Isabel's Light

by Andy Jarvis

  “And you’ve just handed all this stuff over to Arden?” I said. “It’s a bit sensitive don’t you think?”

  “There is nothing incriminating still; that is as far as living folk today are concerned. Nobody is left that could possibly be charged with any crime. And nobody was at the time. You see, as far as I can remember, no one actually committed a crime. Shunning a person and refusing to serve them may be a sin, indeed a great sin in the eyes of God, but it’s not illegal. And of course any of this information could be gleaned from some of the sons and daughters who still remember. Also, don’t forget, I still have the option of having Arden arrested should any of this become national public gossip. Not to mention getting him sacked from a very lucrative position, with high earnings and having his name dragged through the mud.”

  I walked further up the aisle. “Damn; and this is all because some poor girl thought she might dabble in witchcraft,” I said aloud.

  I stepped onto the altar, turning to look again at the window. Outside the light changed infrequently as the clouds blustered by. I stepped forward to the spot where Isabel had vanished, nervously at first. Then I was calm. Very calm. I felt an overwhelming sense of peacefulness and relaxation as the light flickered and danced about on my clothes, my face and the floor. I was transfixed by the image of Eve…or Isabel. She almost seemed to move and vibrate with the passing light. “Come and feel this, Baz,” I said. “It’s really weird...but beautiful.”

  Baz came and stood beside me silently for a few moments, then stood back out of the light. “I’m not sure about this, Ed,” he said. “Something isn’t right.”

  “But it’s so calm. It’s like she’s doing it to us, so we’re not scared. It’s like a drug.”

  I stood there another minute silently, and although I’m not sure to this day how it came to my mind, I suddenly said: “There was a coven. That’s what it was. It wasn’t her fault. She was no practising witch, but there was a coven, and John Cannon Sr. built this window as a warning against…against covens. I think.”

  Something touched me on the shoulder and I spun around, alarmed, and suddenly released from my meditation. Silas withdrew his hand sharply. Reverend John stood a few paces behind.

  “You must understand something.” said Silas. “There was no coven. There never has been a coven in Candlewell. What happened was a great travesty. Whether Isabel descended into the practising of the black arts we’ll never know for certain, but that’s not relevant. She should never have been treated the way she was.”

  “No. Sure. I was just guessing I suppose, at what may have caused John Sr. to act in such a way.”

  “We’ll never know,” said Silas. “There is no record in the Parish Council’s or other, of there ever having been a coven in this village. What’s important now is that she has returned, and I truly believe that she has done so because of you, the both of you. You were destined to find the child.”

  “You don’t know it’s her child,” I said. “Not for certain.”

  “Oh, but I think it is. It must be. You must feel it surely…the touch of Isabel. She’s letting you know.”

  “Yes, yes…I think you must be right,” I turned back into the light, feeling its warmth, its tingle. “What’s it all about, Reverend? Is this what you meant about her calming the mind? Was this what it was like when you were a boy? What’s it all mean, Reverend?”

  Reverend John softly stepped forward. “The drawing to a close of a great mystery I think, and a great miscarriage of justice.”

  “I get it. It’s almost like we’re some sort of chosen ones right?”

  “I don’t like it, Ed,” said Baz. “Something’s not right about all this.”

  I turned about in the light, bathing myself in it, like I was trying to get an all over tan in a stand-up solarium, feeling the vibration; the gentle tingling, teasing like static, only warm and caressing. The touch of a woman.

  Reverend John drew closer and stood next to Silas on the edge of the light that beamed down in coloured shafts, highlighting dust particles that danced and shimmered in the air. He reached out a hand, turning it over and waving it back and forth in the beam as he smiled.

  Baz stepped in next to me for a brief moment. “It isn’t right, Ed. Something is wrong. It feels too good to be right. Maybe we shouldn’t be stood here.” He stepped back to the edge of the beam. “What about Mrs. Braithwaite then?”

