by Joshi, S. T
Gazing out to sea, he thought that he spied what might be the sixth cross, just sticking up out of the water. But it might have been a trick of the light or a piece of driftwood, he thought. In any case, it would be impossible to reach.
Patrick fiddled around in his canvas bag and pulled out a notebook in which he began scribbling.
Reverend Morgan’s book described them as crosses, yet they clearly weren’t. Even taking account of natural erosion, or the fact that they might have started as the distinctive circular design of Celtic crosses, these were quite different. Pillars would be a better description, he thought. He took a step closer and off to one side. Somehow, even under the layers of encrustation left by the sea, the “crosses” seemed to have a peculiar twist in their design.
These couldn’t be what the old clergyman was describing in his book, could they? They differed markedly from his description. For a moment he thought he’d come to the wrong place. But then he dismissed that as nonsense—after all, how many lines of stone crosses could there be that were visible only once or twice a year? His best chance was to clear away the detritus that had grown on the stones, he decided. The inscriptions would tell him what he needed to know.
He brought out a small hammer and chisel from his bag and, standing awkwardly to maintain his balance, began carefully chipping away at the limpet shells and detritus that covered the first cross.
For a second or so, he imagined that the stones didn’t lead down into the sea at all but instead pointed the way toward the town. Something about their orientation struck some vague chord within him. But what use would they be to anyone? They wouldn’t be visible to fishermen, except at a time when they couldn’t use their boats. And swimmers would be unable to see them in the murk of these tidal waters.
As he worked away, certain figures could be seen emerging from under the accretions of time. Slowly a full line of figures was nearly legible. He took off his gloves and brushed at the dark stone with his fingers. As the last bits of filth dropped away, Patrick saw a line of figures making up a strange conjunction of angles and loops. He was puzzled by what he saw. It might be Old Aberdareian or even a form of Runic, but it couldn’t possibly be Celtic. He shook his head.
Could it be that Reverend Morgan had never seen ancient Celtic and simply imagined that this was what it looked like? Or was he simply trying to hide something he didn’t understand?
He spent a further twenty minutes taking photographs for later study and then, vaguely annoyed at having found more questions than answers, and puzzled at his predecessor’s slapdash research, he turned to head back to the town.
* * *
Patrick spent the rest of the morning in his room, staring out sullenly as the tide came in, inch by inch. The place where the crosses stood was hidden from his view by houses, but he knew they would now be submerged.
There would be another low tide this evening, and he wondered if he should go back then. Maybe he’d given up too soon, he thought, but couldn’t help feeling defeated.
He still felt downcast when lunchtime came. Elin greeted him and asked how his morning had gone. When he shook his head and said “Not well,” she seemed unconcerned and asked about his choices for lunch.
Every time she appeared in the dining room, Patrick asked Elin another question. He was fairly sure she wasn’t holding out on him, but he was sure he was missing something.
Frustrated at his lack of progress, he asked, “Is there a local library?”
Elin shook her head. “Not anymore,” she said. “Not since I was small.”
“And there are no pictures around of Saint Deigion, that you know of?”
Again Elin shook her head. Patrick would normally ask about stained glass windows dedicated to him in a local church, but he knew that was useless.
When she came in to clear his dishes away, she sat down at the table opposite him. Her gray eyes hypnotized him once more. “Maybe you should go and see old Miss Jenkins. She’s got a lot of books and her family have lived here since I don’t know when,” she offered.
Patrick almost choked on his coffee. “Yes. Yes. Please. Anyone who can help …”
Elin nodded. “Rhiannon can take you in a little while then.”
* * *
After lunch Elin told her daughter to take him up to old Miss Jenkins’s place. Patrick didn’t relish spending time with Rhiannon, but it would have seemed too rude to make any excuses now.
Fortunately the girl remained silent and Patrick did nothing to stimulate conversation, not wanting her to turn and look at him. He walked a step behind her as she led him to a street behind the guest house, stopping at the bottom of a long, twisting road leading up the hill. Patrick looked with dismay at the climb ahead.
