A Time of Darkness (Part 2)

The Ocean continued the task that had begun eons before, as the waves pounded against the cliff face far below where he stood. Sometimes he wondered how long it would take before the cliffs were finally eroded, and the waves buried the little cottage that stood in the hollow a hundred yards behind him. Here in this wild place, he had hoped he would find God again, and in some peculiar way, he had. But what he found here only served to make him question his faith even further, for it was not the version of god that had led him to the church. As if God was offended by his muse the wind intensified and the waves pounded the cliff face with renewed vigor, the sea spray soared a hundred feet in the air and lashed his body as it was driven by the wind. Within minutes he was soaked to the skin and the cold took hold of him.

The car was parked close to the front door and it was empty, he immediately knew what awaited him inside the small cottage. The tall grey-haired man in the dark suit stood with his back to the door, without turning from the bookshelf that held his interest, he spoke softly. “Hello Michael, I poured you a drink; you must be close to hyperthermia from your trip to the cliff top.” It was only when Michael had taken the glass of whiskey and sat by the stove, did the other man turn from the bookshelf. The tall man looked a little gaunter than he remembered and the furrows in his brow were more pronounced, but those light grey eyes were as sharp as ever. He crossed the room and took a seat opposite Michael, he put the glass he held beneath his nostrils and inhaled deeply, but he placed the glass of whiskey on the side table without drinking.

“To what do I owe this honor Most Reverend McCarthy?” The man opposite smiled faintly at Michael’s remark as if he found it somehow amusing. “Now, now, Michael we can dispense with the formalities, after all, we are just two old friends sharing a drink on a winter’s evening.” “Here in this place”, he said and gestured around the room with his hand. “I am Jimmy and you are Michael. A couple of old friends, having a long overdue catch-up.” Michael took a long draft from the whiskey glass, as he studied the bishop sitting opposite him. The older man looked relaxed but something in his eyes told Michael that all was not well with him; he had not driven this distance just to catch up on old times. A shallow conversation followed until an uncomfortable silence fell over the room, Michael refilled his glass as the bishop appeared to sink into his thoughts.

He was on his third glass before the older man dispensed with the idle chatter. “Michael something has popped up and I need you to come back”. The bishop’s words seemed to hang in the air, and for a moment Michael wondered whether he had just imagined them. Before he could formulate a reply the bishop went to the hallway and returned with a briefcase, he took a manila folder from the case and left it on the side table by Michael’s chair.

 “I can see that my request has come as a bit of a shock to you, so instead of pressing you for an answer now. I would like you to have a look at the contents of that folder, when you have had a chance to take it in, ring me and we will talk again.” Michael was still staring at the folder when he heard the car door slam, by the time he got to the door the tail lights of Jimmy McCarthy’s car were disappearing down the lane. He stood at the open door until the sound of the car engine was lost in the howl of the wind. An uneasy feeling settled over him, as he felt that this place of sanctuary had somehow been breached.

The glass of whiskey that he had filled for the bishop, stood untouched on the side table. He picked it up and poured the contents into his glass, normally he liked to sit by the fire and read but tonight his mind was overactive. Staring at the dancing flames through the glass of the stove door, Michael O’Rourke allowed his mind to take him back to places he had tried hard to forget. Back to a time when he had begun to lose the thing that was most important to him, his faith. He had been chosen by Jimmy McCarthy to watch over others, he would be sent into parishes where the pastor struggled with his faith or duties. A Guardian of the faith was how the bishop had referred to him, but the things he saw had only weakened his faith. Until eventually he walked away and came here to this barren shore.

The heat from the stove combined with the whiskey inevitably lulled him to sleep, a fitful sleep filled with dark shadows and images of his long-dead mother. When the cold of the grey morning finally awoken him, the memory of the meeting last night played a loop in his head. But only after a walk to the clifftop, and an hour’s contemplation in the face of the tempest blowing in from the Atlantic, did he have the courage to pick up the folder left behind by the bishop. By the time he had read through it he knew that he had little choice, darkness was coming and he had once taken a sacred vow to stand firm in the face of evil. Michael went upstairs and took the sealed box from beneath the bed; the sight of his clerical garb filled him with trepidation.

The image staring back at him from the mirror was like looking at a half-remembered stranger; the white dog collar seemed strangely at odds with the face. Michael had gotten used to women telling him he was too handsome to be a priest, but the thing that was most at odds with the clerical garb was the haunted look in those blue eyes. They were not the eyes of a priest; they showed far too much fear and indecision. The old feelings of doubt threatened to come flooding back, and Michael turned in disgust from the mirror. He grabbed his bag and went quickly downstairs; stopping only to get his waxed jacket he left the cottage. Driving out of the yard he glanced in the rear-view mirror, as the cottage grew smaller he realized if he ever returned here again he would no longer be a priest.

It had taken her over two weeks to convince herself that it was safe to return, but now as she approached the gates of the cemetery her faux courage began to wane. The night the old priest had fallen she swore she would never return to this place, but the winter had taken a harsh grip on the city and safe shelter was hard to find. But the thing that had finally persuaded her to return was the fact that streets had become even more dangerous, crimes of violence had exploded and an air of malevolence hung over every street. It was almost as if the citizens of the city had lost all reason, an oppressive air of pending violence was palpable wherever one turned. Even the stray dogs that wandered the streets had turned vicious, this winter had seemed to bring a little bit of hell with it.

Sally followed the path that led around the twisted old yew tree, and when the church came into view her heart almost stopped. The ground seemed to fall away from her as her legs buckled, and but for her trolley, she would have fallen. The tall figure in dark clothing stood almost exactly in the same spot she had witnessed on that night, every fiber of her being screamed at her to run but she was rooted to the spot. The figure turned and approached her, and she whimpered like a child. “Sorry I didn’t mean to startle you, I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone here at this time.” The tall figure stepped closer and she saw the patch of white at his collar, it was only then she realized she had been holding her breath. The handsome priest reached out his hand and placed it gently on her trembling shoulder.

“It’s alright you have nothing to fear from me. My name is Michael O’Rourke and I will be taking over the parish until a permanent replacement for Father Grimes is appointed.” Sally struggled to answer him but her vision was beginning to fade, the earth seemed to shift and everything went dark. When she came around she was sitting against the trunk of the old tree, and she was wrapped in a coat that smelt of wax. The priest was kneeling by her side with a concerned look on his face; he treated her to a kindly smile. The man was big of stature broad across the shoulders and narrow at the hip, but the most striking thing about him was his rugged handsomeness. He reminded her of a film star she had swooned over when she was a young lass, but he had a look of sadness in his blue eyes that belied his easy smile.

He handed her a cup of steaming tea and added a measure of whiskey to the cup. “Just to ward off the cold and help you get your strength back.” He said and treated her to a cheeky smile that lifted the frown lines on his forehead. In the lamplight of the parlor, he looked even younger than she had first thought, but the ebony of his hair was streaked with silver. Her first impression was of a man that had experienced more than his share of troubles in his life. Sally looked around the cozy little parlor and shifted in her chair to absorb more heat from the fire. She had often pictured in her mind what the rectory might look like from the inside, but she had never glimpsed beyond its front hall. “I am sorry about startling you in the cemetery, but I was as surprised as you to find someone in the cemetery during the hours of darkness.” He settled down in the seat opposite her with a glass of whisky and waited for her to speak.

