by Phil Rickman
'Wort erected the old stones of Crybbe. They weren't prehistoric at all. He was marking out his own spirit paths, along which he believed he could travel outside of his body.'
'Are we saying here that Wort – perhaps in collaboration with John Dee – had created his own ley-lines…?'
'Look,' Powys said. 'There's this growing perception of leys as ghost roads… paths reserved for the spirits… therefore, places where you could contact spirits. Sacred arteries linking two worlds – or two states of consciousness. New Agers say they're energy lines – in their eternal quest for something uplifting, they're discarding the obvious: leys tend to link up a number of burial sites – tumps, barrows, cemeteries, this kind
of thing.'
'No healing rays?'
Powys shrugged. 'Whether this rules out the energy-line theory I don't know – we might just be talking about a different kind of energy. There's certainly a lot of evidence of psychic phenomena along leys or at points where they cross. And ghosts need energy to manifest, so we're told.'
'And Crybbe, for some reason, has all these curious pockets of energy, fluctuations causing power cuts, all this…'
I'd be interested to know how many people in Crybbe have seen a ghost or experienced something unnatural. Hundreds I'd guess. Especially along the main line, which comes down from the Tump, through the Court, the church, the square… and along the passage leading to your studio. I'm surprised nothing strange has happened to you in there, with this kind of hermetically sealed broadcasting area.'
'Maybe it has.'
'Oh?'
'I don't think I want to talk about it,' Fay said, tasting the Electrovoice microphone. 'Look…' She spread out the cagoule on the damp grass at the edge of a small escarpment overlooking the town. She patted it. They both sat down.
'Let's not mess about any more,' Fay said. 'We're not kids. We've both had some distinctly unpleasant experiences in this town. Let's not be clever, or pseudo-scientific about this. Let's not talk about light effects or atmospheric anomalies. I've had it with all that bullshit. So. In simple, colloquial English, what's actually happening here?'
She looked down on Crybbe. The sky had run out of sunlight, and it was once again a mean, cramped little town surrounded by pleasant, rolling countryside, to which the inhabitants seemed entirely oblivious. Almost as if they were deliberately turning their backs on it all, living simple, functional lives on the lowest practical level, without joy, without beauty, without humour, without any particular faith, without…
'I've had a thought about the Crybbe mentality,' Fay said. 'But you're the expert, you go first.'
'OK,' Powys said. 'This is what I think. I reckon Andy's got hold of a collection of family papers – may have had them years for all I know – relating to Wort's experiments. Some of them seem to have been written by an outsider, perhaps John Dee, relating how Wort came to visit him – in spirit – using what he calls the "olde road".'
'Wort was haunting him?'
'No, I think Wort was alive then. I'd guess he'd found a way… You said you wanted this straight…?'
'Yes, yes, go on.'
'OK. A way to project his spirit – that's his astral body – along the leys, in much the same way as it's suggested the old shamans used to do it, or at least believed they could do it.'
'The psychic departure lounge.' said Fay.
'Glib, but it wasn't far out. And I've seen a transcript of the so-called regression of Catrin Jones. The character assumed by Catrin seems to be suggesting that not only was the sheriff bonking her – and quite a few other women – on a fairly regular basis in his physical body, but that he was also able to observe them while not actually there in the flesh.'
'Quite a bastard.'
Powys nodded. 'And in conclusion she says something on the lines of, "He swears he'll never leave me… never." Which suggests to me that Wort believed he would still be able to use these spirit paths, these astral thoroughfares, after his death. Except there's something stopping him, so he can only actually manifest as a… black dog or whatever.'
'The curfew.'
'Every night at ten o'clock somebody goes up the church tower and rings the curfew bell one hundred times, and when the bell sounds, the energy which has been gathering along the leys is released and dissipated. We know this happens, we've both experienced it.'
Fay stood up, held out a hand. 'Come on. I'll tell you my theory about the Crybbe mentality.'
