“Anyway, yes I think we should wait for dawn and then stick to the roads. I’m not going into those woods again in the dark. Ever.”
“You know, it’s strange,” said Marion. “But I feel less tired now. Normally and naturally tired – wind-blasted and exhausted but not—”
“Like you’ve been given an anaesthetic? I know what you mean. I felt it too. Seriously, Marion, what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do. You said things about dark arts and blood on the ground. You scared me to death.”
“Do you think there’s anything else we can put on this fire? It’s not going to last more than a few minutes.”
“I’ll have a look. Hold on. Stay there – are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
There was scant firewood material to be found and she’d probably already found what there was. Rosa flashed the torchlight around the walls. As children they’d brought picnics up here in the summer – she, Marion and Viv – running around pretending they were part of King Arthur’s Castle: Vivien standing at the top of the spiral steps declaring she was Guinevere and the rest of them her ladies in waiting. They never spent too long down here on the cave floor, though – there was something about it; something creepy, Marion said. Even then she’d managed to put the fear of the devil in them with her stories and visions. Some said a horseman had been galloping across the moors when his horse had suddenly stopped and ejected him to his death, and now his green-tinted spectre haunted the place even on the warmest of days. Others said it was a spiritual place and non-conformists worshipped here before the Methodist chapel was built; and then there were stories of darker rituals and those who liked the isolation and secrecy. Rosa pushed away an image placed into her mind long ago of a procession of hooded Satanists solemnly making their way up to the cave. A breath of freezing night air coiled around her neck and she pulled up the collar of her coat as high as it would go, refusing to look at the dark recesses and narrow tunnels that burrowed along corridors to who knew where.
Spying a few more branches, she quickly cracked them into a bundle and carefully retraced her steps back to Marion. Her sister, although the eldest, was by far the most fragile of the three – both physically and emotionally - and also the most secretive. Rosa sank to the floor next to the fire and passed her another lit cigarette. For a while they watched the fire crackle and spit with new life. Marion’s face seemed drawn and etched with shadows, her expression glazed.
Eventually, Rosa took a deep breath and asked again. “So tell me what happened back there then, Marion? I hope you’re going to because I’m confused and upset. I’m tired and I’m bone-cold. So just bloody well tell me. What was it you said about them messing with the order of things? Who? I don’t understand. And how come neither of us have seen those graves before?”
Again Marion shook her head. “I told you I don’t know.”
A tad more sharply, Rosa said, “You did say you’d explain later.”
“I’m at a loss.” Marion took a drag of her cigarette, then another in quick succession. “God, I’m so bloody frozen I could cry.”
“That makes two of us. Now tell me – this stuff about the dark arts and a thinning of the veil? What the hell’s all that crap and nonsense about? There was definitely something scary about the graves and the horrible dolls in the trees but why would it make you ill and why would you say you’d never been there before when you seemed to know so much about it?” Her voice had risen with irritation and her fingers trembled as she put the cigarette to her lips.
Still Marion said nothing.
Rosa turned and glared at her, stifling the old frustration. Marion knew things she didn’t, as did Vivien, although Viv covered it all up with non-stop chatter and a brilliant social act; whereas Marion painted weird things and drifted around in a dream. But she had appeared to understand what was happening back there, and since they both nearly died this evening and could still do so she decided on the right to know why.
“And?”
“I think we’re going to die out here, Rosa. That’s what. I can’t feel my blood pumping round anymore. They say it’s nice, though, dying from hypothermia.”
“Marion. We are not going to die. We are going to stay awake. In a few hours it will be dawn – you saw the stars – there’ll be enough light to see the way home and we’ll keep walking until we get there. Now bloody well tell me what you were talking about – that stuff about ley lines and those damn dolls.”
Still Marion gazed into the flames.
“Why won’t you tell me a darn thing? Ever?” Rosa’s voice had risen to the pitch she used in front of an unruly class.
“Alright then. Because if I told you, or anyone else for that matter, that I hear voices in my head and I know when forces are being used against me or someone else, you’d say I was mad and making it up. Just like my mother, like Vivien, like all of them – the doctor, you, everyone. Even though Mother and Vivien know damn well what I’m talking about. And look what you were all like about Snow! The child can’t fend for herself but she hears things too. Just as I do, and bloody Viv does. And Louise… she knows too. She hears them.”
“Who? Hears who, hears what?”
Marion shrugged.
“Marion, are you talking about hearing things in your head or dead people or…? I don’t understand – what black arts–?”
“Annie! Annie, for Christ’s sake – you must know that, surely? Look, I don’t want any part of it. They wanted me – to use me as a channel, and they’ll want Louise. But now look – see the expression on your face! It says everything.”
“Okay, so tell me then. What are they saying? Why did we get lost just now when we both know we were on the right path home?”
