Uncle Cheroot

by Alan Jansen

  The very next morning, I concentrated on matters at hand. I walked the distance to the village and met up with Johns at the vicarage. After a brief exchange of customary greetings, I agreed to help Johns, on the condition he would do exactly as I asked and that when it was all over, he wouldn’t divulge anything of what would happen to anyone – not even to his boss, the nosy and pompous bishop at Rothwell.

  ‘Johns,’ I said severely to him, for I did have a few old scores to settle with the man, the chief one being his constant cringing and acceding to each and every whim and demand Verity Hayward insisted upon regarding church matters. ‘Johns, if I am to help you in this matter, I want you from now on to obey me, and in my absence my cousin Julia, in all important matters where the administration of the church is concerned. Verity Hayward shall no longer be your blasted chief advisor! Shame on you, man! Aren’t you supposed to do the work of Jesus and follow the Lord’s examples? Did Verity or did she not order you to put name signs on the front pews of the church to reserve them for Verity and her snobbish friends? Even when Verity and her rabble are not present at services, nobody is allowed to sit in those damn front pews! Why did you allow this? And then there is this stupid rule of yours that those sitting in the blooming front pews must be served communion wine and the host first, and only after they have been served, the poor others in the congregation shall come to the altar to receive theirs! And what about you allotting and reserving the best parking spots in the front of the church to Verity, the new bank manager Mr Garfield, the owner of the general store, and yourself? And furthermore, what about you preaching in your pulpit that no money should be given to old Pottersworth because he spends it all on drink! And poor old Pottersworth listening all the while by the church entry door! Have you no empathy, man? Can you imagine how that poor man felt then? The drink thing was another of Verity’s directives, I suppose. Pottersworth is no alcoholic! True, he sometimes buys some ale and whisky with his begging money, but then who doesn’t like to take a drink now and then, eh? I bet my bottom boots you are at the communion wine hammer and tong whenever you feel an urge for it. Or are you having secret drinking sessions with Verity in the sacristan?’ (I put the last comment in more to frighten and annoy him than anything else.) ‘I have a very keen sense of smell, you know! I’ve smelt your breath often, Johns!’

  Here Johns stuttered and gargled. The bit about him purloining the communion wine and having drinking sessions with Verity, although untrue and a stab in the dark, upset him considerably. He collected himself though, and was about to give a long-winded defence of his many ‘sins’, but I stopped him in his tracks. I quickly put a stop to any comment he was going to utter by raising my hand and saying in my best imperial manner, ‘Silence, priest! I know you have a lot of excuses, but you will do as I say henceforth. No more will you be guided by Verity and her cronies. I am confident I can rid this church of whatever or whoever is haunting it, but my insistence upon you taking advice only from me or Julia is binding. After I rid you of this haunting, you will abide by my wishes. If you break our arrangement, I shall see to it that the ghost, or whatever entity it is that haunts the church, comes back immediately. And don’t think that you can break our arrangement after I leave when my visit to Jim and Julia comes to an end. I will be watching over you from afar and will ask Julia to send me regular reports of your activities.’

  Johns had no alternative but to accede to my wishes. I sensed his dismay over losing Verity’s patronage – seeing her vast donations flying through the window – but he knew in this case that I probably was his last and only hope. There was no other way out. He reluctantly agreed to cooperate with my demands.

  ‘All right, Mr Voldemort, all right! I will do as you say. Anything! Just help me, please. There’s nothing else I want more right now.’

