Shrine

by Herbert, James

  She moved in, footsteps slow and soft. ‘Alice?’ she whispered, reluctant to wake the child but not sure if she slept. There was no reply from Alice, but another sound came to the nun’s ears, a strange yet not unfamiliar noise. It was vaguely repellent, a sucking sound. The nun’s forehead creased into a puzzled frown. She approached the bed and looked down at the near-naked form lying there.

  Saw the small, bristling shape hunched on the child’s stomach.

  Raised the crucifix to her lips in horror when she discovered it was a cat.

  Felt nauseous when she realized it was suckling at Alice’s third nipple.

  30

  Look out! Look out, boys! Clear the track!

  The witches are here! They’ve all come back!

  They hanged them high – No use! No use!

  What cares a witch for the hangman’s noose?

  They buried them deep, but they wouldn’t lie still,

  For cats and witches are hard to kill;

  They swore they shouldn’t and wouldn’t die –

  Books said they did, but they lie! they lie!

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, ‘Look Out Boys’

  The two men emerged from the crypt into the daylight, the shorter one leading, bounding up the stone steps as if relieved to be away from the musty chamber. Fenn stood in the graveyard, hands in his topcoat pockets, and waited for the priest to join him.

  Delgard’s progress was slower, his legs moving as though they were tied with weights, his shoulders more hunched than usual. Fenn was concerned for the priest: his pallor and demeanour were similar to Father Hagan’s before he had died.

  The priest reached him and they walked through the gravestones towards the boundary wall.

  ‘That’s that, then,’ the reporter said, deliberately scuffing the top off a molehill as they passed. ‘No chest, no information on the church’s history.’

  They had searched through the underground chamber with a fine toothcomb, Fenn’s nerves jangling every moment they were down there, only the tall priest’s presence keeping him from running out into the open. The light bulb had been working, even though Fenn had insisted it had blown the previous Sunday; nevertheless, both men were armed with torches just in case the power failed again.

  ‘That may not be so.’ Delgard’s voice was heavy, his eyes focused on the ground before him. ‘The chest wouldn’t have been lost, not if it contained documents referring to St Joseph’s earliest days. It must be elsewhere.’

  Fenn shrugged. ‘It could have been stolen or destroyed.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Well, where else can we look?’

  They had reached the wall and both men looked towards the centre-piece in the field.

  ‘That tree gives me the shudders, d’you know that?’ Fenn said, not waiting for a reply to his previous question.

  Monsignor Delgard smiled grimly. ‘I can appreciate your feeling.’

  ‘You too, huh? It’s hard to reconcile it with a place of worship.’

  ‘You think this ground is sacred?’ the priest asked, nodding towards the field.

  ‘You’re the priest: shouldn’t you be telling me it’s so?’

  The priest gave no answer.

  Workmen in the field were carrying in benches, the rows of seating spreading outward, as yet barely covering half the field. Refinements to the centre-piece were in progress, the makeshift altar of the previous Sunday replaced by a large and more ornamental carved-wood version; close by was a small uncovered credence table. Posts which would eventually carry banners were being put up along the aisles and a low rail had been erected around the raised platform for the congregation to kneel at while the priest or priests administered Communion. The activity gave a normality to the scene which belied the extraordinary events that had taken place there just a few days before.

  Delgard thought of Molly Pagett and the irony of the less-than-immaculate conception that had happened here. His conversation with Mother Marie-Claire earlier that morning made him wonder just what the illicit coupling nearly twelve years before had spawned.

  ‘I feel it’s vital that we locate the church chest, Gerry,’ he said, his hands resting on the cold stone of the wall.

  ‘I’m not so sure; what could it tell us? It’s probably filled with old Mass books and hymn sheets, like the box in the crypt.’ His flesh seemed to tighten around his bones when he thought of the underground chamber.

  ‘No, I’m sure it’s important.’

  ‘How can you be? I think we’re clutching at straws.’

