Communion, Chapters 17, 18 & 19

Chapter 17

     

      I would have to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road. Maybe that was what Christina had had in mind.

      Jane Fern’s extra room had gone from cozy to claustrophobic. She bustled around me, never quite asking outright what had happened, but dying to know. I finally sat her down and told her.

      “That’s wonderful!” she exclaimed.

      “Huh?” I felt as stupid as I sounded. “I don’t get it.”

      “It means you’ll be one of us now.” Jane’s eyes glowed. We were, as usual, seated at her kitchen table, drinking tea in our warm white robes. I felt a shiver of deja vu. Once again, Jane Fern had surprised me. “There’s so much for you to learn.”

      “What?”

      “Oh, you’ll see.” Jane radiated happiness like a furnace. “You’ll understand so much better. But the first thing to do is to get you moved. Have you told Lady Phelps yet?”

      “Leslie,” I supplied automatically. “No.” The abbey glowed through the window in the winter night, the floodlights illuminating its spire. “I don’t quite know what to do. I mean, I don’t want to be ghoulish about the whole business.”

      “Nonsense.” Jane affirmed her idea. “Christina was rather a strange one, but you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

      I nodded. I hadn’t heard from Alban on this. For some reason, I wanted a bit of disembodied advice. It seemed less biased. Then I remembered—he was gone.

      “Leslie does have to be told, though.” Jane washed out her cup at the sink. The efficiency of her movements reminded me of Christina. “Who knows, she may like the idea. It will get you away from me, and I can’t think she’d object to that.”

      Lady Phelps did like the idea, for precisely the reason Jane had thought. I called on her at her country home, a phrase that does no justice to the magnificence of the estate.

      My cab pulled up at the apex of an oval drive, wider than the street I had grown up on back in Philly. In the center of the infield, surrounded by grass grown sere with winter’s cold, a fountain lay dry and silent. A film of frost showed where the last of the water had fallen before the supply was cut off for the long cold season.

      Leslie met me at the door herself.

      “Servants’ day off, I’m afraid. Do come in.” She took my coat herself and led me into a parlor where a fire burned in the hearth. It was drafty; the flame toasted one side of me while goose bumps covered the other.

      “You do have an effect on people,” Leslie said when I told her. “Actually, I had heard, but it’s good that you came straight to me. It speaks well for your integrity.”

      How condescending could she get? More than that.

      “We don’t pay you enough to cover all your expenses. Let me arrange to have your things moved.”

      “I couldn’t—”

      “Of course you can.”

      “Money won’t be a—”

      “Please, Clio,” Leslie said, her voice sharpening with annoyance. “I do think that you might allow me to do this small favor for you. Money is always an issue. When do you plan to move?”

      It wouldn’t take much to move me. “Right away, I should think.”

      “Let me help,” Leslie said. “I’ll see to a telephone for you. Otherwise, you’ll wait for weeks for the bureaucrats to get around to you. And given your recent troubles, you must have a telephone.”

      “Troubles?”

      “You had a fit in the chapter house; you passed out again at my cousin’s home.” Leslie smiled. “There’s nothing medically wrong, is there? It wouldn’t do to have another fit and be unable to summon help. I’ll have to insist.”

      I wondered how, if I were lying unconscious, the phone would be of any use to me, but I held my tongue.

      Next on my list was Tom Dorcas. He recommended an auto dealer parishioner. Tom wanted to come along, but I held the line. I needed to do things on my own. Neither of us spoke of our small intimacy days before, but we both had it in mind. He promised to meet me at the cottage to help go through Christina’s possessions.

      I went to the branch of Barclay’s bank that Christina had named in her letter. The manager showed me the balance in the account that Christina had set up for me and commiserated on her passing. He had handled her accounts for years, as had his father before him. It was the matter of showing my passport and signing a few papers to gain access. The banker, a small, balding man with bad breath but a gentle smile, wanted me to think about investments. I held him off with a promise to do so after things had settled down. The details of all this were getting to me.

      I obtained a car with minimal hassle by refusing to bargain. Small, red, and nimble, the Triumph Spitfire was an indulgence, but it would go back and forth between the cottage and Saint Albans just as well as a Toyota and be far more fun to drive.

      Car or no car, though, I didn’t quite believe in Christina’s gift yet, didn’t trust it.

     

* * *

     

      Driving on the left came more easily than I expected. I spent an hour at a driving school. My teacher was from Jamaica—almost a relative. His accent, a delightful mix of British English and Caribbean patois, reminded me of Mama’s. This time, though, the memories were good.

      “The thing to remember, lady doctor, is that you’ve driven backward all your life, and now you’re going to get it right.” Jerome was a Rastafarian, his hair plaited in dreadlocks that hung around his dark face in soft springy coils. Hairy slinkies.

      We began on a closed course. Sitting on the right left me off center.

      “Get used to it, lady doctor,” Jerome told me when I complained. “They won’t change it for you.” His skin gleamed a deep brown; the creases in his face hid in shadows of shadows. “Engage the gears.”

      It felt strange to shift with my left hand and accelerate with my left foot. Finally, my tentative attempts satisfied Jerome and he ordered me out onto the street.

      “Take it easily, lady doctor. Don’t let their honking bother you.” He looked over his shoulder. “Though there is a somewhat long lineup growing behind us.”

      I pushed the accelerator and we lunged ahead.

      “Oh, for dual controls!”

      Eventually, I reached a semblance of safety in my teacher’s opinion. He directed us back to the agency.

      “If you keep your wits about you, you’ll be fine, lady doctor. But remember, everything is the reverse of what you think you’ve learned.” He wrote a neat, well-formed signature on my application for an English driving license, held it just out of reach, and cocked his head.

      “Do you think you’re one of them, yet, lady doctor?” He poked a long, dark finger at my wrist. “It’s not as dark as my skin, but it’s dark enough to put most of them off. I’ve read your stuff in the newspaper, and it’s bloodily, bloodily good. But is it good enough to fool them? No matter how you try, you’ll never turn white, don’t you know.” He grinned, showing ivory teeth in his black face, aware of the effect he was making.

      “It’s not your concern, is it?” I said.

      “Not a bit.” His grin widened. “Not my concern at all.”

     

* * *

     

      I took to the road for Christina’s. As cold as it was, I left the window open and reveled in the damp wind that danced in my hair.

      The machine was freedom itself. If that makes me too American, so be it. Slung low to the road, red, the old sports car wakened something in me that I had forgotten about. I took a circuitous, twisting, hilly piece of road for the sheer joy of playing with my new toy.

      The black sedan crowded my rear bumper. I could not spare the attention to peer long enough in my rear view mirror to see who was in the car, so I slowed and stuck my hand out to wave the sedan forward. The cold air slithered into my car and swirled around me, raw with the promise of chilling rain. I kept my eyes resolutely forward. The trees pressed right up to the pavement, leaving no room to pull over. A narrow bridge was coming up, and I wanted the black car off my tail before then.

      My Triumph jerked, bumped from behind. I risked another glance into the mirror. The sedan loomed huge behind me, filling the tiny, silvered piece of glass. Forward, the bridge was coming closer. I couldn’t brake, so I accelerated. The Spitfire surged ahead.

      The black car stayed right on my tail.

      I hurtled toward the narrow bridge, steering for the center. Its stone walls swallowed us without so much as a hiccough. The sedan still filled my mirror.

      I floored the accelerator. The Triumph growled in response and opened up daylight from the sedan. Not for nothing had my daddy taught me to drive in the hills of Pennsylvania.

      We hugged the road, shifted down through the gears in the approaches and back up on the straightaways. Fighter pilots aren’t the only ones who know that G-forces are fun.

