The Ghosts of Heaven (12 page)

Above everything else, she wondered about what she'd seen under the water; there on the wall of the rock beneath the surface, hidden from view, the spiral.

She was afraid, and she wondered what it meant.

She'd grown up with the spiral maze on the tentergrounds.

She'd danced widdershins in circles with the rest of the village, just as much as any of them. But then that mark had appeared again, on the toy that Robert Hamill had given Tom. And then again on the axle of the waterwheel.

And now here it was, on the rock, under the water of Golden Beck, and it scared her. There was some magic about that mark, something old and powerful, she was sure, and though, like her mother, she had always wanted to know what is not known, and uncover the covered, and find out everything she could about the world, something deep inside told her to be scared, and she was.

 

16
THE NAIL

These were the bright hot days in which Anna's fate was sealed. The sun scorched the grass of the tentergrounds. Trees wilted; branches of the tall ash by the churchyard cracked and simply fell off in the dried air, even the level of Golden Beck seemed to fall slightly, though not enough to expose the carving it had long been hiding.

The strong colors of early summer were gone. In their place were pale browns and greens that faded further every day, and if there was only one strong color left, that color was black, the black of the minister's cassock.

*   *   *

This was the time when Father Escrove began his work in earnest, and he was as shrewd as he was eager.

He had heard about the ducking of the gracewife's daughter. It made him smile, to think of these simple people. Their enthusiasm was undeniable, and yet their methods were crude, primitive. There were much more subtle ways of bringing justice, much more powerful. And having heard about the ducking, and how the inevitable conclusion was made inconclusive thanks to the intervention of the girl's brother, Father Escrove grew very interested in these goings-on indeed.

So his first visit was to the nursery of the manor house.

There he found Grace, with the third Hamill son sucking at her breast. The minister suppressed the desire to wrinkle his nose, and instead placed himself by a small window that possessed a broad view of Welden Valley.

He'd waited some days since his arrival before getting to his work, and he knew now that that had, as so often before, been a successful strategy. It was important to listen, to hear what people had to say for themselves. For it could so often be used against them.

“Girl,” began Father Escrove, without looking at her. “You have a babe of your own?”

Grace looked up from the Hamill boy. She could just see the minister's profile as he looked out of the casement. Didn't he know she'd lost a child?

“No, Father,” she said. “It passed over.”

Escrove nodded.

“So you came to wet nurse here?”

Grace nodded. Then she remembered the minister wasn't looking at her.

“Yes, Father.”

“I am sorry for your loss. It must have been a … torment to you.”

Grace nodded.

“Why did your baby die, child?”

Grace's eyes widened.

Oh God
, she thought.
What happens if I say?

“It was born sick,” she said.

“And it did not recover?”

“It ailed every day.”

“Till it died?”

“Till it died, Father.”

“And what caused the ailment of your baby?”

Grace hesitated. Was it just so easy as to say it? Could it be?

Still she hesitated.

Father Escrove turned in his chair, and now he looked straight at her. She lifted her head and found she was looking straight into his eyes, which held her, fixed her, and she stayed that way as she became aware that the minister was saying something to her.

“Do you think there was some malign influence on the infant? Child?”

Grace found herself nodding.

“Every day I took it to Joan Tunstall.”

“Joan…?”

“The gracewife. She died just last week.”

“And every day you took the child to Joan Tunstall, and every day it got sicker?”

Grace nodded again. Still she stared into the minister's eyes and she felt small. All she wanted to do was to please him.

“Father?” she said.

“Yes, child?”

“The gracewife? She was a cunning woman, too. And she was helped. By her daughter.”

“Her daughter?”

“Anna Tunstall.”

“Anna Tunstall. And is she a cunning woman, too?”

Grace nodded.

“Yes, Father. The cottage is full of it.”

“So, child. This Anna Tunstall. She helped bewitch your infant?”

Grace smiled inside, but outside, her face was a mask as she looked the minister in the eye and said, “Yes, Father. I'm sure of it. My mother swears so.”

*   *   *

Father Escrove doubted very much whether a wench like this Anna Tunstall would have a coffin for her funeral, but if she did, the first nail had just been hammered into it.

 

17
GAINING WATER

Father Escrove made his way down the track that wound through Horsehold Wood. Wood pigeons called to each other through the leaves of the scrub oaks, tall flowers thrust rude parts up from the darkness of the forest floor to find light and insect lovers. Golden Beck rang louder and louder as he approached, and with that sound, the sound of hammering grew louder, too.

He turned the final corner in the track to see Gaining Water smithy directly by the waterside, a large pool spreading beyond it, which quickly narrowed into the neck of a waterfall that dropped down toward Deepdale.

Through the open door of the smithy he saw the fire of the furnace, and in the hands of the smith, the fall of a hammer on glowing metal. Escrove enjoyed this infernal picture. He was at God's work, after all, and any malefactors he found would soon be enjoying the same scenes in Hell.

The way forward, of course, was to pick people off, one by one. The way to do that was to start at the weakest end of the chain. And Father Escrove had heard some things about Jack Smith.

He watched for a long time, through the door, waiting for Jack to finish his hammering. At last, the metal he was beating grew too cold to work. He thrust it into a glowing bed of coals, then stalked out of the door to cool off while it softened again.

He saw the minister right away, standing. Waiting for him.

“Father?” asked Jack Smith.

“Would you talk to your priest, Jack?”

“Of course, Father. What would you talk about?”

“I would talk about a girl named Anna Tunstall.”

The minister noted that the blacksmith stiffened slightly at the name.

“What of her?”

“You swam her in the pool at Fuller's Mill?”

