After a minute, Auden drops his hands, looking from Proserpina to St. Sebastian to the priest. “The Year King,” he repeats. “And this is like the priest at Lake Nemi in The Golden Bough?”
“That’s one example,” Becket says. “The Year King is someone who’s both temporal and holy—he is a ruler, but with the power to affect the divine. A priest-king. A sacred king. And Frazer believed these kings were sacrificed. Sometimes every year, sometimes every eight or nine—it depended on the culture—but the killing of the king ensured a healthy land and a healthy people. We have only to look at the Fisher King to see what people believed an unhealthy king could do to the land. If the king is sick or old, then the land suffers and turns to waste.”
“Why?” Auden asks. “I mean, why do you think that’s the story they were interested in here?”
“By story, you must know I mean thematic beliefs underpinned by oral culture and seasonal rituals.”
“Yes, yes.”
“And I think we’re talking a very long time—on the order of centuries—since the last Year King was killed here.”
“Becket,” Auden says. “Just tell me why.”
Becket lets out a long breath. “I visited the historical society in Blackcombe. They have Dartham’s journals there.” Becket reaches in his pocket for his phone and pulls up a picture for them to see. It’s a picture of a Victorian journal page, complete with thin, looping handwriting and a few random inkblots.
Proserpina, St. Sebastian, and Auden all bend over the screen, reading.
As for the horrifying practises of Samhain, I much regret having interviewed so many of those living near Thornchapel, because I can no longer pretend this story is a solitary whisper. Indeed, though these inhabitants swear by God that they’ve never taken part in such madness, nor known anyone who has, they can all explicate in meticulous detail how the Thorn King was killed in the woods and whereby his blood fed the land. They told me this happened before Thornchapel manor was built, before even the chapel itself, although the stones and the altar are supposed to have predated the chapel. At that time, it is said, the Kernstows guarded the secret and made their own kings to take to that grisly altar on Samhain, but with the Saxons came the Guests, and with them came the beginning of Wessex Christendom. Perhaps it is then that the hideous practice ended, although more than one farmer told me that if the land goes sour or the water bitter or the wells dry, if the door should appear, then the Guests have done their duty by the land and gone to the altar in the woods. I asked the good Estamond Guest—born Estamond Kernstow—if she knew of her family holding any such lore, and she said nay and also that including such tales in the account of Thorncombe traditions would unnecessarily frighten any young or delicately minded readers, and I agree. I shall not put it down in the book, and I think I shall visit the people I spoke with once again, and remind them that our Lord Jesus Christ has been the final sacrifice for all our immortal souls.
They all look up from the screen at the same time. Thorn King, Proserpina thinks to herself. Where have I heard that before? “When did you find this, Becket?” she asks, diving back down for a re-read. “This is incredible.”
“Just this afternoon,” Becket says. He sounds proud and pleased that they appreciate what he’s found. “I meant to show you earlier, but we got so caught up in Beltane talk that I wasn’t thinking of Samhain until just now.”
“So whether or not Frazer knew what he was talking about, Dartham did,” St. Sebastian says. “But even Dartham says the Guests weren’t sacrificing people left and right—it was only if the land went sour or whatever.”
“So my ancestors were only sometimes murdery,” Auden says, not sounding consoled.
“I think everyone’s ancestors were murdery if you go back far enough,” St. Sebastian says.
Proserpina looks up again, blinking at the fire. It was her father who’d mentioned the Thorn King, the Kernstows, about what the Guests do in the woods on Samhain night. She’s thinking of that antlered figure she found at the Kernstow farm, and she’s thinking of her mother’s bones by the altar. Of Ralph Guest who put them there. Of the police who went through his old bedroom just last week, and who are now going through his letters and his laptop.
And then she’s thinking of the dream she had. The antlered man running through the forest, the trees whispering to her as he did.
The wild god. The Thorn King.
A chill slides down between her shoulder blades like a drop of water, and she tells herself she’s being suggestible, that this is all still happy and fun and the Thorn King is just another happy, fun role to play, like St. Brigid was.
