by Alan Jansen
Before long, everyone in our village knew the church was haunted. Nobody attended services, not even during the day. Johns, too frightened even to ring the church bells after dusk, only rang them during the day. He loved the bell-ringing and previously would meticulously ring out the bells for each hour, even getting up several times in the night to ring them if he found the hour hand was right. The villagers were often up in arms against Johns for his excessive bell-ringing, which in truth was quite annoying, but the old priest remained stubborn as a mule and held fast to his bell-ringing routine. Even down at the farm, which was quite a distance away from the village, we could hear the bells.
As the haunting grew more and more intense and horrible, Johns turned to Uncle for help. Uncle was well-known in the village by now – much admired for his sagacity and his knowledge of general matters that dominated this world (and, as some whispered, even matters outside this world!). News of his role in the Darlingtons’ change of fortune, his showdown against Lady Janet De Court Plutney, and his successful sway over many other incidents had travelled far and wide within village circles. Of course, nobody knew of the nude pictures Uncle had taken of Lady Janet, but everyone knew Uncle was responsible for the latter’s revoking her claim on, and intrusion into, Jim and Julia’s land.
Below is the full diary entry that Uncle wrote after the whole ghost business was resolved. It is a summarised entry spanning a few days, beginning on a start date and ending some days later, with no end date provided:
I didn’t know of the strange case of the church ghost at the outcome of the whole business until my dear Julia brought it to my notice. It had apparently happened at Sunday evening service one day, as related to me by Julia, who, though not a regular churchgoer, had decided to attend services that very Sunday. Julia told us all quite breathlessly what had happened when she arrived back home all pink, flustered, and agitated, obviously severely jolted by her experiences. Julia left out nothing, describing most vividly and in absolute detail all the events as they happened. It appeared that well into the service, poor Mrs Hardbottle, the butcher’s plump wife, had her silky chintz dress suddenly pulled up over her head, exposing vast knickers that covered her ample backside and the enormous corset containing the rolls of fat around her midriff. The poor woman could hardly breathe inside her closed ‘parachute’, and cried out in terror and shame. The congregation was greatly shocked at this very unusual happening, hardly knowing whether to believe their eyes or not, only settling down after a red-faced Mr Hardbottle had rescued his beleaguered wife and forced her dress down again. Services resumed after a brief interval amidst wonder and even amusement amongst some very uncharitable types, who had a good laugh at Mrs Hardbottle standing there with her old-fashioned underwear all exposed. Any amusement, however, soon erupted into utter bewilderment, then terror, and finally chaos a few minutes later.… As the congregation rose to sing a hymn, Verity Hayward, sitting in the very first pew, had her very elegant and expensive skirt yanked off completely from her body, revealing her superb buttocks, contained within a very tight-fitting knicker that left nothing to the imagination. Her skirt went sailing over the heads of the congregation, back and forth across the church, while a very embarrassed Verity and even a few others from their positions in the pews tried to catch her skirt as it flew over their heads. Unlike poor Mrs Hardbottle, Verity was made of sterner stuff and didn’t waste any time hanging around. Unable to retrieve her skirt, she made a swift beeline to her parked car and drove away, red-faced and flabbergasted, clad only in her flimsy knickers, blouse, and high heels. The ghost or whatever demon – obviously a ribald one – seemed much amused to see women exposed in their underwear, but suddenly its actions changed from sexual depravation to actual violence. A loud series of banshee-like cries broke out. … Amidst the cries, a picture depicting Noah at the stern of his famous ark loosened from the wall where it was hanging, floated high in the air, stood still for a moment over the vicar’s head, and then came crashing down on the poor man, inflicting a nasty blow on the left side of his cranium. Bleeding profusely from a cut over his ear, the vicar raised his long robes and tried to stop the flow of blood, while the now fully frightened congregation fled helter-skelter from the church to the safety of the green lawn outside. Pottersworth, who had also been in the church, confined to the very back row because everybody reacted to his body odour, fled along with the rest, gesturing wildly at Verity’s skirt still orbiting within the church’s four walls. (Julia was most anxious to describe poor old Pottersworth’s reactions. She had a soft spot for the old tramp. I made a note here that I would try to help the man in some way in the near future.)
