The Chapel

by S. T. Boston

  “The blood of life from those which have died has been consumed, and now she must become,” he almost sang, the words coming from his maw of a mouth as the skin morphed and quivered.

  “Oportet facti sunt,” came the faithful reply.

  Lindie felt her head spin, the way it used to when she was a child and her father pushed her too fast on the merry-go-round at the local park. She felt almost weightless. As the life-taking dagger glinted above her, her inbuilt safety mechanism finally kicked in and she felt unconsciousness envelop her like a snug blanket, and she welcomed it.

  2 Trellen, Cornwall 2016

  The day was cold, about as cold as it had been in November for as long as Tom Reed could remember. Iron grey clouds capped the sky for as far as the eye could see, they darkled in places portending snow and the likelihood of a harsh winter ahead.

  “You’re sure you can turn this place around?” he questioned, his voice coming out in clouds of water vapour as he surveyed the boarded-up, old stone building, his deep-set brow wrinkled with obvious concern.

  “No,” laughed his wife, Sue excitedly as she put her arm encouragingly around him and pulled him in close. “But I’m sure you can. You’re the builder.” She bobbed up onto her tiptoes and gave her husband a peck on the cheek, her thrill at finally seeing the place was obvious, however, it was a passion that he didn’t totally share.

  “Retired,” he reminded her, the frown not leaving his face. Tom's well-trained brain was already working out what a mammoth, not to mention expensive task it was going to be turning this burnt out old wreck into something not only habitable but good enough for people to actually rent out and holiday in. Any renovation would have to be good, with sites such as Trip Advisor, a few scathing snippets of customer feedback could cost you, and cost you dearly. It seemed in a day and age full of keyboard warrior internet critics even something as menial as a loose seat on the crapper could earn a place a one-star rating.

  Under the oxidised metal sheeting, which secured the glass-vacant windows, he could see the tell-tale signs of the fire that had gutted the property eight years before. Black tendril-like fingers of soot staining reached above the boarded off windows, marking the outer walls. A long-standing testimony to the intensity of the inferno. One of the steel shutters had worked loose, giving him a glimpse into the dark, cavernous void within. The condition of this old chapel suited the tatty grounds in which it sat. They were neglected and in need of some major work. Nature had well and truly taken over, reclaiming what once might well have been well cared for gardens. The grass, which had long since lost any signs of its last cut, was now long enough to sway in the cold November breeze. Here and there thorny bushes strangled the ground with their deep roots, whilst their sharp and oppressive branches reached toward the cold greying sky as if making their own bid for freedom from the very roots that fed them. Threaded through one of the bramble thickets was a long wooden bench. The generic long timber structure was typical of the kind found in churches and chapels across the world. This bench, however, after years of being attacked by the relentless brambles was shedding its varnish, like a snake peels its skin. One end, just visible through the thorns was scorched black, like a half-burnt stick poking out of a spent camping fire. At the far end of the building, where the overgrown grounds disappeared from view, a bell tower stood proud, looming over the apex of the roof by a good ten feet. It wasn’t a tower the likes of which housed a spiral staircase that ascended its dizzying heights and could house a troop of bell ringers, it was smaller and more like the kind sometimes found on Mediterranean places of worship. No more than an extension of the building with a small bell housed in an aperture under its own small apex roof. The old bell contained within the stone had obviously seen many a year since it had last rung out across the village, and whilst Tom was far from being an expert on matters of campanology, he knew the brass would be easily restored to its former lustre and once restored it would make a nice feature point. At the moment it was the only positive he could see, and that wasn’t for lack of trying. He wanted to love the place because Sue obviously did.

  “Think of this as your last job, and an investment into our pension fund," Sue said, smiling at him again, it was her warming smile and sparkling green eyes that had caught his attention all those years ago.

  Tom first met the woman who would turn out to be the love of his life in 1968, forty-eight years ago now, at a dance held in Salisbury City Hall. Sue was just a few days shy of twenty-two, and a legal secretary new to the area with few friends. He’d been a slightly spotty and mildly shy twenty-five-year-old, in the middle of his carpentry apprenticeship. They’d exchanged glances whilst local bands played covers of well-known rock and roll hits. The kind that neither of their parents would have approved of and put down to no more than noise.

  She’d changed over the years, a little more outwards in places and her hair, which was now tied back in a neat bun, had turned from the raven black, (that had first caught his attention), to peppered grey, and small crow's feet now marked the corners of her eyes. Those light green eyes, however, still sparkled as they'd done on their first date, her warm smile had also remained the same throughout the years. Tom had known and loved her long enough to see that sparkle of excitement in those eyes and knew without a single shred of doubt that she was enthused by this run-down, burnt out old building. He just wished he felt the same optimism for the potential project.