  ‘It’s just a feeling – a very strong feeling. The other records you found go back to the late sixteenth century; why not before that, why should it begin there?’

  ‘Who knows? Maybe that was the first time they thought of keeping any documentation.’

  ‘No, the idea of keeping records goes way beyond that period. It could be that they’ve been purposely hidden.’

  ‘I think you’re guessing. I can’t believe—’

  ‘Still disbelieving, Gerry? Last Sunday you believed a statue of the Virgin Mary – a white unblemished statue – moved towards you. You said its lips and eyes were alive, that they even tried to seduce you. And today? What do you believe today?’

  ‘I don’t know what happened!’

  ‘But a few moments ago in the crypt. There was no such statue, just a broken and old stone carving, almost unrecognizable as the Virgin, lying behind three other equally disfigured statues.’

  ‘I fell against it, knocked it over.’

  ‘The breaks were grimy with age, not fresh at all. And there was no face on the Virgin.’ Delgard’s voice was reasoning, no hint of criticism in it. ‘Can’t you believe something happened there that you cannot logically explain?’

  It was Fenn’s turn to remain silent. Eventually he said, ‘What makes you so certain the answer’s in past records?’

  ‘I’m not sure, not at all. But the Reverend Mother of the convent came to me this morning. I’m afraid she was a little agitated.’ That was an understatement: the nun had been frantic with worry. ‘Alice has been speaking in her sleep again. Last night, Mother Marie-Claire listened outside her door as I had just a few days ago. She couldn’t catch much of what Alice said, but it was in the same form as we had both heard before. She recalled some of the words, one or two of the phrases. “Fill me with thy seed” was one, “Allay their tongues” was another. Mother Marie-Claire also heard the word “priest”.’

  ‘Old language. Sounds like Shakespeare.’

  ‘That’s precisely what it is. It was the peculiar accent that puzzled me before; it made Alice’s words sound garbled, nonsensical. Today I remembered a new treatment of Shakespeare’s plays at the National I saw several years ago. I should say an “old” treatment; all the actors spoke in Elizabethan English, but not just using Elizabethan dialogue. An authority on the subject had tutored them in the accent used at that time. It was quite different, not just in form, to the language we speak today. It was the same language used by Alice as she slept.’

  ‘She was quoting Shakespeare in her sleep?’

  Delgard smiled patiently. ‘She was speaking the language of that period, possibly before that time, in its correct idiom.’

  Fenn raised his eyebrows. ‘You can’t be sure of that.’

  ‘I’m not. However it gives us a basis to work from. How can a child of Alice’s years – and remember, one who has been profoundly deaf for most of those years – know of a language she has never heard or probably even read before?’

  ‘What are you getting at? Possession? Demonic possession? Speaking in tongues?’

  ‘I wish it were that simple. Perhaps we could call it retrogression.’

  ‘You mean reliving a past life? I thought Catholics didn’t go in for reincarnation.’

  ‘Nobody has ever proved that retrogression has anything to do with reincarnation. Who knows how much race memory is retained within our genes?’

  Fenn turned to sit on t
he wall, his hands still tucked deep into his pockets. A light drizzle had started while they were talking. ‘No wonder you’re anxious to see what records are in that old chest. You know, a coupla weeks back I would have laughed at all this. Now all I can manage is a half-hearted chuckle.’

  ‘There’s more, Gerry. Something else I should have remembered before.’ The priest squeezed his temples with thumb and fingers of one hand as if trying to press away a headache. ‘The night Father Hagan died, the night we had dinner at the Crown Hotel.’

  Fenn nodded, urging Delgard on.

  ‘Remember I was talking of Alice’s general state of health at that time? I said she was fine except for feeling tired and being a little withdrawn.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  ‘I also said the doctors had noticed a small growth in her side, beneath her heart.’

  ‘You said it was a – what was it? – an extra nipple of some kind, nothing to worry about.’