If the priest knew that she was a street person, he did not comment on it. Neither did he ask any prying questions, but Sally found the silence in the room oppressive. Old father Grimes had met her on several occasions, but they had never exchanged any more than a courteous greeting. So the thought of entering into a meaningful discussion, with this stranger never crossed her mind. “I am fine now father it was just a fright I got, if you will excuse me now there is somewhere I need to be.” For a moment it looked as if he would object, but instead, he just got to his feet and walked with her to the door. “Sorry, I am afraid I forgot to ask your name.” For some reason, she did not want to part with this information, but in the end, she told him. “My name is Sally Father.” She had turned and walked off before he could engage her in any more conversation.

Michael watched the woman until the darkness of the cemetery enveloped her, he knew he had not handled the situation well. But his mind had been occupied with the situation here since his arrival, something was greatly amiss here at St Enda’s and he needed to get to the bottom of it. The church had been desecrated and would need to be consecrated again; the congregation seemed to have deserted the church. But worst of all Michael felt that something malevolent was at work here, but why this dying parish had been singled out he could not fathom. Turning to go back inside a strange feeling came over him, he felt as if he was being watched. Perhaps it was the homeless woman, but whoever it was he knew he was not alone in the dark. He made up his mind to seek out Sally as soon as he could, perhaps she could tell him some history of this place.

The local police station was a hive of chaotic activity, and the harassed-looking desk sergeant did not appear happy to see him. He lifted the phone and conveyed Michael’s request to whoever was on the other end, before directing Michael to take a seat on the wooden forum at the far end of the room. “Sit over there and wait, the detective will be with you when he gets a chance. But don’t hold your breath while you are waiting.” The final part of the sentence was muttered under the sergeant’s breath as if Michael was not meant to hear it. For the next hour and a half he was treated to a constant stream of pandemonium, it was as if he were in a combat zone. Just as he was about to leave, he spotted the desk sergeant talking to another man while gesturing in his direction.

If the desk sergeant looked harassed, then detective Corrigan looked positively hostile. He led Michael through a side door to the interior of the building; the staff here looked extremely busy as the phones rang incessantly. Corrigan showed him into an interview room before disappearing; he arrived back ten minutes later carrying a folder. The folder contained a written statement from the late Fr Joseph Grimes, detailing the events on the night of the desecration. He also showed Michael the crime scene photographs, which Michael found deeply disturbing. Corrigan’s take on the whole thing was that it was down to juvenile delinquents and that they were probably high at the time.

Next Corrigan read out a police report on the death of Fr Grimes, and even though a formal inquest was yet to be held. Detective Reginald Corrigan had decided that the priest had either fallen or jumped and there was no foul play involved. Michael watched Corrigan get to his feet and close the folder the meeting was finished. When Michael asked whether anyone had witnessed the old priest’s death, a brief flash of anger lit up the detective’s face. Sighing heavily Corrigan sat back down and opened the folder again; he rummaged through it and picked out a sheet of paper. The detective sat looking at the piece of paper in silence, by the look on his face it appeared that whatever was written on it was extremely distasteful to him.

 Corrigan alternated between staring at the sheet of paper and looking at the ceiling as if battling with his conscience about something. Eventually, he spoke. “There is a statement here from a person that alleges they witnessed the event, however it is my opinion that the statement is not reliable.” When Michael asked him why he thought this, Corrigan could no longer hold back his frustration. “For fuck sake! The woman that made this statement is mentally deranged, and a total fantasist. She lives in a make-believe world where she once had a family that was killed in a road traffic accident, the fact of the matter is Sally McGovern was never married and never had any children. The hint is in her street name, they call her Crazy Sally.” Corrigan slipped the sheet of paper across the desk with a look of disgust on his face.

Michael read through the short statement, and he could see why the detective had disregarded it as fantasy. According to Sally, she was on her way to her home in a crypt, when she came across the devil. The devil kept whispering to father grimes in the belfry until the old priest jumped to his death. Corrigan got to his feet and snatched the statement back; and returned it to the folder. He was at the door when he paused and looked back at Michael. “Listen father if the devil is in this city, he certainly is not hanging around your church. He is out there on the streets spreading his message; the city has gone insane over the last month. Either that or someone put something in the water; because I can tell you for a fact it is like hell out there.” Corrigan walked off without further comment, leaving Michael to find his way out.

Michael just made it back to the church before the rain came, the streets quickly emptied as the icy rain was driven by a strengthening wind. The vast stone building felt no more hospitable than the rain-drenched street outside, old buildings like this were usually cold damp places, but something about this church felt wrong. He walked to the altar with the sound of his footsteps echoing off the cold stone walls, the carpet, and stained altar clothe had been removed by workmen as had the desecrated crucifix. But in his mind the crime scene photographs were clear, and Michael was convinced that whoever had done this, was not kids. There was something ceremonial or ritualistic about the desecration, and he felt the act had somehow made the church unclean. But he also had a feeling that this particular parish had been in trouble for quite a while.

Standing in front of the altar Michael’s thoughts turned to his struggle with his faith, the self-doubts that were his constant companions these days had been intensifying since he got here. Something alerted him to a change in his environment, and his mind brought him back to the present. Turning from the altar he scanned the church, the building appeared to be as empty now as it had been when he entered. The effigies of the saints in their shadowy alcoves appeared to be staring at him in anticipation. The atmosphere in the big church suddenly felt oppressive, and the musty air felt charged. Michael felt a sudden urge to leave this place as his ears strained to recognize an unfamiliar sound; he was on the way to the sacristy door when he heard it. At first, it registered in his hearing as the sound of dead leaves rustling in a breeze, but it soon became obvious he was listening to someone whispering.

Almost as soon as it started the sound was gone, leaving him wondering whether he had even heard it, or was it a manifestation of his troubled mind. His first instinct was to search the building for the source of that voice; someone might be concealed in the rows of pews. However, if he was honest the thought of finding the source of that whispering terrified him; instead, he hurried to the front door and left, locking the building behind him. Michael made his way to the rectory and poured himself a stiff drink. By the time he had finished that drink he had managed to convince himself that he had imagined that insidious whispering. Rather than dwell on this, he made his way to Fr Grimes’s study. Michael had a feeling that if he wanted to get to the bottom of this, he would need to understand Fr Grimes and the events leading up to his death.

The old oak desk was piled high with papers going back several years Fr Grimes or his parochial sectary had not gotten around to any filing for quite a while. Michael stood looking at the piles of documents and resisting the urge to return them to the dusty boxes stacked outside in the hallway. But instead, he removed his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and began to lay out the documents on the floor in chronological order. By the time he had them arranged the room had grown gloomy, and he switched on the lamp. The gnawing in his stomach reminded him that he had not eaten since breakfast, and even then the meal consisted of a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry he grabbed on his way to the police station. Michael went to the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee, and made a cheese sandwich, which he took back to the study.

Two hours later all the earlier paperwork had been returned to the boxes, which he marked with dates. He then sat down to go through the correspondence covering the last year of Fr Grimes’s tenure at the parish; it did not take long to see the deterioration in the parish. The first thing to strike him was about midway through the year, the handwriting on the ledgers and documents changed. It went from females neat hand to what he presumed was Father Grimes’s spidery writing, a thought accord to him that at some stage the old priest had been left to do all the work himself. But the most striking thing was the obvious downturn in the parish takings, the offerings from the collection baskets had fallen away to a pittance. Even the takings for the offertory candles had disappeared; it was as if the parishioners and the support staff had all deserted him.