  I set forth my plans to Johns and made him agree to join me and spend the next night in the haunted church, to which he reluctantly agreed. He was terribly frightened, of course, but he knew he would be out of a job if this matter wasn’t resolved in his favour. Of course the church hierarchy would find him a new billet if the church was abandoned without hope of a solution, but he dearly wanted to stay on and dominate church proceedings in our little ‘village’. His billet was a cushy one. Being vicar in this rather sleepy community (apart from when I was here and stirred things up) was a peaceful position that hardly needed any hard work of any sort. He was getting on in years and retirement wasn’t so far away. I suspected that he most fervently hoped to stay on until then …

  Dusk and then night came quickly that day of our vigil. I met as prearranged with Johns outside the church, and then we walked in together, the latter already trembling so much he could scarcely walk up the steps leading into the church porch. I turned the church lights on from the porch but found to my dismay that a large part of the electrics had stopped functioning. Only a few solitary lights lit up the church, casting long shadows and giving the inside of the church an eerie, gloomy look. Johns and I sat on the last pew of the church, giving us a commanding view of the pews before us, the main altar, and most of the church. The walls of the church had a great many religious pictures and statues mounted – the pictures depicting the Stations of the Cross outstanding in their colours and intricately carved frames. The church, although very poorly lighted, gave out a peaceful impression initially – fallacious, as it turned out, for almost immediately after we had settled down on our pew, a frightening drama was played out before our very eyes. The Stations of the Cross pictures started flying about in the air before settling down again in their original positions, not all at once, but one by one – the process repeated over and over again. Loud laughter rang out, a maddening, terrible laughter that sounded more like a demented chorus of madmen in a lunatic asylum than anything else. The menacing laughter caused Johns to sink to his knees in fright, clutching his rosary tightly with trembling hands, all the while muttering cries and imploring his Christian God for instant help. I knew instantly (and confirming Turtle’s excellent theory) that this was no ‘ghost’. Ghosts are an energy form that can manifest itself in their former human form but never in another guise. When a body dies, its energy lives on, seeing that energy cannot be created or destroyed, as even the great Albert Einstein proposed. Ghosts go their own way in the act of doing whatever chore or action they performed when they were alive – scary, of course, to any witness, but completely harmless. Watching the pictures flying one by one confirmed my suspicions that a single entity was at work. It couldn’t move all the pictures together in one swirling mass of flying objects. This entity in the church had to be one of the ancient beings that have lived side by side with us humans since time immemorial, one of the eight families of fairies – elves, dwarves, goblins, gnomes, pixies, sprites, gremlins, and demons, plus hybrids in between. I know for sure these eight forms are an offshoot of human evolution and that there is nothing really mystical regarding their existence. I would like to add vampires to this list, possibly even werewolves, but I will not. Vampires did not evolve; they were made, and were once human. The original vampire had cheated death and found a way to preserve his body forever. How, I don’t know, but it needed fresh blood with living cells in it to sustain its immortality and preserve its dead flesh, besides being unable to tolerate sunlight, which would destroy its unnatural life for good. Vampires cannot reproduce; their reproductive organs are dead and do not function, but they can ‘make’ any heir they wish to make through a ceremonial exchange of blood. Vampires have eternal life, although eternity, while sounding a wonderful thing, has its drawbacks – boredom chiefly. A good many vampires destroy themselves by walking into fire or exposing themselves to the sun’s rays after living a few centuries, some even less. Vampires have been much maligned in universal folklore, but I know that many of them are quite decent and will not murder innocent beings. A few powerful vampires have been behind successful kings, presidents, emperors, and prime ministers, working in the shadows to
ensure their protégés’ success. Still, all vampires are not affable beings. As with humans, there are good vampires and bad ones, depending on the vampire that was made. A few rogue vampires have tarnished the reputation of their fellows. As for drinking blood, the vampire does not own this prerogative. Blood sacrifices and rituals are deep-rooted even in Druid history and religious ceremonies. But I will write no more of that here. … If this diary is ever found after I’m gone, the reader will know why I refrain …

  A word, though, about werewolves. … We Druids had encountered them even before vampires came into existence, but we still know very little of their origins other than that they are subject to metamorphosis in the full moon, especially a full blood moon. Dragonflies and butterflies have the ability to metamorphose, as do frogs, toads, salamanders, and others. Even in the plant world metamorphosis occurs, as first proved by the German Von Goethe in his work The Metamorphosis of Plants. If living creatures and plants can metamorphose, why then can’t humans?