After dinner that day, we all assembled on the front porch as we usually did after the meal was over. We eagerly discussed Julia’s minute description of the events at church that evening, each of us contemplating in our minds just what manner of horror it was that haunted the church. None of us spoke at first; we were just lost in our own thoughts and reflections. I for one knew for a fact that ghosts didn’t really exist in the true sense of the word. True, people do see ghosts, but we Druids know that these sightings are just a throwback to the past. Pockets or periods of times that have long since passed frequently break through the time barrier and manifest themselves exactly like a movie projector showing a scene from a film. Of course, these manifestations spread terror to those witnessing the mayhem, who really think the ‘ghosts’ are actual dead spirits come back to haunt the living. These ‘time capsules’, as I call them, show a person or persons exactly as they were in their time of life, walking through a home, strolling through a field, or doing anything in any place they once inhabited. Sometimes the time pocket would show executions, bodies hanging on scaffolds, or heads decapitated, which exponentially increases the horror in the eyes of the beholder or beholders manifold. It is like a soap bubble that inhabits the air for a moment and then bursts into nothingness – here a few seconds and then gone! Some Druids, often pretenders, claim the sightings are indeed real and that ghosts do exist. These humbugs even claim that they are able to talk to the dead. A genuine Druid knows that such is not the case. I for one could never talk to any departed person – ghost or not – although I know for sure that there is an afterlife and that the dead live on in other dimensions that the living cannot enter. Druids know for sure that there is a grey zone the dead inhabit, or perhaps even a golden one. Despite my many supernatural abilities, I am still unable to unravel that mystery. There are also beings of some sort who could haunt a house by moving objects, even making humans lift themselves through the air and talk in unknown tongues, but we Druids know that these are a certain species of alien beings inhabiting this planet, living side by side with us but invisible to our naked eyes. These are photon-like creatures from another solar system who have been on this earth since the time of Uther and Arthur Pendragon. They have an agenda of their own and will probably leave once they have fulfilled it. Why they enjoy frightening people half out of their wits, and for what purpose, neither I nor my kind knows. There are different kinds of aliens, some like the photon creatures I have mentioned, living side by side with us, while another sort visit us occasionally in flying crafts from distant galaxies. Then there are humanoids, not real aliens in the strict sense of the word but humans from the future, who, having mastered time travel, visit us in our own times, also in flying crafts. They cannot make contact with us, for if they do they will disturb the time curve with fatal consequences. All Druids know that time has a beginning and an end, but we also know that everything has already happened. We are just living our period of time on a long scale, where the end of the universe is the end of all known time. It’s like the Arab saying ‘Everything is written.’ We firmly believe that everything has been written, although some Druids insist that for some very special humans nothing is written. All our individual lives are already lived and ‘written’. We are all just pages in a book. If you take a slow train from Brighton to London, it will make
many stops at passing towns, but it will eventually reach London. You might find yourself in a new city – a new place – in a certain time, yet the towns you passed by exist too. You cannot go back to that particular time when the train passed those cities, but that particular time pocket exists. The time travellers, or humanoids as we Druids prefer to call them, seem to have mastered the technique of visiting any city or place at any given time – masters of time.
Jim was the first to break the silence after Julia’s account of the events …
‘See what good comes from all that dratted churchgoing and all that!’ he said to Julia. ‘Singing blooming hymns in Latin and other outlandish languages! And all that blooming bell-ringing. That dratted man Johns rings those bells every hour, and if that is not enough, he and that bloody Verity woman have bell-ringing classes and whatnot catering to all them stupid villagers who have nothing else to do on weekends but sit on their fat damn arses. The fellow had the nerve to ask me to join his damn bell-ringing class! I told him very clearly where he could shove those bloody bells of his! Why can’t you and the children just go to church on Christmas and Easter like I do, or to attend a wedding? And why is that vicar employed all the year round, getting fat in that vicarage dwelling of his? Living it up with our collection money in that huge church house property! Anyway, if you ask me, all that talk about God, the Devil, and other such bollocks is just poppycock. You ever seen God, Julia? or the Devil? or any of those blooming saints that they go on and on about? Poppycock, I’m telling you! That’s what it all is.’
