by Ivan Blake
“Christopher...Christopher Chandler?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Christopher, this is Bernard Monsegur. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I wanted to ask how you’re doing?”
Chris took a moment to recognize the name. “Oh right, Mr. Monsegur, sure. Yes thanks, I’m okay.”
“Getting settled in then?”
“I think so. It’s a big place, little creepy, but I’ll be okay.” To tell the truth, he was scared witless.
“Pleased to hear that. My sister told me you had a little difficulty your first night.”
Whoa! Rose told her brother about Mallory? And he believed her?
“She told you about that?”
“My sister and I have no secrets.”
“Then she told you I’m supposed to guard the old cemetery on your property?”
“And how do you feel about it?”
Chris decided to be up front. “I’m a little ticked sir. I came here to get away from controversy, to lay low.”
“We want that too,” Monsegur said quietly.
“Yet you want me to confront a bunch of weirdos who might try to dig up bones on your property.”
“We just want you to keep an eye on the place, not confront anyone.”
“I feel like you’re taking advantage of my situation.”
“No, certainly not.”
“So then why me?”
“Well, Mr. Chandler, because you’re a Mortsafeman.”
“What?”
“A Mortsafeman, a guardian of the dead.”
“I know what a Mortsafeman is.”
“I expected you might.”
“But how do you?”
“How do I know about the Mortsafemen? Because I’ve met several.”
“How could you possibly? They disappeared a hundred years ago.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not, but that’s not what’s important. What is important is that we, my sister and I, need the help of a Mortsafeman now.”
“Then find one.”
“I’ve lost track of them, but when I heard your story from Nigel Harrow, I knew you had the calling.”
“Calling? What calling?”
“To defend the departed. To take away their pain. I admired the Mortsafemen and I admire you. What you did in Maine, what you did for Felicity Holcomb, remarkable. I knew you were exactly what my sister needed when she called to say people in Lewis were threatening our graveyard.”
“Mr. Monsegur, forgive me, but who are you people? Your ancestors were Cathars, I know, but nowadays what are you? Are you some sort of cult? With your own graveyard, and your own library? Who does that?”
“We’re not a cult. The library was a gift from my family, and there is nothing special about the graveyard. We honor our community’s heroism and do not want our departed to suffer, just as you did not want Felicity Holcomb to suffer.”
“If you’re not a cult, then why all the secrecy? Why don’t you want anyone visiting your cemetery, and why the weird crosses on every grave? Why this tower in the middle of your house? Who builds a house around a tower anyway?”
“Your curiosity is commendable. There are lots of books in the cottage. I encourage you to read whatever you wish, if you want to know more about our history.”
“I might do that.”
“In the meantime, take my number and call me if ever you want to talk. I desire the best for you, Mr. Chandler.”
Chris wrote the number on a pad by the phone, and Monsegur rang off.
“Okay,” Chris muttered to himself, “so let’s find out who these Cathars were.”
He hoped a search through the many volumes in the huge house might take his mind off its creepy noises. In the library, he opened what he guessed was a liquor cabinet and found a bottle labelled Cognac. “Mmmm, heard of it,” he said, and poured himself a full tumbler, then wandered to the shelves in search of any histories or encyclopedia which might provide tidbits on the Cathars. Instead, there were shelves and shelves of books, old and new, on the Cathars, their faith, their ceremonies, their persecution and their eventual annihilation. Someone in the Monsegur family certainly still had a thing for Cathars. Anyway, he chose a few of the thinnest and most superficial books on Cathar history, pulled a coffee table up beside an enormous leather sofa, piled the books on the table, and stretched out with his glass of cognac within arm’s reach.
Several hours and a second glass of cognac later, Chris had completely put aside his unease at the creaks and groans from the house and the wind that moaned around its eaves. Entirely caught up in the inspiring and horrific story of the Cathars of Languedoc, he also hadn’t noticed the chill in the house as the furnace cycled to its night-time setting.