  “As you can see, and as it covers in your information pack,” interjected the slightly pushy estate agent as he joined them by the makeshift double front doors, “following the fire in late 2008 the roof was replaced by the last owner as part of his planned renovations.” The estate agent dove his hand into the deep pocket of his thick, grey formal coat, fished around for a few seconds before producing a set of brass keys. He thumbed through them, finally finding the one he wanted he unclipped the padlock that held the temporary metal doors closed. “After you,” he encouraged, beckoning them forward.

  Tom took his arm from around his wife, unhooked the heavy padlock from the hasp and dropped it to the floor. Grasping the cold metal, he pulled hard, forcing open the tatty looking steel door. It creaked painfully on rusty, little-used hinges, the strained sound of fatigued metal on metal echoing into the building and bouncing around the walls in a tortured shriek. Turning to the estate agent, who to Tom didn’t look old enough to be out of school, let alone holding down a full-time job, he said, “So how many years didn’t it have a roof?” Tom thought he saw a glint of frustration run through the young man’s dark brown eyes as he pawed through the sales pack.

  “The fire was in 08,” he summarised as he scanned the notes. Tom held the same set of documents in his hand, but the property didn’t exactly sell itself, so he felt like making the estate agent, who’d introduced himself on the phone last week as Karl, and now wore a white name badge confirming this, work for the sale. Karl had obviously affixed the generic white badge in a bit of a rush, it sat just above the breast pocket of his jacket but drooped to the left slightly. Tom, being more than a bit of a perfectionist, and bordering on OCD had noticed it immediately and it bugged him. He felt as if he needed to unpin it and place it back straight, the way a fussy parent might give their child a licky-licky-wet-wipe to get rid of some food left on the face after dinner. Karl fell silent for a few drawn-out seconds as he read. Finally, he looked up and said, “The roof was put on during the summer of 2011.”

  “That’s still three years of weather and water damage,” Tom replied, peering through the door and not seeing very much. The low winter sun had just about managed to struggle through one of the grey clouds, it cast a weak shaft of light into a darkness that seemed to consume it with ravenous hunger. The sudden light caught a bevy of dust motes kicked up by the fresh air now flowing in through the door and they swarmed in the winter sunlight like an excited cloud of tiny bees.

  “It’s old Cornish stone, Tom,” Sue said as if she were on Karl’s side and in for
a slice of his commission on the sale. “This place will still be standing when we are both long gone, it just needs a little TLC.” She rested a hand on the stone of the entrance and then patted it affectionately. Tom looked at Karl, who stayed silent. He obviously knew his trade well despite his schoolboy appearance and it was more than obvious that Sue had a real hankering to take on the place so little work on his part was needed; he was just sitting back and letting her run. “Plus,” she continued enthusiastically, “that’s five years it has had a roof, so much of the damp will have dried out over the summers.”

  “Doubtful,” Tom replied sceptically, as he mentally ran through how many industrial heaters he’d need to hire just to get the damp under control. “Why did the previous owner abandon the project?” His question was directed at Karl, who shifted uncomfortably on the soles of his now slightly mud-stained black shoes. He kept glancing down at his soiled footwear as if the clinging mud was becoming a major annoyance for him.

  “The previous owner, Henry Bough, acquired the site in 2010,” Karl answered, moving his eyes back to Tom. “He purchased it at auction, the original owner Johnathan Deviss, who owned the site had no living relatives to pass the building on to, nor did he have a will, so the state took legal ownership. The building, from what little I know of its history, had been in the Deviss family for years. Mr. Bough did little with the building save for the roof. Despite its dilapidated appearance, the property secured a high price at the original auction. I understand there was interest in the property from the local community, but his pockets obviously ran deeper. According to his daughter, Mr. Bough’s plan was to build a family home and move them all down from the city, ya know, get away from the rat-race, escape to the country, that kind of thing, but he died before the project was completed. The family held on to the place in its current state until they finally put it up for sale.”

  “They probably realised what a gawdawful job it would be to turn this place into something habitable,” Tom laughed, noting the definite smell of damp and stagnation emanating from the darkness.

  “It’s a little more delicate than that,” Karl replied, his eyes darting from Tom to Sue, then awkwardly down at his notes. From his paperwork his gaze fell to the mud caking the sides of his shoes again, he scraped it fruitlessly on the ground before he continued, “Mr. Bough fell to his death in the building the day he completed the works on the roof.”

  “Oh my god!” Sue gasped, putting her hand over her mouth. “Poor man.”

  Karl nodded, “I’m told by his daughter, Trudie, that he was found on the floor over there,” he pointed into the darkness, giving no true indication of where the accident happened. “It appeared that his ladder toppled over whilst he carried out a few finishing touches to the beam work. The roof arcs up high as you can see from the outside, it was quite a fall.” Karl now almost sounded like a tour guide, relishing in the gruesome tale of some murder mystery during a guided walk.

