Shrine

by Herbert, James

  There were no more sounds from the crowd; no more coughs, no more children wailing, no more mumbled prayers. It was as if the thousands present were holding their breath as one. Even though only those nearest the raised platform could see what was happening, some mass-consciousness sent the tension eddying around the congregation like widening ripples on a disturbed pond. They held their breath and looked towards the centre-piece.

  Then a hushed coalescent ‘aaaah’ escaped them as the tiny figure of the child mounted the steps to the altar. Wonder and excitement brimmed in their eyes. The television cameramen, on top of their cranes, could only groan with frustration at the untimely breakdown of their generator, none of them aware that their rivals were experiencing the same problem. A policeman outside the gate, and oblivious to what was taking place inside, could only frown at the static from his hand-radio as he tried to call in reinforcements. The crowds were fast becoming uncontrollable as they tried to push their way through the jammed entrance to the field.

  Delgard felt his legs trembling as the rapturous little face approached him up the steps. She was so tiny and so frail, and her eyes saw something that was visible to no one else. Alice passed him and his body drained of vitality as though she were a strange spiritual magnet attracting energy. He swayed and had to reach for the lectern to steady himself. The oak tree rose up behind the altar, a black twisted giant, a looming creature that seemed to beckon the child.

  Alice’s eyes half-closed when she stood before the tree, white slits only showing between the lids. Her face slowly tilted upwards as if she were looking into the upper branches and a smile drew back over white teeth. Her yellow hair fell low between her shoulders and her hands rose away from her sides, ready to embrace. Her breathing came in short, sharp gasps, quickening so that her chest moved rapidly, gradually slowing, becoming even, deep, steady. Stopping.

  The air shimmered around her and the clouds seemed blacker overhead. But then the sun broke through and the field, the altar, the tree, were bathed in a pure light.

  Alice slowly turned to face her spellbound audience, her small body trembling, shivering with some inner ecstasy which the onlookers could feel growing within themselves.

  Alice suddenly gasped as though an invisible blade had pricked her flesh; the smile remained, though, and became even more serene. And now the crowd gasped as she began to rise into the air.

  ‘Fenn, what the hell is the matter with you?’

  He stopped struggling, stopped trying to kick himself away from the figure stooping over him. His mind began to clear, although the panic still remained. ‘Who . . . who is it?’ he asked, voice shaking.

  ‘Who the shit do you think it is, you idiot? It’s me, Nancy.’ She reached down for him again and this time her hand wasn’t slapped away.

  ‘Nancy?’

  ‘Yeah, remember? The friend you unloaded at the church gate.’

  He scrabbled to his feet and she had to hold him back as he tried to break for the door.

  ‘Take it easy,’ she snapped. ‘There’s a lot of junk lying around here – you’ll break your goddam neck.’ Nancy kept her arm through his, restraining him as they made for the open door. The last few steps were too much for him; he tore himself loose and rushed through. She found him leaning against the church wall outside, a stream of saliva running from his mouth as though he had just been retching.

  She gave him a few more moments to recover, then said, ‘You gonna tell me what happened down there?’

  His shoulders heaved as he tried to regain his breath.

  ‘I was on the other side of the wall,’ Nancy said, concerned at his condition. ‘I just caught a glimpse of you through the graveyard going down the steps to the door back there. It took me a little time to sneak over without the holy mafia stopping me.’ Her voice softened. ‘What happened, Fenn? You look as though you’ve seen the proverbial ghost.’

  He let out a long sigh and turned to her. His eyes were watery. He said breathlessly, ‘I . . . I . . . think I may have.’

  Nancy chuckled and, now that he was outside in the daylight, in the open air, it seemed almost ridiculous to himself. Only he had been there; he had seen it. ‘There . . . there was a figure . . .’

  ‘You mean a statue. I heard the crash when you knocked it over, only it sounded like more than one.’

  ‘There were four of them. But one . . . one at the back, the one of Mary wasn’t. It wasn’t a statue. It moved.’