      On each straight stretch, I studied the mirror, waiting for the sedan. After the third turn, it was appreciably further back. By the fifth I had beaten him.

      I made a wide loop, rather than head straight for the cottage. The Ordnance Survey maps I had studied were superb; I knew exactly where I was all the way. No follower turned up. The Triumph’s tires crunched the gravel in front of Christina’s cottage. It had almost found the way by itself. I patted the warm hood—the bonnet, rather.

      Christina’s bedroom was a monastic cell. A narrow bed took up one whole wall, under the single small window that looked out to the southwest, back toward Saint Albans. The tiny closet held only a few plain dresses, long out of style and far too big for me. There would be some charity in town that might make use of them. One by one, I folded each into a neat package. The cotton and wool dresses were thin with age, worn smooth where Christina’s bulk had stretched the fabric. All together, they were a pitiful legacy, so I searched the closet again.

      Far back, high on a shadowed shelf, my hand touched something hard. I got a chair from the kitchen, and balanced on it to reach the hidden objects—notebooks, the old-fashioned kind that I remembered from elementary school, with black and white pressed cardboard covers, the faint blue ruled lines filled with precise, bold handwriting. The shelf was a library of journals.

      I took them down and counted, careful to keep them in the same order Christina had. She must have bought them all at once, decades before; each was identical to its predecessor. There were four dozen, all filled with a handwriting that had aged over the years, but obviously had belonged to the same person—Christina.

      I couldn’t resist. Here was a trove of memory, a legacy going back—I checked the date of the earliest entry—forty-eight years. She had filled one notebook, exactly, every year of her life since coming to Markyate, shortly after the war.

      I began to read. I don’t know how long I spent, drinking in Christina’s life. It merged, somehow, with another memory, one that wasn’t mine. Like Christina, Egwyn hadn’t found a place where he fit. Like me, he had discovered a collection of old books.

      This time, I kept myself in mind while I dipped into another life. I felt his sensations, lived his life, but it was as if there were two of me—the “I” that sat on Christina’s narrow cot and another I, male, younger, and desperate to belong to something more important than his solitary self.

      Egwyn even knew the year he lived in, unlike the others I had been. It was 1048 A.D. The smell of change was in the air, as clear as the scent of the beeswax candles whose flickering pulled him from his prayers into a reverie of sleep.

      Egwyn jerked awake in the church’s candle-broken darkness. The precentor’s eyes were on him. The sensation drove the sleepiness from his frame, not yet filled out with the flesh of adulthood. His lanky body ached with the need for sleep, rebelling against the call to matins.

      The precentor, still singing, nodded to one of the wardens, who, himself heavy with sleep, trudged among the singing monks, mumbling his own off-key version of the psalm, until he reached his target. A sudden blow rang in Egwyn’s ears; an involuntary cry escaped him. Still singing, all the brothers looked in his direction. Several struggled to hide smiles of pleasure at his discomfort, fearing that the warden’s next blow would fall on them.

      It took all of Egwyn’s small sense of discipline not to retaliate against the warden. Instead, he ran out of the choir, through the great nave, into the cloister. Hot tears threatened to gush down his face, and made him even more furious at this own weakness than he already was with the precentor, the warden, the prior, and his parents who had washed their hands of him and forced him into this cesspit of holiness.

      It was late fall, All Souls’ day. The cloister was cold. A ragged wind bore moisture down from the seas of the Norsemen, who compassed the island all about. Egwyn shivered, regarding the dark sky with anger. Not even a hint of light showed above. No wonder his body rebelled against wakefulness. It was unnatural that a young man should be awake at this god-blasted time of night, merely to sing. If he were out still from the evening before, enjoying himself with his wine and his fellows, he would find waking more easy. Especially if he could find a peasant girl to keep him warm in the November dark.

      But no: he had vowed chastity, along with poverty and obedience. The wind blew colder. A gust ran its chill fingers under his black woolens, the only hands that he would allow to have so intimate a knowledge.

      Egwyn knew the meaning of his vows, however unwillingly he had taken them. His stubbornness had put him where he now was; his parents had thrown up their hands and delivered him to the monks in exchange for an endowment of the abbey. A monk he had become; a monk he would be, but he did not have to submit gracefully.

      He strode back and forth in the cloister, trying to keep warm until matins ended. The singing of his brother monks dragged on as endlessly as the raw wind that swirled around him. At last, silence descended on the abbey, and his brothers turned out for their sparse breakfast. Egwyn joined them, but was turned aside by the same warden who had rousted him from the choir.

      “No breakfast for you,” the warden, one of the old monks, long sunk in the abbey’s round of prayers and silence, said. “You are to fast until chapter.”

      Chapter would not take place until mid-afternoon.

      “The prior will see you now.”

      “The prior?”

      “Now.”

      While the abbot was the leader of the monks, most of the administration of the abbey was delegated to his assistant, the prior. Eadmer, the abbot, was their father, Leofstan a sort of elder brother, their disciplinarian.

      “What are we to do with you?” Leofstan was a virile, blonde and blue-eyed Dane, whose family had settled near Heortfjord two generations earlier. He towered over Egwyn, who had not yet attained his full growth. “You lack humility. You sleep during the office. You rebel against every order. You sulk when corrected. You do not belong here.”

      Egwyn began to speak, but Leofstan held up a warning hand.

      “It is not the fault of the brothers, my son.” He sighed. “If anything, I put it at the feet of your parents who sent you here.”

      “I have taken my vows, my lord prior,” Egwyn said. “I am professed.”

      “And too young, by half.”

      “Nevertheless—”

      “I know. And the abbey has accepted you. But you could be released from your vows…”

      The offer was out in the open. It lay between the youth and the prior, almost palpable. Egwyn felt its pull: freedom from the dreary round of psalmody, from rising in the dark, from the itchy woolen robe, from the cold, meatless fare of the abbey’s kitchen, from the enforced intimacy of living at close quarters with scores of men. He shivered at its attraction.

      “I am professed.”

      Leofstan nodded.

      Yet Egwyn, unwilling as he had been to enter a life he had not chosen, had promised God the triple gift of poverty, chastity, and stability. Overarching these, like the great round arches of the abbey itself, was the promise of obedience. It would, some day perhaps, give him the humility he so clearly lacked. That is, if they didn’t throw him out first.

      Leofstan was still talking. “—suited for a contemplative life. It is not a fault so much as a simple predilection. Nevertheless, at chapter we will have a full discussion of your situation.” He looked down at Egwyn. “You are dismissed until then.”

      Egwyn left the prior’s presence, bowing his way out. Inwardly, he was afire. The hours until chapter passed with agonizing deliberation. He had missed breakfast and was forbidden the midday meal. Fasting was supposed to give him more time for contemplation, but he only ached for the food that his growing body craved. The other monks, all of them older than he, avoided him, apparently enjoying the peace that his absence gave them. He tried to pray inside one of the chapels in the great church, but his rumbling stomach distracted him and earned him looks of irritation from the other brothers. His prayers were insincere, his fellow monks heartless.

      He went out again into the cloister, but it was All Soul’s and the November winds swirled. The dormitory was out of the question. He fled to the kitchen, hoping brother cook might let him warm by the fire. But brother cook was busy and in ill temper. The only one left who might not mind his presence was Coelfrid, the sacristan.

      It was almost as cold in the sacristy, the room of the great church where the holy things were kept, as it was in the cloister. Coelfrid was there, polishing silver. Egwyn envied the old monk the peace that seemed to surround him, and, for his part, the monk was willing enough for a helping hand.

      “In trouble again?” Coelfrid asked.

      Egwyn only nodded, as he picked up a rag and began to rub the silver candlestick. The chalice and paten he would not touch; they were the sole preserve of Coelfrid.

      “Serious?”

