A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  Two figures stood there, huddled against the driving rain. Neither was the stable boy – that much she could tell. But the torches outside had long been extinguished and the devil himself could have been standing before her gate and she’d not have known him from the archangel Gabriel. The pair came closer.

  ‘Let us in, Meggy. Brigid needs us.’

  It was a woman’s voice, one she thought she knew, but it was muffled by the storm. The woman came closer, pressing her face to the iron bars. Her hair whipped up in wet strands about her head.

  ‘It’s me, Meggy, Morwen. Let us in. The wisht hounds are running. Brigid needs us. The boy needs us.’

  Meggy hesitated. The prioress had forbidden Kendra and her tribe of daughters to set foot in the place, and Meggy had always carried out those orders faithfully.

  As if Morwen heard her thoughts, she shouted, ‘Ma’s not with us. She fights against us, against the boy. Help us, Meggy.’

  Meggy felt the child’s cold fingers on her hand, so icy they burned. She glanced down. The boy was staring at the door, as if he could see right through it. Suddenly he pressed his face against her thigh, sinking, like a child weak with hunger, as if all the strength was draining from him and he could no longer stand. He staggered and she caught him in her arms. She lowered the boy gently to the ground, smoothing the hair from his cold little brow. Then she clambered to her feet, took a deep breath and heaved on the swollen brace beam, dragging it back.

  Chapter 56

  Morwen

  Glancing fearfully around her, Meggy hurried us into the chapel and bolted the door behind us. She set the lantern on the floor, so the light wouldn’t be seen through the casements, while she wriggled a great iron key into the door on the far wall. Sorrel edged closer to me and the boy, staring up at the statue of the bloody man hanging on the cross, as if she thought he might raise his carved head and shout for the black crows to chase us out of his house. I was afeared in that place too but not of the crows.

  When I was little, and Ma was trading in the village, I’d sometimes slip away from her and peer in through the door of the church. I liked to look at the paintings of men and beasts on the walls, the colours as bright as yellow furze and the scarlet rowans on the hillside. But this chapel wasn’t like that. It was a clearing in a dark wood with great pillars, like tree trunks, stretching up all round. I was never scared of the spirits of Fire Tor, or of the ghosts of the moor, but there were shadows slithering round these walls, dark, malevolent creatures who’d never lived in this world but meant to bring harm to any who did, if ever they could cross into this realm.

  Old Meggy wrenched open the door and pointed down into the darkness. ‘Bryde’s Spring is at the bottom of those steps,’ she whispered, though even if she’d shouted no one outside, not even a screech owl, would have heard her over the storm. But she didn’t move aside to let us pass.

  ‘Kendra said the boy must be kept from the well. She said if his eye opens . . .’ Meggy trailed off.

  ‘Aye, Ma spoke the truth of what she saw, but she doesn’t understand the meaning of it.’

  Still Meggy hesitated. Sorrel took a step towards her. ‘Brigid sent the wisht hounds to stop you taking the rag to Kendra. They turned you back. She wants to protect the boy.’

  The old woman’s head jerked up. ‘How do you know that? I didn’t tell a soul . . .’ She stared at Sorrel, tucking her thumbs beneath her fingers, as if she thought Sorrel might witch her. ‘You got the gift, haven’t you, like old Kendra?’

  Slowly Meggy dragged her gaze from Sorrel. ‘But even if I let you take him down there, it won’t do you a mite of good, for the well’s dry. Spring’s stopped running. Some say it’s the tinners have done it, but Sister Fina reckons it’s . . .’ She jerked her chin towards the boy, who clung to my hand.

  I shrugged. In truth, I’d no notion what we were to do down there, only that I knew Brigid wanted the boy to be taken to her well. Like Ma said, if you asked what Brigid wanted of you, you must swear to do it, else you must not ask.

  Meggy looked from me to Sorrel, then seemed to make up her mind. She stepped aside from the well door and, picking up the lantern, held it out towards me. She said she’d stay up in the chapel and keep watch. But I think she was afeared to come down.