Something had gone wrong in the last six months of his priesthood, and Michael needed to know what. Michael put the paperwork one side and began to search through the desk drawers; Grimes must have left something that explained all this. He had turned the study inside out before it even dawned on him what he was looking for; the old priest’s parish diary was missing. For a moment he even contemplated putting in a call to Jimmy McCarthy, to see if he had taken the diary for some reason. But a look at the grandfather clock standing in the corner told him it was a bit late to be bothering a bishop. Michael had turned off the lights and was leaving the room when a thought hit him; the clock he had glanced at was not ticking.

Like the missing diary, the key for the antique clock was nowhere to be found, as a last resort he reached over the ornate pelmet and felt around for the key. It was here he found the diary; a thin layer of dust coated the black leather cover. Michael took the diary to the parlor and lit the fire; he poured himself a large whiskey and sat down to read. The first six months of the diary were filled with the usual mundane aspects of a priest’s life, but after that the entries became different. They had gone from reminders of anniversary masses, and notes regarding parish issues to cryptic notes to himself. Notes that would not have meant much to anyone other than the man that had made the entry. Within a week of each other, he had made notes that his housekeeper had left to look after a sick relative, and the parochial sectary had resigned stating health issues. But the most revealing item was concealed at the back of the big book, an A4 envelope containing Fr Joseph Grimes’s innermost thoughts and fears.       

A time of Darkness

 The stinging breeze was the first harbinger of the coming winter, daylight had slowly been getting shorter and dusk had settled over the city. Some nearby church bells tolled the hour of six o’clock, the time when families would be settling down to their supper. For a brief moment, the woman paused and allowed her mind to wander back to a time and place far removed from her present circumstances. In her mind’s eye, she could picture a family sitting for the evening meal, a loving husband, two adoring children, and a wife who believed it would last forever. “Such a foolish thing to believe,” she muttered to herself, and for a brief moment, the anger and self-pity threatened to bubble to the surface.

 But just as quickly, she pushed it back, after all, she had wasted too many years on those cancerous emotions; they had eaten away at her until she had nothing left. Looking back, she sometimes understood that what lay behind these emotions was in fact arrogance, after all, she was not the first nor would she be the last to have her family plucked from her in such circumstances. Thousands died every day in road traffic accidents; she had not been singled out for this.

In the beginning, she had found plenty of people to blame; her husband should not have taken the children on the road trip. The old man who had the heart attack and swerved across the road to hit them, should not have had a license. God should have protected them, the list was endless and her name appeared prominently among them. But only after many years did she manage some kind of peace of mind, when eventually she understood it was nothing more sinister than fate.

The breeze had continued to grow in strength and now icy fingers sought to worm their way beneath the many layers of clothes she wore. Sally pulled the heavy coat tighter around her and adjusted the string that held it in place, and then she resumed pushing her trolley towards the market square. The mobile soup kitchen would be setting up there now, and it would be her last chance tonight to get something hot inside her. She patted her hand against her side and was relieved that her medicine was still there. The bottle of cheap wine was snuggly resting in her inside pocket; this medicine would help her sleep later.

Sally took the polystyrene mug of soup and the sandwich, muttering a quick thank you to the smiling woman and quickly shuffled away before anyone could engage her in conversation. Beneath the awning of the derelict cinema, she settled down to her meal. Sally savored the hot snack while keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the ground; she had learned long ago that to make eye contact with people was rarely a good idea. In doing so, a person risked inviting unwanted conversation at best, or worse again, the attention of someone that might prove dangerous.

 Another reason she avoided eye contact with those such as herself, was the fact that it was a constant reminder of how low she had sunk. A long-haired youth approached wearing a filthy combat jacket and made to sit beside her. Sally lifted her head and gave him her insane expression while growling softly. The youth took the hint and scurried off to find shelter elsewhere, Sally followed the youth’s progress until he disappeared. Only then did she return her attention to her food, but not before shuffling her body deeper into the shadows.

In the years since she had become one of the forgotten people, Sally had learned that most people that wanted to get near you were not your friend. She had learned lessons that had been painful but valuable; she had been raped, beaten up, and robbed of her meager possessions. The abuse had not been confined to street people; she had been spat on and abused by people in fine clothes. The very people that were respected in the community had heaped scorn upon her; they looked at her unkempt appearance and multilayers of threadbare clothes and decided that she was fair game.

 In the beginning, she would look at these people and critique their clothes and appearance, and tell herself that she had once worn finer clothes than they. Sally even tried to tell these people how she was once like them, but she could see they did not believe her. But even worse than those that openly despised her, were the ones that pitied her. They would hand her money pinched between the very tips of their fingers, before hurrying home to bathe, in case she had somehow contaminated them.

The wind strengthened whipping papers and dross around the streets like strange scuttling creatures, the temperature plummeted and the rain arrived. Sally stirred from her melancholy pondering to find she was alone, the mobile soup kitchen had packed up and moved on. The street people that had thronged the area around the food truck had disappeared as if by magic. Some of them would find their way to the homeless shelters scattered around this part of the city, while those that knew better avoided these places at all costs.

 Sally was one of these people; most of her bad experiences had taken place in these so-called safe-havens. She lifted the polystyrene cup and held it to her lips to drain the dregs of the soup, and then she rose and secured her coat tighter around her body. It was time for her to hunker down for the night, bowing her head against the driving rain she hurried to her secret place. The inclement weather had worsened and she silently cursed herself for dallying too long over the soup, for some reason the deserted streets had a sinister feel to them this wet night.

The shadows of the swaying branches cast otherworldly shadows across the tombstones illuminated by the streetlight outside, images of skeletal arms and claw-like hands that reached out to grasp at the lichen and moss-covered monuments to the dead. Beyond the reach of the street lights, the other tombstones and crypts appeared as patches of grey against the pitch darkness of the cemetery. To the left of where the lone figure moved, the imposing shape of the stone building towered menacingly above this field of dead.

 Something caught Sally’s eye and she stopped to look in the direction of the big church, a faint glow was visible at the bottom of one of the stained glass windows. This struck her as strange; she knew that the old priest was normally huddled in front of the fire in the rectory at this time. The rectory was at the far end of the grounds, and she decided he might just have popped back for something he forgot. A shiver suddenly wracked her body as the sensation of icy fingers traveling down her spine came from nowhere, for some reason the cemetery made her nervous tonight.

The creaking of the metal door was lost on the sound of the wind moaning through the headstones; Sally entered the empty mausoleum and quickly lit the paraffin lamp before securing the door. This place was where she felt safest at night, but for some reason, the thick stone walls did not seem so comforting tonight. Sally had been told about this place by one of the few real friends she had made on the streets, the huge mausoleum had been commissioned by a wealthy merchant during the last century. The merchant and his family had left the city before any of the family had been interned in this place, and the empty tomb had been lost in a covering of ivy. Sally had spent the last three winters here, safely locked behind the metal door she would lie down among the dead. She had no fear of the dead like other people, most people avoided places like this during the hours of darkness and this suited her. But tonight for some reason she felt on edge, the moaning of the wind made her feel unease.

The newspaper she had found on a park bench offered little in the way of comfort; the lead story covered a spate of recent killings in the city. The story was the usual sensationalist drivel; it was littered with words like ritualistic, satanic, and butchery. All designed to titillate and terrify in equal measures, the kind of journalism that Sally normally treated with disdain. But she found herself drawn in by the story, even though it intensified the feeling of dread that had been building inside her. The newspaper seemed to comprise of nothing except tales of woe, reports of animal cruelty, suicides, and bizarre acts of random violence. It was almost as if the entire city was experiencing some kind of psychotic episode, darkness seemed to have taken hold of the city.