‘We are Christians, Jim, not blooming heathens,’ replied Julia crossly. ‘Is attending regular Sunday services really such a bother? And when, may I ask, did you last put any money in Johns’s collection till? You’re so damn tight-fisted you don’t even give old Pottersworth a few shillings now and then. Remember how you howled and made such a song and dance about it all when I wanted to give that poor tramp some of your old trousers? You’re a fine one to talk! If you don’t want to attend church services, that’s your affair, but don’t interfere in the children and me going to church! We like to go to church on Sundays and feast days!’
Jim grovelled sheepishly at Julia’s telling words. In his heart of hearts, he wasn’t really a stingy man. His stinginess was probably innate, most likely due to the fact that most farming families had struggled terribly in the years between the two world wars. I suspected his stinginess was based on an almighty fear of the farm crashing financially. He positively hated giving away any of his possessions and disliked parting with even a penny, which he would avoid if he could help it.
Turtle broke the animosity spell between her parents by turning the conversation to the haunting itself. By my count she was almost fifteen now – an intelligent and very well-read young lady, possessing all the genes of her mother and very little from her father.
‘Uncle, the picture that fell on the vicar’s head, and the fact that Mrs Hardbottle’s skirt was actually pulled over her head, and even Verity’s flying skirt going round and round the church pews, surely ought to suggest some physical force at work. A ghost cannot lift things, or so I have read. They are pure visitations of a sort and just go their own way. There must be a real live physical being behind all this! A being with an actual physical body but still invisible to us humans. Is this possible, Uncle? What sort of being could it be?’
‘Well done, Turtle! Well spotted, girl! Yes, you’re quite right, you know! Something indeed is using arms and legs to do all this mischief. And yes, a ghost cannot draw blood from a living being. That picture was deliberately dropped over Johns’s head, and Mrs Hardbottle’s dress was tied above her head with a pair of hands, no doubt about that!’
Spurred on by my confirmation of her thoughts, Turtle came up with yet another theory. … ‘I’ve been reading about vampires, Uncle Cheroot – all sorts of stories and legends I found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and other books at the Rothwell library. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it is written that vampires can make themselves into bats and sometimes creep up in the form of a fog or mist. Is this the work of a vampire, Uncle?’
I looked sharply at young Turtle at the mention of vampires. I know quite a lot of vampires, both evil and benevolent. In fact, my best friend Akawander was a vampire I knew a long, long time ago. However, to reveal my knowledge would lead to my compromising my own position and revealing the kind of life and Druid I had become, so I kept quiet, only replying with a straight face as though what I knew was also taken from books and legends that had been passed on through the ages.
‘Harrumph! Vampires, eh? Nah. … I do know something of vampires, but I don’t think this chap is a vampire,’ I said guardedly before continuing. ‘Yes, they do say a vampire can change form, but then the congregation would have seen what form it was that clutched that picture before it dumped it on the vicar’s head. Even if it was a mist of sorts, the congregation would have seen it. As Julia said, nobody saw any being – vampire, demon, or otherwise. No, this is something else. There are many incidents of visitations where objects and even humans are sometimes thrown into the air or elevated in a floating position. Ancient Saxon magic often spoke of wizards possessing cloaks that made them invisible. It must be something like that, a being of sorts cloaking his or her physical body with a garment rendering both the cloak and the wearer invisible. There is another possibility too: maybe a spell of sorts was used. Throughout history, witches and warlocks have always been credited with the ability to cast spells to make themselves invisible or mass-hypnotize groups of people into believing they are invisible.’
