutes now," he murmured, holding a finger to his lips to caution McLeod. "Take a very deep breath and go deep asleep as you let it out. Hear nothing until I take your hand again and call you by name."
As she complied, her head nodding onto her chest, he released her wrist and got shakily to his feet, momentarily leaning on McLeod's shoulder as they withdrew into the shade of the arbor.
"I'm fine," he assured his Second. "Just give me a few seconds to settle. Did I give you a turn, there?"
"Not exactly," McLeod said. "But there at first, I wasn't sure you were totally in control. This last bit was a fairly straightforward conversation with someone called Annet Maxwell, who I can only assume was a past-life persona, but before that, you suddenly cried out, "No!"
Adam nodded. Remembering the flashback to fiery martyrdom as a Templar Knight, he could well believe that the pain's reliving had found expression in his voice.
"I hope I didn't make myself heard as far as the house," he remarked with a grimace.
"No, no, it wasn't all that loud - and you calmed immediately. But you did give me a start. I even considered trying to bring you out." He cocked his head at Adam. "What did you find out?"
"Well," Adam said, "I'm certainly satisfied that this unhappy lady is, indeed, the cause behind what's been happening at Carnage Corridor. She's been trying to see the face of the driver who hit her and her husband. But instead of going back in memory to the accident itself, she's been looking into real cars in contemporary time - and the drivers swerve and crash, trying to avoid hitting her."
Pursing his lips in a silent whistle, McLeod shook his head.
"That's only the beginning," Adam went on. "She has a historic past that could have a significant bearing on this present crisis. But to use it, we'll have to find a way to break down the barriers that Claire Crawford has since erected in her own mind, between the past and the present."
In as few words as possible, he related his experiences on the astral, including visual details of his churchyard encounter with Annet Maxwell. By the time he had finished, McLeod was looking both extremely interested and extremely concerned.
"So this is not the first time she's had to cope with multiple bereavement," he said thoughtfully. "I can certainly see how Annet Maxwell's experience might throw some beneficial light on this present situation - both for what she's lost and for what she's done inadvertently - but bringing together those two aspects of herself could take a while. And in the meantime, what's to stop her from causing further accidents?"
"We'll have to stop her," Adam said with bleak candor, "and there are no easy answers. In the short term, I could probably leave her with a posthypnotic suggestion to forbid dreaming about the accident, waking or sleeping - but that's a stopgap measure, at best. In the long term, that kind of repression would only lead to more trouble - maybe even plunge her into psychosis - which would only make her that much harder to reach.
"No," he continued, "the impetus to stop these astral forays has got to come from Claire herself, by breaking this compulsion of hers that she must find that driver. We all hope he'll be found, of course, but not at the expense of more innocent lives."
"So, what do we do?"