Deathwatch - Final (19 page)

He sat on the lowest step, and leaned against the one above. The grass under his feet was thinner than it was a few yards off, because, he told himself, lots of people went into the church. They went to pray because they believed--

No, because they feared. The church was made by men, and men feared the power of the goddess.

He winced, straining to look through the trees, the deep band of shadows; but the voice that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere went on.

You're not afraid, though, are you? Get it, find her--she wants you to
.

The voice was so neutral, so utterly persuasive. It might have been Rose, it might have been Ellen. Was it Ellen calling him? He looked toward the graveyard, dimly aware the tendons in his neck were creaking. But there was nothing-- not even the foggy blue lights that lured him down from his place on the rise.

The wind blew gently, and he felt it dance against his cheek, ruffle his hair. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, chin cupped on his right palm. The wind rose a little higher and he could hear a soft song underneath the rustling trees.

The old woman's voice got caught in his head like a fairy tune he couldn't shut out.

Souls don't die, they enter the bodies of the living. I can bring her back. Souls don't die--

"Bring Ellen back?" he said, suddenly aware the sound of his own voice woke him. He'd been sleepwalking--or something very like it, and now he was standing near the left corner of the church, close to the rust-eaten rail that fenced in the graveyard.

The way into death is also the passage of life.

There wasn't any gate--just a wide gap in the ironwork. Two short stone pillars anchored the fence, one of them heaved and canted by the massive roots of a tree. He passed between the pillars, his eyes scanning the slightly irregular circle of tall oaks that ringed church, cemetery, grounds--his eyes flitted from one tree to the next and the next.

A sacred place, a holy place--the voice breathed.

Tom shivered. Was this ground sacred, holy in some way that was older than the church, than any church?

His ears caught the sound of soft chanting behind him. He whirled around, seeing the ancient beech towering the top of the rise. He heard the low bleat of a winding horn. A flickering line of lights began moving down the slope. Small spots of candleflame appeared, disappeared, returned. Now he could make out shapes descending in the darkness. Hooded figures from some distant time swaying in...

...a procession to the sacred grove, the place they carried the ritual sacrifice. They nailed the body to the tree--always the same tree, always the same way: first the elbows were spiked, then the forearms and hands were pinned at right angles to the joints. They fastened the knees so they were turned out, left the legs and feet hanging down. The sacrifice was left to wait, to watch them honor their mother--

"The mother," Tom whispered, and his eyes went to the enormous oak near the opening into cemetery, the gateless stone pillars beckoning him. The opening was like a throat, he thought--

No, a passage. The way into death is the way into life. She waits for your release. She lies buried at the base of tree. The Roman priests tore her image from the doorway of the church. Only find her and the waiting will be over. Don't you feel her power?

 A half dozen lurching steps brought him to the scarred trunk of the oak. He knelt, and his hands twitched at his side. He seized a clot of damp turf, clawing at the grass and dirt. What was he doing, was he going to dig with his bare hands?

Take her....

He squatted, using the muscles of his thighs and back as leverage and tugged furiously at the raw earth. He grunted, straining and yanking: a great chunk came up all at once. He saw there was a ragged depression about eight inches in diameter, maybe two or three inches deep. Beetles scurried and ran, madly burrowing deeper.

He dug with both hands, throwing fistfuls of dirt aside. His fingers scraped against a sharp rock embedded in the ground, and he cried out in sudden pain.

He sat back, breathing hard, his hands plunged into the soft scatter of fragrant soil around the hole. When the pain eased up, he worked to loosen the stone, poking his fingers around its edges, cutting more deeply around it. He pulled, feeling it give way a little, then break free.

Instantly he bore it down, wielding it like a hand held hammer stone to smash at the hard earth. He scooped out the broken soil, and now the hole was some ten inches deep.