  Sorrel and I crept down the stone steps, with the boy between us, me first, stepping sideways so I could keep hold of the boy’s hand and guide him down. His legs kept buckling beneath him, but not ’cause he couldn’t see. He was as weak as if he’d been starved for days.

  The walls shimmered like glow worms on a summer’s night, pigsey gold, Ma called it. Suddenly the boy crumpled on to the stone step, his head lolling against his chest.

  I pushed the lantern up at Sorrel and knelt on the stairs below the boy, so that I could heft him over my shoulder. He made no sound. I didn’t know if he’d fainted, but even through my kirtle I could feel the frog-cold of his body. Was he dying, dead?

  I was feeling for the steps with my bare toes, trying to balance the boy and walk into the darkness. But then I could no longer feel a step below and as Sorrel came down behind me with the lantern, I saw that we were standing in the cave, just like I remembered from when I was small, save that there was no water. The stone trough lay empty and raw red, like the belly of a rabbit when its guts have been torn out. On a ledge above the well stood a painted statue of a woman grasping a long dagger, pointed down at the ancient stone carving of Brigid, as if she meant to gouge out the old mother’s eyes.

  I laid the boy as gently as I could on the rocky floor, his eyes were open, staring straight up, unblinking, but he didn’t move, though I could see his little chest rising and falling in fluttering breaths, like a wild bird when you hold it in your hand.

  Sorrel crouched beside me. ‘There’s not even a drop of water . . . What can we do?’

  I closed my eyes. I was in Ma’s cottage. A little girl lay on the floor and her granddam sat facing Ma across the hearth fire. I watched Ma clenching her fingers about the smoke, saw it sucked up into her fist.

  ‘Brigid’s closed the water in her hand. Only she can release it.’

  There was no need for me to tell Sorrel what to do now. She knew better than me. She settled herself on the floor, and grew still. Sorrel didn’t need to sing to open the door ’twixt the living and dead. But I sang, not to summon the spirits but to hold back those creatures of shadow that prowled above our heads. They were trying to enter, trying to cross into this world, and though the moon was hidden from mortal sight, it was a duru moon. They no more needed to see its light than I needed to see an open doorway to walk through it in the dark.

  I could feel them massing, trying to find the cracks to slither through, trying to claw down the walls and ooze down the steps until they filled this cave with a darkness that would smother everything. I forced the song against them, trying to make it fill every hole, block every crevice in the cave, as I begged Brigid to hear us, to open her hand and let her spring flow. My knees were pressing hard against the boy’s body. A shudder ran through him, like the death throes of a mouse when its neck is snapped. The child was dying, but Brigid wouldn’t open her hand. She wouldn’t let the waters run.

  Sorrel scrambled to her feet. She clambered into the stone trough, then on top of the rim nearest the wall of the cave. Her feet planted on either side, she balanced precariously, steadying herself with her good hand against the rock. For a moment she swayed there, then lifted her hand and reached up to the painted statue. But she had no means of holding on. Before I could get to my feet, she was toppling over. She grabbed the wooden dagger in the statue’s hand and dragged it with her as she fell. Both crashed on to the rocky floor of the cave. The head of the painted woman snapped off and bounced away, slamming into the lantern, sending it, too, spinning across the floor. The candle flame guttered wildly and blew out. We were in darkness, save for the green-gold glow of the walls that lingered for a few moments, then slowly began to fade.

  ‘
Sorrel, are you hurt?’ I scrambled over to her.

  She was lying on the floor. I felt her head, trying to see if it was bleeding or broken, but she pushed my hand away. ‘Listen!’

  Water! Water splashing on stone. The spring was running again! The statue was smashed. The well was Brigid’s once more. In the darkness, we lifted the boy and carried him to the trough.

  ‘We need to wash his eyes,’ Sorrel murmured.

  ‘No, you need to. Brigid called you to Dertemora for this.’

  She didn’t argue. The sound of the water changed as she cupped her hand beneath the trickling spring. Then I felt the cold drops fall on my hand as she poured the water over the boy’s face. Once, twice, three times three.