      “I fell asleep at matins.”

      Coelfrid grinned. He was sweating with the effort of his work, his face flushed in spite of the cold. “I remember, I had the same trouble, when I was your age.”

      “No one was ever my age,” Egwyn complained.

      “It feels that way, doesn’t it?” Coelfrid said. “I had the same trouble. You’ll live.”

      Egwyn scrubbed at the tarnish

      “Not so hard,” Coelfrid admonished, “you’ll go right through the plating. The candlestick’s done nothing to harm you.”

      “Sorry.” Egwyn stopped polishing. “It’s just plated? I thought—”

      “It’s in case the Danes raid again,” Coelfrid said. “When they steal it, it won’t be such a loss.”

      “Then it’s false.”

      “Indeed.”

     

* * *

      I checked on the Danes and their time in England. It was England, by this time, no longer Mercia and Wessex and Northumberland and a dozen other smaller kingdoms, Anglic and Celtic—and barely in time, too, a thousand and some odd years since the birth of Christ. The first Danish incursions came around the turn of the eighth century; the last would be more than ten years after William the Bastard of Normandy (himself a descendant of the Norse and later known more respectfully as William the Conqueror) named himself to the English throne.

      I hadn’t heard from my saint since Dorcas. Egwyn was disturbed by his discovery of the falseness of the holy objects, and waiting for his chastisement, and I was stuck. I checked my reaction: I had thought getting rid of the brooch would protect me, keep me from having these visions.

      Apparently I was wrong.

      Apparently. What happens between us is not a magic trick. You mistake the sign for the truth. Your brooch was a gift, no more.

      “You’re back!” Glee is such a small word to contain so much emotion. I bounced up and down on the bed.

      I was not gone. We were with you throughout, said Alban. You weren’t listening. His voice was just a little accusatory.

      “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was afraid.”

      I know. And have you lost your fear?

      “No, I just—there were things that had to be done. Friends needed me.”

      Good, Alban said, but Dorcas needed me, too.

      “What can I do for her?”

      Tell her truth.

      That brought the fear back, dark and cold as the earth underground. Dorcas was still with me. I had only been distracted, not cured.

      Do you think, beloved, that I was unwilling to die?

      “No, but—“

      You tried to hide Dorcas. You must show her as she was.

      The fear lessened. It was still damp and chill, but, after I went back and told Dorcas’ story all over again, the cold eased a little. Not entirely, though. And Simon Bluetooth took it without a question.

      “Did you check it with Leslie Phelps?” Simon held the disk and hardcopy.

      “What am I, Simon, a child that I have to ask permission of Mother?”

      “It’s a condition you agreed to.”

      I made a face.

      “That’s mature behavior.”

      I made another face and admitted he was right.

      “Then go do it,” he said. “Now. I have a deadline to meet.”

      So there was no choice, really. I had to go see Leslie again. At this hour she would be at the Verulamium Museum.

      My new-to-me little Spitfire made short work of the trip to the park. I loved the way it hugged the road, even the noises it made as I ran through the gears. The air was chill, but the sun shone and I drove with the top down.

      You’re such an American, my voice said.

      “I know,” I answered. “Ain’t it great?”

      The Verulamium Museum lay south and west of Saint Albans proper, in Saint Michael’s parish. The church, built out of the same flint and Roman brick as the abbey, stood across the brick-paved street from the museum. Centuries ago, proper Christian folk had avoided the old city, believing it to be the haunt of evil spirits. Come to think of it, that’s what Saint Michael did—drive off evil spirits. Michael was the archangel who led the battle against Lucifer, if I remembered things properly. If I’d been an outcast in the ninth century, I might have used it as a base of operation against the solid citizens up the hill. It was a place where I might be left alone.

      But that was then. Now, Saint Michael had apparently finished his work. His parish was a snug little suburban neighborhood.

      I pulled into the parking lot. A motorcoach filled with tourists was just departing; they must have had the quick tour. The changeable sky threatened rain, so I took the time to put the top up on the Triumph.

      Inside, I found Leslie cleaning the glass in the display cases. It took me by surprise; she never seemed the type for manual labor. However, since I was coming as employee to employer, I withheld the wisecrack that came to mind.

      “I’ve finished another piece.” I held out the folder to her.

      “I had begun to wonder.”

      “This one was more difficult.”

      “Oh, dear.” Leslie polished a spot on the glass with extra vigor. “It’s the children, you see.”

      “The children?” I asked. What did children have to do with my job?

      “They leave such a mess behind. It’s imperative that we have them in to the museum, so that they’ll know their history, but they are such sticky persons!” I made the connection to the departing bus.

      “And one wonders whether all our efforts bear fruit.” She gave the offending spot a final wipe and straightened. She glanced at her watch. “Time for elevenses. Come along!”

      She made her excuses to the other museum ladies and led me down the narrow street toward the Rose and Crown, a pub I had missed so far. One of the joys of Britain is that there is always another pub.

      Leslie entered the pub like Victoria claiming the throne. “Jacob,” she commanded, “a half of bitter and”—she regarded me for a moment—“a pint of cider. Bread and cheese.”

      “You got it, sister,” the publican replied in an accent straight from Chicago.

      “We call it the American pub,” Leslie said.

      There was nothing remotely American about the place. Low whitewashed ceilings with black oaken beams, worn smooth by centuries of hats brushing along them, hovered barely over our heads. A fireplace glowed with warmth. Small round tables, barely large enough for the paired chairs, filled the floor, which was as wavy as the sea. The Rose and Crown smelled of food and beer and smoke. In one corner, an ancient black Labrador dog lay at the feet of his even more ancient master. The two of them looked as if they’d been there for weeks.

      “Good morning, Samuel,” Leslie said. The dog lifted his head. The master followed suit. I wasn’t certain which one Leslie had addressed.

      She led the way to a private room. Who knew that such a tiny pub would even have such a room? Leslie Phelps.

      The small room might have been a priest’s hole. We ducked our heads going in and sat at the tiny table as soon as we could. There wasn’t ceiling room enough for either of us. The only light came from a window cut high into the whitewashed wall.

      The sun had fooled me by reappearing out of the cloud. A shaft of brilliant gold wrapped itself around my patron. I slid Dorcas’ story across the table.

      She didn’t pick it up.

      “It’s the newest installment,” I said.

      Leslie held up her index finger and pursed her lips. A moment later, the publican appeared with our glasses and plate piled with cheddar and slices of rough country bread.

      “Thank you, Jacob.”

      “Anything else, ma’am?” Jacob was too bald to tug his forelock, and his submissive attitude fought against his Chicago southside accent. Nevertheless, Leslie had him as thoroughly under her finger as Ted and William, and half the other people in Saint Albans.

      “No, thank you, Jacob.”

      Jacob nodded and left, dismissed.

      Leslie sipped decorously at her half-pint. “Try the cheese, dear. It’s delicious.” Then she picked up Dorcas’ story and began to read.

      I should have brought something to read myself. The cheese and bread looked good, but my stomach was in a knot. I hate waiting for approval. The cider, under other circumstances, would have been ambrosian—sweet, tart, and filled with the juicy tang of ferment. I set it down after one taste. Leslie must have ruined a lot of meals.

      I forced myself to sit still. How long could it take to read a dozen pages?

      Leslie was wearing a cream-colored wool suit. The skirt came to a couple of decorous inches below the knee. Bunched at her throat was a flourish of white silk. She wore only costume jewelry, probably in an effort to avoid antagonizing the museum-goers. On her feet were huge Wellington boots.

      She turned a page. I stole a surreptitious glance at my Tweety Bird watch. The second hand moved at a rate of one tick per hour of subjective time. I tore off a corner of bread. It was magnificent, and nearly choked me. I slurped down another swallow of cider.

