by Phil Rickman
Jane screamed.
Rowenna was easing the candle from between her fingers.
‘Oh, kitten,’ she said thickly. ‘Oh, kitten, what are we going to do with you now?’
Jane glared at her with open hostility. ‘Does our friend here know you do the same with Danny Gittoes?’
Holding the candle steady, between their two faces, Rowenna looked untroubled.
Jane said, ‘Does he know about those clergymen in Salisbury?’
Rowenna shook her head sadly.
‘I now know everything about you,’ Jane continued. ‘I know exactly what you are.’
Rowenna smiled sympathetically. ‘You’re not really getting any of this, are you? What I am is a woman, while you are still very much a child.’
Jane glared at her in silent fury, as Rowenna just shook her head. Looking at her now, you detected the kind of lazy arrogance in her eyes that you hadn’t picked up on before – and the coldness.
‘You must realize we were only friends because someone wanted your mother monitored, yeah?’
‘Who?’
‘And that sort of thing is how I make a bit of money sometimes.’
‘Someone at the Pod? Angela? You set me up for Angela, didn’t you?’
Annoyance contorted Rowenna’s small mouth. ‘Oh, please. I was ahead of where the Pod are years ago. Though it was quite touching to think of you standing at the window in your little nightie, solemnly saluting the sun and moon, and thinking you were plugged into the Ancient Wisdom.’
‘You bitch—’
‘Pity it all went wrong, though. I could have really shown you things that would’ve blown you away.’
‘Oh, you’re just so full of shit, Rowenna. I—’
Rowenna suddenly slapped Jane’s face, knocking her head back into James’s chest. ‘Don’t push your luck with me any more. Given time, I could really do things to you. I could make you totally fucking crazy.’
Jane felt James Lyden’s breath hot on her neck, and struggled vainly. ‘You’re even fooling yourself.’
‘You don’t know anything.’ Rowenna held the candle very close to Jane’s face, so that she could feel its heat. ‘Remember that suit? The greasy old suit I had Danny hide in the vestry?’
‘Yeah, who told you to do that?’
‘Nobody told me. I don’t take anyone’s orders… unless I want to.’ Rowenna wore a really sickly, incense-smelling scent that seemed to fill up the entire crypt. ‘I just couldn’t resist it after you’d told me how Denzil Joy had so badly scared your mother. I thought that would be really interesting – to see if I could make him stick to her.’
‘What?’
Rowenna put her face very close to Jane’s and breathed the words into her. For the first time, Jane knew what it meant to have one’s skin crawl.
‘I found his widow’s name in the phone book, so I sent James round to collect any old clothes for charity. And next I got into her: the Reverend Merrily Watkins. I nicked some of her cigarettes when I was at the vicarage, and I smoked them slowly and visualized, and I did a few other things and… OK, maybe I asked for a little assistance. It’s amazing what help you can get when you’re working on the clergy – on the enemy. And it worked, didn’t it? It really made her sweat; it made her ill. You told me she was ill. And I bet she didn’t tell you the half of it.’
Jane felt sick. She must be lying. She couldn’t have done all that.
‘You’re… just evil.’
‘I’m special, kitten. I’m very special.’ Rowenna moved away.
‘No, you’re not. You’re just… maybe you are a lot older than me. You’re, like, old before your time – old and corrupted.’
‘Right.’ Rowenna stepped away from her. ‘That’s it. James?’
James answered, ‘Yes?’ in this really subservient way.
‘Hit her for me, would you? Hit her hard.’
James said, ‘What?’
‘Hit the little cunt!’
‘No!’ Jane turned and hurled herself against him. Turned in his arms and pushed out at his face.
Which made him angry, and he let go for an instant, and then he punched her hard in the mouth. And then Rowenna’s hand came at her like a claw, grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her forward. Jane felt a crippling pain in the stomach and doubled up in agony. Another wrench at her hair pulled her upright, so James could hit her again in the face – enjoying it now, excited.
‘Yes,’ Rowenna hissed. ‘Yes!’