  ‘A supernumerary. I happened to be watching Father Hagan when I mentioned that and noticed he became even more agitated than he had been earlier during the evening. It slipped my mind because of the tragedy that followed. I think it struck a chord somewhere in him, something that was in the back of his mind and which he could not bring to the fore. I was a fool not to have known myself.’

  ‘Forgive my impatience, Monsignor, but I’m getting wet. Are you going to tell me what it is you’ve remembered?’

  Delgard pushed himself away from the wall and looked back towards the church. The light rain had created small speckles of dew on his face. ‘Reverend Mother told me she had found a cat in Alice’s room last night. It was resting on her sleeping body and it was drinking from her.’

  Fenn’s head, kept tucked in against the drizzle, snapped up. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘The cat was suckling at Alice’s supernumerary nipple.’

  Fenn’s face crinkled in disgust. ‘She was sure? She actually saw it?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mother Marie-Claire was certain. When she told me I realized what I had previously forgotten.’ He looked away from the church and directly at the tree in the field beyond the wall. ‘I remembered the ancient folklore concerning witches. It was generally believed that such women bore a mark on their bodies. It could be a blue or red spot, the flesh sunken, hollow; it was known as the Devil’s Mark. Naturally enough, in such superstitious times, scars, moles, warts, or any natural excrescences on the body of a suspected witch could be given diabolical significance, but there was another protuberance or swelling which established the guilt of any person bearing the deformity beyond question.’

  ‘The supernumerary nipple?’

  Delgard nodded, his eyes still on the tree. He asked. ‘Do you know what is meant by a witch’s familiar?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Isn’t it something to do with a guide from the spirit world?’

  ‘Not exactly. You’re thinking of a spiritualist’s familiar, a spirit who helps the medium contact souls on the other side. A witch’s familiar is alleged to be a gift from the Devil, a spirit-beast which helped in divination and magic. Usually it was a small animal, anything from a weasel, rabbit, dog, toad, or even a mole.’

  ‘But more often a cat, right? I’ve read the fairy stories.’

  ‘Don’t dismiss such stories out-of-hand; they’re often based on folklore passed down through the centuries and can contain some element of truth. The point is this: such spirit-beasts were sent on mischievous and often malicious errands by the witch and rewarded with drops of the witch’s own blood. Or they were fed from the witch’s supernumerary nipple.’

  The reporter was too stunned to scoff. ‘You’re talking about witchcraft, here, now, in the twentieth century?’

  Delgard smiled thinly and finally tore his eyes away from the oak. ‘It’s by no means unusual nowadays; there are many witches’ covens throughout the British Isles. But I believe I’m speaking of something much more. You associated witchcraft with fairy tales. What if such myths were based on a reality, something which the people of that time could not understand, could only perceive in terms of sorcery? Witchcraft would have been something they could not understand, but could accept. We laugh at such ideas today because it’s comfortable for us to do so, and our scientific technology precludes such notions.’

  ‘You’re losing me. Are you saying little Alice Pagett is a witch, or that she’s not? Or that she’s the reincarnation of some ancient sorceress?’

  ‘I’m saying none of those things. But I think we must delve into the past for some link with what is happening here today. This force must emanate from somewhere.’

  ‘What force is that?’

  ‘The force of evil. Can’t you feel it around us? You, yourself, experienced it last Sunday in the crypt. The same force weakened, then destroyed, Father Hagan.’ He did not add that he felt that same pressure bearing down on himself.

  ‘There’s nothing evil about the miracles,’ Fenn said.

  ‘That,’ Delgard replied, ‘we do not yet know. We don’t know where or what all this is leading to. We must keep searching, Gerry. We must find clues. We have to find the answer before it’s too late, while there’s still a chance to combat this force.’

  Fenn let out a long sigh. ‘You better tell me where else I can look for the chest,’ he said.

  Fenn was a dumbhead. He should have seen the connection. Maybe all the research he had been doing had addled his brain. Guess it was easy to be objective when all the work had been done and you only had to read through the notes. But still, she could be wrong: it might not be here at all.