 Discarding the newspaper she reached for the wine bottle, the cheap liquor lit a fire in her stomach that helped her to relax. She turned the wick of the lamp down low as sleep crept up on her, the medicine never failed to work, it was the crutch she depended on. As always she held an image of her family in her mind as she drifted off, in the hope that she might have one of those rare dreams of her past life. These dreams when they did come were bittersweet because even in her dream state she knew they were not real, and the morning always brought a renewed sense of loss. Even so, the dreams were as near as she would ever come to normality again, and she treasured every one of them.

The dream did bring images of her lost family, but not as she would have wished for. The faces of her husband and children no longer held the smiles that always gripped her heart; the smiles had been replaced with expressions of fear and anguish. The feeling of dread that she had been experiencing had followed her into her dreams and brought with it a malevolent influence. Something dark stirred in her dream world causing her most loving memories to be distorted, her precious family called to her in anguish as something evil pursued them. They cried out to her to save them but they were lost to her, a fog of darkness had settled over the dreamscape hiding them from her view. All the while malignant unseen forces circled her in the darkness as she frantically tried to find her lost loved ones; strange whispered voices surrounded her as nauseating things brushed against her exposed flesh. Ahead of her, she heard a child scream, and someone sniggered.

Sally awoke to the sound of her sobbing; the feeling of unfathomable loss was as painful now as if it were only yesterday she had lost them. It felt as if the intervening years had been wiped away, and she had been transported to the darkest moment of her life. The dam she had constructed in her mind burst, and the anguish that poured out overwhelmed her. Lying in a fetal position she wept bitterly, her cries echoing off of the cold stone of the crypt.

 The agonizing grief brought with it a searing pain in her chest, she felt her breathing restricted and she hoped that the end had come for her. But just like the grief she felt would be the end of her all those years ago, it finally abated and the pain in her chest subsided. Leaving her yet again, to face that terrible emptiness; emptiness so great that it made the physical pain almost preferable. In the end, when there were no more tears left to cry, she got up and prepared for another day on the streets.

The hinges of the metal door shrieked in protest as it opened to the grey morning outside, the biting wind from last night had gone leaving behind it a thick fog. The moisture-laden cloud hovered close to the ground, giving the impression that gravestones and even the massive cathedral were levitating above their foundations. The world had taken on a strange ghostly appearance, and a peculiar unearthly hush had banished sound.

 Sally hurried through the silent cemetery towards the church entrance, the images of the dream threatening to overwhelm her mind. At times like this, she sometimes found solace in the place of worship, even though God had become an abstract notion in her world. But old habits die hard and in another life, she had thought differently of religion, and life on the streets had not completely rid her of old habits.

The door of the church stood ajar and for some reason, this bothered her, normally the door stood wide open every morning for those wishing to worship. Sally stood hesitantly on the porch, an irrational fear preventing her from stepping inside. A niggling thought in her mind that something was wrong leaving her momentarily frozen on the spot, but in the end, she forced herself to push the door open and step inside. The interior of the ancient building felt cold and unwelcoming this morning, and she hesitated before moving further inside. Her shuffling progress towards the altar disturbed the brooding silence of the place, and the solace she had sought seemed far away.

The usual smell of melted wax that was ever-present in the church was stronger as she approached the altar, but another smell competed with it as she drew nearer. A smell that did not belong in a place of worship, it was the coppery stench of blood. A weak beam of light through the stained glass window illuminated the alabaster figure that hung on the wooden cross above the tabernacle. The effigy of the broken man seemed different this morning, and it took her a moment to realize what she was looking at.

 Someone had covered the figure in crimson paint that dripped from the feet nailed to the wood, but it did not take her long to understand that it was not painted. The crucified figure was the source of the coppery smell that hung in the air; someone had painted it with blood. It was then she became aware of the sound of a person crying softly, her gaze fell on the huddled figure in the front pew.

The old priest seemed to have shrunk into himself; his thin body was wracked with sobs as he cried softly to himself.  The normally crisp white linen of the altar clothe was streaked with crimson, and at its center, the eviscerated body of an animal lay. The glazed eyes of the domestic cat appeared to stare accusingly at the sobbing priest, at the head of the dead animal stood a chalice its rim smeared with blood.

The votive holders had been turned over and the rich red of the carpet was stained with rivulets of congealed wax, someone had desecrated the church. Sally approached the huddled figure and placed her hand on his shoulder, the old priest emitting a loud shriek and cowered from her reach. Eventually, she managed to soothe him enough to lead him back to the rectory, where she waited long enough for him to ring the police, and then she slipped silently away.

Sally did not return to the empty crypt over the next two nights, feeling that whoever had desecrated the church had made the place unsafe. However, the street people were a territorial tribe, and she found it increasingly difficult to find suitable shelter. The biting wind had returned bringing with it sleety rain, even her medicine failed to help her sleep through the cold of the nights. The cold would make her old bones ache, and she did not feel safe, there was no steel door to keep the outside world at bay. So on the evening of the third day, Sally made up her mind to return to her sanctuary.

The old church was brightly lit, and even a faint light glowed in the belfry. She found this more disturbing than the darkness; she moved nearer to the building and became aware of someone speaking softly. The voice was barely above a whisper, the words were spoken quickly. Sally could not make out what was being said, and she did not think the words were in English. The same words were repeated over, and over as if repeating some kind of mantra. Even though the words meant nothing to her, they chilled her to the bone. From behind the cover of a twisted yew tree, Sally watched the tall figure.

The figure wore a long black coat that reached the ground; his two arms were held aloft spread wide on either side of him. The tall man stood with his back to her and his face turned towards the heavens, he whispered the strange words over and over as if entreating God for something. Then another voice drifted to her as if from the heavens, but this one she recognized. It was the old priest’s voice pleading to be left alone; it was coming from the belfry high above. The tall man laughed softly before returning to his insidious whispering, the words came faster now and seemed to be spat from his mouth with vengeance. High above their heads, the old priest began to weep.

Shortly afterward the sound of something hitting the ground drown out the whispers, it sounded like a bag of wet sand thudding to the ground. It took Sally a while to figure out what had happened, and even then she found it impossible to understand. The tall stranger walked the few paces to where the broken body of the priest lay; he bent over and put his hands on the body. He then put his hands to his face as if wiping away tears, before moving silently towards the gate. At the spot where the street light illuminated the grounds he paused, when he turned in her direction she thought her heart would stop. It would be impossible for him to see her in the shadow of the tree, yet he looked directly at her. His angular features were streaked with blood and brain matter, his eyes seemed to glow in the dark as he smiled in her direction.

Retribution

The misshapen figure paused from the task at hand, her gnarled hand releasing the length of deadwood to fall back to the barren earth beneath the twisted tree. The old woman’s hand pressed into the small of her aching back, and she winced as she straightened from her bent position. For a moment the bundle of deadwood was forgotten, as she took a few arthritic shuffling steps to the brow of the hill. Below her, the small settlement made up of tightly packed hovels, seemed to cower against the grey cliff face towering above it. The dilapidated houses were arranged in a half-moon shape around the small patch of dark calm water, a crudely made stone pier jutted a hundred yards into the quiet cove, while a hundred yards further out the wild North Atlantic hammered against the two fingers of rocky land that gave shelter to the small cove. A string of old and dilapidated small craft was tethered to the crude pier.

