Ruin

by Harry Manners

  *

  The cathedral had grown quieter. Old Hadley’s band still played in the pulpit, but the mood seemed dampened by the muttering that had erupted from all directions. The fizz of the celebration had been extinguished, as though water had been thrown over a roaring fire. Hundreds were milling around the chapel, casting worried glances in the direction of the doorways.

  Most had stopped eating or drinking. The food and cider lay scattered across the tabletops, growing stiff and flat, forgotten.

  “Why Ray?” Allie said.

  She stood at the head of a group that had surrounded Alexander, asking myriad questions over the top of one another. Alex held up his hands, doing his best to calm them, but his voice was drowned out by the sheer volume of enquiries. “I don't know,” was his constant reply. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  Eventually, somebody at the back called a question he was able to answer. “Where did you find him?”

  “The mill.” He was so pleased at being able to offer a reply that he failed to consider its implications until it had passed his lips. By then, it was too late. Each face had grown slack.

  “In his home?”

  At that, their voices grew frantic. Some whirled and rushed for the door, muttering about family who had remained at home. The rest stood fast, now yelling—We're not even safe in our own homes? How’d they get in? How could you let this happen?

  The news spread throughout the cathedral within moments. A gaggle of children playing between the cloister’s pillars were besieged by guardians who swooped down to claim them, gabbling like startled hens.

  Alexander watched the growing unrest with bated breath and sighed. There would be no calming them anytime soon.

  He turned to Agatha, who sat close by, ancient and decrepit, watching the pandemonium. Despite her misty grey eyes and slack-jawed senility, an air of indignation at their uncouth panic seemed to seep from her pores. She turned to him and offered a throaty chuckle. “Don’t make ’em like they used to, my boy,” she croaked.

  “I suppose not,” he said, bending down and taking her hand. “I have to go and check on something. Could you watch them for me?”

  She met his eyes, and the ghost of a great woman winked somewhere behind the cataracts and fog of dementia. “Of course,” she whispered. Her cheeks stirred, her eyelids narrowed, and she touched his face. “Alex….”

  He nodded, waiting.

  Her brows furrowed, and for the briefest of moments Alex was looking into the face of an old friend—and a mother. “You look so old,” she whispered.

  He squeezed her palm gently, nodding. “I know,” he said. Then he headed for the door, keeping his head low.