“Let’s put a pin in all the ritual homicide for a minute,” Auden says, “and can we get back to why it matters that the consecration of the May Queen happened on Imbolc?”
“Ah, yes,” Becket says, also seeming relieved to move past the murder. “Well, my honest opinion is that I think it follows the rhythm of the seasons more closely. So at Imbolc, we have our god—or our sacred king who is embodying the god—and goddess and they are just reborn. Young. Beginning to wake up the land. And then at Beltane, they are crossing the threshold into full maturity and power, and that power will move the earth from spring to summer.”
“So by Beltane, the goddess has already begun growing in power and is ready to move from maiden to mother,” Proserpina says. “And therefore the May Queen does the same.”
“The question being,” Becket says, a sparkle in his eye letting them know he’s joking a little, “can the goddess do her part at all without a mortal May Queen to act it out?”
“If a tree falls in the woods . . .?” Auden says, and then hiccups.
St. Sebastian takes a drink of scotch and then gestures with the near-empty bottle. “I mean, by that logic, you could ask ‘did Jesus really die for our sins if we don’t perform the Eucharist?’”
“Does it matter if Jesus died for our sins if we don’t remember it? If we don’t routinely pledge to live with it in mind?”
More silence.
Then St. Sebastian says, “Okay, fine. Point taken.”
Auden takes the bottle, offers it to Proserpina who declines, and then knocks the rest of it back. “I’m not killing a stag,” he says to no one in particular.
“All right,” Becket says soothingly.
“Don’t like murder,” Auden mumbles, eyes sliding closed as his head tips back against the sofa he’s sitting against.
“Not a fan myself,” St. Sebastian says, looking amused again. “Do you want a pillow or anything? Auden?”
But Auden is already asleep and snoring gently. With some shuffling around and clearing of glasses, St. Sebastian and Becket make a little nest of blankets and pillows by the fire while Proserpina retreats back to her sofa for the few hours until it’s time to wake up and walk to the standing stones.
I probably won’t be able to fall asleep, she tells herself as she lies down. I had that really deep nap, and I’m always more awake at night anyway—
“Poe,” a voice whispers. It’s still dark outside, she can sense this immediately, although the lamp lights the room enough that she can see who’s standing over her.
She blinks up at Auden, who smiles down at her tenderly—and significantly less tipsily than he had a few hours past. “It’s time, little bride,” he says, and she makes a protesting squeak when he helps her up, but then he starts chafing her arms and kissing soothing little kisses around her hairline, and she’s somewhat dulcified.
Though the day itself will be pleasant—and if not quite warm, then warm-adjacent—the nighttime is still chilly and wet enough to warrant wellies and light coats. They go with flashlights and blankets and a light breakfast that Abby had left them the night before—strawberries and cheese and small glass jars of yogurt. Proserpina made a large thermos of coffee for everyone to share, and it warms the crook of her arm as she balances it against her belly.
The path is steep and there’s enough gorse snagging at
Proserpina’s tights to make her cranky by the time the path opens up, but then they’re there, surrounded by open, windy space and sloe-dark night. The bobbing flashlights reveal the standing stones—slanted and weathered into weary asymmetry—and there they make breakfast-camp, spreading out the blankets and pouring out coffee.
Gradually, so gradually that Proserpina doubts it’s happening at first, the sky to the east lightens. A paling of the coal-black sky, a faint bluish tinge on the horizon that teasingly etches out the dramatic, rolling hefts of the moors against its edge. And then the blue hour rolls into the sunrise itself.
There’s some clouds high and tattered in the sky, but down by the horizon is perfectly clear. So clear they can see the shimmering, quavering edge of the sun as it breaks past the earth. Without saying anything or looking at each other, they get to their feet, and they watch the equinox sun float up between the standing stones.
Rebecca and Delphine—who’ve been unusually smiley and warm to each other all night—are standing shoulder to shoulder, bumping arms. Becket has his phone raised to take a picture.