The tiny community was named after this cove, Dark Cove did not even warrant a place on any map. It was dark by name and dark by nature, sometimes the old woman would find her mind drifting back to that time long ago when she had first set eyes on that place. She was no more than a child, but even back then she felt the wrongness of the place. There was something about this bleak place that spread darkness through its inhabitants, an unseen malevolence existed here, and it tainted most anyone that abided here. There had been so many times the old woman had been determined to leave here, turn her back on this place and never look back. But Dark Cove had a hold over people, a history of malevolent secrets and unholy deeds tethered the locals to this barren shoreline. Over the years some had tried to lead the community away from the darkness, and they had paid for it with their lives including her father.

Cora’s father had been sent here by the authorities to bring some vestige of order to this wild place. But the residents of Dark Cove lived by their laws, outsiders were not welcome here. Outsiders with ideas of law and order were especially unwelcome, the laws of the land were not recognized here, and the laws of God that applied were not the same as in other places. The people of Dark Cove worshiped a different god, a dark and sinister force that was old when these ragged cliffs first appeared out of the wild ocean. Her father was slow to recognize the ways of this place; he took the sullen silence of its people as nothing more than social awkwardness. But the more he tried to bring order here the more he was disliked, until three score and ten years ago the darkness came for him. Cora a young child was left to cater for herself, the old woman that lived in the cottage Cora now inhabited took pity on her. She too was an outcast in this place, but she knew the old ways and the people feared her. Cora learned of the old ways from the spinster, she learned of herbs and healing and she learned of the darkness said to dwell among the caves of the rugged cliffs.

The old woman had imparted knowledge to Cora, of things less known. She had taught her about the dark entity that controlled generations of the people that lived here. But most importantly she had taught Cora Kirby how to protect herself from the darkness in this place. So by and large the locals left Cora to her devices, the only real interaction would come when local girls experienced difficult births. Or if a child had fallen ill and their parents came to her for herbs to treat the illness, the visits from the locals would invariably be under the cover of darkness. On the odd occasion, she would descend to the settlement to get supplies from the one local shop; the very people that sought her help would shun her in the street or stare straight through her as if she was not there. But sooner or later they would return to her cottage high on the clifftop overlooking the cove, and they would pay her with plunder.

The local economy was based on ships lured onto the rocks to be plundered, and contraband smuggled ashore from passing ships. The dark entity they worshipped always ensured that there were enough shipwrecks and contraband brought ashore to keep the people tied to this place. Cora moved nearer to the cliff edge and stared far out to sea, the clouds gathering had the color of a purple bruise. The old woman sniffed the freshening air and winced at the scent that lingered on the breeze, it was the scent of corruption, and somewhere in the bowels of the cliffs, something stirred. Something bad was coming and she shivered, the malevolence that was ever-present in the atmosphere seemed to grow and the very air felt oppressive. Cora left the cliff edge and gathered the firewood, by the time she reached the cottage gate the first band of rain arrived. By the time her fire was ablaze, the small cottage groaned in protest at the onslaught of an Atlantic storm, outside her small windows daylight faded and it became dark as night. The sun was banished from the sky as the land was swallowed by the storm clouds.

The old woman sat in the fireside chair in a troubled sleep, in her mind’s eye images she had long tried to suppress now ran free. Outside the sound of the raging storm was deafening, yet in her dreams, she could hear the young man’s cries for mercy. The dream unfolded and she whimpered in her sleep, at the part where he had escaped from the rabble and knocked at her door begging for help she cried aloud. He was just a young priest that tried to bring god’s word to Dark Cove, but the darkness would not allow such blasphemy. They dragged him from her door on another stormy night like this, and his screams could be heard above the howling of the wind. The young priest was dragged to the deepest cave in the cliff and cast into its depths; there in the darkness, his screams reached an ear-splitting level before he fell silent forever. He had been sacrificed to an older god, and Dark Cove once more settled under its protection. The sound of pitiful crying awoken the old woman and it took her a while to realize that it was she who wept.

 The fire had reduced to glowing embers and the room had grown cold, outside the storm raged and the room was lit intermittently by the lightning flashes. The feeling of regret and shame weighed heavily on her old bones, it had been years since they murdered the young priest and she had worked hard to wipe the memory of him from her mind. This was her dark secret that kept her tethered to this place. Cora rose stiffly from her chair and went to the gable end window; from here she could just make out the shapes of the crude headstones in the small cemetery when it was light. It was there she had laid some of his bones to rest, parts of him that had been dragged to the surface by hungry predators. A skeletal hand that still had a rosary entwined in the bony fingers, a rib, and part of a leg bone was all she found. She had laid them to rest beneath the stunted tree in the corner of the graveyard, and to her shame, she had put him from her mind.

 A flash of lightning lit up the land as if it were daytime, and her rheumy old eyes found the stunted tree. Cora drew a sharp intake of breath as for the briefest moment she saw the figure standing beneath that tree, tall and slim it was and staring at her cottage. The lightning winked out and darkness returned to the land when next it came, the tree stood alone in the graveyard. Cora stood for a long time in the hope of catching another glimpse of the figure, but if it had ever been there it was now gone. She left her vantage point in the small hours of the morning for her bed, sleep was slow to come to her, and when it did come it brought the dream back with it. The raging storm outside her small cottage filled the earth with the sound of fury, while in her tiny bedroom Cora cried and whimpered in her sleep. When she did awaken the following morning the storm had abated, and the weariness of her years lay heavy on her.  Outside it was eerily calm and the light had a strange quality to it. It was as if the earth held its breath in anticipation of something that was yet to come.

 The old woman ate her meager breakfast, and pulling her black shawl tight around her skeletal frame she stepped outside. The ever-present soughing of the wind and the screeches of the seagulls that had been her constant companion, were conspicuous by their absence. An unearthly silence had rushed over the land, filling the vacuum left by the passing storm. Yet far out to sea yet another storm front was building as if hiding behind the silence. Cora made her way as quickly as she could to the place where she collected her firewood; she had left yesterday with little. The old woman worked as fast as her aching body would allow until she had gathered enough to last for a few days. She tied the firewood in a tight bundle and hefted it onto her stooped back; she paused by the edge of the cliff overlooking Dark Cove. A strange gloomy pall hung over the village far below, and the feeling that something bad was coming grew inside her.

Cora spent the morning preparing for the coming storm; she locked her hens in the small shed at the rear of the cottage. Before securing anything that might be carried away by the storm, something other than the inclement weather was heading for Dark cove, and the old woman intended to wait it out behind the locked door of her cottage.  Before the first patter of raindrops on the roof, she had closed and secured the shutters on the window and the front door was locked and bolted. Sitting by the fireside Cora allowed her mind to wander to that faithful time, a place and time she had avoided thinking about for nigh on two decades. The images came easily to her mind as if they were only yesterday; things she had buried at the back of her mind suddenly came rushing to the fore. Malcolm Grace was the young man’s name; he had an easy smile and a kind nature. He knew little of the world and almost nothing of the darkness that dwelt within it. An image sprang to mind of the small figure appearing over the brow of the hill, a figure that proved to be tall and slim as it grew nearer.