As Jane’s legs gave way, and the stone floor rushed up towards her.
Perhaps she passed out then. For a moment, at least, she forgot where she was.
‘We can’t!’ she heard from somewhere in the distance.
‘Go on, do it!’
Rowenna? Jane heard Rowenna’s voice again from yesterday. Death can also just mean the end of something before a new beginning. She saw Rowenna pointing her knife across the table… Lord Satan, take me!… the Tower struck by lightning, people falling out of the crack… a long way down, on to the hard, cold stone floor.
Jane felt very afraid. Must get up. She opened her eyes once and saw, in a lick of light, another face right under her own, with dead stone eyelids.
They’d laid her out on one of the effigies.
She tried to lift her head from that stone face. But she couldn’t, felt too heavy, as if all the stones of St Thomas’s tomb were piled on top of her. Then the candlelight went away, as they pushed her further down against the stone surface. She felt stone lips directly under hers.
‘Never go off on your own with an exposed flame,’ Rowenna said. ‘It’s bad news, kitten. Night-night then.’
A stunning pain on the back of her head and neck.
Time passed. No more voices.
Only smoke.
Smoke in her throat. Her head was full of smoke – and words. And Mum whispering…
Let me not run from the love that You offer
But hold me safe from the forces of evil.
But Mum was not here. It was just a mantra in her head.
‘Thank God for that,’ George Curtiss grunted from the pulpit, as the lights came back on.
There was laughter now in the nave – half nervous, half relieved – as George’s words were picked up by the suddenly resensitized microphone.
‘Well, ah… we don’t know what caused this, but it was most unfortunate, very ill timed. However, at least, ah… at least it demonstrates to our Boy Bishop that the life of a clergyman is not without incident.’
The Boy Bishop stood, head bowed, beneath the edge of the corona, in front of the central altar itself. Mick Hunter stood behind him, one hand on the boy’s shoulder.
‘We’d like to thank you all for being so patient. I realize some of you do need to get home…’
Merrily stood in the aisle, near the back of the nave, looking around for Jane, and very worried now. This is all that matters, isn’t it? This is all there is.
Something was wrong. Something else was wrong. The power seemed to be restored, but there was something missing. A dullness lingered – a number of bulbs failing to re-function, perhaps. The round spotlights in the lofty, vaulted ceiling appeared isolated, like soulless security lamps around an industrial compound.
‘It’s been suggested,’ George said, ‘that we now carry on with the ceremony, with the prayers and the Boy Bishop’s sermon, but omit the final hymn. So, ah… thank you.’
And no warmth either. The warm lustre had gone from the stones; they had a grey tinge like mould, their myriad colours no longer separated.
George Curtiss stepped down.
An air of dereliction, abandonment, deadness – as though something had entered under the cover of darkness, and something else had been taken away.
Dear God, don’t say that.
Under her cloak, the cross drooped from Merrily’s fingers, as the choir began – a little uncertainly, it sounded – with a reprise of the plainsong which had opened the proceedings.
Sophie had appeared at her side. ‘What happened?’
‘Sophie, have you seen Jane?’
‘I’m sorry, no. Merrily, what did Michael say to you?’
‘Basically he sacked me.’
‘But he can’t just—’
‘He can.’
She looked for the puddle of blood left by Mrs Lyden’s nosebleed. It was hardly visible, carried off on many shoes into the darkness outside.
‘Don’t give in, Merrily.’ Sophie said. ‘You mustn’t give in.’
‘What can I do?’
Mick had melted away into the shadows. James Lyden, Bishop of Hereford, was alone, sitting on his backless chair, notes in hand, waiting for the choir to finish.
‘I don’t like that boy,’ Sophie said.
The choristers ended their plainsong with a raggedness and a disharmony so slight that it was all the more unsettling. The sound of scared choirboys? By contrast, James Lyden’s voice was almost shockingly clear and precise and confident: a natural orator.
‘A short while ago, when I took my vows, the Lord Bishop asked me if I would be faithful and keep the promises made for me at my baptism.’