Here Julia butted in somewhat crossly. ‘How very far-fetched and absurd, Cheroot! I thought you were a man of science and didn’t believe in all that nonsense about vampires and the like. Besides, that Dracula book by Stoker is absolute fiction. Stop putting ideas into Turtle’s head. Invisible cloaks and spells indeed! There has to be a rational explanation. I hate to go along with Jim’s suggestion, but in all likelihood it’s a demonic visitation of sorts. The church acknowledges such visitations and even performs special exorcism ceremonies to drive away the offending demon.’
At this point, the conversation ceased when Inky jumped up in the air to try to catch a huge flying grasshopper that had managed to find its way into the living room, knocking down the coffee table by the side of the big sofa and sending a vase flying in the air, shattering it into pieces as it hit the ground.
‘Bad dog,’ yelled Julia, irritated at Inky’s antics, picking up the grasshopper gently and throwing it out into the garden, and then carefully retrieving the pieces of the vase, possibly to paste it together again.
The conversation sort of dwindled off after Inky’s antics, although Jim wasn’t quite finished yet, picking up on Julia’s last statement about a demonic visitation. ‘Told you nothing good would come from all those services and bell-ringing in that dratted church. Now look what all that’s gone and done! A devil’s in the church! Crikey! Imagine that! A real live devil in our own village church!’
‘Thought you said a while ago that you didn’t believe in devils and the like! Changed your tune then, Jim, have you?’ butted in Julia acidly.
‘Bah! Say what like, the lot of you! I’m off to the piggery,’ said Jim, evidently not wanting to get into another battle of words with his wife. Julia always had the last word in any discussion they had, and although this did not annoy Jim in any way, he always expected it. The piggery – his favourite place in the farm – was a popular last line of retreat.
We all knew of Jim’s views on religion. He wasn’t a heathen in any way – absolutely not – but being the kind of authority-disliking man he was, he sort of resented the church trying to rule his life in any way. He attended Mass, as he said earlier, on important church feast days, and he always said a curt ‘Hello’ to old Johns, but other than that he wasn’t in any way a great fan of the vicar, religion, or the church.
Anyway, to co
me back to the church ghost, I decided I had to do something about it all, not because I wanted to help Johns, but chiefly because I was intrigued by the whole matter. I had by now, after my two earlier visits to Julia and Jim, earned a flattering reputation for being a man of great sagacity, well versed in matters of the world. My assistance to the Darlingtons in making them wealthy beyond dreams and my settling of the fence-encroaching issue with Lady Janet had given most villagers an unshakeable trust in my ‘abilities’. Of course there were many other incidents with a positive outcome than the two I have mentioned which the villagers also knew of. I have written accounts of some in my diary. To be honest, there wasn’t much space in that book to write every darn thing, and sometimes I was too downright lazy or just hadn’t the time to jot it all down, but I did write profusely in it…
Later that night lying beside a sleeping Julia, I pondered over my own situation, shifting my thoughts from the church ghost to my own plans and schemes. Something had been bothering me ever since. While making love to Julia, I had discovered a few grey hairs on my lady love’s temples. The grey hairs gave me quite a shock. I wasn’t exactly sure, but I could have sworn they hadn’t been there before. I had thought up to now that the Druid rituals I had performed on an unaware Julia had cemented her place with me – that our future was sealed forever. The grey hairs – a common sign of human ageing – gave me quite a jolt. If indeed the grey hairs had appeared just recently, then all was lost and I had failed …
Giving myself the benefit of the doubt, and further reassured by Julia’s beautiful face and body as she lay beside me that night, I shut out my thoughts and went to sleep. I decided then that I would come back a fourth time a year or so later, and if Julia showed any further signs of ageing then, I would disappear forever from her life and live out mine in sorrow and shame. Sorrow because I would never see Julia again, and shame because I would know then for sure that my mission had failed because my ministrations were faulty.