  “And his ghost still haunts the place to this day,” Tom laughed as he turned the collar of his thick, green fleece up against the cold. The sun had lost its brief fight against those dark winter clouds and had now vanished from the sky, further darkening the already sullen day. Fishing in his pocket he produced a small, but powerful LED Lenser torch, clicked it on and walked inside. The floor, the part of it that Tom could see, was tiled, whatever pattern they’d held was long gone. Even the better condition tiles had lost their glazing, many were cracked and uneven, giving the floor the appearance of a higgledy-piggledy cobbled forecourt. The whole thing would need to be re-laid. Stretching the beam toward the very back of the building the thin shaft of light caught an area where the broken tiles gave way to concrete, it looked newer than the tiles and had likely been added by Mr. Bough before his demise. That at least wouldn’t need any work, but it was such a small portion of the floor it hardly made a difference. It wasn’t uncommon for people with little experience of developing to attack a project in what Tom called an arse about face way, fixing something here and replacing something there. A project this big needed a plan and a structure, and someone with enough experience to complete the work. He hated to admit it, but he was the man for such a job, even if he didn’t want it.

  “Tom,” Sue chided, giving him a nudge.

  “Well a good ghost story might appeal to some,” he mused, sweeping the lance of light around the cavernous and empty interior. Aiming the bright white beam upward he checked the roof. The work was good, solid oak beams held up the slate roof, the very fact the roof was on, fairly new, and in good shape would save a great deal of time and a shit load of money. He’d been in the trade long enough to know this was, without doubt, a listed building, meaning any work carried out would be governed by strict rules, and the roof was likely as close to the original as you could get. The stone of the interior walls was scorched black in many places, but the smell of the long-spent fire no longer laced the air. The visual remnants, however, were everywhere. Chasing the beam of light through the dark he did a rough count of the windows, no doubt the majority of which would need to be replaced with stained glass, in keeping with the building’s original appearance. That in itself would be a costly exercise.

  “It doesn’t seem to say what caused the fire?” Sue questioned. Tom could see her looking around, her eyes straining through the murky half-light. Part of him wanted the challenge of bringing this mid-seventeenth century building back to life, but the other part wanted to keep the money in the bank. By the time they’d purchased the shit-tip and sank god knows how much into the renovations, there’d be a sizeable hole in their savings. It was a gamble but one that could pay off and secure them financially for life. It would also leave a nice little nest egg for their children, Ben and Lisa. Now both in their thirties they’d long since started their own adult lives and made them grandparents three times over but leaving them a good legacy for after he and Sue had gone was one of his goals, and this place done right could be just that.

  Tom had celebrated his seventy-third birthday earlier in the year, whilst he still felt much younger, he’d done his time on the tools and wasn’t convinced a project of this size was a thing he wanted to tackle. Retirement should be about playing golf a few times a week and taking the occasional cruise or trip to Spain, not busting his arse on a building site. That was a job for a young man.

  Karl heaved open the second metal door, putting his body weight against it to get the seven-foot partly seized panel to move. The sound echoed through the empty interior; somewhere inside Tom heard disturbed wings flapping frantically. The place obviously had its own residents, no doubt using the window with its busted boarding up panel. He made a mental note to secure it at the first opportunity, the place was bad enough without having to contend with a pile of bird shit.

  With the second door open the interior was much more visible. Karl joined them, although he seemed to hang back a bit, as if reluctant to venture too far in. He glanced at his notes and said, “Eventually it was ruled accidental. I think they believed it to be arson, but there was no hard evidence for it, and who the hell would be sick enough to burn down a church? This is a pretty remote village and the nearest neighbour is a good half a mile away, so sadly no one even saw the fire. By morning all that was left was the solid stone walls and a collapsed roof, nothing really for the investigators to go on.”

  “But the church never got it repaired?” Tom asked, puzzled.

  “As you will no doubt see from your pack, this was a privately-owned building and not under the control of the church. As I said previously the building had been in the Deviss family for years; since it was built in fact. No one survived Mr. Deviss, hence why the state auctioned it.”

  “So,” Tom said, smiling to himself, “not only is this place a gawdawful wreck, but it’s killed its last two owners.” In the dim light, he could see the look on Karl’s face. Karl didn’t know whether to take the comment seriously or not. Tom let him stew for a few brief seconds before treating him to a wi
de smile. “Relax, kid,” he joked. “Luckily neither the wife nor I are superstitious like that - unless it gets us a few grand off the price, that is. Heck, it’s an old chapel, it’s probably seen plenty of bodies over the last few hundred years.”

  “I won’t lie,” Karl said, sounding relieved, “the last two clients who learned that never even put in an offer. The other prospective client was not happy that this place was never officially registered as a chapel with the church and that we were unable to prove provenance. I have conducted as much research as I can using various sites like parish register but from what I can tell this was a rare, privately owned community church. I’m no legal eagle, but its existence may have breached the Places of Worship Act, but that is reflected in the asking price – the lack of provenance. If I could find it, you’d be looking at another ten or fifteen grand.” Karl was good at his job; he’d managed to spin the negative to a positive with the mention of the saving and Tom inwardly smiled at the young man’s skill.