  When I saw the pictures flying through the air, I immediately suspected an elf. Elves, besides being mischievous, love flying, and they can make themselves invisible too. They can also put an audience into mesmerism – an advanced hypnotic state. The flying pictures were probably held by the elf’s hand as he transported them through the air from one place to another. Suddenly the pictures stopped flying about and the unholy laughter stopped. In the centre of the aisle close to the wooden pulpit, a strange figure emerged. Human-like but barely four feet in height, it had pointed ears, a thin body with hands and feet, and drooping shoulders with a nub of bone pointing out from the skin of each shoulder blade. I don’t know why the elf decided to manifest itself, but I suspect it recognized the Druid in me and decided to honour me with its presence, or impose upon me and impress me with his own. Elves have the gift of the tongue – they can speak any language. I am able to speak a good many languages too, even the ancient tongues, but I decided that if it spoke, I would reply in ancient Latium Latin, as I thought old Johns would be better off not knowing what we would discourse. Additionally, I chose Latium Latin because I knew Johns had a working knowledge of contemporary Latin.

  Johns, who had now gotten up from his kneeling position, was looking upon the creature with amazement, his eyes nearly popping out from his sockets. The entity said loudly in English, ‘Druid! Why are you here? What brings you here to interrupt my unfinished business with this foolish priest? I am the great elf Aislinn, true descendant of the first prince of elves. Why are you disturbing this place that is now my own after dusk? Why are you in this foolish priest’s company?’

  I decided to pretend to be humble and not aggravate the elf further, for indeed he seemed much aggravated right now, probably on account of my presence, which he was not expecting. … Elves love flattery, so I decided that I would speak in a slave-like manner, sticking to my original plan and speaking in Old Latin so as to keep Johns in the dark.

  ‘Oh, sir! Great one, descended of the first prince! It was not my intention to disturb you, sir. It was not at all, sir!’ (I used the ‘sir’ several times over to create an atmosphere of appeasement, even capitulation if you must.) ‘You see, great one, I was only trying to help this fool by my side in solving the mystery of the haunting of his church. If I knew the church was being commandeered by you, sir, I would never have agreed to help. You see, noble one, I thought it was just a ghostly sighting and nothing more. Please continue to use the church, sir, although it is a cold and dreary place compared to the luxurious underground gilded palaces you must live in with your fellow elves. This place is unfit for your high eminence, sir! It is an unworthy place for you. Why do you choose it?’

  The elf continued on in English, purposely, I presumed. Probably he wanted to frighten the trembling vicar even more by speaking English, doubting that Johns understood ancient Latin …

  ‘Bah! I know that, Druid! I don’t intend to live in this cold and dreary structure forever. My purpose here is to destroy this church by making it uninhabitable. When I am done with my actions, no human will dare attend any service in this church anymore.’

  I decided then to abandon my ancient Latin, and spoke out in English. … ‘A great quest, sir! But why such a minor one?’ I said carefully and deferentially. ‘Surely you have greater and more splendid deeds to perform, Magnificent Highness! This old derelict building is not worthy of your attentions, sir!’

  ‘Ahhhh! It’s not this pathetic human-made abode that bothers me and my kin living underneath the ground nearby this stupid village in our great and magnificent dwelling. It’s that damn priest ringing his blasted bells almost all day long that is driving us to distraction. We can hear those wretched bells in our underground dwelling, clanging on and on almost all day long. We elves have superior hearing, and our hearing range is much more magnified than that of you humans. Unlike your kind, we sleep mostly by day and work at dusk and night. Those wretched bells going off every hour in the day has ruined my slumber. All my kin groan and complain. My seventh wife’s twins cry as soon as they hear them! Keeps me up all the time when I should be sound asleep!’

  Here I spoke to Johns in a strict and scathing tone, reprimanding him for his great ‘crime’.