      Leslie turned a page. Tweety hadn’t moved his arms. Suffering through this twice in one day was cruel and unusual. I’d protest, but the British didn’t have a bill of rights.

      I must have drifted then.

      “Clio—are you listening?”

      “Yes,” I said. “No, I’m sorry. I must have been woolgathering.”

      “Where do you get these ideas from? Must your characters be so—so bloodthirsty?”

      “It was a bloody time, Lady Ph—“

      “Leslie.” She pointed at a spot on the page. “Where is the holiness, I ask you?”

      I looked it up later. Nonplussed was exactly the word to describe my baffled state. “Holiness?” I repeated, halfway unsure that I’d heard her correctly.

      “Yes.” Leslie sipped again at her half pint. “At least with your earlier pieces, there was some saving grace. Alban achieved his martyrdom. Germanus enacted two miracles. We’ve been waiting some time for this, and now it’s so—I don’t know—savage—without any redeeming qualities at all.”

      I opened my mouth to argue, but froze. She was right, in a way. And Dorcas had no documentation. Alban’s story I had some evidence for. Ditto Bryn’s tale about Germanus. All that the record showed for the death of Uther Pendragon, supposed father of King Arthur, was that he had died near Saint Albans. And it was the least trustworthy of the lot.

      “Don’t say it, please.” Leslie held up her hand. “I know you creative types. I’ve heard it all before; you can’t add anything new to it.”

      I closed my mouth. Papa had always told me to stop arguing once I win, and, for once, I listened.

     

* * *

      It’s not history, you know, the voice said.

      “What, then?”

      History is what is written down. What historians study.

      “Interesting,” I replied.

      Aristotle was nearly right, my saint said, when he wrote about the difference between historical truth and philosophical truth.

      “Nearly?”

      He misapprehended the nature of history. It’s an easy trap. He was very modern.

      Maybe the discussion was about the philosophy of history, then. I was having trouble keeping up.

      “Go on.”

      Ari was such a rationalist! He emitted a spiritual chuckle. He actually thought that history was knowable.

      “And you’re here to say that it’s not.”

      Well, think about it: history is written by the survivors. Did Richard Plantagenet really drown those princes, or was it a bit of Tudor propaganda that took hold?

      “No one will ever know,” I answered.

      Not on your side of the veil.

      “You mean—?

      That would be telling, wouldn’t it? said the spirit. Nothing I could do would cajole him back with an answer.

     

      Another proposition: I found I wanted to believe in the God that Alban seemed to be from. I could not deny the visions, the visitations. But I am of the modern age—an age of liberation, of science, of rationality—but of purges, too, and wars, riots, oppression, genocide—of terror as technique and ideology.

      Visions are not enough.

     

* * *

     

      The raiding Danes, on their last visit, had finished the destruction of the old town. No one lived there now.

      Egwyn reminded himself of that fact whenever he went to old Verlamcaester. The last brigand had been beheaded by the berserker’s singing sword, the blood spraying wildly over the pavement, glinting as the sun caught it in mid-flight.

      The bulging Dane who had done it had looked to Egwyn, in his black monkish robes, for thanks.

      “Why you English don’t take care of these things yourselves, I’ll never understand,” Wulf said in his execrable accent. Egwyn barely understood him, even though the Dane had been the abbey’s guard for nearly half a year. “No one will respect you.”

      “That is why we have you,” Egwyn commented.

      “And a good thing, too,” Wulf answered, grinning. “Otherwise, that thief would have had you.”

      “I didn’t have anything that he could want,” Egwyn replied, “and anyway, that was a long time ago. A month, at least.”

      “What he wanted was your warm woolen robe.”

      Egwyn was underground, the old Roman walls tight around him, the only light that bit of the dwindling sun which was not blocked by the bulk of Wulf, who stood guard at the entrance to the old cellar. Egwyn was trying to read an ancient Latin inscription scratched into the wall; the bad light and the idiosyncratic abbreviations were defeating him. The soot left by the fires the Danes had set added to his difficulty.

      “I’m caught on a rock, or something,” Egwyn complained.

      Wulf’s massive hand appeared in the opening to the outside, blocking even more light.

      “No, don’t help!” Egwyn ordered. “I can get myself out.” Wulf would have just pulled until either the warm woolen robe or Egwyn gave way.

      The object dug into the small of Egwyn’s back as he leaned against a fall of rubble and dirt, facing the inscribed wall. The stones were sharp and hard, a flint native to the area. A broken edge, Egwyn had learned, could sever muscle. He reached around behind his back and felt for it, gingerly. No point in getting hurt.

      Egwyn was in the ruins because the abbot, Eadmer, had a plan to rebuild the church using the old Roman stones. There was no quarry nearby, and the Roman flint was plentiful in old Verlamcaester.

      But before the old town was completely plundered, Leofstan the prior wanted to know what was there. Thus, Egwyn’s penance for his bad attitude was to descend from the sunlit earth into the hell of the ruins, to be surrounded by the pagan paintings and stones, so that he might better appreciate the things of God above.

      His hand wrapped around the corner of the object that tormented his back. It was squared off, made, he thought, of some metal.

      Egwyn wiggled around, hampered by his robe, until he could get a decent grip.

      “Back off,” he called to Wulf. “I can’t see.” The giant Dane’s shadow moved silently away. The offending corner was square, and glowed in the late autumn sunlight that penetrated the hole. Egwyn slipped a small knife from the sheath that hung from his cincture and began to remove dirt from around the metal, trying to follow the edges of the object. He picked at the old, hard-packed soil, until the outline of a book began to emerge. He forced himself not to hurry the digging, fighting against his growing excitement. The prior wanted a find from the ruins; here was one—a book from time beyond time.

      Finally, it came free. The whole thing was encased in a thin cover of beaten copper, sealed against the elements, but recognizably a book. Egwyn knew books. There was a great Latin Bible kept at the altar of the big church, and the abbey had other books as well. Egwyn, for all his youth, was educated; he could read Latin passably, as well as some words in English. Monks, after all, were drawn from the higher reaches of society.

      There it lay, preserved for only God knew how long from time’s decay, wrapped lovingly in its copper sheathing. Egwyn stared at it in wonder, unwilling to take it from its hidden home and carry it to the abbey where it would no longer be his find. The brothers would want to handle it and look at it and probe through it, and it would not be his any more. But Wulf had seen, and Wulf was the creature of the prior Leofstan. Reluctantly, Egwyn thrust the book, unseen by human eyes, untouched by hands, for many, many years, out of its long resting place into the sunlight.

      For a moment, it had been his.

      Wulf took the book into his oversized hands. “Be careful,” Egwyn warned, “it’s heavy.”

      Wulf’s shadow fell into the hole. Egwyn could see the blond giant turning the thing over in his hands.

      “There could be more.”

      “Whatever there may be, this is a great find. Leofstan will want to see it,” Egwyn protested.

      “You are to search until vespers,” Wulf reminded him. “Sundown. Those were the words of the prior.”

      “But—” Egwyn sputtered. The Dane blocked the exit of the hole. There was nothing to be done; Egwyn resumed digging.

      All in all, he found five books, similarly encased, by the time the abbey bell sounded the first call to vespers. He was filthy, crowned with the dust of centuries, when he, bearing the first book, and Wulf, carrying the four others, climbed the hill back up to the abbey. The sun had already dipped below the horizon; the night’s chill was upon them. His warm woolen robe did not feel quite so warm as it had in the sunshine.

     

     

     

        Chapter 18

     

      William and Ted, as before, were on my door step with the equipment of modernity. Again, Leslie Phelps was constructing my life to her convenience.

      “Where do you want your telephone?” Ted asked.