  As Brigid of Imbolc brings back the sun

  As the Sun gives sight to earth

  As the earth opens to the green mist

  So may his eyes open to see

  So may his eyes open to see

  So may his eyes open to see.

  The spring was gushing from the rock now, the sound almost deafening as it thundered down into the stone trough. I was drenched in a fine mist. Water was creeping up the side and starting to spill on to the floor of the cave. The moss on the walls began to glow, though no candle had been lit, softly at first like the first light of a winter’s dawn, then brighter and brighter, like the summer’s sun glinting on a pool. As I gaped at the walls, I felt the boy drawing out from my arms. I caught sight of Sorrel. She was staring over my shoulder towards where the boy stood behind me, her mouth open as if she had cried out, but I could hear nothing above the roaring of the water. I turned my head to look at the boy, but he had vanished.

  Chapter 57

  Dertemora

  A crackling blue lightning flash split the dark sky above the tinners’ valley. The thunderclap, when it came, rampaged around the hills, hurling itself from one side to the other, like a caged beast. Rain thrashed the bare sides of the valley, streaming down in torrents, dragging the mud and gravel with it.

  Inside the storehouse, a woman pushed Gleedy’s sweaty head from her breasts and struggled to slide out from beneath his slippery carcass. She froze, holding her breath, as Gleedy grunted and rolled over. In the dim lamplight, she watched a silver snail’s track of drool trickle down his chinless face and soak into the straw pallet. Gleedy had drunk the best part of the flagon of wine but, even so, she was amazed he could sleep through this storm.

  The woman pulled down her skirts and tiptoed across the floor towards the stores. There were stacks of tools, ladders and buckets to be had, but she knew that most of the boxes, barrels and sacks that had once contained dried beans, salted meat or flour were now as empty as a staved wine cask. The last time Gleedy had dragged her to his bed, she had seen him take her payment of food out of the boxes hidden beneath the empty barrels, but she dared not risk waking him by shifting them.

  A dazzling white flash of lightning pierced the gaps around the shutters and door, followed a few moments later by a long rumble of thunder. But, as if it was determined to have the last word, the wind roared back even louder and the rain seemed to redouble its efforts to drill through the roof. The woman had to get to her own hut. Her young son would be terrified there alone.

  Gleedy’s hounds, tethered near the door, were howling and barking loud enough to summon the devil from Hell. Usually a single growl or yap would be enough to send Gleedy scurrying to them, fearful that someone was trying to break in. She’d have to find something to toss to them to keep them back from the door so that she could slip out. He usually kept a sack of dried sheep’s trotters close to his bed. She edged back, watching Gleedy for any sign that he might be faking sleep, then found the sack and took out two hoofs. Without planning to, she grabbed three more, stuffing them down the front of her kirtle to add to her cooking pot.

  With another anxious glance at the slumbering figure, she hurried to the door and tried to open it quietly. But she had reckoned without the wind. Before she had pulled it more than a hand’s width open, it snatched the door and hurled it back against the wall, ripping off one of its leather hinges. The wind charged in, sending stacks of tools crashing to the ground and empty sacks flapping through the air, like flocks of geese. Not even a drunkard could sleep through that.

  Gleedy was on his feet with a bellow before his head realised what his body was doing. The hounds were leaping and pulling so hard on their chains that they were choking themselves. The woman threw the two trotters at them, but for once they were neither interested in food nor in any intruders. They were simply desperate to get into the shelter of the storehouse and out of the storm. Gleedy gave a shout of rage, but the woman didn’t wait. She fled into the rain-drenched darkness.

  Gleedy was halfway across the chamber in pursuit of her when a blast of icy air on his naked cods reminded him that he was clad only in a short shirt. He was torn between his need to force the door shut and his fear of anyone catching sight of him in the lantern light. A pile of iron pots crashed to the floor, and he ran to the door, trying to wrestle it shut, but it was hanging sideways by the one remaining hinge that was also on the point of ripping from the wood. Against the force of this wind, it would take at least two men even to get it upright and force it back into the doorway. Icy rain dashed against his face as if a man was tossing buckets of water through the hole where the door should have been. Though it did not entirely sober Gleedy, it shook him fully awake.