  ‘This great and famous being who now habits your church says it’s your stupid bell-ringing that has caused his presence, which has forced off your congregation and yourself. Can you see what you have done, you foolish man? How dare you ring the bells all day long and disturb Sir and his kin? Why, even I can hear those blooming bells far away on Jim and Julia’s farm.’

  Johns stuttered and stammered before answering remorsefully – visibly disturbed that it was he who had brought the horror into his precious church by his incessant ringing of the bells.

  ‘Please, Mr Voldemort, I am so terribly sorry,’ said Johns with downcast eyes. ‘Please inform His Greatness that I will of today cease the bell-ringing immediately if he would so kindly leave the church for good. I promise to ring the bells only at Christmas and Easter, and occasionally for a wedding. I swear upon the holy book that I will do this.’

  I looked at Johns sternly so as to give him an impression of how displeased I was that it was he who had brought about the haunting through his damn bell-ringing. Of course my displeasure and sternness was just pretend – a ruse solely intended to pacify the powerful elf’s anger and show him that I was in total agreement with him over Johns’s irritating bell-ringing. Turning my full attention to the elf again, I spoke out boldly.

  ‘Great sir, this foolish priest promises he will not ring his bell again as he has done in the past. He promises only a ringing at Christmas and Easter and sometimes at weddings if you would graciously consent to leave this place.’

  ‘Forsooth! I would prefer to destroy this church and its reputation for good instead. Nobody would come here for centuries then, but all right, all right.… I am a reasonable being. I am tired of visiting this dreary place evening after evening away from my family and kin. I will stop my visitation and my actions, not because you ask, mind you, but because it pleases me. However, if the priest breaks his word, not only will I come back but also I will bring a host of my people with me, and we will tear down this church brick by brick! As for the present, I am not going empty-handed either, I would like you to know! I want all the gold chalices the priest has locked up in that tabernacle of his, and all the silver in the church. I can take them forcibly, but I don’t want to endure the wrath of his Christian God. The priest has to give them to me of his own free will.’

  Johns, after hearing the elf’s terms, had no option but to accede – to capitulate totally and utterly. The elf’s mention of returning with hosts of his kind to tear down the church especially weighed heavily in his decision to agree to the terms. Although Johns could see and hear the elf, he still thought the creature was a real demon and not a living, breathing creature, a fact that increased his fright twofold. The terms were preposterous t
o him. The chalices in question were not only valuable but also deemed very holy relics in Christian nomenclature – several hundred years old as a matter of fact. Johns whispered in my ear.

  ‘Mr Voldemort, tell the spirit that I promise the bell-ringing will stop immediately, and in addition he can have the gold and silver items. There are three gold chalices in the vestry and four silver candle stands at the altar. He can have them all, but for the life of me I don’t know what I would say to the bishop about this unholy haunting. And what would I say about the missing chalices and silver? I cannot lie and say we were robbed, for my religion forbids that, and I don’t know if he would believe if I say I have given them to a being from hell to stop its visitation. The bishop is a hard man, you know, and he doesn’t really like me; why, I don’t know. … Eventually he will have to replace the chalices and silver out of his own pocket, and he’s not going to like that!’

  The knowledge that the haunting of the village church had probably as yet not reached the ears of the county bishop (perhaps thankfully so) was uplifting. I decided I would have a small talk later on with the bishop himself and see what could be done …

  I put forward Johns’s offer to Aislinn. He pondered awhile over this quick capitulation, before answering loudly in a contemptuous manner. ‘All right, Druid, so be it! I will leave now, but I will return tomorrow with my assistants for the gold and silver. Additionally, I want a great spread of food and drink and plenty of apples set out on a table. My family will want a great feast to celebrate my victory, and I will be hanged if I or my family are going to slave over preparing it. See to it that the apples are the sweetest and best from amongst the farms. My children adore apples, and so do all of us. Any sour apples and you will suffer my boot up your backside, priest.’