      I didn’t, really, and it must have shown on my face, for William piped up, in a brogue he must have cultivated for foreigners, “Oh, Miss Griffin, it’s a phone you’ll be wanting away out her by yourself. Anything could happen, these days.”

      The pity was that he was right. It was foolish to live so far from town without a means of calling for help.

      So much for solitude. I left them to their work, remembering the first time, and went out back.

      The ground sloped away from the tiny house. The first stretch was unkempt lawn, brown with winter. Then came a garden, a few dried stalks remaining from the harvest. A fringe of low bushes marked a boundary to the wood. In summer, that would be as far as the eye could see, but now, the trees bare, I could see over and through the forest to the valley below. There was a hint of the drop-off I had nearly fallen over. Below it must be the road that curved back to Saint Albans. Beyond that, the hills marched in a declining file off toward the horizon. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw the smoke from isolated chimneys curling up into the pale sky to melt into milky clouds far overhead. The earth gathered itself for winter, resting up for spring.

      I walked into the wood. The sun, weak as it was, threw a thin blanket of warmth over me. I found the place where I had caught the branch; I hadn’t, it turned out, gone nearly as far as I thought I had—barely out of sight of Christina’s cottage. The woods themselves seemed to guide me to the spot, as if it were a well-trodden path.

      Below me lay the winding road, a scar of black macadam through the trees, a link binding my new home to the town.

      I realized what I was thinking. Christina’s gift gave me a home. It wasn’t what I would have chosen, but Christina knew what I had needed.

      I knelt on the edge of the cliff. The dirt, the leaves, the tiny sticks and rocks, pressed into my knees. I scooped a handful of the forest floor in my hands and breathed its cold, musty stink into my nostrils, then let the mixture sift through my fingers, back to its rightful place. I had done nothing to deserve this grace, but I wanted it.

      The business of settling in would have to wait. Christina’s funeral was coming, and I had other obligations besides, not the least of which was Tom Dorcas. I wanted to know, too, who had tried to run me off the road. Licking the dirt from my fingers—I know it sounds perverse, but it was my dirt—I headed back to the cottage.

      Ted and William had finished. Still grousing at each other, they gathered up their tools and the debris of their respective installations. The computer sat atop a small table. At least there was no Ergonodesque.

      The phone rang.

      “Odd, that,” William said, “its ringing as soon as you plugged it in. Who’d have the number?”

      I slid past the two men and answered. Silence—or perhaps the faint whisper of breath. Then the line clicked—a disconnect.

      “Wrong number,” I said.

      “That’s it, of course.” William gathered the last of his tools.

      When their lorries pulled away, I had a moment of regret. Their company while I drove back to town would have made it difficult for the driver of the black sedan to harass me. Still, if I was going to live alone out in the boonies, I had to watch out for myself. Solitude would not come cheap.

      Nothing does.

      “You’re back.” One advantage to living alone would be talking out loud to my voice.

      The funeral.

      “Ohmigod!” I had lost track of time. There wouldn’t be a chance to go back to Mrs. Fern’s and change into something more suitable. Better to show up too casually than not at all. Christina, at least, would understand.

      I didn’t know if Christina had bothered to lock the doors, but I took the time. After my encounter on the road, I was nervous.

      Fifteen minutes later, safe if not cautious, I dashed into the cathedral and pulled up short. A handful of tourists wandered through, gawking at things, but there was no sign of the service.

      Up the south aisle. To the left.

      “Thanks,” I whispered. Alban could be a handy guy to have around.

      The funeral took place in the Lady Chapel at the eastern end of the church. Some of the tourists, it turned out, were mourners. They spilled out of the chapel, into the nave. Tom’s voice echoed out along with them.

     

    “For none of us liveth to himself,

    and no man dieth to himself.

    For if we live, we live unto the Lord;

    and if we die, we die unto the Lord.

    Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.”

     

      The small crowd parted for me. Tom looked up from his Prayer Book, a frown on his face at the interruption. I was grateful to see the frown turn to a brief smile when our eyes met. He waited. There was one empty place, in the front row.

      The pine coffin lay on a trestle before the altar, lighted by a splash of red and yellow from the window. When the hubbub of my passing settled down, Tom continued.

      “The Lord be with you...” He wore a cope, a sort of ecclesiastical cape, of unbleached linen that fell to his ankles. His voice took on a churchly sonority, helped by the old stones that surrounded us, the old words that had been spoken for millennia against the stark, old end.

      We said the psalms and listened to the scriptures, led by Tom. I wept, and was not alone, even as we were comforted.

      It was Advent. Tom’s robes were trimmed in purple to match the color of the hangings in the chapel. Purple, the color of royalty. Purple, unspeakably rich, a dye no common person, in ages past, could hope to afford—and here it was, for Christina. I couldn’t help but smile for her. She must not care, now, what we thought of her, but only what her Jesus said. She had what she wanted—or, at least, had done the thing that she believed would get her to him. I hoped she was right. I wanted to believe as Christina had believed.

      “....thy hands we commend thy servant, Christina,” Tom said. A few more words saw the crowded congregation standing. Five people moved forward to the coffin. Four of them I had never seen before. The fifth was Simon Bluetooth; we smiled at each other in recognition.

      Tom caught my eye, then looked to the empty space at the right rear corner of the box.

      He meant me.

      I took my place with the others, Christina’s friends. She had numbered me among them.

      Christina was still heavy. All six of us had to work to carry her outside to the hearse, the words of the Nunc dimittis following us into the nave of the cathedral and out the west door. “Lord, you now have set your servant free...”

      Even the small gaggle of winter tourists fell silent as we passed. The ladies in the gift shop stood and watched in silence as we six carried Christina on her final journey. In a shadow, masked by the glare from a window, stood Sexton, watching. My knuckles were white on the coffin’s handle. Dead, Christina still had a presence that demanded my full attention, if only to keep from stumbling.

      The wind blasted us as we emerged into the late afternoon and negotiated the steps in front of the abbey. Slowly, careful of our burden, we edged down toward the waiting, gaping mouth in the back of the hearse. Somehow, fighting the frigid wind, we managed to stay upright. Simon and the other leading pallbearer, thank God, knew what they were doing. Christina slid into the hearse smoothly, on rollers now, safe from my mishandling.

      I couldn’t help patting the coffin in farewell. As if I could comfort her.

      I turned away. Tom was at my side, still wrapped in his linen and purple cope. It looked heavy enough to keep the wind out. He held out a white handkerchief to me.

      I had forgotten I was crying, my nose running as much as my eyes.

      Christina was to be cremated. As far as saying good-bye, this was it, unless we wanted to gather at the furnace and listen to the roar of the flames. With no relatives, her ashes would come to me. I planned a spot on the mantelpiece for her, just below Jesus.

      I patted the coffin again, glad that Christina’s wishes were being respected. Doctor Freckles appeared at my side.

      “You’ve had a rough couple of days,” she said, patting my arm with the same helplessness I felt. “How are you holding up?”

      The small crowd scattered, hurried by the cold. I looked around for Tom, then saw him getting into his car. I started toward him, but Doctor Freckles held me back. What was her name?

      “He’ll go with her the rest of the way. Come with me.”

      “I should go—”

      “No.” Dr. Freckles took me firmly in hand. “Trust me on this.” She held my face between her gloved hands. The wool scratched my cheeks a little; her warmth reached through it to my skin. I looked into her eyes—or she looked into mine. “I’m worried about you.”

      “I’m okay.” She let her hands drop.

      “Really,” I said with less conviction.