Cora had been working in the garden preparing the ground for the potato crop; she had lifted to ease the ache in her back when she spotted the approaching figure.  When the priest finally came into view the first thing she noticed was his smile, and that depth of innocence in his light blue eyes. He was a beacon of light that found himself in darkness he could never understand, even in the first moments he stood in her company she felt it. A cursory glance at the clerical collar told her he had come to the wrong place, and that the journey that brought him here could well be his last. He was so full of enthusiasm with great plans; he would turn Dark Cove into a community to be envied. He drew a mental picture of a towering steeple, a building worthy of celebrating the word of god. He foresaw schools and libraries, a shining jewel of Christendom that would illuminate these dark shores. But all the time the young priest regaled her with his vision of the future, the malevolence of Dark Cove circled him like a predator would circle a wounded prey.

In her mind’s eye, she could see him shirtless as he bent to his task, beside the canvas shelter that was his home he had begun to build a small dry stone building. His bare torso coated with grime and rivulets of sweat, the building was to be a temporary place of worship. It will do until we build our great church, he would tell her. But there was no we, the people of Dark Cove ignored him and his toil, Malcolm’s great church was destined to be nothing more than a dream. In the beginning, she had tried to dissuade him from his path, she told him that there were more deserving communities for his toils. But he was not for turning; in the morning he would stand alone and preach, and for the remainder of the day he would build stone upon stone for his church. Slowly some of the younger people began to gather and listen to him preach, and in his innocence, he mistook their curiosity for interest. Malcolm began to follow them down to the cove, where he would preach on the street.

 The young priest believed he was making progress, until that faithful night when another ship was lured onto the rocks. He had rushed down the hill to help with the rescue. But there was no rescue taking place, and Malcolm witnessed first-hand the darkness that held sway over this place. The survivors were dragged ashore and butchered, their possessions pilfered and their corpses piled high on the shoreline. When all the plunder was ashore, he watched in horror as the bodies were transported to the caves. The corpses were dumped inside those caves, and the people of Dark Cove chanted in a language the likes of which he had never heard. The dark entity had provided well for the people and in turn, they had brought him offerings of flesh, it was sheer madness but he thought he felt something move beneath the earth. Malcolm’s mind was overcome by the horror he had witnessed and mercifully it shut down, he awoke the following morning alone on the beach. He spent the next two days inside his canvas shelter, and Cora had hoped he was preparing to leave.

On the night of the second day she watched him walk purposefully towards the village, she wanted to call him back but she knew it was too late. She had known from the beginning that the man’s destiny was written from the moment he set foot here. Malcolm stood in the center of the village, he begged them to come out and pray for forgiveness. He screamed at the top of his lungs how God would forgive them if only they would repent and ask for that forgiveness. Even when the storm came he stood there pleading with them, but the doors only opened when he threatened to bring the authorities to Dark Cove. There were ten in all, the leaders of that accursed village. They beat him unmercifully before marching him past her door, she could still hear his screams and pleading in her head. He had come to her door and pleaded for help and to her everlasting shame, she had ignored him. Cora stared into the dancing flames and tried to make sense of her melancholic reflections, why now was the dead priest so prevalent in her thoughts and dreams.

It was not the first time in recent years that she had felt the level of malevolence heighten in this place, so why this time did it resurrect the memories of the priest. Her old mentor had told her that the darkness here was more active at certain times as if a pulse beneath the very ground grew stronger. But yet Cora could not dissuade herself from the idea that the image glimpsed in the graveyard was him, she was convinced that Malcolm or some version of him had returned to seek revenge. This thought chilled her to the bone, and she wondered whether she too would pay a terrible price. As if to confirm her fears the storm outside reached another level of ferocity, the beams of the roof groaned in protest as the wind threatened to take the roof from the cottage. The front door creaked and bowed inwards as if a great weight was thrown against it, and the wooden shutters rattled alarmingly on the hinges.

 Cora cowered by the fireside trying to console herself that it was just a storm, just like the many she had lived through in the past. Eventually, the protesting sounds from the small cottage began to subside, and the intensity of the storm gradually reduced. The howling of the wind slowly settled to a mournful keening sound and she began to relax, the worst of the storm had passes she convinced herself. She wrapped a blanket about her and her heavy eyelids fell, sleep finally overtook her, her last conscious thought was that tomorrow would bring a better day. But her respite was short-lived, less than an hour later she awoke to a different and more disturbing sound. The sounds at first registered in her mind as the soft keening of the wind, but as they grew closer she recognized them for what they were. The terrifying sounds of humans in distress grew in intensity as they approached along the pathway that led from the village. Against her will and better judgment, a compulsion came over her, she rose from the chair and went to the window.

Cora’s hand trembled but she could not prevent herself from opening back the shutter, outside the group of men paused and stared pleadingly through her window. She immediately recognized the men; it was the same people who had driven the young priest past her door on that night. The bearded man nearest her held his hands out to her in a pleading gesture, his eyes wide with terror. The sharp sound that echoed in the night sounded like the crack of a whip, the flesh of his cheek opened like an overripe fruit and he screamed. The sound repeated over and over, and flesh was torn from bone by the invisible whip. How long it lasted she could not tell, but eventually, the screaming men were driven towards the cliff like lambs to the slaughter. She could still hear their unnatural cries as they were driven one by one into the deep cave, when the last cries fell silent she could hear her heart beating in her chest.

An hour later the pounding came at her door, slow methodical banging of a fist that demanded she open up. “Do not open the door,” a voice screamed in her head, but as the death of the young priest, Cora knew it was her destiny. She slowly opened the door and for a moment relief flooded over her, the lane outside was dark and empty. She felt the movement in the air and something light bounced from her chest and fell to the ground, a twig carried on the wind she thought at first. But then the sky was split by a prolonged flash of lightning, she gazed at her feet and saw the rosary beads. Cora slowly dragged her eyes from beads to find him standing watching her, those eyes were no longer light blue but dark as the pits of hell. The easy smile was now a sardonic grin, the priest had returned to Dark Cove but this time he came to preach the word of a darker God. Blackness descended and when the lightning came again she was alone. Cora went inside and made plans for leaving, plans that would never happen; the priest would never allow her to leave.

The lifting of the Veil.

She could no more avoid this new morning ritual than she could breathing, she would rise early and be the first resident in the dining hall. A hearty breakfast and a leisurely read of the morning paper, followed by a stroll around the magnificently landscaped grounds of the retirement home, was what she had previously considered the perfect start for the new day. But these simple pleasures were now replaced by this new ritual. Margret Price would now hurriedly gobble down her breakfast and be back in her room before most other residents had even visited the dining room. She had even considered having her meals brought to her room, but she thought this might draw attention to the fact that all was not well with her.

Margret had carefully cultivated a certain persona for the outside world over the past few years, and it had served her well. She was always polite but with a good deal of aloofness towards others, she never allowed anyone to get too close to her. This had enabled her to draw a veil of secrecy over her past, and by and large, she had managed to force herself to forget about that other life. Margret had wiped the slate of her life clean, she had reinvented herself. Those that she had allowed any little knowledge of her, would swear that the fragile old woman was once a successful businesswoman who chose to live out the remainder of her life in this exclusive retirement home. Even the physical image she projected was faux; there was nothing fragile about her. Margret was sharp of mind and possessed a hidden physical strength.

Up until two weeks ago, everything was well in Margret’s new life; at least it was until she received the first letter in the post. The content of the letter was just an old faded photograph of a building, not as much as one word of text was included. But it was more than enough to cause that veil in the darkest recesses of her mind to rustle as if disturbed by a sudden draft. Other letters had followed and the veil covering her past began to fail, the ghosts of the past were restless now. She knew without a doubt that once the veil was lifted, the past would destroy her. So every morning she would wolf down her breakfast without any enjoyment, before rushing back to her room. Here she would sit in the armchair staring out at the avenue below and wait for the postman to arrive. If no one came to her room with a letter in the hour after his departure, she would manage to relax. Mind you, she could not relax totally, her thoughts played a constant loop in her mind as she tried to think who was behind this.