  Another cloud passed and the sky darkened. I stepped back, looking up at the dark glass. “Yeah, what about her?” I said, turning. “What about Mrs. Braithwaite?”

  “Also known as Jason…Cora Jason,” said Reverend John.

  “Who?”

  “You’ve heard the name before.”

  “Sounds familiar, but I just can’t place it.”

  “Cora Jason, daughter of one William Jason.”

  No one spoke for a minute. I tried hard to remember. Then Baz suddenly took a sharp intake of breath. “The Mayor! Remember, Ed, one of the conspirators on the old Parish Council. Mrs. Braithwaite must be her married name. She’s William Jason’s daughter! Still doesn’t explain some…hey, wait a minute. Something’s beginning to click here.”

  “I think I get it,” I said. “I’m beginning to see. There’s a connection between us. Reverend John, Mrs. Braithwaite – both descendants of the council members, and then there’s us two who found the child’s body. And Isabel appeared to only us. There must be a connection. It’s Isabel’s child…it must be hers.”

  The sun broke through again, piercing the window and tingling my spine. “But then there’s Silas. Where does he fit in?”

  Silas stepped forward into the light. The image of Isabel or Eve danced upon his fish bowl lenses. He breathed in deeply, tilting his head back and letting his arms rise he exhaled with an appreciative sigh as though he’d just eased himself into a warm bath. “I am Silas. Silas Joshua Bannock is my full name. I am the son of Ephraim Bannock, former high councillor of Candlewell Parish. And we do, as you have suggested have a connection.”

  “What’s that?” I whispered nervously.

  “We’re being haunted.”

  10.

  He hung himself. William Cameron Jason, Mayor of Candlewell, walked calmly from the Bell Inn one evening in 1935, smiling as he went. He climbed to the rooftop of the village hall, and taking a rope tied to a weather vane, put his head in a noose and flung himself off. ‘Isabel is calling me’, were his last words as he left the Inn. It wasn’t just Silas’ account, but recorded in the Candlewell Chronicles at the village hall, although the whole affair was played down. There was merely an entry about the suicide of the Lord Mayor. It gave details of the manner of the death, but nothing about Isabel, no quotations from folk or anything. It all seemed too run-of-the-mill, like it was no big deal, almost like there was nothing unusual about a suicide even in those days. There was no mention of a legend Silas told us about, which was that Will Jason couldn’t possibly have climbed to the rooftop of the village hall without a ladder. No ladder was found. I thought about that one for a while. Strange things like that happen up our way too. Leave a ladder out overnight and it’s usually gone by morning, only to mysteriously reappear at the local Cash Converters some days later. I didn’t buy it. But then in Candlewell everyone’s usually honest, and people even leave their doors unlocked to go down to the pub. And one eyewitness, according to Silas, claimed that he’d seen Isabel herself swoop down and carry Jason up onto the roof. He was drunk as a skunk when he gave his testimony, but claimed that he got drunk after seeing the apparition. I didn’t buy that either.

  Silas’ own story was unnerving.

  “I don’t get it,” said Baz. “I mean how, or should I say why are we being haunted? She wasn’t like any spook I’ve ever heard of. I mean I’m not scared, well not much, least not now, a bit nervous maybe.”

  “I don’t know,” said Silas. “There’s really no other way I can describe what’s happened. What else would you call it when the deceased choose
to manifest themselves before only certain folk? It’s the very definition of haunting; the spirits only haunt certain places or only certain folk ever see them. That’s why those that see them are considered cranks; the rest of the world being oblivious to the other side. But the spirits must have a purpose to their haunting.”

  “Then what does it mean?” I asked.

  “A haunting it is, but I don’t suggest that in a fearful way,” said Silas. “Isabel wishes us to know of her presence, but the true meaning of it I can only speculate. Some of her story you already know. Perhaps she wishes you to know more.”

