by Bill Hussey
‘But if Mendicant was a demon, why perform the ritual?’ Jack asked. ‘Aren’t demons immortal?’
‘If he was as he claimed, then he was tainted with humanity. He was Adam’s son, too, remember. Perhaps he had a long life, like the patriarch Methuselah, but was not content with the years given to him.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ said Jack, ‘is how he resurrected himself inside Simon Malahyde. I thought that, after ten days outside a body, the spirit could not possess again. He was left roaming those woods for eight whole years. Just a ghost …’
‘But you’ve read the Transmigration?’
‘There was a problem. I ran out of time.’
‘Then how did you get out?’
‘I found a way. It’s not important.’
‘This makes a little more sense, then. I had not anticipated you leaving Yeager so soon. As I wrote,’ Brody indicated the bundle on the floor, ‘time runs differently there. How far did you get with the transcript?’
‘I reached the end of the ritual.’
‘You didn’t read my later translation?’
‘Later translation? I thought you could only visit the Library once …’
‘Only one visit is gratis,’ Brody muttered. ‘It’s time I told you the rest of the story. How Peter Malahyde died; how his son, Simon, was taken; how Mendicant came back.’
He took a brown paper bundle from his bag, similar to the one he had given Jack the previous evening.
‘Read quickly. And while you do, I’ll amend the later portions of my story to include the addendum to the Transmigration. Then we’ll talk some more.’
‘Can’t you just tell me all this?’ Jack asked.
‘I don’t trust myself,’ Brody said. ‘You see, I believe I overlooked something in my experiences with Mendicant. Some vital clue that I should have realised, and which might have saved Simon. I’ve written all I can remember, but if I simply tell you the story, I fear I may omit that one detail.’
‘Fine,’ Jack said. ‘But coffee makes me extra attentive, Father. You’ll find the percolator in the kitchen.’
BUNDLE 2 –
AFTER MENDICANT – 1976 – 1985
A few weeks after the murders, I received a final letter from Sam Willard. It reminisced, joked and flattered, and wished me long and happy years. There was a postscript, added seemingly as an afterthought, but which struck me as the real thrust of the letter:
‘Recently I have been bothered by bad dreams, and look forward now to a long, untroubled sleep. In these dreams, I have seen something of the man, Mendicant, of whom you have spoken. His end is not of your making, Asher. A voice spoke to me in the dream. It told me that you are to make the way clear for another. You will have to pay a great price if you attempt to end the life of this thing before the hour appointed. This other shall seek you out, appeal directly for your assistance, though his first entreaty shall not be made face to face. You shall know him by this entreaty and also by his eyes. Eyes that meet across a white and crooked bridge.
‘That’s how you knew me, you old bastard.’ Jack touched the scar that bridged his nose.
‘What did you say?’ Brody called from the kitchen.
‘I said, how’s the coffee coming?’ Jack smiled, returning to the manuscript.
*
I often thought of leaving Crow Haven, but its sorrow held me there. Guilt also, and the sense that the Darkness had not been spent by the murders. So the years passed and I found the old weariness, which had pressed on me after my first meeting with Mendicant, dog me once more. Day by day, I parcelled up my interests and passions and stowed them away in the cellar of the house. It felt as if I was putting my soul into a kind of storage from which it might never emerge. For a year or more, letters still arrived from my friends, but they remained unopened. What good was it for me to read them? The Asher Brody they were addressed to had died with James Rowbanks in the clearing.
James Rowbanks. I tried not to think of him, but he haunted my dreams. Most nights, I would see him staggering from the forest, crossing the Conduit Road and tapping at my study window. Sometimes he pleaded, more often he stood in silence. Always he was faceless. He would cry, telling me that he was alive. Begging me not to fire the gun. I closed my eyes against him and blocked my ears. I knew, of course, with every rational instinct that he was never there. Yet still, when morning came, there would always be the handprints at the window.