Chris drained the last drop of his cognac, lay the book on his chest, shut his eyes, and summoned up images of the Cathar faithful, their lives of simple dignity and their nightmarish end. He imagined the Cathars in their villages hidden away among the valleys and mountains of the Languedoc, living blameless lives, men and women together, equals in their pursuit of education and faith, free of priests and the tyranny of an oppressive church.
Cathars believed in two Gods, one a good God who’d created the spiritual realm and the human soul, and the other an evil God, who’d created the material world and ensnared the human soul in flesh. To Cathars, human souls were the immaterial and genderless spirits of angels now trapped in a prison of flesh, and the goal of each human life was to regain angelic status by renouncing the material world. Each person was fated to be reincarnated repeatedly as either a man or a woman until he or she at last committed to a life of perfect self-denial. Cathars had no need of the innumerable rituals of the Catholic Church. They had only one ritual of any importance, the Consolamentum or Consolation, a brief ceremony during which the Credenti, or believers, renounced the material, had their sins removed, and were inducted into the next level of faith as Perfecti. Cathars had no churches, no priests, no requirement to tithe, and no need to ask, or worse still, pay priests over and over again for forgiveness of their sins. Was it any wonder the Catholic Church regarded the Cathars as a threat? And was it any wonder that a century of effort by the Catholic hierarchy had failed miserably to sway and even scare Cathars into disavowing their beliefs?
Chris imagined popes and cardinals in their finery railing and cursing the Cathars for their simple piety, ascetic ways, and belief in male and female equality. The Catholic Church had trembled. Cathar beliefs threatened every bejewelled bishop and palatial cathedral in Rome, every corpulent priest and ostentatious church in tiny impoverished villages across Christendom. In 1209, Pope Innocent III lost patience and called for a crusade to wipe out the Cathars. The campaign took decades, but eventually the Cathars were crushed, Perfecti burned in vast numbers, villages and towns pounded into the ground, and former faithful made to wear humiliating yellow crosses to the end of their days. In his mind’s eye, Chris saw Cathar flesh blister and blacken on funeral pyres, saw Cathar infants tossed from battlements, saw desperate Cathar families flee to the four winds. Then he saw...nothing.
Chris stirred near dawn. He lay on the sofa, fully dressed with all the lights still on, but was far too cold and hung over to get up, never mind climb the stairs to bed. Instead, he blinked several times, stretched painfully, and wiped drool from his chin with a sleeve. Then rolling onto his side, he shoved his cold hands into his pockets, and muttered, “So...if the Cathars were all slaughtered...how did a bunch of them end up in northern Vermont five centuries later…and why?” Then he drifted off again.
Chapter 5
Wednesday, March 4
Fresh air and hard work at the old cemetery the previous afternoon had done Gilbert Burgoyne the world of good. He’d gone to bed early, slept well and, wonder of wonders, risen before ten in the morning. Among the many jobs he planned to tackle that day, two tasks topped his list: persuade Rose DuCalice to cooperate on the festival, and find cash. Rose DuCalice first.
After toast
and coffee at the diner, Gilbert headed for the library. He spotted old lady DuCalice unlocking its front doors, called out a hearty good morning, and ran toward her. She stood waiting for him at the top of the stairs, a look of thinly veiled disdain on her face. She didn’t return his good morning.
“So,” he began, “Mrs. DuCalice, I’m not sure anyone has told you yet, but yesterday, my players and I tidied up your cemetery.”
“You what?”
“Don’t worry, we didn’t damage anything. We cleaned up brush, straightened some headstones and scraped moss and lichen from the oldest stones. The place looks a lot better now.”
“You had no right.”
“If you ask me, your graveyard had been neglected far too long. I thought you’d be pleased if we cleaned it up.”
“Don’t give me that. You only want the cemetery ready for your ghost trail. Well, it isn’t going to happen.”