Auden reaches for Proserpina’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and she sees on the other side that he’s done the same with St. Sebastian. And it’s when the sun is fully framed between the standing stones, a disk that seems too small and too candy-colored to give life to their entire world, that Proserpina hears Auden murmur to St. Sebastian, “It was for mine.”
St. Sebastian lets out a breath like he’s been kicked in the stomach. “Auden.”
“M was for mine.”
Part III
Chapter 24
St. Sebastian
Present Day
* * *
Everyone always thinks that there’s two stages to love: not together and together.
Before and after.
Alone and then not alone.
There’s this idea that it’s like a lightning strike or a switch being flipped or some kind of chemical catalyst that rearranges every molecule in an instant, never to be undone.
But of course there’s another stage, another phase, a time that feels sacred in its own way.
The time between.
For two weeks after the equinox, I’m floating. My feet don’t even touch the ground, and I catch myself smiling at the smallest things. Poe’s wrinkled nose when Auden finally forces her to try Marmite. The long, possessive looks I catch Rebecca giving Delphine—and then Rebecca’s scowls when she catches me catching her. Becket’s attempt at making chocolate chip cookies one night when we’re drunk and out of snacks, and his face when he pulled out the pan to find all the cookies had melded into one hard and buttery sheet—which we all still ate anyway.
Auden and I don’t do anything yet, but I don’t mind. Or I do mind—I’m horny as hell, after all, and Poe is constantly a flushed and pouty mess that’s nearly impossible to resist—but also I’m savoring this. I’m cherishing it, inscribing each moment of it onto the bare flesh of my heart. Right under the place where a prince drew a big, swirling letter M once upon a time.
Mine.
All this time, all these long years . . .
It meant mine.
Easter comes and I consent to being dragged to the front pew that everyone seems to like so much, even though I prefer the back. Even Rebecca comes, even though she wasn’t raised a Catholic and dislikes most church-y things now anyway, on account of some complicated family history that she’ll allude to but refuses to fully explain.
Rebecca and Auden do another flogging scene with Poe, this time with everyone crowded into Auden’s new room in the southern wing, which he’s fitted with hooks in the beams for all sorts of nefarious purposes. And that night, we break our rules a little bit, and Auden holds Poe in his lap while I lick and suckle ravenously at her—the first I’ve ever touched her or any woman like this—and he broods down at me as I do.
“Soon,” Auden promises in that low, dark tone I love so much. “Soon it’ll be you I’m topping too. Would you like that?”
I lift my head from between Poe’s legs, catching her gaze before I meet Auden’s. She gives me a loopy, endorphin-laced smile.
“Fuck off,” I tell him, but I say it with a little smile of my own. “You’re supposed to earn me.”
Auden lets out an exasperated breath. “If I haven’t earned you with all that shelving I’ve been doing, then I don’t even know what to try next.”
But before I can tell if he’s serious, Poe has her hands in my hair and is guiding me back between her legs once again.
It’s a mild April morning, and I’m walking back from the small café on the green with a warm cup of coffee in my hand, practically assaulted by all the beauty curling into tender life around me. The trees are budding with soft leaves and the grass is dyeing itself back to its preferred shade of green, which is an emerald hue so deep and verdant that it almost seems like a digital effect and not just English spring.
Wild daffodils nod their buttery heads, and primroses dot the grass like dollops of cream. The hedgerows preen with celandine and sorrel and dog violets. It’s as if the entire valley is gently and delicately exhaling. It’s impossible not to exhale with it.
When I get home, I decide today is the day. It was my mother’s favorite kind of day—the showy stirs of spring evident everywhere—and the kind of day she’d tell me over and over again was far too rare in Texas. Clement and cool, and as colorful and vibrant in the forgotten corners of the village as it was in any garden.
It’s the kind of day she would like for cleaning house.