Near the bottom he touched the tip of something root-like and humped under his fingers. He felt it carefully, a little puzzled. He brushed more dirt away; it was her, oh he knew it! He chortled and went to work with a will, digging deeper until he could put both his hands around her.

Tom gave one more hard satisfying tug, and the carved wooden image was in his hands.

He couldn't believe what he held.

The dark face was a leering goblin, its tongue lolled obscenely. It was some kind of goddamn toad. He turned it slightly. No, not an animal; it was a naked squatting woman, knees up, hands between her scrawny legs to show off her--her--the round slick hole of her privates.

Touch it, a voice in his mind whispered.

He put his index finger into the deep cleft between the legs, and he shuddered.

Then he set the sheila na gig on the ground, and lay back, one arm thrown over his face.

He was suddenly exhausted.

***

He didn't know how long he was lying on the damp grass. The air around him seemed to grow warmer. He heard a soft sigh, smelled the rich humid odor of exotic spices.

 He was pinned to the spot, unable to move, and he would've sworn on his mother's soul that a young woman with plump thighs walked toward him, breathing musk and sensuality. The hem of the gauzy veils that hung to her ankles trailed over his naked body. She stooped briefly: Her moistened fingers lingered over him, gently caressing his mouth, the side of his cheek.

Then she walked past, and she seemed no more than another of the pale marmoreal shapes among the carved white head stones and cold shadows.

***

He sat up, alone in the churchyard. It was almost dawn and he could see Ellen's grave, the low mound of thick grass that covered her. The turf where he dug out the ugly obscene carving was healed and whole. The sheila na gig was gone.

Tom felt a deep unsettling shift inside himself. He held out his hands expecting to see them swollen and raw with his frenzied digging, but there was nothing.

He looked up toward the enormous beech tree at the top of the rise, and he suddenly shivered, hugging himself in the cold morning air. 

He got up and began to walk back to the house.

When he got there Cedric was waiting up for him, sitting in the kitchen with a mug of coffee laced with brandy. His grandmother Rose was gone. She wandered out sometime in the night, and they feared she'd been lost like poor Noreen to the thick quickmud of the bogs.

At the news, Tom felt relief wash over him like a baptismal tide.

- 5 -

"
Y
our cousin Donald's gone to have a look round for her," Cedric said, his eyes, overbright with anxiety, his face wax pale in the shadowy kitchen. He knotted his fingers, then abruptly got up for more brandy, pouring a healthy tot into the white mug. "She'll come back, she has to help me." he said.

"Right." Tom wished Cedric would leave; his father's sighs into the brandied coffee were getting on his nerves. He began slicing bread for something to do. He was hunting up butter in the corner cupboard when he heard the thick ruffle of a deep snore. Tom turned and saw his father's head lolling on his thin shoulder, the mug of coffee dangling from his limp hand. Cedric had actually fallen asleep holding onto the handle. At the same time Tom was tip-toeing forward, intent on retrieving the cup, the sound of low snickering came to him.

Rose stood on the threshold. She opened her hands wide, like a priest begging blessing, and the mug fell to the floor with a clatter, splintering into white flecks and shards. Cedric snored on.

"You did well," she nodded at Tom.

"I did nothing." He averted his eyes, then fetched a broom. He stooped over the broken cup, beginning to sweep.

She smiled broadly, showing a mouthful of strong white teeth. "Don't you want what's rightfully yours?"

***

Puzzled, Tom blinked. Why had he thought it was Rose at the door? Rose was gone; hadn't Cedric said so, not ten minutes before? He blinked again and stared across the length of the room. Time seemed to stretch into something that looked like the long mouthblown shape of an hourglass.

He looked up, and a low sigh came out of his lips.

It was Ellen. 

Ellen stood in front of him. The half smile he loved was on her face. Her yellow hair was pinned up, a few curling tendrils softly fanning her throat. Her arms were full and round, her waist nipped in by a wide black belt. Her dark blue skirt hung to her ankles. She had little velvet slippers on. He saw there was a line of dark loamy earth along the soles. She must've been walking through a muddy lane.