She led him a few paces along the footpath, Arnold hobbling along between them, until the town square came into view, the buildings so firmly defined under the mouldering sky that she felt she could reach out and pinch slates from the roofs. They stood on the ridge and watched a school bus stop in the square. A Land Rover pulling a trailer carrying two sheep had to wait behind the bus. Traffic chaos hits Crybbe.
Fay extended an arm, like a music-hall compere on the edge of a stage.
'Miserable little closed-in town, right? Sad, decrepit, morose.'
'Right,' said Powys, cautiously.
'The border mentality,' Fay shouted into the wind. 'Play your cards close to your chest. Don't take sides until you know who's going to win. Here in Crybbe the whole attitude intensified, and it operates on every level. Particularly spiritual.'
A big crow landed on the wicket gate and watched them.
Powys said, thoughtfully, 'But there isn't any noticeable spirituality in Crybbe.'
'Precisely. You've seen them in church, sitting there like dummies. Drives Murray mad. But they're just keeping their heads down. Never take sides until you know who's winning. Doesn't matter who the sides are. The Welsh or the English. Good or evil.'
Fay's cagoule rose up from the ground in the wind, and the crow flew off the gate, cawing. Fay went back and scooped up the cagoule.
Powys said, 'Strength in apathy?'
'Joe, look… being a vicar's daughter isn't all about keeping your frock clean and not pinching the cream cakes at the fete. You learn a few things. Confrontation between good and evil is high-octane stuff. The risks are high, so most people stay on the sidelines. Even vicars… What am I saying?… Especially vicars. But maybe it's harder to do that in Crybbe because the psychic pressure is so much greater, so they have to keep their heads even lower down.'
'Neither good nor evil can thrive in a place without a soul. Who was it said that?'
'Probably you. More to the point, "We don't like clever people round yere." Who said that?'
'Wynford Wiley. The copper.'
'Well, there you are. We don't like clever people. Says it all, doesn't it.'
'Does it?'
'Yes… because, for centuries, Crybbe's been avoiding making waves, disturbing the psychic ether or whatever you call it. If anybody happens to see a ghost, they keep very quiet about it until it goes away. Don't do anything to encourage them, don't give them any… energy to play with. If they see the black dog, they try and ignore it, they don't want it to get ideas above its station. How am I doing so far?'
'Go on.'
'Traditionally, dogs react to spirits, don't they? Dogs howl, right? Dogs howl when someone dies because they can see the spirit drifting away. So, in Crybbe, dogs simply get phased out. Maybe they've even forgotten why they don't like them, but traditions soon solidify in a place like this. The dogs, the curfew, there may be others we don't know anything about. But. anyway, suddenly…'
'The town's flooded with clever people. Max Goff and his New Agers.'
'Absolutely the worst kind of clever people,' said Fay. 'Dabblers in this and that.'
The rain came in on the breeze. Pulling on the blue cagoule. Fay looked down into the town and saw that the air appeared motionless down there; it was probably still quite humid in the
shadow of the buildings.
'It's hard to believe,' Powys said, 'that Andy didn't know about all this when he planted on Goff the idea of establishing a New Age centre in Crybbe. Especially if he's a descendant of Michael Wort. He'd know
it could generate a psychic explosion down there, and maybe… Christ…'
He took Fay's hand and squeezed it. The hand felt cold.
'… maybe generate enough negative energy to invoke Michael Wort in a more meaningful form. Get him beyond the black dog stage. Of course he bloody knew.'
'In just over three hours' time,' Fay said, 'the public meeting begins. Crybbe versus the New Age. Lots of very negative energy there.'
PART EIGHT
Let us forget about evil. This does not exist. What does
exist is imbalance, and when you are severely
imbalanced, particularly in the negative direction, you
can behave in very' extreme and unpleasant ways.
DAVID ICKE,
Love Changes Everything
CHAPTER I
Even for Crybbe the night was rising early.
It rose from within the shadowed places. In the covered alleyway behind the Cock. Beneath the three arches of the river bridge. In the soured, spiny woodland which skirted where the churchyard ended with a black marble gravestone identifying the place where Grace Legge, beloved wife of Canon A. L. Peters was presumed to rest.