I start with her bedroom, because I anticipate it will be simultaneously the most painful and also the easiest. I mean, I’m not looking forward to sorting through all the clothes and jewelry she’ll never wear again, but also there’s not much question of me actually needing to hold on to her bras or impressive legging collection.
I grab some bin bags and start a bag for rubbish and a bag for donating. The things I’ll save, I pile on the bed—extra sheets, her jewelry, a Tweety Bird watch with a worn leather band that she wore my entire childhood.
Her underwear drawer I dump into the rubbish bag while taking great pains not to actually look at it. Her shoes I sort through and bin the worst ones and save the rest for donation. Her actual clothes I barely let myself look at, knowing there’s a real danger I’ll end up keeping everything, and my house won’t just be a library of books, but a library of the dead.
So instead I look at everything once and I commit it to memory. A slinky dress her sister gave her to try to encourage her to go on more dates, the scarves upon scarves and the sweaters and shawls because even after twenty-odd years in England, she never stopped getting cold. I memorize what they look like, what they feel like, and then I fold them away for the last and final time.
Her bedside table is nearly the thing that gets me. Or rather, it’s her favorite rosary curled in a pile of onyx beads on top of her Bible.
She’d gotten it for her confirmation, she told me, as a gift from the family, and for a long time, it had been the most expensive thing she owned. It’s not that the Martinezes were poor by any means—my grandfather’s company did extremely well—but it was simply that Abuelo and Abuela never hoarded any money for themselves. They gave to everyone who needed it, both in Dallas and back in Tlalnepantla, and so it meant while there was always enough for everyone, there was never so much that my mother ever took anything for granted.
Not for the first time, I wonder if that’s why she insisted so much on her financial independence; she never asked for help from her family, even when we sorely needed it. Even when I came back in the middle of college, she didn’t ask her parents for help. She didn’t even ask me for help—I only heard about how much she was struggling from my aunt—and then I only realized how bad it really was when I came back here.
She’d been furious with me, I recall with some ruefulness. The day I showed up here with my things and without a degree, there’d been hell to pay. She
was livid that I’d interrupted my education to come back and help, but what else was I supposed to do? If she was too proud to ask for help before she starved? And besides, we were a package deal. After my father died, it’d had only been the two of us, and we’d survived together, us against the world.
I pour the cool onyx beads into my hand and study the large silver crucifix at the end for a moment, before I move on to the Bible, which has a few pictures and clippings stuck under the front cover. There’s a picture of my father holding me as a baby in the garden, grinning at the camera with paint flecked on his face. There’s the three of us when I was four, me beaming up over a birthday cake and my father beaming over at my mother, like he couldn’t imagine ever being happier.
And then there’s his obituary. It’s yellowed with age, but it’s still very neatly folded, unwrinkled and crisp, as if it’s been handled with the utmost care.
Richard Davey, local builder, dead at twenty-eight years old.
He’d painted over exposed electrical lines in a house he was working on—the kind of accident so random and unavoidable that it still surprises me when I actually think about it. Did he not see the wires? Did he see them but think the power was turned off? Whose fault was it, ultimately, or was it just a senseless, tragic mistake?
My mother cried for months afterwards. She’d sit on this bed and cry, and when she wasn’t crying, she’d stare almost catatonically at the wall until I’d pull on her hand and tell her I was hungry or that I wanted her to walk to the bathroom with me because the light straining through the embroidered curtains in her room made it look like there were spiders on the carpet.
Maybe that’s why I feel so familiar with death. We were introduced when I was young enough to be more curious than afraid.
And now? Am I still curious about death now?
I don’t know.
I finish clearing out the table drawer—there’s some Vicks VapoRub in there, a lighter for the vela San Juda on the top, and a half-read Ken Follett novel that I know would have gone half-read even if she’d lived for another forty years. I leave the Bible on the top without finishing looking through it—I think I’ve handled all I can from it today—but a cutting slips out from the pages anyway, and I mean to pick it up without reading it until I catch a name that sends a frisson of electricity bolting right to my heart.
Feast of Sparks Page 25