“Actually, it is.” Gilbert gave a self-satisfied smile and leaned back against the stair railing. “You see,” he began, “my girlfriend, Dolli, and the Mayor have been doing some research, and it seems the county has easement rights across your land. Back when the old French village was incorporated in the middle of the last century, the county acquired the rights to a road across your land, which the county never surrendered when the village was dissolved.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you will. Seems to me, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. We can create a temporary trail, and let the haunted ride use it for the duration of our festival, or the town can pave a road all the way to your pond.”
“The town doesn’t have the money.”
“The Mayor says he’ll find it, even if the town has to sell assets to do it.”
“This is what you really want, to split the town, just like your grandfather.” He’d really gotten to her. She was obviously mad as hell but took a moment before she spoke. “Have you ever wondered why your father became a drunk? I’ll tell you why. Because your grandfather destroyed this town. He killed the only chance Lewis ever had for a comeback.”
The venom in the woman’s voice sent shivers down Gilbert’s spine. “That’s not true. The town died when the Grand Trunk went out of business.”
“The Grand Trunk closure hurt the town all right,” Rose said, “but in 1958, new quarries were opening all over the state and a new railway company was in the works. At that time, investors expressed interest in reopening the line to Lewis. Until your grandfather heard about it, that is. At first, he wanted in on our quarry, and when we refused, he went to the new railway and proposed a new line to a different quarry he planned to buy. He offered the railway a deal they couldn’t refuse, so they killed plans to reopen the Lewis line. But then the deal for his new quarry fell through. Lines were built elsewhere but not to our part of the state. Everyone lost.
“Soon after, your grandfather killed himself. Everybody knew he’d set his dim-witted son up in that pathetic movie theater of yours because he didn’t want your dad involved in his quarry. But after what your grandfather did to the town, people treated your dad like dirt. Your mother, who thought she’d married into money, quickly lost interest in him...and you. When your mother ran off, your father did precisely what everybody expected, he fell apart. Your grandfather was an evil man with no regard for anyone, your father was a pathetic weakling, and you…you’re no better than either of them.”
Gilbert was practically breathless. “That’s all a pack of lies, you bitch,” he said in a voice like a whiny child.
“Ask anyone. They’ll tell you the same story.”
“You ever repeat that story and I’ll sue you for everything you have.” His voice rose.
“Repeat it? Visit the museum upstairs! The documents are all there. Your grandfather’s letter to the railway asking that the line to Lewis be assessed unsafe, his proposal to undercut the Monsegur Quarry—”
“I’ll burn the place down!”
At that moment, a tall young man with a slight hunch arrived and asked, “Can I help, Mrs. DuCalice?”
“No, Chris, I’m finished with this fool,” the witch of a woman said, and turned to go inside.
“Who the hell are you?” Gilbert yelled.
“He’s my associate, but that’s none of your business,” DuCalice replied. “Come inside, Chris, and we’ll talk.”
The young man smiled at Gilbert and offered him his hand. “I’m doing some work out at Marymount for Mrs. DuCalice,” he said. “And you are?”
Gilbert was wary. The stranger was tall in spite of his slight hunch, with long blond hair and icy blue eyes, a heavily bandaged wrist, and too many scars on his hands and face to count. Working out at Marymount? What the hell did that mean? “Burgoyne,” he replied.
“Ah, you own the movie theater…and you’re organizing the summer festival.”
“Madness,” DuCalice muttered, and went inside.
“I understand you’re interested in the Monsegur cemetery? Can I ask why?” the stranger asked.
“The town wants to run a haunted trail ride past the cemetery and the old village.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“The bitch.” Gilbert hitched his thumb toward the library doors.
“Ah, well. Let me talk to her. Maybe we can come up with a compromise.”
Now this is an intriguing development, a friend of DuCalice who’s willing to help.
“So you know the DuCalice bitch, do you? And you’re working out at Marymount?”