They began the slow ascent of the dismal street, cramped gray and brown fishermen’s cottages with small doors hemming them in on both sides. Just a narrow strip of sky was visible between the rooftops, so narrow was the street. Occasionally a curtain would twitch as they passed, but mostly the dwellings seemed soulless, uninhabited places. A heaviness sank down over Patrick’s soul.
After nearly ten minutes of fairly steep climbing, the houses suddenly stopped, giving way to a path between the tangle of bushes and wind-stunted trees. Patrick looked around, almost dazzled by the daylight after the dark street, and glad to be away from it. They were above the town with a glorious view out over the bay and the sea beyond it.
Rhiannon led him around the corner of the path where a large two-story house came into view. It had large gateposts with a rusty pair of gates propped permanently open. These gave onto a short driveway and a small garden. There was an antique Ford parked to one side with weeds growing up into the rear wheel arch. The car had obviously not been used for some time.
Patrick was drawn to two large stones, sitting among the grass and flowers. They bore strange markings similar to the stone crosses, and he determined to ask Miss Jenkins about them.
Rhiannon rang the bell of the large door and stood dutifully waiting for it to be opened. By the time it was pulled open, sticking slightly as it came, Patrick was standing beside her. A woman with sober clothing and white hair gazed at them from the opening.
“Mum said to bring you the pruffesur,” Rhiannon said in her slow way.
Miss Jenkins bent to the girl and placed something in her hand. “Thank you, Rhiannon. Now you go straight back home, won’t you?”
The girl nodded and began to walk away.
The white-haired woman looked at Patrick with eyes that were a shade darker of grey than Elin’s. “Please come in … professor, is it?”
Patrick stepped forward, smiling and shaking his head. “Oh no, no … please call me Patrick.”
The woman closed the door decisively behind him. “You’ll forgive me if I call you professor, won’t you? I find informality both too modern and too familiar for someone of my age.” Patrick found it difficult to judge her age as he followed her into a comfortable sitting room; in some lights she looked to be in her late forties, while at other times she could be twice that.
She motioned him to a chair in front of a large bookcase, choosing herself to sit at a writing desk placed in the bay window, turning her chair to face him.
“I’m not looking at you askance, Professor,” the woman chuckled. “It’s just that I am blind in one eye, so find it more agreeable to hold my head this way.” Patrick found it vaguely disconcerting that she could laugh at her affliction in such a way, so he merely smiled politely. He speculated that maybe the old lady’s eyesight had been taken by a stroke, as she also wore her left hand gloved in black lace.
“Um … Elin … Miss … er, Mrs. Williams, that is … she said …” he began.
Miss Jenkins nodded. “I know. I know. Elin rang me to say you were on your way.” Patrick found her gaze slightly cold and alarming. He wasn’t sure how welcome he was meant to feel, but on a scale of 1 to 10 he felt a chilly 2.
In an effort to ingratiate himself, he said,
“My mother was from here originally. Bridge Street. Nia Evan-Hopkins.”
This elicited a small smile from the woman. “Yes, I remember her. Mair’s daughter. Such a shame she had to leave. She had freckles and red hair, didn’t she?”
Patrick nodded and smiled, memories of his mother swimming to the fore. “That’s her, yes.”
“How is she? Will she be joining you here?” the old woman asked.
Patrick coughed twice with shock. He hadn’t been expecting to be asked that. “N-no. She died last year. Of cancer.”
Miss Jenkins looked slightly surprised at the news and shook her head. “That shouldn’t have happened. I’m so sorry. So she’s passed the baton on to you, eh?”
Patrick wasn’t sure what Miss Jenkins meant by her remark, so he let it go.