I remained lonely, with only prayer and my strange little flock for company. I grew as sullen and reserved as any of them. So much so that the congregation from outside soon dwindled. They saw me as one of ‘the Crow Haven folk’, I suppose. Tainted now by the bad luck of the place. By the late summer of 1984, when Peter and Anne Malahyde arrived in the village, no-one from outside came to Crow Haven to worship.
I was coming out of the church one morning in early September, when I saw the trucks trundle by and turn into the avenue of trees. It was as if the past was replaying itself and I had been thrown back to that time when men and mortar had arrived to build the Doctor’s house. A bright pain bloomed in my heart. Somehow he has come back, I thought; somehow he has found a child.
That was impossible, of course. I had read the Transmigration of Souls and knew that Mendicant was spent. If he still walked in the woods, then he was as frail as gossamer, unable to perform the rite. No more than a whisper in the wind. For all those inward reassurances, however, that parade of trucks worried me. If not the Doctor, then some outsider was coming to Crow Haven.
A few simple inquiries of a local land agent gave me the name of the newcomer. I sent Peter Malahyde a note of introduction suggesting that, once he had settled in, I might pay him a visit. A few weeks later, I received a phone call from Peter, and we arranged that I should call upon him and his wife the following afternoon.
I was on tenterhooks all the next day. I felt duty bound to put the Malahydes on their guard, but was at a loss to know how to do so. Perhaps Peter Malahyde was a spiritual soul, open to the impossible story that I might tell him. But what if he was pragmatic and unimaginative? If I laid out my story in plain terms, then he might think me mad. He could turn me out of the house or, worse still, inform the Bishop or the police. Then there would be questions about the deaths of the Rowbanks children. The best course was to ease myself into Peter’s confidence and introduce him slowly to my story.
By this time, as I have instructed, you will have spoken to Geraldine Pryce and already know of my first meeting with the Malahydes. I had planned to segue gently into the proposal of blessing the house, but the shock of Peter talking about entering Mendicant’s library forced it from my lips. I could see that Peter and Anne thought me only somewhat eccentric, but the suspicion was evident on Geraldine’s face. I have got to know that lady well over the years, and have found her to be a person of extraordinary perception. The second shock was when I discovered that Anne Malahyde was pregnant. If Mendicant did still exist, there were many barriers to him achieving another possession. Still, the thought of a child growing up in this house filled me with horror.
As I said my goodbyes, I made Peter promise that he would not open the library until I had performed the blessing. Having researched the protocol for the blessing of homes, I arrived back at the house the following afternoon. The day was fast expiring, and I felt that summer might be dying with it. Long before dusk, wisps of autumnal cloud had skulked in from the north.
I was somewhat early for the appointment. Caught up in my thoughts as I approached the house, I did not notice that the front door was ajar. A raised voice echoed from upstairs.
‘It matters to me.’ Peter, sounding angry, but also dejected. Then the flat, muffled tones of his wife.
‘Don’t lie’ – Peter again – ‘I hate lying, I told you. It’s not the pregnancy, you’re still beautiful. I’m too fucking old, that’s it. Fucking worn out.’
A door slammed and I heard feet passing across the landing. Embarrassed, I stepped away from
the front door and tried to make it appear that I was just arriving. Peter collided with me as he barged out of the house. His high colour drained as he looked me up and down, as if he couldn’t remember who I was.
‘Hello, Father,’ he said, his brow clearing. ‘Did we have an appointment?’
‘The blessing,’ I said. ‘I’ve underestimated my schedule. Now’s the only time I can fit you in.’
‘I see,’ Peter glanced over the upper windows of his new home. ‘You better come in then.’