 Her heart pounded in her chest, and the smiling young woman standing before her swam in and out of focus. “You must have an admirer, Margret”. The pretty young woman chirped in a good-humored voice. Margret managed to tear her gaze from the envelope in the woman’s hand and focus on her face. Margret attempted to return the woman’s smile but failed miserably, what was meant as a friendly smile froze as a grimace. She bit down on her tongue until she felt she would surely draw blood, it was the only way she could prevent herself from screaming in the care assistant’s face. In her mind, she screamed at the woman, “Get the fuck out of my room and take that poison letter with you”. She pictured herself smashing her silver-handled walking cane into that smiling face until it was a bloody pulp. But in the end, she just reached a trembling hand and took the accursed envelope from the smiling woman. She even managed a half-hearted thanks, while in her mind she screamed. “I hate you, and I hope you die in agony”.

Margret placed the envelope on the side table and turned her attention to the magnificent landscaped gardens below. But the magnificent vista below her faded from view, as her mind’s eye showed her a different vision. A vision of a time and place she had spent the last two decades trying to forget. The most disturbing thing about this was the fact that a part of her missed those times. It was dusk by the time she managed to tear herself from the dark muse, a tray on the side table contained her untouched lunch. Yet, she had no recollection of anyone having brought it to her room; she had lifted the veil and immersed herself in the past. But now that she had, she felt strangely calm. For the first time in two weeks, her mind began to function properly again, a situation had presented itself and she would have to deal with it. Whoever was behind this torment would pay dearly, and when it was dealt with, the veil would once more be placed firmly over the past.

The most recent photograph like the others was faded, but unlike the previous ones, this one contained people. Margret went to her chest of drawers and retrieved a magnifying glass, and even though the image was emblazoned clearly in her newfound memories. She still held it under the standing lamp and examined it with the magnifying glass. It was of a group of children standing in an orchard, their faces locked in a blank expression as they stared into the lens. The dour-looking children were arranged in a semi-circle, and behind them stood three adults. Well in truth there were two adults and a man child, the simpleton looked strangely out of place in the setting. His dim features fixed in a permanent look of confusion, one of his shoulders hung lower than the other in a lopsided posture. Margret could visualize his hunch back and twisted right foot, even though they were not shown in this image.

To the left of the malformed adolescent stood a tall thin man dressed in clerical garb, the priest’s attempt at a smile looked more akin to a scowl. But it was the figure standing to the left of the priest that captured her attention, even though the wimple exposed only her young face there was no mistaking her image. The face was rounder and without a wrinkle, but no one could mistake that it was Margret. Except for back when this photograph was taken, Margret Price did not yet exist. The young woman in the picture went under the name Sr Agnus, and it was her secrets that lay hidden behind the veil in Margret’s mind. Margret went to her bedside locker and retrieved the other photographs she had received; she laid them out on her bed and studied them. Whoever had sent them to her had a clear message for her; the sender was letting her know that they knew about her past life. Funnily enough, the photographs no longer terrified her, for the old feelings had been stirred inside her. Those emotions of anger and cruelty she had buried, now rose to the surface.

The woman sitting at the desk in the public library bore little resemblance to the woman that had got out of the taxi two hours previous. As soon as the cab had driven away, Margret had taken a wide-brimmed hat from her bag and dark glasses to hide her features. But the most striking difference was in her demeanor. The woman who had walked into the library bore not the slightest hint of fragility or timidness; she strode into the building with an air of confidence and purpose. Now she trolled through the newspaper archives for any scrap of information on the institution she had once run with an iron fist, but most importantly she looked for any references to the staff or anybody with close links to the orphanage. By the time the library was due to close, she had two names written down. One was the priest from the last photograph, and one was the malformed simpleton. It was hard to believe but she was certain that it was one of those names behind the letters she had been receiving.

The man before her was nothing more than a living cadaver, the rheumy eyes staring at a point someplace far beyond the walls of the small room. Spittle ran in a constant stream from the corner of his slack mouth, the parchment-like skin of his chin looked raw and inflamed. The curtains were only opened a crack and the gloominess of the small room felt oppressive, Margret took a step closer to the figure slumped in the armchair, up close the dying man looked even more horrific. The ammonia stench of urine hung around him like a shroud, she called his name softly but nothing registered in those glazed eyes. Margret’s mind struggled to reconcile the skeletal figure before her with the man she had once conspired with, her fellow partner in hideous crime had faired a lot worse than her over the past two decades. Her mind fled from that death room and took her to a time when the dying man looked different from this pitiful creature.

She was a mere girl of twenty-five when she first walked through the doors of Saint Margret’s home for wayward girls, the tall dour-looking priest that met her at the front door made her nervous. But little did she know they would form a bond that would leave her soul beyond redemption, and at the same time leave her finically secure in the twilight of her years. Fr James Quincey had seen something dark in her, and before long he had nurtured that darkness into something terrifying. He had taken her hand and led her down the dark path of grievous sin, and she had followed willingly. The system was already in place when she came to the home; young women shunned by their communities would come to Saint Margret’s to have their unwanted babies. For the duration of their stay, the wayward women would be press-ganged into either the laundry or the sewing room; their labors were hired out to the community. It was a simple industry that paid for their keep and turned a meager profit for the home.

Margret was quick to see that the home had much greater potential; Saint Margret’s had a policy of persuading the young mothers to place their unwanted offspring up for adoption. It did not take much persuading to get James Quincey to see the commercial possibilities in the adoption side of things. It became especially easy to gain his support once she began to cater for the carnal side of his nature, she had turned the tables in short order. Now it was she that made the decisions and he followed on, the corrupted had become the corrupter. The more desirable babies were sold to the highest bidder, and soon they had an international market for their produce. The weaker and less appealing children that had once become the responsibility of St Margret’s, was another problem she quickly solved. The runts of the litter as she thought of these children were simple placed to one side for nature to take its course. The finances of the institution improved modestly under her management, while her finances improved exponentially.

The pitiful creature in the chair made a disturbing whimpering sound, which brought her mind back to the present. She moved closer thinking he was about to speak and the stench hit her, the old priest had soiled himself. For some reason this made her furious, to think that she had once allowed this disgusting thing to share her bed. For a brief moment, she had an overwhelming urge to put her hands around his scrawny neck and choke the life from him. But the fear of drawing even more attention to herself prevented her from acting; she contented herself with lifting his head by the hair and spitting in his face. This man was not the one that threatened her; he was not long for this world. She needed to find out what had become of the hunchbacked simpleton, something deep inside her had convinced her that he had something to do with this. Why she thought this she could not say, but perhaps the fact that she had been particularly cruel to him was the reason. She stopped at the door as she was leaving, and turned once again to the old priest. “Goodbye James, I will see you in hell”. She whispered but he made no reply.

The next couple of days saw her make frequent trips from the retirement home; she scoured the archives and diocesan records for any mention of the hunch back. She even went to the register of deaths for the area but there was no mention of a Michael Crawford. The hunch back seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth, and when a couple of weeks passed without any more anonymous correspondence she began to allow herself to believe it had all passed. But then the dreams began vivid images of how she had abused him over the years. She had taken every opportunity to make the hunch back’s life a living hell; she had beaten him and humiliated him at every turn. Michael Crawford was the only subject she could not bend the priest to her will on, she had wanted him thrown out of the institution and left to his own devices.