After a pause of a few seconds, he decided he’d best get down to business. “It wasn’t family business that brought me here, actually. I’m following the trail of a local divine … Saint Deigion. I’ve got the Reverend Eli Morgan’s volume on …”
Miss Jenkins immediately cut him off with a wave of her hand. “It’s a mistake. He should never have been included in that book. The old priest was clearly a fool.” She almost spat the words out. The subject was clearly one that rankled in her family.
“He came here to talk to my great-grandfather, Gwynfor Jenkins. He was the local minister and magistrate at the time. He told old Morgan to leave well enough alone, but he insisted on scribbling a lot of nonsense about Deigion being inspired to create the crosses and so on. He trod on a lot of toes.”
Patrick hadn’t expected such a response and was speechless. The woman fixed him with her gaze once more.
“Elin said you were keen to see a picture of our so-called saint. Well, reach up to the third shelf behind you and take down the sixth volume along. That was my great-grandfather’s Bible. It’s too heavy for me now …”
He stood up and selected the volume, struggling to shift it down onto a small table nearby. “There’s an image of him inserted into the front endpapers,” added the woman. Patrick eagerly turned the pages.
The engraving was elaborate, but from the date it was obviously based on an earlier source. It showed a figure with a sort of halo around his head, dressed in the garb traditionally associated with Christian saints. But the man had enormous eyes, which seemed more in keeping with stylised Byzantine art. In his hand, he carried a large book that Patrick assumed was the Bible. But there was something not quite right about the hands. Given the skillful execution of the rest of the engraving, he doubted this could be put down to the fact that the artist found hands difficult to capture accurately.
Above the image were the words “Saint Daegon.” Patrick gasped with mild surprise. He’d never seen it spelt that way before. “Daegon,” he said out loud. Miss Jenkins tilted her head to look at him, seemingly puzzled by his own confusion.
“But why is it spelt that way? Everywhere else I’ve seen it spelt D-E-I-G-I-O-N.” Patrick was really only thinking out loud but was shaken out of his reverie when his host began speaking.
“My great-grandfather objected to the locals ‘Welshifying’ the name, apparently. He insisted on sticking to the original spelling. That’s what I was told when I asked the same question as a little girl, anyway. I was a little clever-clogs and was always trying to catch people out,” she chuckled, then turned away to gaze out of the window.
“The original spelling. This is fascinating,” muttered Patrick. Below the engraving was a verse from the New Testament. “‘Come follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men’—Matthew 4:19.” Below it, in faded black ink, was a line of symbols very like those he’d seen on the cross earlier.
“Miss Jenkins, this writing … do you know what language it is? I noticed that it’s on the stone in your front garden, and I saw something very like it on the beach this morning.”
She turned to him once more. “On the beach? You’ve seen the crosses then?” Patrick nodded, hoping he hadn’t committed an indiscretion that meant his access to further information would be curtailed.
“I don’t really know very much, Professor. You should have spoken to my great-grandfather. He was a real scholar and spoke several languages. He’d have been able to answer all your questions. But he’s long gone … of course.”
He felt a change of tack was needed once more. “The population was a lot larger in his day, I expect?”
She nodded. “Yes, of course. There aren’t many people here now. Not any more. Those that are left are the guardians, I suppose.”
Patrick didn’t understand what she meant. He didn’t want to push her too far, but his curiosity overcame his caution. “Guardians? Of what, Miss Jenkins?”
The old woman chuckled. “Of the past, Professor. The betrayed past.” Patrick sensed he had touched a nerve as the woman was still staring out of the window, refusing to look at him.
He decided to change the direction of the conversation slightly, hoping to steer it onto safer ground. “So where did all the people go?” he asked, expecting, maybe even hoping for, a conventional answer about the decline of the fishing industry.
Instead the old woman merely raised her arm and pointed out at the bay. “Out there.”
Patrick didn’t know if he was being told of mass emigration to Ireland or asked to believe in a religiously inspired suicide pact. He couldn’t think what to say. Elin had led him to believe that Miss Jenkins could provide him with answers, but he felt as far from the truth as ever, maybe farther.