We passed through the house. I made the blessing in each room, and at the entrances and exits, my mind always on the Doctor’s old sanctum upstairs. The last room on the lower level was the conservatory that spanned the space between the L-shaped wings of the house. Jim and Michael Rowbanks had described this place to me after they had cleared it of the Doctor’s possessions, but I had not seen it myself. It was an impressive ruin, overrun with weeds and trailing plants. As I prayed, I caught sight of a balcony set into the back wall of the sealed second storey. On my visits to Mendicant’s library, I had noted that door, wondering where it led. On both occasions, however, the subject of our conversation had driven such idle questions from my mind.
I felt cold now, as I saw it standing wide open.
‘A little confession,’ Peter said.
He led the way out of the conservatory, into the hall and up the iron staircase. As feared, the lock of the library door had been pried apart.
‘I told you to stay out,’ I said.
We were standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the landing. Peter shivered.
‘I know,’ he whispered, then seemed to rally himself. ‘Come on, Father, why so grave? We’ve stampeded through the rest of the place. What’s the trouble with …’
‘Have you been inside?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see anything?’
‘Not then, no,’ he was thoughtful again. ‘Later … a dream. I was in the room. There were books. Hundreds of books. And a fire: burning pages and wooden statues. And children with dead faces … There was a man … It was just a dream.’
‘What did he say to you?’
‘Nothing … It was nonsense.’
I did not want to push him. I crumbled a wafer of Host and read from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. I kissed my crucifix and laid it on the upper panel of the old library door.
‘We beseech the Lord to enter this home, to bless it with His presence, to draw out any Evil that lies against its walls and in its secret heart. We pray for Peter and Anne and their unborn child, to be strong in the Lord and in the Power of His Might.’
‘So, what is it about this place?’ Peter asked in a half-laughing voice. ‘You been here before? Did the last owner sacrifice nubile young virgins or something?’
‘Can I take a look inside?’ I asked.
Peter nodded. The library was almost exactly as I remembered it, save for the thick carpet of dust and the empty shelves. The leather chairs, the simple, elegant fireplace, even the phantom smell of musty books was familiar.
‘Make a great study.’
‘Why did you come to Crow Haven, Peter?’
‘It’s a beautiful house,’ he said. ‘And the countryside. Who wouldn’t want to live here? Good clean air, perfect place to bring up a child …’
‘Why did you come to Crow Haven, Peter?’
I went to the balcony. A bittersweet scent of rotting flowers rose up from the conservatory on a wave of warm air. A stone imp peeked at me from between gnarled vine-fingers.
‘To take Annie away. From people … People her own age.’
‘Don’t you trust your wife?’ I said, turning to him.
‘If I were her, beautiful, young … Why should I trust her?’
I think he was surprised at what he had admitted. I was puzzled myself as to why I had questioned him about so intimate a matter – thereby risking his anger – when my plan had been to ingratiate myself by degrees. For a moment, I had felt a connection with him. A connection which I controlled and with which I could bend his thoughts to answer my questions. Mendicant must have felt something like it during our conversations: the thrill of dominance over a weaker mind. Had some echo of the Doctor’s power been left in this sealed room? The thought that I might enjoy using so invasive a talent frightened me.
‘Sorry,’ Peter said, ‘what were you saying?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘Shall we get some fresh air? I’ll show you the work shed I’ve had built.’
Peter led me down a new path that had been cut through the forest. He chattered about this idea for the house or that project for the grounds. I knew what he was feeling. It was the same brew of nausea and confusion that had followed my own interviews with Mendicant. In time, his memory of our conversation would return. What would he make of it, I wondered?
The path ended at the door of a sizeable cabin. Aside from the corrugated roof and metal chimney, the dark wood walls of the shed fitted neatly with its surroundings. A positive chameleon, in fact, compared to the glass house.
‘Had it thrown together a week or two ago,’ Peter said, ushering me inside. ‘Thought I’d try my hand at a little woodwork.’
‘You’ve lost your interest in local history already?’ I asked.
‘Look at these beauties,’ he said, taking down tools from their racks.
‘You’ve not asked me about the man who built your house. I thought you might. You were very keen to hear about him the other day.’