 But the priest was not for turning on the subject. So she carried out a regime of torture on the malformed youth. She especially liked to make him bury the runts that had passed on in the orchard; she could see the toll this task had on him. He would lay the bodies gentle to rest and cry over the graveside uncontrollably for hours on end, he would not eat for days and cry himself to sleep at night. When the institution finally closed she had hoped that he would die alone on the streets, she even checked the daily papers to see if there was news of him being found dead. But then the stories of abuse in the religious institutions began to find their way into the press, and Sr Angus had to be laid to rest. She pushed all memories of her past to the darkest reaches of her mind and drew a veil over them. She became Margret Price and moved into the luxury retirement home, and her life changed until those accursed letters began to arrive.

Almost a month had passed without any further correspondence, and Margret convinced herself that the threat had gone. She had even taken to enjoying her breakfast again and a leisurely browse through the morning paper. But one particular morning her re-discovered tranquillity was badly shaken. The headline on the paper jumped out at her, and she gasped. “Site of an old institution to be re-developed.” A photograph of St Margret’s below the headline brought an involuntary shiver to her, the old place had become severely dilapidated and the image had a foreboding feel to it. She hurried to her room taking the paper with her; the thought of machinery digging in the old grounds terrified her. Suddenly the ghosts of the past seemed all too close. In her room she once again took her seat overlooking the approach to the home, she attempted to read the article in more detail but her mind would not take it in. In the end, she threw it in the corner of the room and concentrated on her vigil.

It came as no surprise to her when the smiling carer arrived with the envelope; she just took it from the smiling girl’s hand and turned her back until she left the room. Even though the figure at the window in the image still appeared blurred under the magnifying glass, she knew instinctively it was the hunchback. Margret also knew what message this image was meant to convey. A time of reckoning had arrived; he was summoning her to the old building. But Margret was no longer afraid, the old priest’s mind had turned to soup, and the hunchback was the only living person that could connect her to what went on there. Her mind was made up now, she would confront the simpleton in that place and only one of them would leave that place alive. Now that she had decided on a course of action she felt almost elated, for the first time in many years she felt in charge. She would visit that place one more time, and the past would be banished forever.

It was dusk when the cab pulled up on the quiet country lane, out here there were no streetlights but a silvery moon provided ample illumination. The silver light of the moon glinted dully on the kitchen knife in her bag as she retrieved the money for the fare; she paid the driver and arranged for him to pick her up in the same spot in two hours. Margret waited until the taillights of the cab had disappeared before walking a hundred yards to the entrance of the institution. It came as no surprise to find the door of the old building standing ajar, she walked inside with hesitation. The sound of glass crunching beneath her feet seemed unnaturally loud in the old building; the moonlight streaming through the grime-covered windows illuminated the decay surrounding her. She paused for a moment in the entrance hall and allowed her mind to imagine the place as it once was, the vision was powerful and she fancied she could still smell the candle wax and furniture polish.

A half-heard whisper jolted her back to the present. A shadow darted in her peripheral vision and the faint sound of footsteps ascending the stairs reached her ears. For a brief moment a wave of panic surged inside her, she thought of turning around and fleeing. But as quickly as it arrived, the panic subsided. It was replaced by a wave of burning anger and determination, she strode purposefully towards the stairs determined to confront whoever was up there. The ornate staircase that once gleamed with wax polish was now covered in a thick layer of grey dust. She hesitated at the bottom step as no footprints were visible in the layers of dust; the thought that she had imagined the footsteps caused her to doubt herself. But the sound of someone moving on the upper landing drove her on; she took the knife from her purse and hurried up the stairs. On the landing she caught a glimpse of movement ahead of her; she followed the figure down a dark hallway. Margret turned a corner and the hallway ahead was flooded with silver moonlight, it was plain to see she was alone.

The source of the moonlight was a large arched window and she found herself drawn to it, she gazed outside and found herself looking at the overgrown orchard below. A figure moved in an awkward shuffle out of the shadow, and Michael Crawford came into view. The hunch back stood lopsided in the open, his eyes fixed firmly on the window above. The simmering anger inside her now reached a crescendo; she grasped the handle of the knife so hard her fingers ached. But something about the whole thing was not right, and she was halfway down the stairs before her mind made sense of it. The figure in the orchard did not look a day older than when she had last seen him, if the rage had not consumed her she may have stopped to consider this. Instead, she made her way to the rear of the building intent on nothing less than murder, consumed with the hatred she was blind to the sounds of crying children that echoed through the empty building. She had come here to bring an end to all this, and nothing would stop her.

The backdoor leading to the orchard was wide open and she rushed outside with little regard for her safety, the empty vista before her brought her to a sudden halt. Confused now she moved forward with more caution, the hunchback must be hiding somewhere. Moving with more stealth now she crept forward, something moved behind an apple tree and she surged forward. It took her a while to comprehend what she was looking at; the roughhewn wooden cross had a name carved into it. Bending low she traced her fingers across the faded lettering. “Michael Crawford.” and a date had been carved into the wood. It was a date less than one year after she had last seen him. The knife dropped from her hand as the confusion raged inside her, but the confusion was quickly replaced by an unfathomable terror as the ground beneath her feet began to undulate. The tiny skeletal hands that broke the clay grasped her legs like teeth; she had been drawn beneath the cloying soil before she even realized what was taking place.

The burst of crackling sound from the radio startled him; as he was won’t do lately; Joe Melfort had been lost in his thoughts. The dispatcher’s disembodied voice drifted from the radio, and his first instinct was to ignore it. Joe was due to retire at the end of the month, but in truth, he had retired in his mind years ago. Thirty years as a police officer sounded like a worthwhile contribution to society, but Joe knew different. By and large, his entire career had passed in a blur of mind-numbing boredom, occasionally interrupted by short periods of frightening activity. The one thing that he could honestly say he had learned from the whole thing, was the fact that people were capable of strange things. He had also learned that there was very little new in this world, he had seen it all, and nothing surprised or shocked him anymore. The dispatcher’s ghostly voice once more interrupted his train of thought, there had been some incident at a construction site. He listened to the address which was less than a mile from the layby he had parked up in, and against his better judgment he responded.

The moment the big old building came into view an uncomfortable feeling came over him, it was nothing more than an old abandoned building. Yet something about the place felt sinister, an urge came over him to turn the patrol car and drive in the opposite direction. But the rational part of his mind convinced him that the incident would be nothing he had not seen plenty of over the years. The big heavyset man with the high visibility jacket stood waiting for him in the front yard of the building, a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth and his hands fidgeted with the hard hat he held. The construction worker looked as if he had just seen a ghost, and just beckoned Joe to follow him. Around the back of the building, the huge earth-moving machine stood motionless in a dilapidated orchard, the driver stood back and pointed with a trembling hand at a hole in the ground.

Joe Melfort stared into the hole and a sudden thought came to him, he had to admit that this was a first. The body of the old woman looked as if had been buried yesterday, but it was covered with tiny skeletons and the skeleton of a deformed adult. The strangest thing was someone had arranged the skeletons like a veil over the woman, and they looked as if they were holding her beneath the earth. For the first time in thirty years, Joe began to think that there were strange things in the world that he had not yet seen.