      “Come along,” Alice—that was it!—Alice said, all very British and take-charge. She linked her arm through mine. We walked through the bluster and cold away from the abbey and out along St. Peter’s Road. Alice led me past a pub, a chi-chi shopping center, all yellow brick and modern, Marks and Spencer, MacDonalds, another pub or two, then steered me into the Sword of Peter, at the corner of St. Peters and Hatfield Road, just down the street from the parish church also named for the chief apostle. Within the Sword, heat roared out from fireplaces and warmed my chilled and tearstained face.

      “So this is heaven?” I asked. Alice held out a tissue. I dabbed at my eyes and nose.

      “The next thing to it,” Alice said. At least now I was beginning to remember her name, though forever after I would think of her as Doctor Freckles.

      “Two pints, Worthington’s,” she ordered as we passed the bar. There were half a dozen tables scattered around the middle of the room, but Alice headed for a booth.

      The bar itself might have been thirty feet long, all soft brass and dark, gleaming walnut. The front face of the bar had a long, smooth streak just above the old brass rail, where feet had scuffed for generations. Hovering beneath the food smells was another odor. I sniffed, experimentally. It smelled almost like a church.

      “Beeswax,” Alice said.

      “How did you know—”

      “It had the same effect on me. When did you last eat?” Alice asked, shifting back to her Doctor Freckles persona.

      “I don’t know,” I admitted.

      Her mid-course correction turned us toward the food table. Homemade bread, a slab of roasted beef, cheeses, hard-boiled eggs, and apple and cherry pies confronted me. Pretzels and crisps—potato chips—in little bowls surrounded the groaning board.

      “Dig in,” Alice ordered.

      It was the best meal I’d had in ages. She only let me have the beer after two bites of roasted beef and the crusty, yeasty bread. The beer itself was food, not the watery stuff we drink in the States.

      Our booth was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The benches, each only wide enough for, say, a person and a half, had wings along the side facing the room. Ensconced on leather cushions shiny with age, leaning back, you could see out, but no casual passer-by could tell who was within. A civilized place.

      The first passer-by was purposeful.

      “Doctor Griffin?”

      Mouth full of beef, bread and beer, I could only nod. “Mmmff,” I said. Anything more intelligible would have sprayed crumbs all over the middle-aged woman who leaned her head into our booth. She might have been one of the mourners. I wasn’t sure.

      “Are you goin’ to take her place, then?” Decades of care had worn the lines in her face; decades of worry had grayed her hair. Veined, callused hands slid over the plastic beads of a rosary, even as the woman spoke. “I hear you’re movin’ in to the cottage. That she gave it to you.”

      I glanced at Alice.

      “Not me—I didn’t even know.” Doctor Freckles sipped her beer.

      I took my own swallow. “I am. Or she did. Christina.”

      “We’ll keep up the prayers then.” She nodded, to herself, not to me, as if confirming a duty done, but the nodding continued as she walked away, limping slightly.

      “Who was that?” I asked.

      “Mad Meg is what we call her down at the hospital. As long as she gets her medication she’s all right. A little dotty, but harmless. Tom knows her. She’s part of his group.”

      I stopped the beef and bread halfway between my plate and my mouth.

      “His what?”

      “Oops.” Alice smiled and blushed. “I’ve let the cat out of the bag. I thought you knew.”

      If I didn’t, I was about to. I leaned out over the table. “What group?”

      “You won’t tell him what we call them at the hospital, will you? It might hurt his feelings.”

      “What group?”

      “Father’s waifs is what we call them. Father Tom collects strays, people who’ve lost their way in life.”

      My blood went cold. It was embarrassing. I had thought—but I was just another of his strays.

      Alice had gone on. “What’s original is that Tom doesn’t coddle them. He makes them do—good deeds, I guess is the best way to describe it—for other people. Sometimes it’s only to pray for them, if they don’t need anything else. It gets them in the habit of doing something, whatever they can.”

      Of course Tom had a life apart from what I had seen of him. How could I have been so self-involved to think otherwise? But to be one of his strays—

      Another head ducked into the booth, this one belonging to a middle-aged man. The shape of his smile was just like the fringe of hair that made a half-circle around his bald skull.

      “Bless you for taking over, Miss. We’ll keep the good thought for you.”

     

       Chapter 19

     

      Alice walked me back to my car near the abbey. She set a brisk pace. I tried to pump her about Tom’s waifs, but she wouldn’t say any more. As I got into the driver’s seat, I offered to drop her somewhere, but she demurred.

      “You must make certain to keep yourself fit,” she advised. “It may be hard on you.” I would have asked her what she meant, but she turned and walked off, her strides long and purposeful, in the direction of the hospital.

      Jane Fern was still in her go-to-funeral clothes when I pulled up in front of her house. Decked in black, she met me at the door.

      Everything I had brought to England was stacked neatly in the foyer.

      “I hope you don’t mind.”

      Fat chance. Everyone had plans for me.

      “Trying to get rid of me?” I meant it to sound like a joke, but it didn’t quite come off.

      “Never, Clio.” She ushered me into the kitchen, toward the teapot’s shrill whistle, and sat me down. A large, bulky package, wrapped in white paper, lay on the table in front of me. A tag bore my name.

      “What’s this?”

      “Just something for you.”

      I reached for the ribbon.

      “No—wait until you’re home.” Jane turned to the stove to fix the tea, but her eyes glistened with moisture. The whistle sang its way down the scale as she took it off the heat.

      “That’s what Shakespeare called a dying fall.” Her voice faltered.

      “Jane—” I began, but she cut me off.

      “No. Please, I’d rather not.” China tinkled and water gurgled in the silence between us.

      I touched the package. It yielded to the pressure of my hand.

      Jane turned back, holding the tea service. I moved the wrapped bundle to an empty chair. She was using china I hadn’t seen before—blue Wedgwood.

      “It’s to send you off in good form. I haven’t used this set since Henry died. It’s an occasion.”

      Jane made a ceremony of serving the tea. “Henry loved this set. He said it made him feel posh. It was our greatest extravagance. We really couldn’t afford it, but he insisted. We needed at least one luxury in our lives.”

      “It’s beautiful.”

      “Not really, but it was expensive, and that’s what counted.” Jane sipped carefully at the hot tea. I followed suit. “Will you pray for me?”

      It took everything I had not to sputter tea across the table, but her solemn face stopped me. “Is something wrong?”

      “Oh, no, dear—don’t worry. I just want to be remembered.”

      “How could I forget you? You’ve been—”

      “You really don’t know,” Jane said. A kind of wonder tinged her voice. “I didn’t realize...” A flush of crimson rose up her neck and suffused her face.

      “What?” I asked.

      But she refused to be drawn out. We finished our tea in silence, then she helped me carry my things out to the little Spitfire.

      “I’ll be out to see you soon,” she called from the front step of her house. The mulberry bushes flanked her like library lions.

      “Good—I’ll look for you,” I shouted over the rumbling engine of the car.

      The blood spattered across the front door of Christina’s cottage, now mine, took me by surprise. Someone had slashed two smears of scarlet in a cross. Drying rivulets of gore dripped from the arms. I tried the knob; the door was still locked.

      “Amphibalus!” I called. There was a long moment of heart-stopping silence. Then the orange cat streaked from the woods and into my arms. I hugged the poor dumb beast until he mewed a protest.

      Scared, thinking of burning crosses on southern lawns, I clutched the cat and circled the cottage, looking for signs of entry, but found none. The mess at the front door was the only thing wrong; it was enough.

      It wasn’t really blood, or even paint—more like Karo syrup with red food coloring—because it washed off with water. I considered tasting it, to be certain, but thought better of it at the last minute. When I finished scrubbing, there were still tiny glints of red-brown in the cracks in the paint, but it was good enough. The spattering gash of red was almost gone.

      Kids, I told myself. Playing pranks. Still, I didn’t bring any of my things in until the cleaning was finished.