  He abandoned his efforts and hastily pulled on his breeches and a cloak. Not even attempting to lace his hose, he thrust his bare feet into the boots and ran out into the storm past the howling dogs, heading towards the blowing-house. He intended to order whoever was working there to return with him and force the door back into place, before the wind wreaked any more havoc or those thieving tinners started looting his stores. And someone had better be there manning that furnace, or he’d see to it that by morning they were tramping the moor without so much as a shirt on their backs.

  But, once outside, he found he could barely stand against the gale, much less see where he was going. Rain, grit and shards of stone were flung into his watering eyes as if they were fired at him by a hundred bowmen. Water poured off the hillside, turning paths into streams and washing away great chunks of mud and stone, sending them slithering to the valley. The river roared down its diverted course, dragging rocks the size of a man’s head with it, and even though the sluice gate, which dammed the lake, was closed, the ditch below it was rapidly filling with rain and the muddy water pouring off the land above.

  Just in time Gleedy glimpsed a chunk of wood hurtling towards him. He managed to sidestep it, but slipped in the mud and crashed down on his back, landing in the water that was racing down the track. Not that the wetting made much difference, for he was already soaked, but the heavy fall shook him, while the wine and his recent exertions had, for the moment, robbed him of the strength to right himself.

  Lightning sizzled down, like a blazing spear thrown to earth, causing Gleedy to squint up. Two figures stood on the edge of the lake above the blowing-house staring down into the valley. He saw them only for as long as a white flash lit the moor, but his mind held on to the image as darkness closed in again. He was sure he had seen two women up there, their hair and skirts whirling about them, their arms open, held up to the sky as if they were calling upon the heavens to throw down all their arrows, daring a thunderbolt to strike them. Had they run completely mad? The wind alone could knock them into the lake or send them plummeting down into the valley. Even a village idiot would have enough wit to seek shelter. He certainly wouldn’t have ventured out even this far, had that bitch not let the wind break his door. She’d pay dearly for that when he caught up with her.

  He dragged himself upright, cursing as he slipped again in the streaming mud. He wiped the water from his eyes and glanced back to where he’d seen the women. It was hard to distinguish anything through the rain, but he was certain they were still there. Was it even possible to stan
d up there against this? Maybe they weren’t flesh and blood at all.

  Eva! Could her ghost have risen? The other had only one arm raised – he was sure that was what he’d seen in the lightning flash. One arm – Sorrel? Had she, too, perished out on that moor? That was what he’d wished, what she deserved. But had she, too, returned from the dead to haunt him?

  A cold snake of fear slithered down Gleedy’s spine and curled itself inside his guts. Whatever was up there he had no intention of staying out here alone. He ran for the blowing-house, slipping and sliding all the way. Crashing to his knees, he struggled up again, ignoring the stinging and the warm trickle of blood running down his leg. He reached the door. It was shut! It was never shut! He pounded on the wood, though no one inside could have heard him above the thunder rolling around the hills. Eventually his fuddled, panic-stricken mind grasped at the memory that even this door had a latch. He groped over the sodden wood, like a blind man searching for lost treasure. Several times his fingers came within inches of it, but he couldn’t remember whether it was high or low, much less see it. By the time his numbed hand struck it, his eyes were streaming, not just from the driving rain but with tears of fear and frustration. He dragged on the latch, leaning with all his weight against the wood. As the door swung open, the wind shoved it so violently that he fell head first into the building, almost dashing his brains out on one of the granite ingot moulds inside.

  As he dragged himself to his knees, scrubbing the water from his eyes, two men rushed past him and fought to push the door shut against the storm. Gleedy felt a surge of relief and annoyance, relief to be safely inside and in the company of half a dozen men, and annoyed by the grins on the tinners’ faces at the sight of him sprawling at their feet. Suddenly aware of the rain dripping from his hair and the mud clinging to him, his irritation was not assuaged by the realisation that he must look like a drowned cat fished from a well. The men silently returned to the furnace, warming their hands and glancing warily at one another.