“I don’t wish to seem inhospitable, Professor, but I have many errands to complete, so if you’ve seen enough …” Patrick mumbled some apologies and placed the heavy Bible back on the shelf.
Miss Jenkins showed him to the door, said goodbye, and closed it firmly behind him. He stood looking out over the bay for a few moments, feeling deflated and bewildered, wondering what he should do next. He realized he had to go back to the source. Another examination of the crosses might bear some fruit.
It was only when he was halfway down the lonely hill that he realized that he had heard whispering in the house.
* * *
Patrick set out from “Glan Mor” as soon as he could. The conjunction of tide and twilight was awkward, with the waters not subsiding sufficiently until the light was already beginning to fade. He would only have about ten minutes on the beach at most before it became too dark to see properly. And he was nervous about getting back up the beach safely in the darkness, despite having a torch.
Even though he now knew what to expect, it was still a struggle to get out to the crosses, with the mud fighting him at every step. After several minutes of struggle, he stood before the ancient stones with his hammer and chisel ready. The third cross along seemed to be a few inches higher than the rest, he now noticed, as if it was the most important one. Patrick decided to concentrate on that one.
Bracing himself in the mud, he began to chip away gently at the ocean’s leavings. As chips of old rubbish fell into the water at his feet, Patrick let out a small gasp of satisfaction. He was beginning to uncover what looked like the carving of a standing figure. It was in low relief and stood about 12 inches high, near the top of the stone pillar. He retrieved a brush from his bag and began working at it. Within a minute, he’d revealed enough of it to recognize it as the supposed saint. But it looked unspeakably pagan.
The image was even more unsettling than the version he’d seen in Miss Jenkins’s Bible. This Daegon had huge eyes and strange, stunted limbs. To Patrick, he looked more animal than man. The thing was repellent. The early Christian pilgrim of the Dark Ages was obviously a fiction, just the wishful thinking of a Victorian clergyman. The reality was something very different indeed.
Suddenly he felt as if he was being invited to attend a picnic in hell. A sense of deep unease gripped him. Now he knew he shouldn’t be there. He wasn’t meant to be gazing on these ancient stones at all. A chill deep inside told him they weren’t mean
t for him and his kind. He wanted to leave.
He turned and struggled to make progress toward the shore, the mud gripping him once more, hindering his progress.
Within moments a strange mist began to rise from the mud. He’d never seen anything like it before. It rose very slowly and, if it had been alive, he’d have used the word sluggish to describe it.
Then the mud began to bubble slowly. He imagined small creatures just under the surface, mouths opening to gulp in air or bite off chunks of the new day.
He took a step forward and yelled in shock as the ground gave way beneath him. He sank up to his waist, as he stepped into an open pit filled with the foul mud. Patrick twisted and struggled, lifting his arms above him to prevent them being trapped in the enveloping slime.
He tried not to panic, keeping perfectly still. He was sure he’d heard that struggling would only suck you under in quicksand. He presumed it was the same with mud. Gathering his wits, Patrick threw his canvas bag toward the shore, grasping the strap firmly and hoping it landed on more solid ground. His heart sank with the bag as it was swallowed immediately by the gray filth.
He felt himself sinking slowly. Now his arms lay across the surface of the mud. His only hope was that someone in the town would spot him and come to his aid. But looking at the town, he could see it now for what it really was—a graveyard, empty, abandoned.
He began to moan to himself, unready to die yet unable to do anything else. And drowning in this foulness would be the worst possible death, he thought. Then the mud ahead of him seemed to part, as if something were swimming through it. Impossible, thought Patrick. A head broke the surface and a female figure stood before him, dripping with water and covered in gray muck. He gasped as he recognized her. It was Elin.
The gray mud trickled from her naked body, revealing the skin beneath. It had changed somehow. The porcelain perfection he’d noticed yesterday had gone, replaced by a rougher texture. She now looked much more like a part of nature, something born of the oceans, than a woman. Yet her gray eyes were still as entrancing as ever.