  Nancy stood before the heavy-looking door inside the porch, its wood painted and marked with time, wondering if it would be locked. She twisted the metal handle and her eyes glinted with satisfaction when it turned and the door opened easily. No reason for it to be locked in such an isolated place.

  It was when Fenn had told her that the old church chest he was looking for wasn’t at St Joseph’s that she realized the possibility. If he hadn’t played so cagey with her, she’d have told him. That’s what you get, Fenn, for trying to cut me out.

  She pushed the door open wider and stepped in from the porch. The light inside was dull, diffused by the thick, leaded windows.

  The chest dated back to the fourteenth or fifteenth century and must have disappeared some time during the sixteenth, for that was as far back as the records Fenn had found went. That had been her clue.

  The door made a low growling noise as she closed it, a muffled thump disturbing the stillness inside when it shut completely. Nancy looked around the miniature church, loving its quaintness, impressed by its tradition. A leaden font stood before her, the dark, letter-ornamented metal speaking of another time, a different era. Nearly all the pews were boxed in, the panels chest-height, narrow doors allowing entry. Whole families probably sat in each one, Nancy assumed, cut off from their neighbours, enclosed in their own small islands of worship. The wood panelling was stripped of any varnish, its bareness somehow complementing the character of the chapel itself. No more than thirty to forty feet away, at the head of the narrow aisle, was the tiny altar.

  So this was where the lord of the manor came to pray, Nancy mused. Cute.

  She moved around the font into the chapel and at once gave a small cry of triumph. There it was. It had to be the one!

  The chest stood against a wall to her right, immediately below a large polished-wood board, the names of all the clerics who had served the church from 1158 to the present day inscribed on its surface in gold. She stared at the long, low chest, scarcely believing her eyes, but almost certain it was the one Fenn had been searching for. It matched the description in his notes perfectly: made from planks of thick elm or oak, bound together with metal bands, the wood battered and marked, an indication of its antiquity; and there were three unusual looking padlocks on its facing side.

  Nancy squatted beside it, still smiling in triumph, and handled all three locks. ‘Grea
t!’ she said aloud. ‘Now all I need is the goddam keys.’

  She pushed herself erect and looked around. Where would the priest be? He obviously wouldn’t be resident, there was no house, only the large mansion some distance away. The board in front of her said that the priest since 1976 was a Father Patrick Conroy of Storrington. Ah, that was it. The priest obviously bussed in from the neighbouring parish to run the show here. She would have to go to the town or village of Storrington to locate him. But then, would he allow her access to the chest? Probably – no, definitely – not. Fenn might get permission, though with his church connections. Shit, she would have to tell him.

  Unless.

  Unless the keys were kept in the church. Improbable, but worth a look. Maybe in the vestry.

  She strode down the aisle towards the front of the nave, her footsteps brisk. Shadows of light passed across the high windows, heavy, low clouds moving by outside. The sound of wind whistling through a gap somewhere in the church roof. A small scratching sound, a mouse working at wood somewhere in the shadows.

  Her footsteps faltered as some subliminal change in her awareness told her she was not alone in the church.

  She stopped for a moment and listened. The scratching had stopped as though the mouse also knew there was an extra presence nearby. The clouds outside thickened, the light diminishing.

  Her footsteps were slower, more cautious, when she moved on. She peered over the tops of the high box pews, almost expecting to find someone praying in one. To her right, by the side of the altar she could see the closed vestry door. To her left was a corner, the interior flanking out in that direction possibly to form a side chapel. Yet the unvarnished wood panelling indicated it had to be another pew, this one set apart from the rest. This would be where the lord of the manor sat with his family, she reasoned.

  No sound came from that direction, but apprehension stabbed at her chest like a thin, sharp icicle.

  Get a hold of yourself, asshole. There could be someone there, but why not? It was a church, for Chrissake! She coughed, loudly, hoping for some reaction if there was somebody praying in there. A shuffling of knees, or a returned cough would do. Anything to show that whoever it was wasn’t skulking. There was no other sound.