It filtered from the dank cellars of the buildings hunched around the square like old, morose drinking companions.
It was nurtured in the bushes at the base of the Tump.
It began to spread like a slow stain across the limp, white canopy of the sky, tinting it a deep and sorrowful grey.
And not yet seven-thirty.
'Give us a white-balance,' Larry Ember said, and Catrin Jones stood in the middle of the street and held up her clipboard for him to focus on.
Guy Morrison looked at the sky. 'Shoot everything you can get. I can't see it brightening up again. I think this is it.'
'Wasn't forecast,' Larry said. 'No thunderstorms.'
'And I can't see there being one in there,' Guy said, glancing at the town hall. 'This is probably a wasted exercise.'
'What you want me to do then, boss?'
'We've got permission to go in and grab some shots of the assembly before it starts, so shoot absolutely everything you can, plenty of tight shots of faces, expressions – I'll point out a few. Then just hang on in there till they actually ask you to leave, and then… well, stay outside, close to the door, and Catrin and I will try and haul out a few punters with opinions, though I'll be very surprised if these yokels manage to muster a single opinion between them.'
The Victorian facade of the town hall reared over the shallow street like a gloomy Gothic temple, its double doors spread wide to expose a great cave-mouth, through which the younger townsfolk wandered like tourists. Many had probably never been inside before; there weren't many public gatherings Crybbe.
Guy ordered shots of their faces, shots of their feet. The feet are probably saying more than the faces, he thought with frustration. At least they're moving.
For the first time he began to wonder how he was going to avoid making a stupefyingly boring documentary. He'd been determined to keep the voice-over down to a minimum, let the events tell their own story. But to get away with that, he needed a pithy commentary on these events from a collection of outspoken locals. So far, the only outspoken local he'd encountered had been Gomer Parry, who lived at least three miles outside the town.
'What are we going to do?' he whispered despairingly to Catrin – showing weakness to an assistant, he never did that.
Catrin gave his thigh a reassuring squeeze. 'It'll be fine.'
'… God's sake, Catrin, not in public!'
Catrin. How could he have?
This place was destroying him.
Parking his Escort XR3 in the old cattle market behind the square, Gavin Ashpole had no fears at all about his story being boring.
This was the beauty of radio. The place might look like a disused cemetery, but you could make it sound like bloody Beirut. Whatever happened here tonight, Gavin was going to put down a hard-hitting voice-piece for the ten o'clock news describing the uproar, as beleaguered billionaire Max Goff faced a verbal onslaught by hundreds of angry townsfolk fearing an invasion by hippy convoys lured to the New Age Mecca.
Somebody had suggested to Gavin that perhaps he could try out the new radio-car on this one. Park right outside the meeting, send in some live on-the-spot stuff for the nine-thirty news.
Gavin thought not; the station's only unattended studio was not three minutes walk from the town hall. And he hadn't been able to drag his mind away from last night's interrupted fantasy in that same studio. Somehow, he had to get little Ms Morrison in there.
Ms Morrison who'd really screwed any chance she had of holding down the Offa's Dyke contract. Who'd failed to provide a report on last night's tractor accident. Who hadn't even been reachable on the phone all day.
'I'll go in live at nine-thirty,' he'd told the night-shift sub, James Barlow. 'And I want a full two minutes. I don't care what else happens.'
He was thinking about this as he parked his car in the old livestock market. Unusually dark this evening; even the sky looked in the mood for a set-to.
Humid, though. Gavin took off his jacket, locked it in the boot and slung his Uher over his shoulder.
Two cars and a Land Rover followed him into the market, half a dozen men got out. Tweed suits, caps, no chat, no smiles. Farmers, in town for the meeting, meaning business.