“There were many of us did that,” Jack Smith said hurriedly. “It was not only me did that.”

Jack saw that the minister was nodding. He sounded understanding.

“Of course, of course. And you must have good reason for doing what you did.”

Jack Smith felt his mouth dry.

“We did,” he said.

The Father was smiling at him, broadly.

“And what were your reasons?”

Jack Smith felt his tongue like a rough ball in his mouth.

“She's a witch,” he said, very quietly.

“How do you know that? Did the water reject her?”

The blacksmith looked back inside his forge, and the minister coughed, just once, to get his attention back. He swung round and found that the minster's eyes were fixed on his.

“No, Father. That is … She was saved before we knew whether the water had made its choice. But she is a cunning woman, all right.”

“You know that?”

“Everyone knows it!” cried Jack. “A cunning woman, just as her mother was. Everyone goes there!”

“Everyone?” asked the minister, and Jack knew he'd made a mistake.

“Many do.”

“Do
you
?”

Jack Smith thought about the pots of herbs sitting on the shelf in the smithy kitchen.

“No,” he said. “Never.”

“And you would testify to this? About the girl?”

Then Jack Smith thought about Anna—her long hair, those slender legs he'd once seen as she danced the spiral dance and the wind lifted her dress. He thought about those wide lips and he thought about the number of times he'd imagined them on him. He remembered how she'd felt under his hands as they'd dragged her to the water. He'd managed to feel her softness. Oh God, how he wanted her. Oh, how he hated her. Bitch.

“Yes, Father,” he said. “I would.”

*   *   *

The second nail. And the third was even easier to come by.

 

18
WHAT FEAR CAN DO

Father Escrove asked to be introduced to Jack Smith's wife.

They found her in the kitchen and Jack was stupid enough not to be able to stop himself looking at the jars of herbs on the shelf. But the minister didn't seem to notice.

He was smiling easily at Elizabeth Smith.

There were three brats in the room. A lumbering boy and two pallid girls who looked just like each other.

“Perhaps our conversation is not for innocent ears…?” said Father Escrove, and Elizabeth shooed the children outside. They ran out, and then all three crept back and sat under the open kitchen window, a rare truce agreed in an unspoken moment.

The tall man of God was speaking to their mother.

“And what do you know of her?”

“Anna?” asked Elizabeth.

“Anna. Just so.”

“Not so much. They live up there by the tentergrounds…”

“And your view of her?”

“Why, I … I don't know.”

“She is an evil woman, is she not?”

“Anna? Evil? No, that's…”

“That's curious,” said the man in black, cutting into her words with his own.

“C-curious, Father?”

“Curious, when your own husband here says that she is.”

There was a long silence then, during which the children ached to peep over the windowsill, but dared not. There was something in that room that stopped them, and though they couldn't have named it, they felt it.

Fear.

Into the silence, Father Escrove said, “have you had an accident, Elizabeth?”

“Accident?”

“How come you by that bruise on your neck, Elizabeth?”

“Oh, that. An accident, yes. I stumbled and fell and hit on the table.”

“It must have been a strange fall that placed your neck on the table,” said Father Escrove, and then there was more silence, which the minister ended.

“So, your husband says the girl is practicing wicked matters. What do you say to that?”

Then there was the longest silence of all, after which Elizabeth spoke, quietly.

And she said, “He is right. She is a wicked girl.”

Then Father left, striding out of the smithy, but not before he said one last thing.

“Be careful how you stumble, Elizabeth.”

The children watched his black dress switching away through the trees by Gaining Water, and then he was gone.

They understood nothing.

 

19
FULLER'S MILL

Father Escrove walked along Golden Beck, taking the tiny path by the river bank, stepping over the hefty tree roots that crossed it from time to time, shaded from the heat of the day by the oaks and the steep valley sides.

He was satisfied with his morning's work, but in order to bring things to a head, there was one more testament he wished to obtain.

It took him a quarter of an hour to come to Fuller's Mill.

The sound of the hammers pounding the wool in the baths of piss came from inside, and something of the smell, too.

There was no one in sight.

Maybe she was here. This was the place she worked. But there was no sign of her, nor anyone else. The place seemed deserted, free of people, as if the mill itself was alive and running things ably.

Father Escrove approached and peered in a window. There was a man and a woman tending the fulling. But not her.

He walked around the side of the mill to the house and rapped his peeling knuckles on the door.

Nothing.

He rapped again, and now the door opened and the wife, Helen Fuller, was there.

“Father Escrove,” he announced. “I am Rural Dean. You may have heard of my presence.”

Helen nodded dumbly.

“Is your husband here? I wish to speak to him.”

The woman seemed confused.

“Your husband, madam? He is the tenant of the mill?”

“Yes—yes,” she stammered. She turned back into the house. “John!”

*   *   *

It didn't take much.

It didn't take long.

Within half an hour, John Fuller was where the minister wanted him to be, although the minister was surprised, and a little irritated that it had taken that long.

The man who employed Anna Tunstall, and who had employed her father, seemed reluctant to bear witness against her. And he was cleverer than the others. He managed, for twenty minutes, to avoid the traps that Father Escrove set him, always just avoiding condemning the girl, without condoning her either, and damning himself in the process.

But there is an Achilles heel to everyone, Escrove believed, and John Fuller's was one of the first he had discovered on his arrival in Welden.

So it had been a very easy matter to convince John Fuller of the seriousness with which Sir George wished to pursue the roots of evil in the parish. That the Father not only had his full backing, but that Sir George had explicitly stated that everyone in his parish should lend their full support to these investigations, or be deemed to be preventing the minister from doing his good work.