  ‘Hey, Fenn, are you serious? You just bumped into it and it toppled. I saw you from the doorway scrabbling around like a maniac. Why were you stumbling around in the dark anyway?’

  ‘There was a light. It must have blown.’

  ‘Yeah, scaring you to death when it did. That must have been when you tripped and knocked over the statues.’ She chuckled again. ‘Nice going.’

  He shook his head; it all seemed so unreal.

  ‘What were you looking for?’ Her eyes were sharp, the amusement gone.

  ‘Uh? Oh, a chest, an old chest we thought might be down there. It could have some early church records inside.’

  ‘Let’s go back and see if we can find it.’

  She turned away and Fenn grabbed her arm. ‘No, it’s not there, I would have seen it.’

  ‘Sure you’re not just chicken?’

  ‘I would have seen it!’

  ‘Okay, okay, I believe you. Look, the service has already started, so let’s get over there before we miss too much. You never know, it might just be another miracle day.’ She took his hand and pulled him away from the wall. ‘You’re shaking,’ she said in surprise, stopping to face him squarely. ‘Jesus, you were really frightened.’

  ‘I’ll be okay in a minute.’ But would he be okay when it was time to close his eyes and sleep?

  ‘Sure.’ Nancy touched fingertips to his cheek. ‘Take it easy for a moment. We’ll take a slow walk to the field.’ She led him away from the church, away from the black hole in its side that was the crypt. Every so often, she sneaked a look at his face and frowned. She could understand his fright, his crashing around down there in the dark; it had scared her, for Chrissakes, just hearing the racket! Tripping through the graveyard with its crusty old tombs and toppling slabs had made her uneasy even though it was broad daylight. The little mountains of earth scattered around didn’t lighten the atmosphere, either. By the time she’d reached the steps leading down into what looked like a murky pit, she was more than a little edgy! It was only because she thought Fenn had fallen and hurt himself that she had ventured inside. Still, scary or not, he was panicked to a ridiculous degree. Strange, he hadn’t seemed the type to be scared of bogeymen.

  Something felt wrong as they neared the recently-created gap in the low boundary wall, and Nancy couldn’t quite figure just what. Fenn was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice. It dawned on her slowly as they drew nearer to the field. It was the silence. In a nine or ten acre plot crammed full with people, there was total, blanket silence.

  She came to a halt and Fenn looked up in surprise. He, too, finally noticed the absence of sound. When they looked towards the raised altar they understood.

  Monsignor Delgard sank to his knees, one hand still grasping the top of the lectern. Those watching, those who could tear their eyes off the child hovering five feet in the air, would have thought it was a gesture of homage and not just a sapping weakness in the priest’s limbs. The altar-servers, who had been kneeling just moments before, were now half-sitting, half-lying on the platform, arms and elbows outstretched to support them.

  Delgard’s eyes felt misted; it was like watching the girl through a fine veil. He wiped his free hand across his brow, his arm leaden with its own weight, and told himself that what he saw was impossible. He wasn’t dreaming though, she was there above him, her face still tilted towards the sky, her arms slightly outstretched, the breeze ruffling her skirt. His lips moved in silent prayer.

  One by one, the momentum gathering, people began to slip from
their mats onto their knees, their action one of worship and not involuntary. Soon it was like a vast moving wave as the reaction spread, the shuffling sound curiously muted. There were tears on the faces of many, smiling adoration on the faces of others; some had to close their eyes against the glare that emanated from the girl, while others only saw a tiny, still form that appeared to glimmer and fade in their vision. All were humbled by the miracle child.

  Delgard tried to rise and the strength just wasn’t there. He watched open-mouthed as Alice bowed her head and her eyes, her gloriously blue eyes, opened fully. She smiled. And slowly, singularly, many of those who had been lying on stretchers on the ground or who had sat helplessly in wheelchairs raised themselves to stagger and leap towards the altar. They gathered there, supporting each other, faces looking upwards, their eyes beseeching, a growing cluster of shattered, shrivelled bodies. Quiet, throaty murmurs came from them as they praised the child and the Madonna for what they felt was happening to them.