I like it, Gavin told himself. Everybody who was anybody in the district was going to be here tonight to listen, with varying degrees of enthusiasm or hostility to Goff's crazy, hippy themes. There was a small danger that if the opposition was too heavy, Goff might have second thoughts and decide to take his New Age centre somewhere else – like out of Offa's Dyke's watch, which would be no use at all. But this was highly unlikely; Goff wasn't a quitter and he'd probably already invested more than Gavin could expect to earn in the next ten years, even if he did become managing editor. No, Goff had gone too far to pull out. Too many people relying on him. Danger of too much bad publicity on a national scale if he let them down.
He crossed the square and followed everybody else into the side-street leading to the town hall.
Gavin quickened his pace and walked up between a couple – skinny guy with a ratty beard and a rather sultry wife. Gavin had to walk between the man and woman because they were so far apart, not talking to each other. Obviously had a row.
That was what he liked to see. Acrimony and tension were the core of all the best news stories. It was building in the air.
Gavin mentally rubbed his hands.
Alex and Jean were taking tea in the drawing-room.
The Canon, wearing his faded Kate Bush T-shirt, was standing in front of the Chinese fire screen, legs comfortably apart, cup and saucer effortlessly balanced in hands perfectly steady.
Earlier, he'd spotted himself in a mirror and it had been like looking at an old photograph. Hair all fluffed up, the famous twinkle terrifyingly potent again. Old boy's a walking advert for the Dr Chi New Age Clinic.
He was aware that Jean Wendle had been looking at him too, with a certain pride, and several times today they had exchanged little smiles.
'So,' Jean was on the sofa, hands linked behind her head. Jolly pert little body for her age. 'Shall we go? Or shall we stay in?'
Several times today she'd looked at him like that. Just a quick glance. One really was rather too old to jump to conclusions; however…
'Which do you think would be most, er, stimulating?'
'Och, that depends,' Jean said, 'on what turns you on. Perhaps your poor old brain is ready at last for the intellectual stimulus of public debate, as Max strives to present himself gift-wrapped, to the stoical burgers of Crybbe.'
'Give me strength,' said Alex.
'Fay'll be there, no doubt.'
'Won't want me in her hair.'
'Or there's Grace. All alone in Bell Street. Will she be worried, perhaps, that you haven't been home for a couple of nights?'
'I thought you said she di
dn't exist as anything more than a light form.'
'She didn't. Unfortunately, she's become a monster.'
'Uh?' Alex lost his twinkle.
'Tell me,' Jean said. 'Have you ever performed an exorcism?'
The Cock was no brighter than a Victorian funeral parlour, Denzil, the licensee, no more expressive than a resident corpse. Half past eight and only two customers – all his regulars over the town hall.
J.M. Powys stared despairingly into his orange juice, back to his habitual state of confusion. Everything had seemed so clear on the hillside overlooking the town, when Fay was aglow with insight.
Arnold lay silently under the table. Possibly the first dog in several centuries to set foot – all three of them – in the public bar of the Cock. 'We can't,' Fay had warned. 'Sod it,' Powys had replied, following the dog up the steps. 'I've had enough of this. Who's going to notice? Who's going to care?'
And, indeed, now they were inside there was nobody except Denzil to care, and Denzil didn't notice, not for a while.
Powys glanced up at Fay across the table, it could all be crap,' he said.
'There.' Fay was drinking tomato juice; it was a night for clear heads. 'You see…'
'What?'
'You're back in Crybbe. You're doubting yourself. You're thinking, what the hell, why bother? It's easy to see, isn't it, why, after four centuries, the apathy's become so ingrained.'
'Except that it could though, couldn't it? It could all be crap.'
'And we're just two weirdoes from Off trying to make a big deal out of something because we don't fit in.'
'And if it's not – not crap – what can we do about it?'
'Excuse me, sir." Denzil was standing by their table, low-browed, heavy-jowled. He picked up their empty glasses.
'Thanks,' Powys said. 'We'll have a couple more of the same.' Glanced at Fay. 'OK?'
Fay nodded glumly.
'No you won't,' Denzil said. 'Not with that dog in yere you won't.'