‘Cost a pretty penny. Never believed a simple hammer could cost so much. Thought I’d start small, a dollhouse for the baby or something.’
‘I thought you wanted a boy.’
‘No,’ he snapped. ‘Annie, she wants a girl. Boys are hassle.’
‘Peter. What did the man in your dream say to you? Did he ask for something?’
Peter began replacing the tools with exaggerated care. Through the window at the far end of the cabin, I could see flares of purple light stream over the forest. The last show of defiance from the aged summer. A moment later, the light failed.
‘Listen, Peter, I had hoped to introduce you gently to what happened here. I see now that he is moving faster than I ever anticipated. You know of whom I speak. The man in your dream. It’s imperative you tell me what he said to you.’
‘Why?’ Peter replied, sotto voce.
‘I know how this must seem, but you must believe …’
‘I do.’
It was difficult now to make out anything, save for the rough shape of Peter’s back against the gleam of the tool rack. There was not a breath of wind outside. The only sound was the creak of the cabin.
‘What did he say to you? You must tell me.’
‘All good things to he who waits.’
The voice was not Peter Malahyde’s.
The sickle moon rolled over a ragged collar of trees. It threw yellow light onto the cabin floor. Something hot teased at my heart, then clenched and wrung it. There was a silhouette cast on the bare boards: a tall, thin man, his head moving left-to-right with metronomic steadiness. I looked up and expected to see those sightless eyes boring into me. The wasted face was not there, and when I glanced down, the shadow was gone.
My left arm was numb. A tingling sensation passed an inch or two above the skin. Beads of sweat dripped from my face and watered the floor.
‘Peter … I feel …’
‘Ssshhh. Quiet now.’
My vision swam. I had to catch hold of the worktable to steady myself. Peter was facing me, but he did not seem to notice my discomfort. He was brushing the side of his face with long, languid strokes. I was about to plead for help, when I saw him pluck a pleat of skin from his cheek.
‘Will you look at that.’
In one smooth motion, he pulled the pleat into a long strip and tore it free from his neck. As the pain gripped my heart again, I recalled that final vision of the Doctor’s face between the curtain of crows. I saw a tongue of skin, caught i
n a beak and torn from Mendicant’s throat.
Falling to the floor, I stared up at the underside of the tin roof. There was a fresh access of pain and I knew no more.
Forty-nine
Brody’s Story
BUNDLE 2 –
AFTER MENDICANT – 1976 – 1985
‘How long have I been here?’
‘You were brought in the night before last. You slept through yesterday, which was good.’
The young doctor noted observations on his clipboard.
‘Who brought me in?’
‘Ambulance. Mr …’ he checked the paperwork. ‘Malahyde came with you. Said you collapsed at his house. Now, Father, you’ve had a mild heart attack, a warning. There may be some damage to the heart muscles, but fairly minimal …’
‘When can I leave?’
‘Whenever you choose,’ the doctor sighed. ‘But let me tell you, if you leave this hospital in less than five days, you’re risking a second, perhaps fatal attack.’
I pulled the sheets back and tried to sit up. My arm collapsed under me and I sent the water jug crashing to the floor. Exclamations of surprise and grumbles of complaint came from my immediate neighbours. The doctor settled me back into bed.
‘You’re too weak to go anywhere,’ he said, checking my hands for cuts. ‘No damage done. Listen, Mr Brody, I know you feel you have duties to attend to, but the world’s not going to fall into vice and sin just because you’re laid up for a week. Even Jesus took a rest in the Garden of Gethsemane before the Big Day, didn’t he?’
*
As it turned out, I was much weaker than even the young doctor had guessed. By the end of the week, I was just about able to reach the toilet with the support of two sticks. I was told that my frugal diet, lack of recent regular exercise and irregular, though copious, consumption of scotch, had contributed to my poor recovery. There may also be psychological factors, one particularly sterile-smelling doctor told me: had I been under any stress of late?