  There was a sudden cry as a man with a hideously swollen and marked face pushed his way through the throng of invalids and collapsed on the steps leading up to the altar.

  He stretched out a wavering arm and implored, ‘Help me! Help meeeeee . . .’ the sound dying in a high-pitched moan. His uplifted hand shot to his face and he screamed; when he took his hand away, bubbles of pus were bursting from his cheeks, mouth and chin.

  Only Ben, who could see clearly, for he stood while others knelt, could not understand what was happening.

  29

  ‘How do you?’ she chirped. ‘I’m so glad it isn’t yesterday, aren’t you?’

  Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna

  Riordan carefully closed the door to the cowshed, not wanting to disturb the creatures inside; they were tetchy enough already. He crossed the yard, making for the back door of the farmhouse, lights from the windows guiding him towards the warmth within. He shook his head and mumbled something under his breath. Times were hard enough without livestock playing up. He stopped for a moment, listening, coldness clamping tightly around him like a blood-pressure cuff around an arm. That bloody dog was howling again like a banshee in the night. It was the usual mutt, old Fairman’s, starting it all off. His own, Biddy, would be next, then the Rixbys’ in the house further down the road. Three nights they’d been at it and there wasn’t even a full moon for them to be making a fuss of! As if on cue, his labrador, Biddy, began to whine and then to howl from inside the house.

  Mebbe it was that floodlight they kept on all night in the field yonder. It looked eerie enough, the way it lit up that blasted oak; mebbe Fairman’s animal could see the glare from its kennel, the light being unfamiliar en’all. Riordan had never liked the tree when he had owned the field it stood in, although he had never understood why – it was just ugly, he supposed – but the field was only used for grazing so the oak was doing no harm, wasn’t worth bothering with. Still, the land belonged to the Church now, and a nice price they’d paid for it. Why they thought a dead oak was special just because a little girl was doing some peculiar things in front of it, he couldn’t fathom. But it was a bloody nuisance having it lit up like that, scaring the dogs.

  He heard his wife cursing Biddy inside the house, shouting for the animal to keep quiet. Some chance once she’d started.

  And it was a bloody nuisance having all those people clomping through the field on Sundays! That’s what his cattle were afeared of; they kept well away from that area, cowering at the far side of their own field as if they thought the crowd might harm them, rolling their eyes at him when he came to herd them in, trembling as though there was thunder in the air.

  He stood in the middle of his yard looking back past the covered silage pit and machinery store, studying the beam of light cutting through the indigo blue sky two fields away. Somehow it made even him feel uncomfortable. It was a silvery intruder, unfamiliar and unwelcome, disturbing the stability of the country night. He looked up at the stars, the sky clear, no clouds to smother the shimmering clusters; yet there was thunder in the air, an electricity that made his senses tingle. It was unearthly and he didn’t like it, not one little bit. When dogs howled at night it was usually a forewarning of death; tonight, standing there alone in the yard, coldness and darkness embracing him like sisters of oppression, he felt the howling was a warning of something more. Much more.

  Oh bloody hell, not more trouble! He studiously finished filling the pint glass, ignoring the raucous voices from the other end of the bar for the moment. He took the money for the round, rang it up, then casually sauntered towards the source of trouble, sighing wearily when he saw it was three locals who were causing the disturbance.

  He was a big man, though not a rough one, and his mere arrival on the scene of trouble was usually enough to pacify even the most belligerent of customers. He’d had to make his presence felt twice the night before, and once (unfortunately to no avail) the night before that. While he appreciated the extra trade all the publicity had brought in, the aggravation that came with it wasn’t so welcome. The White Hart had always been a peaceful pub – at least, relatively so – and he intended to keep it that way.

  ‘All right, lads, keep it down now.’