‘You must stop him,’ Sophie murmured.
‘I can’t. Suppose it… Suppose there’s nothing.’
‘Of course,’ James said, ‘I don’t remember my baptism. It was a long time ago and it was in London, where I was born. I had no choice then, and the promises were made for me because I could not speak for myself.’
Sophie gripped her arm. ‘Please.’
‘But now I can.’ James looked up. Even from here, you could see how bright his eyes were. Drug-bright? ‘Now I can speak for myself.’
‘Don’t let him. Stop him, Merrily – or I’ll do it myself.’
‘All right.’ Merrily brought out the cross. It didn’t matter now what anyone thought of her. Or how the Bishop might react, because he already had. The worst that could happen…
No, the best – the best that could happen!
… was that she’d make a complete fool of herself and never be able to show her face in Hereford again. Or in Ledwardine either.
Untying the cloak at her neck, she began to walk up the aisle towards James Lyden.
As James noticed her, his lips twisted in a kind of excitement. She kept on walking. The backs of her legs felt weak. Just keep going. Stay in motion or freeze for ever.
Members of the remaining congregation were now turning to look at her. There were whispers and mutterings. She kept staring only at James Lyden.
Who stood up, in all his majesty.
Whose voice was raised and hardened.
Who said, ‘But, as we have all seen tonight, there is one who speaks more… eloquently… than I. And his name… his name is…’
‘No!’
Merrily let the cloak fall from her shoulders, brought up the wooden cross, and walked straight towards the Boy Bishop, her gaze focused on those fixed, shining, infested eyes below the mitre.
52
A Small Brilliance
LOL WAS SEEING himself with Moon down below the ramparts of Dinedor Camp. They were burying the crow, one of his hands still sticky with blood and slime… for him, the first stain on the idyll. He saw Moon turning away, her shoulders trembling – something reawoken in her.
‘Did you ever watch her charm a crow?’ Anna Purefoy asked. ‘It might be in a tree as much as fifty, a hundred yards away, and she would cup her hands and make a cawing noise in the back of her throat. And the crow would leave its tree, like a speck of black dust, and come to her. I don’t think she quite knew what she was doing – or was even aware that she was going to do it until it began to happen.’
It fell dead at my feet. Out of the sky. Isn’t that incredible?
‘It was simply something she could always do,’ Tim added. ‘Further proof that she was very special.’
Lol glanced at the red-stained photograph of Moon over the fireplace. Not one he’d seen before; they must have taken it themselves. Athena White had told him how they would use photographs, memorabilia of a dead person as an aid to visualization.
He turned back to the Purefoys. ‘Why don’t you both sit down.’ He didn’t trust them. He imagined Anna Purefoy suddenly striking like a cobra.
‘As you wish.’ She slipped into one of the cane chairs. Tim hesitated and then lowered himself into the high-backed wooden throne.
‘After she was dead,’ Lol said, ‘you left out that cutting from the Hereford Times, like a suicide note. She’d probably never even seen it, had she?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Tim yawned. ‘That’s a trivial detail.’
Lol made himself sit in the other cane chair, keeping about ten feet between himself and them.
‘How did you kill her?’
‘Oh, really!’ Anna leaned forward in the firelight, a dark shadow suddenly spearing between her breasts.
‘Darling—’
‘No, I won’t have this, Tim. Murder is a crime. We did not kill Katherine. We showed her the path she was destined to find, and she took it – according to the values of the Celtic ethos. We talked for hours and hours with Katherine. She could never relate to this era – this commercial, secular world, this erratic world, this panicking period in history. She knew she didn’t want to be here, and she was looking for a way back.’
‘Bollocks,’ Lol said, although he realized it wasn’t.
‘And anyway,’ Anna said, ‘to the Iron Age Celt, death is merely a short, shadowy passage, to be entered boldly in the utter and total certainty of an afterlife. A Celtic human sacrifice was often a willing sacrifice. Katherine always knew she wouldn’t enjoy a long life – I showed her that in the cards, though she didn’t need me to – and therefore she was able to give what remained of it a purpose.’