      Amphibalus had recovered enough to beg for food. I opened one of his tins and scooped the smelly concoction into his bowl and left him eating.

      Christina’s Jesus, peering from his black velvet background, watched me circle the living room a time or two. I was still upset at the symbolic act of violence done to my door. I had wanted to take him down, but not now, not after what I’d just found. The picture, as much as I hated its treacly sentimentality, had meant something to Christina, and she meant the world to me. I had an ungodly urge to paint opaque sunglasses over the bright blue eyes, but suppressed it. People would talk. Jane’s big, soft package waited on the second best chair. I undid the paper. Inside was the warm dressing gown. It made a joyful contrast to the painted evil on the from door. I wrapped myself in its soft folds, breathed in its welcome and plopped down into the damask chair where Christina had wormed the truth out of me.

      It’s about time, the voice said. You’ve been as busy as a duck chasing snails.

      “Nice image,” I told him. “Maybe you should try writing.”

      William Grindcob was a miller’s son....

      “So?”

      When the Death came, he behaved well.”

      “The Death?” Even I could hear the capital D in the disembodied voice.

      There was nothing spectral, however, about the boy who flickered into visibility in the tiny living room. I readied a protest to Alban, but the boy took all my attention.

      I knew the name from my studies. A William Grindcob led the Peasants’ Revolt in Saint Albans in 1381, and was hanged for it. This boy was barely into his teens.

      He was haggard with exhaustion, gaunt with hunger, pale with fever. A shock of brown hair fell over his forehead. He looked around, as if he would panic if only he had the energy. His clothing was rough wool, an undyed tunic and brown leggings laced around his calves.

      “I’ve been sent to you, then.” His accent almost defeated me.

      “Where did you come from?” This was different from anything Alban had done to me before. Visions were all well and good, but this apparition broke through any understanding of things that I had had. William Grindcob stood before me, weaving from whatever was wrong with him. He scratched absently at his side. He stank of sweat and other things.

      I touched him, tested him. His skin was hot, sweaty, and tight. If this was hallucination, I had to give my unconscious credit for a job well done. He flinched, but held his ground.

      I had a hundred questions for him, but he was visibly ill, weak with hunger. Compassion overrode curiosity.

      “Come,” I said. “Let’s get some food into you.” I led him into the kitchen.

      He followed, moving with the dead force of habitual politeness. I rooted in the cupboard until I found a can of chicken soup. Someone or something other than myself moved me. I suspected Alban, but he was nowhere to be heard. I fumbled with the can opener. Cob watched with calm acceptance of my strangeness.

      He flinched when I flipped the control of the stove and a burner sprang to hissing life. The propane flame reflected in wide brown eyes. After a moment’s alert, he relaxed. “It won’t burn us, then?”

      “No,” I answered. “You’re safe.”

      “It’s more than I’ve been in some time.” His gaze darted around the kitchen. “Is this heaven? When I saw the fire, I thought it was hell, but—”

      His voice trailed off. He shivered, in spite of the warmth of the room.

      “What do they call you?” I asked.

      “Cob.”

      “Are you all right?”

      “I fear that I am all wrong.” Cob managed a weak smile. “I don’t know how or why I have come here, but perhaps it is just as well.” He staggered. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

      “Sit,” I said. He sagged down onto one of the two chairs. Amphibalus climbed into his lap. He shuddered, but the cat purred and nuzzled him.

      “Your familiar?” He held his hands away from Amphibalus.

      “Just my cat.” I introduced them to each other. “He is called after Alban’s teacher.”

      Another fit of trembling shook him. Amphibalus nuzzled again, until Cob relaxed and stroked the animal’s fur.

      The soup hissed in the pan. I poured it into a bowl and set it in front of the boy. Or young man. Whichever he was, he seemed to know more than I did at his age. I turned away from his demanding gaze and rummaged in a drawer for a spoon. His eyes widened when I set it in front of him. He touched it, caressed it.

      “This is not silver, nor pewter.”

      “You know such things?”

      “I may be only a miller’s son, but I am not ignorant of the wide world.” He sipped at the soup. “This is a wonder! You must truly be a friend of God.” He tried another sip, then devoured the canned chicken soup so quickly that I worried he might not keep it down.

      I’d never felt so maternal in my life. I lifted Amphibalus from Cob’s lap and put him outside.

      “You risk your life, to be with me.” Cob said. “I have the fever already.”

      “The fever?”

      “The Death, the plague, the flux—the physicians have many names for it. The town is sick with it, and people run away—stupidly, for where can they go where God will not find them?”

      “How did you get it?”

      “I nursed some of the sick, after my own family died. It has been with us for weeks now, and I thought to be one of those favored, who might live through the evil. God would protect me, I thought, for the sake of my courage, but it is not so.” As if to illustrate, a spasm of coughing shook his weakened frame. His throat filled with phlegm, he was about to spit it on the floor when he chanced to glance at me. He swallowed, though it cost him an effort.

      He didn’t look much like a phantom or a vision. He looked very real, very sick, and very brave.

      I touched his forehead. He was still hot and sweaty.

      “You’re not afraid to touch me?”

      “Wait,” I told him. “Wait right here.”

      I ran to the phone and called the hospital. In my haste I slipped and asked for Dr. Freckles, and it took precious minutes to straighten out my mistake and then convince the hospital operator to page Alice. While I was on the phone, Cob stared through the door at me, at first, as if I were having truck with the devil, then his eyes closed and his head slumped to the table.

      Alice finally got on the line.

      “I need something from you,” I said, “and I’m not sure it bears explanation. In fact, I’m sure it doesn’t.”

      “What?” Alice’s weariness came through the phone.

      “Antibiotics—and something for a fever.” I racked my brain. I had read about the plague in the Middle Ages. If they’d known about—what was the drug?—the disease would have been stopped on the doorstep of Europe instead of killing between a third and a half of the population.

      My arm itched. I had a welt the size of a pea, just in the crease of my elbow. A tiny black dot moved down toward my wrist.

      A flea.

      “Come in to the clinic,” Alice said. “It’s your health. There’s no need to be ashamed.”

      “It’s not that—I don’t have a sexually transmitted disease.” God knew there hadn’t been any occasion to get one. “It’s for a friend. I’m not sick.” Yet. I squeezed the flea between my fingers; it refused to crush. I caught it between my thumb nails and dropped the phone in the process. I heard Alice’s voice tinny from the floor, but I got the flea. It gave a satisfying, if tiny, pop and left a smear of my blood on my nails.

      I looked up to see Cob standing, staring at the receiver on the floor, then back to me. He shrank against the wall.

      “What are you, that can summon voices from that—that thing?” He coughed again, wet and deep in his chest.

      “It’s okay.” I tried to reassure him, but his brows knitted at my words. “There is no danger.” I tried again. “I’m getting help.”

      “From what?”

      “A doctor.”

      At that he did spit, his contempt as thick as the gooey stuff that came from his mouth. “Doctors can do no good, even were any left. Most have fled. The rest died.”

      Alice’s voice, which had formed a background to our argument, stopped. I grabbed the phone, but the line was dead. I tapped on the hook, the way they do in old movies, but the phone refused to come back to life. It wasn’t just that Alice had hung up. There was no dial tone, no sound, no connection to the outside world.

      “Its spirit has departed,” Cob said. His mouth was a rictus, a grin that mocked my stupidity across a gulf of centuries. “Spirits will do that.”

      I glanced up at the velvet Jesus. Help me, I thought. I’m really losing it now.

      The welt on my arm itched. If this was all hallucination, it acted awfully real.

      Cob coughed again. The spasm sent him staggering against the door frame. When I touched him, he was even hotter than he’d been before. He shivered.