“We were on ley lines – song lines or hare paths as they used to be called – magnetic pathways that form a triangle between the chapel in Ludsmoor, Castle Draus and Grytton Forest. Look at the Ordinance Survey map and you’ll see you can draw straight lines that form an isosceles triangle between each point. But at Grytton those lines converge and actually cross. The forest is a sacred place, Rosa, which is why there’s a holy well there. Because people from a long time ago knew that and picked up on it – they were more finely tuned into the earth’s energy and to natural laws than we are now. They worshipped there, you see, and built the well to remind us where to go and to pass on what they knew. It’s a beautiful magical place. The spiritual energy is magnified to such an intensity you feel you can almost…” Her eyes took on the faraway dreamy expression they so often had. “Well, it’s as if you’re transported to a higher consciousness. It’s the most amazing feeling. There are places like this the world over and we have one right here on our doorstep; and our ancestors found it. Imagine that!”
“Energy from the earth? Okay, I’ll go with that.”
“Yes, telluric energy. And it affects every part of us, you see, because we’re all made up of energy too. Energy and magnetics. Think about it. It’s what makes the planets spin. And it’s a tremendous experience to be where the thinning of the veil allows you to pass through to another dimension. You can feel spirits from throughout the ages crowding into your mind and all with stories to tell, it’s so powerful—”
“Through the veil and in touch with spirits? Marion—”
“Hear me out! You asked and I’m trying my best to explain even though you haven’t a hope in hell of understanding because you’ve closed your mind. But here’s what I think happened tonight: there’s a problem when the powerful energy I’ve described is used for negative purposes. If someone with evil intent has channelled this energy in order to alter the natural course of things – summoned spirits - well, it can be a dangerous thing. And they have. It’s not for any of us this time, though. It’s for someone else–”
“What do you mean? Who?”
“I don’t know who.”
“Oh, I don’t understand this at all. Just explain t
o me please, what or who is it you hear exactly?”
“Spirits. I can’t always hear what they’re saying. It’s when they’re active that I pick up on it - I just do.”
“Active?”
For a few seconds over the dying embers of the fire, Rosa stared into Marion’s sombre, grey eyes, so like her father’s and her own. She tried hard to make sense of it all but part of her rebelled against what she considered to be fanciful, over-imaginative nonsense. And possibly out and out madness. “How is it you hear things and I don’t? How do you know there is evil intent on someone?”
Marion nodded. “For years I didn’t hear anything conclusive. It would just be whispering I never quite got hold of. I’d swing around and there’d be nobody there. But then I found if I practiced meditation and cut out all the normal daily noises – you know, be absolutely quiet and attune to a higher vibration - I got my ear in, if you know what I mean? At first it was really faint and garbled but soon the words formed more clearly, and after that I started to hear things outside the normal everyday five senses. Some people like me are more sensitive to it, that’s all. But you know…” It was a hollow laugh and she shook her head. “Ah, how can I put this? They seem to sense you after that – they know you found them. And that’s when you wish with all your heart you hadn’t.”
Rosa put her arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “We’re Christians, Marion. We can’t really believe in all this dark arts stuff, you know? We mustn’t commune with dead people and spirits – it’s unhealthy and wrong.”
Marion’s body seemed to sag against her own. “Don’t you think I know that?”
Rosa stroked her hair. “Shush, now. I think you’re unwell, that’s all – very, very unwell. And I’m going to help you. But first let’s get through the night. Hold my hands. Let’s pray.”
***
Chapter Nine
Danby
Hazel Quinn
With shaking hands, Hazel picked up the phone in the hallway. If anything had happened to him, though. Oh, dear God! It was one thing coming to terms with the end of their marriage but quite another if…
Her voice came out small and childlike, “Hello, Hazel Quinn here.”
There was a slight pause while coins were pushed into a phone box, and then a female voice burst onto the line. “Oh, hello, Hazel? It’s Grace Holland here.”
Oh no, oh for God’s sake, no. He must be trapped somewhere in the snow with this awful, blousy woman in some sort of vile love nest; and now she was about to be told they were together and…
“I wondered if we could meet up?”
She gripped the receiver. A bluish light emanated through the porthole in the front door, casting an elongated shadow along the hall tiles. At the other end of the corridor, the kitchen door was ajar, the rear garden iced white; the only sound the pitter-patter of sleety snow blowing onto the window.
“Meet?”
The other woman sounded impatient, too forthright. “Yes, meet up. I think we ought to talk, don’t you?”
“Erm—”
“How about now? Tonight?”
“What? Why? What about?”
Another coin was pushed into the phone box. “Look, I haven’t got any more change. Can you get to The Feathers in Danby in say, half an hour? The roads are still open.”
Hazel glanced again at the front door. It sounded as though thousands of shrapnel fragments were being hurled against it. Caught off guard, she floundered. “Now? But it’s a blizzard.” And yet, oh the compulsion to talk to this woman – to find out what she had to say, to know what was going on and have that information. This was her life, her whole future… And where was Max anyway? Was he with Grace? Would the two of them confront her when she arrived? Oh God, she was going to be sick. Or…“Has something happened to Max?”
There was a slight intake of breath, then, “No, no, nothing like that. Look, I’m in Danby now and it’s clear – the main road is clear from the end of your road—”
“Hang on a minute, you’ve been here?”
“Look, Hazel, I haven’t any more money and we need to talk while he’s away. Can you meet me? It’s not far for you to come and we have to talk. It’s urgent.”