‘We helped her return to the bosom of her tradition,’ Tim said comfortably.
‘It was very beautiful,’ Anna said softly. ‘There was snow all around, but the bathroom was warm. We helped her put candles around the bath. She was naked and warm and smiling.’
‘No!’ Lol said.
But he saw again Moon’s thin arms gleaming pale gold, lit by the four tall church candles, one at each corner of the white bathtub. Her teeth were bared. Her hands – something black and knobbled across Moon’s open hands.
‘But you didn’t give her an afterlife, did you?’
He saw those sharp little teeth bared in excitement, Moon panting in the sprinkling light: energized, euphoric, slashing, gouging. And then lying back at peace, relieved to feel her lifeblood jetting from opened veins.
The tragedy and the horror of it made him pant with emotion. The Purefoys had done this, as surely as if they’d waylaid her like a ripper in a country lane. But it was actually worse than that…
Hands sweating on the edge of the chair seat, he flung at them what Athena White had explained to him.
‘If a sacrifice is swift, the spirit is believed to progress immediately to a… better place. But if the death is protracted, the magician has time to bind the spirit to his will, so that it remains earthbound and subject to the commands of—’
‘Oh, really’ – Tim half rose – ‘what nonsense…’
‘It might well be,’ Lol said, ‘but you don’t think it is. You think you still have her… and through her an access to her ancestors and to the whole pre-Christian, pagan Celtic tradition.’
He sprang up. He was sure Moon’s image there on the wall was shining not with the candlelight, nor the moonlight, but with a sad grey light of its own.
‘You just prey on inadequates and sick people like Moon, and attract little psychos like Rowenna and other people desperate for an identity and—’
‘People like you,’ Anna said gently.
‘No.’ He backed away, as she arose.
‘Katherine told us about you, Laurence. She said you would often make her feel better because you were so insecure yourself, and had a history of mental instability
.’
‘That was a long time ago.’
Tim laughed. Anna held out her hands to Lol. Her face, in the mellow light, was beautiful and looked so exquisitely kind.
‘It wasn’t such a long time ago. And it doesn’t go away, does it, Laurence? It’s part of you. You have no certainty of anything, and you’re drawn to people who do have.’
He stared into the explicit kindness of her, searching for the acid he knew had to be there, because this was the black siren, the woman who had moulded Moon into her own fatal fantasy and would have taken Jane too – to use as well.
Anna smiled with compassion, and he knew that if he let her touch him his resistance would be burned away.
She said softly, ‘Laurence, think about this. What sent you to Katherine? Why did you come here tonight?’
Lol closed his eyes for just a moment. At once he saw a small, slim dark woman in black, with eyes that had to laugh at the nonsense of it all. He blinked furiously to send her away; this was no place for—
‘Ah.’ Anna was shaking her head, half amused – an infants’ school headmistress with a silly child who would never learn. ‘Why are you… why are you so obsessed with the little woman priest?’
‘You can only…’ His mind rebelled. Up against the far wall, facing this smiling Anna and the candles in the barn bay, he refused to be shocked, refused to believe she’d pulled the image of Merrily from his head. ‘You can only think in terms of obsession, can’t you? Love doesn’t mean a thing.’
There were suddenly two bright orbs in the air.
‘Love,’ Tim Purefoy said, ‘is the pretty lie we use to justify and glorify our lust. And the feeble term used in Christian theology to dignify weakness and sentiment.’
Both Purefoys were gazing with placid candour at Lol, as the bright orbs exploded, and Lol’s ears were filled with roaring and the night went white.
* * *
A shadow fell across Merrily as she walked towards the altar with the cross in her hands.
The old priest stood next to her in the aisle. He wore a black cassock, stained, plucked and holed. He looked very ill, pale beyond pale. She had no idea how he came to be here – only why. His eyes looked directly into hers. His eyes were like crystals in an eroded cliff–face. They carried no apology. There was a bubble of spit in a corner of his mouth.