“Right, and at the cemetery.”
Crap. This guy hanging about the cemetery might pose a problem…or not. “If you managed to get old lady DuCalice to cooperate, you’d have to become part of our festival team. So maybe you’d like to see what we’re doing at the theater?”
“That might be interesting. I’ll drop by some time.”
The stranger went inside the library, and Gilbert headed back to the theater. As he did so, he almost ran down a woman with one toddler beside her and another in a carriage. The look of terror on the toddlers’ faces was so funny that Gilbert nearly burst out laughing. He didn’t because he needed public support for the festival. Instead, he doffed his top hat and said, “Apologies, my lady.”
The woman gave him a look of such disdain that Gilbert immediately added under his breath, “Hideous kids,” and hurried on. Brief though it had been, that encounter with the woman and her ugly brats was to prove surprisingly beneficial.
It had brought something to mind. Dolli had received a letter recently from some guy with an intriguing request. He’d asked for an entire family of skeletons...mom, pop, and as many kids as Gilbert could come up with. And he was willing to pay big money. Dolli had dismissed the request at the time, because they’d been so low on stock. But if Gilbert could somehow fill the request and soon, the money might just tide them over until they could build up their stock again. So, with a spring in his step, and a plan in his head, Gilbert returned to the theater. His task now was to find an entire dead family, and he knew just where that might be.
* * * *
Rose was waiting for Chris inside the library door. “What the hell were you thinking? Offering to help that cretin?”
Chris was taken aback by Rose’s anger. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I thought, ‘better the devil we know’. If we don’t get close to Burgoyne, we won’t know what kind of threat he poses to your cemetery.”
Rose snorted in disgust. “His haunted ride will mean more visitors across our land, and more visitors will mean more damage to the cemetery. I should have thought that was obvious.”
“What if we said we’d make all the arrangements for the ride? Then we could drag out preparations until the whole festival collapses…which it’s bound to, right?”
“You think you could do that?”
“Well....”
“It’s Rixende’s skull that concerns me. I’m sure Gilbert took it. What if this haunted ride of his is just a cover, so h
e can go poking around the cemetery anytime he wants? What if he really wants more remains, for a display or his plays or friends, or heaven knows what? That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Okay, so we need to find out what he’s up to.”
“Rose,” Geraldine Paget said. “Please, let me help.” Geraldine had arrived at the library as the screaming match was coming to an end. “I want to do something.”
“Why are you here?” Rose said with a look of reproach.
“Spare period.” From the rattled look on her face, Chris suspected Geraldine’s excuse wasn’t the whole story. “I could maybe join the Goths, spy on them, find out what they’re planning.”
“They might not accept you,” Chris said.
“They have to, don’t they? Dad’s the Mayor.”
“Geraldine, if something happened to you…” Rose said.
Chris was surprised by the warmth in the woman’s voice.
“What could possibly happen? All I’ll do is paint sets and stuff, and keep my ears to the ground,” Geraldine said with a grin. “Besides, it’s not like I’ll lose any friends by becoming a Goth.”
“Is that okay, Rose?” Chris asked.
Rose marched away without another word.
“I guess that’s a yes,” Chris said to Geraldine. “Gilbert invited me to visit the theater, so maybe we’ll go together?”
“Great!”
“Okay, we’ll go in a few minutes. I need to talk to Rose first.” Chris called out, “Mrs. DuCalice, can I have a minute?”
“In my office,” she replied over her shoulder.
Chris explained that he’d spoken with Rose’s brother, Bernard, the previous evening, and Bernard had encouraged Chris to use the family library, so he’d been reading about Cathars. He was intrigued to realize a community of Cathar believers had somehow turned up in northern Vermont five centuries after the entire Cathar community was supposedly wiped out.
“Nothing odd about it,” Rose said. “Just because their faith was persecuted, doesn’t mean all Cathars abandoned it. They simply went undercover.”