In a state of shock that the woman had been to her home, knew where it was and also that Max was away and still not home - and not only that but that this was urgent - she found herself agreeing, already picturing what she would wear, and that she’d need a spade from out of the garage, some salt and… “Okay,” she heard herself say.
“Good. Thank you. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes—” She was talking over the pips. Hazel couldn’t hear, expected more coins, but then the line went dead.
In the silence that followed, she stood holding the receiver, her heart a lump of granite. So here she was then – facing what she had to face. She’d known, of course, that it was coming, but just not yet.
Now the end was here, it seemed so sudden.
Trembling violently from head to foot, she replaced the phone in its cradle. What in God’s name was this all about? Urgent, she’d said. Endless possibilities criss-crossed her mind as on auto-pilot she walked into the lounge, banked the fire up with coal and placed the fireguard around it; then checked the back door was locked and bolted before hurrying upstairs to change and put on some make-up. No way would she be facing that woman without battle dress and war paint. Fifteen minutes, like hell! Let Grace Holland wait. After all, she held all the cards, did she not?
***
Chapter Ten
Ludsmoor
Louise – the night after the blizzard
When we woke next morning it was to the sound of spades scraping the road outside. Ice frosted the inside of the windows and we dressed under the bed clothes. I can still remember those thick, hand-knitted tights I had, and wearing so many layers of woollens that my grey school pinafore was the devil’s own to fasten over the top. I must have waddled.
Downstairs the fire was blazing up the chimney in a furnace blast behind a sheet of newspaper. This was Arthur’s job. Once it was hot enough he’d take away the paper and throw on half a scuttle of coal, briefly snuffing out the flames until the sparks burst through. His face would be scarlet and his hands grubby, but he always nodded with satisfaction when it was done. That morning we had breakfast in our overcoats by candlelight because the power lines were down. Best meal of the day, though, and I still love it: doorstep slices of white bread toasted over the fire, spread with butter, topped with Lyle’s golden syrup and then cut into fingers. You were allowed to dip your knife into the Lyle’s tin once, and whatever came out you could have but no more – thus, the art was to wrap the syrup around the knife as quickly as possible then trickle it all over the toast. And as always there was a big pot of tea on the table covered in a knitted tea-cosy.
“Still snowing,” said Mum to Auntie Connie, who was supposed to live next door but seemed to spend more time at ours.
Connie’s husband, Jack, was out clearing the road alongside Dad and some of the other men. Any excuse though, to sit there smoking herself to a wheezy death at our breakfast table. A ubiquitous presence was Connie, eyeing us through a haze of smoke every morning and talking about us kids like we weren’t in the same room. She wasn’t a real auntie – none of them were except, of course, for Auntie Rosa and Auntie Marion – but back then we called all the local women, ‘Auntie’ and never thought anymore of it.
Connie was as much a fixture on school mornings as the freshly-filled coal scuttle on the hearth, and the oilskin tablecloth set permanently with teapot, milk and sugar; and it was a small room. There was a high-backed, green leather sofa we all crammed together on, jostling for elbow space, but apart from Dad’s armchair the only other piece of furniture downstairs was a welsh dresser in the parlour. The top drawer on the left was for the Co-op dividend book and my mother’s purse; the one on the right for my father’s business papers. Bearing the sole burden of our family’s personal possessions, it b
owed under the weight of crockery, framed photographs, and dolls. My mother collected the darn things – dozens and dozens of china-faced dolls in a variety of costumes. She displayed them all pointing the same way but I swear that once, just as I was about to leave the room I glanced over my shoulder and saw the head of one of them twisting round on its stem, its wide blue eyes unblinking.
I still hate them – wouldn’t have them in the bedroom even though she lined them up on the windowsill and I got them every Christmas and every birthday. I’d wake up during the night, see them eyeballing me and scream the place down until Dad finally shoved them all into a box and hid it in the back of the wardrobe. After that I’d stare at the wardrobe door waiting for it to open and the dolls to peep out. Such weird things, I always thought, for my mother to keep and collect. And she had them all round the house too. Each had a name, and sometimes a new one would be added and another she’d been calling Lilian, Cynthia or Helena would disappear.
Tacked onto our small living room at the back of the house was the scullery. Leading out to the yard it had a corrugated iron roof that echoed loudly when it rained. The scullery consisted of little more than a free standing cooker, a sink, and a tall, yellow Formica cupboard in which the pans were kept. The cupboard was ingenious now I come to think of it – with frosted glass doors, drawers for cutlery and a drop-down bread board. We had a larder too – for jams, pickles and cans – and a cellar. Fetching the coal up once a day was the worst job of all. At the moment it was Arthur’s but when he started his paper round it would become Iddy’s. I hoped, really hoped, it would never be mine.
“It’ll go on for weeks yet,” Connie was saying. “And then—”
“Will we get to school, Mum?” I said in-between mouthfuls.
“What did you think of our Grace last night?” Mum shouted to Connie from the scullery.
“Ooh, wasn’t it a beautiful service, though?”
The Soprano Page 7