  Silas glanced at Reverend John who nodded silently as though to acknowledge his consent for Silas to continue:

  “Within two months of Will Jason’s suicide, my father was struck down with a mystery illness. No one could understand it, no doctors, nor even some specialist in obscure diseases that had come all the way up from London could put a name to it. At first they thought it was the consumption, tuberculosis as they call it now, but he showed no other symptoms. It was just a fever, a raging fever and he had such a ghastly pallor, as though all the blood was being drained from his body. I still have his death certificate at home – cause unknown it says. Of course nowadays with modern medicine they’d most likely be able to put a name to it, but to us it was like he was…was…being taken.”

  “Taken?” whispered Baz. “How do you mean taken?”

  “Isabel!” retorted Silas. “She took him. That’s what I mean. She’d come for him and what he did. And I don’t blame her, not after what they did. Oh no, and I would have done the same, from beyond the grave if it was I.”

  “Oh, you can’t seriously believe that can you?” I said. “Haunting is one thing but taking someone, like making them die?”

  “I believed it then, and I believe it now. Perhaps it was a natural disease, but I believe that Isabel was the cause. It was like she could cause disease, if she so wished, like she can cause mist. Think about that.”

  Silas’ voice closed to a whisper. “And my father believed it. I sat half way up the stairs listening, torn between wanting to see him and my own fear. Although I hated him for his part I still wanted to see, but I couldn’t bring myself to climb those last few steps. I heard his last words. I was as terrified as he was, but I couldn’t tear myself away. He kept groaning and rambling on, disoriented with the fever. But when Reverend John Sr. came to see him he screamed in terror; suddenly he became lucid again, he knew where he was, and that he was dying.

  “Mother came upstairs to see Reverend John Sr. out, apologising all the while, but I just sat there on the stairs clinging onto a spindle, unable to move. He stopped by me and sat down right there next to me on the stairs. Mother looked at me, her eyes stricken with fear, but she said nothing. She held her tongue as John Sr. spoke. ‘Be brave young Silas,’ he said, oh so very softly. ‘Your father goes to a better place.’ He then opened his hands, took hold of mine and looked down as though in prayer, but his eyes were wide open. ‘Your father goes to a place of eternal delights.’ He whispered it, almost gleefully. ‘A place of forever – whatever you want, even things you’re not supposed to have, they’re yours! That’s where your father’s going. Wouldn’t you like to go there, young Silas?’

  “I was mesmerised, paralysed by his aura, his words, but mother snapped me out of it. She spoke softly to John Sr., taking his hand and leading him downstairs to the door. ‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘The lad needs to sleep, but please come again, Reverend.’ When mother had seen him out she turned, with her back leaning up to the closed door, panting and sweating. Then she was physically sick.

  “In the end, my father confessed his sins to a Catholic priest who’d come from the next village. He wanted nothing to do with John Cannon Sr. I heard my father tell the priest that the witch was waiting for his soul. It was the work of Isabel; of that I’m certain. She must have given him the sickness.”

  Baz spoke up nervously: “So you think we’re all being haunted, for revenge? Like Isabel is trying to get back at us for something? But why us? The rest I can understand, I mean Will Jason and your old man, they really did something bad, but us? Oh shit, I knew something wasn’t right about all this. Maybe she’s sore about us digging up the kid. What if we’re all struck down with some disease or driven mad suddenly?”

  “Alright, calm down bud,” I said. “That can’t be right. I mean it just didn’t feel like that. It was calming. The light had a loving feel to it. It’s got to be okay, hasn’t it Reverend?”

  “I’m certain that it is,” said Reverend John. “She shines upon the both of you, in much the same way she did when she was guarding me as a child. It is the same as you describe her smile. She has another purpose, one that we’ll never fully understand. But I have no fear, nor should you. I think you should go in peace and pray for understanding.”

  Mrs. Braithwaite, aka Cora Jason. What a mind fuck that must have been, knowing at the age of nine that your father had topped himself. It all made perfect sense, now that Reverend John had explained that she’d a history of mental illness, in and out of an asylum. Top it off with an apparition that’s supposed to have made her father commit suicide. I couldn’t blame the poor old woman.