  They regarded him resentfully but, he thought, respectfully. The glass that whistled past his head had no respect at at. He could only stare after the three figures, stunned, as they pushed their way through the crowded bar and disappeared outside, an obscenity their goodnight bidding.

  All conversation had ceased when the glass shattered against the optics behind the bar, and now the customers stood watching the tall barman, as surprised as he. A barmaid rushed forward to mop up the spilt beer and pick up the broken glass; the barman could only shake his head in bewilderment.

  ‘What’s got into everybody?’ he said and his customers could only shake their heads in sympathy. Conversation returned, a trickle breaking into a flood, and the barman turned his back on the bar and poured himself a double Scotch, breaking his own rule never to drink before ten o’clock. Those three are barred, he told himself sullenly. He had never known them to cause trouble before, but he was sure as hell they would never cause trouble in there again. What was Banfield coming to? It had been alive, buoyant, over the past few weeks, but the mood seemed to be changing. At night there seemed to be a heaviness hanging over the village, like in summer when broody black clouds lay low and threatening; yet the air outside was oddly crisp and there were no clouds.

  He gulped the Scotch, pulling a face, but grateful for the sudden rush of warmth.

  ‘You promised, you bastard!’

  Tucker put up a stubby hand as if to soothe her temper, his eyes staying on the road ahead.

  ‘It’s early days yet, Paula,’ he said placatingly. ‘I don’t know if the plans are going to go through yet.’

  ‘You know, you bastard. Everything’s going through now! Everything!’

  ‘No, no, we have to wait for the District Council to give the go-ahead and you know how slow they are. And even if they granted planning permission, it’d take another year to have a supermarket built, maybe more.’

  ‘You said you were going to buy out a couple of shops in the High Street and knock them into one.’

  ‘I would have, but no one’s selling now there’s likely to be a boom on.’ That wasn’t true, for he’d put in tentative offers for two shops side-by-side, the owners ageing and fearful of extra trade rather than eager for it. No point in mentioning it to Paula until the sale was a certainty. What a pain in the bloody arse she was becoming!

  ‘Even so, even if you build a new supermarket, why can’t you say yes to me running the old one? At least I’ll know where I stand.’

  ‘Paula, there’s a lot more to running—’

  ‘You promised!’

  The XJS swerved as she punched his arm.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Paula, what’s wrong with you? You’ll have us off the road.’

  He squealed as she lunged for the wheel. ‘Paul
a!’ Pushing her back with one hand and steering the car with the other, he silently cursed the day he had got involved with her. He’d misjudged Paula, he realized. She was dumb, but she was conniving, too. The Jaguar slowed down and he pulled off the main highway into a side road. He stopped the car, switched off the engine and lights. ‘Now look, pet—’ he began to say.

  ‘You don’t care about me! You just want me for one thing!’

  True enough, he thought. ‘Don’t be daft. You know how much I think of you.’

  ‘You don’t care! What have you ever given me?’

  ‘There were those earrings at Christmas—’

  ‘Bastard! You don’t even know what I’m talking about.’

  Although the car was stationary, his hands still gripped the wheel and his eyes still watched the road ahead. A frantic bird or bat fluttered darkly across the windscreen. His grip stiffened and his words came out through tight lips. ‘Just tell me what you are talking about, Paula.’

  ‘I’m talking about my life! Me! My future! I’ve helped you – your business and you. I’ve worked for you night and day, never complained . . .’

  His eyes rolled upwards.

  ‘. . . always been there when you needed me. I’ve always been available, for business or pleasure. I’ve given up so much for you.’

  ‘What are you bloody talking about? I’ve given you a bloody good job, I’ve given you presents, I’ve taken you out—’

  ‘To a sodding motel! That’s just about your mark! And you give better presents to your wife! I’ve seen her parading round the village in her stinking fur coat and jewellery!’

  ‘You want a fur coat, I’ll give you a fur coat!’

  ‘I don’t want a fucking fur coat! I want something more!’

  ‘Just tell me what!’

  ‘I want the supermarket!’