      “A priest.” His voice was hoarse and weak. “My conscience is heavy.”

      “Let’s get you to bed,” I said.

      “I’m cold.”

      With help he could stumble to the bedroom. He looked up at me as I laid him down.

      “What is this place? One moment it is like hell, the other like heaven. Are you angel or devil?”

      “Neither. I’m just trying to help. Lie still.”

      The tunic had to come off. It was crawling with wildlife, and every new bite was a new infection. Tiny black dots crawled over my own skin, but I’d already been bitten. If I could get antibiotics—

      “Is there a priest left alive?”

      “Yes.” His voice had weakened so that I whispered in return. “I’m going to get one. You have to rest.” He didn’t resist as I stripped him, but his shivering increased.

      Under his armpits and in his groin swellings grew, tinted blue, like bruises. It was plague. I slipped the sheets and comforter over him. Aspirin, if Christina had believed in it, might help. Insecticide would help even more. We both needed to bathe in it.

      On the way from the bedroom, I tried the phone again and was rewarded with a dial tone, but first the tunic needed to go. I threw it out the door, as far as I could.

      A search of the bathroom turned up an old aspirin bottle, with just four tablets left. I dashed to the kitchen and filled a glass with water.

      Cob’s eyes were closed, his breathing noisy but regular. When I shook his shoulder and called his name, he was difficult to rouse.

      “Take these.” I held the four white pills out to him. He raised his eyes to mine. “For the fever.”

      “I have one already, spirit.”

      “It’s medicine. It will help,” I promised.

      “Are you a physician, too, then?”

      I shook my head.

      “Then I will trust you.” One by one he gathered the aspirin into his own hand, then placed all four into his mouth and chewed. I was ready for his reaction and clamped his jaws shut before he could spit.

      “Drink this,” I ordered, putting as much authority behind my words as I could find. He obeyed.

      “That was the foulest thing ever to enter my mouth,” he complained. He shivered at the memory. “I am no better.”

      “It takes a little time.”

      “A puny miracle, then.”

      I dialed Tom’s number. It rang and rang, until, finally, he answered. I found myself at a loss for words.

      “I need help.”

      “What?”

      “Tom, you have to trust me on this. It’ll sound too crazy if I explain it over the phone, but if you see what I’m seeing—”

      “What are you seeing?”

      “I can’t explain.” I hurried on. “Call Alice at the clinic. I need her out here—with antibiotics. Everything she can lay her hands on. And stop and get insecticide on the way.” I scratched my side. The fleas were going everywhere. “A lot.”

      “What’s going on?”

      “Just do it. Trust me, please.”

      I hung up before he could ask any more questions. Maybe my urgency would make him do what I wanted.

      The cat—if Christina had only kept flea spray. I turned back to the kitchen and rummaged under the sink, hoping against hope that the mystic of Markyate hadn’t been morally opposed to killing bugs.

      My fingers closed on a spray can. Half full, by the weight. I started to spray myself, but stopped. Cob wouldn’t let me spray him unless he saw that it was safe, and there was that infested tunic—I couldn’t just let the plague loose in my back yard. I slipped out, sprayed the fabric, and threw a lighted match into the mix. Cob’s tunic flashed into flame. I waited until it burned out, before the can and I went back inside.

      Cob had the phone in his hands, pressing the receiver against his ear. He dropped it as soon as he saw me.

      “What is this thing?” He was wary, afraid of everything he saw, most of all me.

      “A telephone.”

      “It is not long.”

      That threw me. I stared at him, open-mouthed.

      “I have some Latin. The abbey school has taught me enough to—” He coughed, and it began another spasm. I eased him back to the bed.

      “Help is coming,” I promised. The coughing left him weak and, I hoped, tractable. “Watch me.”

      I stepped back from the bed. “This may sound and look strange to you, but it will not hurt. First me, then you.”

      He nodded. His movements were weak.

      I doused myself with the flea spray. When I got to my head, I warned him that I was shutting my eyes and holding my breath. It stank, a sharp, penetrating smell.

      “Why?” he breathed.

      “To kill the fleas. They carry the—the sickness. You see that it did not harm me?”

      He nodded again.

      “It’s your turn. This will kill your fleas without hurting you, but you must keep your eyes closed, and hold your breath.”

      “I see the need—or rather, smell it. This—this stuff will kill my vermin? I need not itch?”

      “Right.”

      He took as deep a breath as his illness would allow, squeezed his eyes shut, and nodded. I sprayed around his head first, as I would a cat, so that his fleas would not cluster there as the poison drove them away, then covered his entire body with the aerosol. The room filled with a fine mist that I hoped would kill all the creatures he’d brought forward in time.

      Cob trembled as I worked. It must have taken everything he had to undergo my treatment.

      “That’s it.” The spray can was empty.

      “What is?” he asked through clenched teeth. Language was still a problem. Somehow, we understood each other, but if I spoke in anything other than standard English, if I used an idiom, he didn’t understand.

      “Sorry. It’s finished. You can open your eyes now.”

      Cob’s eyelids flickered, then his nose wrinkled. “I will not die from this medicine?”

      “Not from this.” I held up the can. He took it from me, his eyes now wide with wonder. He turned it over, then dropped it, weak with sickness.

      “Tell me,” I asked, to distract him from his illness until Dr. Freckles arrived with her antibiotics, “what were you doing before you came here?”

      “Playing nursemaid.” Cob grinned weakly, but he grinned. “The monks ran away, those left alive. So did the physicians and anyone who was left untouched.”

      “But you stayed.”

      “More fool me. The young ones at the school needed someone.”

      “The abbey’s school?” I asked.

      “Is there an other?”

      I shrugged.

      “The abbey still stands, does it? I had thought God would raze it to the ground for the sins of the monks.” Cob coughed, then went on. “The young ones caught sick easily, all gathered together in the school as they were. When the masters ran off to the countryside, the Death was already upon the town. The families of most of the children, those not orphaned already, had the Death in the family. To whom were they to go? We held together, I the eldest, and tried to care for each other.”

      “What did you do for food?”

      “Stole what we could from empty houses and the abbey’s stores. Food was easily found. It was the aloneness and the crying in the night that hurt most.”

      I had no reply to that.

      “Then they started to sicken. One by one the boys died, and nothing I or any of the others did could stop the Death. Some of the older ones ran off; they were going, they said, to find a place where the sickness did not hold sway. If they found it, they promised, they would return.

      “They did not come back. Whether they were afraid, as we all were, or died, I don’t know.” Tears welled in his eyes, but he seemed not to notice. “Soon, from desertion and death, I was alone in the school. I went into the abbey, to the shrine of the saint, where we prayed, filling in for the cowardly monks. I had the fever then, and my balls and armpits ached with the buboes. I would be the last of the school to die, I thought.

      “I prayed to God, to Jesus, Mary, and finally to Alban himself. The friend of God, who had always defended us, was silent, but I prayed still, for I had nothing left but prayer. The last thing I remember before waking here was lying at the base of the shrine.

      “Then I saw you.”

      Cob wiped his nose, still unaware of the tears running down his face. His voice had grown weak, and I prayed that Alice and Tom would come before it was too late. The thought of the children abandoned by their elders, whether through death or desertion, wandering the church, begging a silent God to come to their aid because everyone else had forsaken them, filled me with an anger that Cob, apparently, felt no more. He had no strength left to waste on anger.

      “What ever place this is,” he said, “you have beaten death. Look—the fleas have fallen from me.” Tiny brown-black dots littered the sheets. “They caused the sickness, you say, and they themselves are dead.” He smiled, and this time it wasn’t  a youthful grimace in the face of death, but a true smile, filled with hope. “If only the others—”

      Tires crunched on gravel outside.