  According to Reverend John, she’d been quite sane and stable for many years, the treatment had worked out well for her. She’d come back to Candlewell, and back to the church, adorning it with her flower arrangements as she’d done before her ‘breakdown’ and been an upstanding member of the Parish. Then me and Baz come along and join a select few capable of envisaging what years of therapy had taught her was merely her imagination. Mind fuck. Ours as well as hers.

  ***

  Phone call to McBright, a few days later:

  “Jim? It’s me, Ed. We’ve got a problem.”

  “For fuck’s sake, what now?”

  “It’s Reverend John, he wants us to leave the job for a while, just for a couple of weeks or so.”

  “Now what have you two been up to? This isn’t about some female is it?”

  “Eh? No, what makes you say that?”

  “You hesitated there, Ed. I’ve hit on something right? I know you two. Don’t tell me: you or lard ass has got into a punch up with some of the local boys – over some girl eh?”

  “No, it’s just that the Reverend has to go away for a while. I think someone close to him has died and he’s off to a funeral and visit the family and stuff.”

  “So? Why can’t you stay and finish the job while he’s off? You got a key, right? Doesn’t he trust you?”

  “Actually we’ve finished the job.”

  “Yeah right, and I’m the Pope.”

  “No I mean it, everything’s done. Me and Baz have been working really hard, late into the night even. Boiler’s mounted and installed, trenches filled, gas connected and all wired up ready to fire.”

  “Really? What about that archaeology twat? Isn’t he still digging around?”

  “No, he came and finished up yesterday, took some more samples and said he’d done everything he could.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what did he find, asshole? You’ve been down there long enough with him. Has he found out who this kid was?”

  “No, he still hasn’t come up with anything yet.”

  “So if you’re done why are you still hanging around? Get it fired up, get the Reverend’s cheque and come home.”

  “That’s the problem, it won’t fire.”

  “Pull the other one Ed, it’s not funny.”

  “It’s serious, Jim, we’ve never had this before. It fires up then conks out again, like it’s losing its power all of a sudden. We’ve tried everything, just can’t isolate the gremlin.”

  “Oh, now I get it! You’ve made a cock-up up somewhere, now you’re trying to sneak off while the Reverend’s away – pretend it was okay when you left it, right?”

  “No, you know me and Baz better than that. Maybe we do lark about at t
imes, but you know us – we always get done on time.”

  “When’s he coming back?”

  “Not sure exactly, says he’ll contact you as soon as he’s done. He knows about the boiler and says he’ll call up for me and Baz whenever.”

  “Not bloody likely. You two can get your sorry asses back, and I’ll finish the job. If I find it’s something of nothing that you’ve missed I’ll have your bollocks. If you want a job doing right you have to do it your fucking self.”

  The words trailed off as he slammed down the phone.

  It wasn’t a lie. Reverend John was going to a funeral – that of the child – and he was performing the service. But work had to be done and preparations made. The body needed releasing from the Trust, and grants were required for burial in the grounds of St. Mark’s. Reverend John was to inform us of the date of the funeral and we were to be there. Oh, and one other person was to be there – Isabel. Not in spiritual form of course, (unless she turned up unannounced) but as a corpse, exhumed and prepared for Christian burial.

  The fate of Isabel was far more disturbing. What me and Baz had come across in the Parish Council records was merely a recording of the councillors decision. Reverend John recalled as a young boy the events that followed. Shunned by an entire village, deprived of food, service and even transport, the body of Isabel Rankin was found three miles away under a hedge by a field following one of the harshest winters on record. Half starved and weakened she must have tried to make it to the next village fifteen miles away, a futile attempt as snow lay deep for several weeks that year. Motorised and horse drawn transport was grounded at the time, Reverend John recalled. The baby was nowhere to be found. It was assumed and soon became part of local legend that as she was starving that she must have eaten the child. A witch would have no qualms about that Reverend John Sr. had recorded.