"Ellen."

"I've missed you Tom," she said. "Tell me everything. Tell me what you've been doing? Most of all tell me you wished I'd never gone."

"Ellen, Ellen." He began to weep, then he laughed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "Ellen, I thought my heart--never mind. Don't mind me at all. I--"

Ellen found a perch on the wooden settle by the fire. "This is new."

He nodded. "Yes," he said. He was so overwhelmingly happy, he didn't know what to say, where to begin. He sat next to her and took her small hand.

She suddenly laughed cheerfully. "You thought I was dead didn't you?" She wagged her finger at him.

"But--" He felt confused, embarrassed.

"I saw my gravestone." She laughed again, then ruffled his hair. "Tom, honestly, you've got to promise that when I've really gone, you'll see to it I've a nice angel. That skull is horrid!"

"Noreen." He hung his head.

"I never knew she had such a morbid streak," Ellen said. "Where is Noreen?" She pulled up her skirts to her calves and stuck her feet toward the fire. The sight of her damp white stockings made him groan inwardly with desire.

"Ellen." He played with the tips of her fingers. "Where have you been?"

"Does it matter?"

"No, oh no." He kissed her, and he felt himself on the verge of some sweet dreamy mystery. He wanted to rush to take her all at once, and yet, at the same time, savor each touch, each nuance in her voice, every spark of light that beamed out from her eyes.

Her hands were in his hair. He bent his head and kissed her wrists, her arms, he felt himself going hard. He kissed one thigh through the soft blue skirt. "I want you, Ellie, this time for real," he whispered.

She suddenly seized his face between her palms, and he looked up at her.

Rose stared back with bright malicious eyes. She began laughing. She coughed, then pounded her thin bony chest, and doubled over.

He pushed out at her, and she rocked against the sidearm of the bench. It wobbled underneath their weight.

He jumped to his feet. Jesus Christ, he'd kissed that hag on the mouth--had been about to raise her skirt, lick between her thighs, make love!

He rubbed his lips, spit, and rubbed again. His heart was pounding. This was a thousand times worse than the insidious vision that day on the rise--he'd actually touched her, kissed her--worse, wanted her.

He began to retch and heave, but there was nothing to vomit. His guts contracted painfully, he felt the wrench of the spasm. Oh God. Oh God. Part of him wanted to die.

"The power of the goddess, boy. You see it now, don't you."

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Don't you? Then look at your hands, look at mine." She held out her twisted bony fingers, then turned the palms up.

They were red; slimy, slick with blood.

He looked at his own hands and saw thick dark blood coating them.

Rose had blood on her cheeks where he'd touched her. Smears were painted along her collar and shoulder. He raised his hand to his scalp, and found more sticky blood matting his hair.

"You touched the goddess, she paid us both in blood," Rose said.

"No--"

"The way into death is the way into life, boy." She nodded. "Blood is its emblem."

Cedric suddenly sat upright in the chair, his lids quivered and he opened his eyes. "Ah, mother. Thank all the saints, you had us that worried."

She went to his side and touched his shoulder. "Sleep now, the work will go on."

Cedric nodded, and his eyes sank shut.

Rose pinched Tom's cheek, and he felt his stomach roll. "Any time you want Ellen, you've only to look for her."

"I'm going to kill you," he said.

She shook her head, laughing at him, and Tom watched her climb the narrow steps to the first floor.

Tom told himself he must never allow himself to think of Ellen again. It was his love for Ellen the old woman played on and used against him. A terrible numbness stole through his bones; he felt bleached out, weak. Vowing not think of Ellen was like losing her all over again.

Tom sank onto the hard wooden settle, and put his bloodied head in his hands. He began to cry.

***

Six months later the night noises started up again, and even though it bothered him, (and now that he was more aware, he often threw himself stomach down in the bed and pulled the pillow over his head and ears) at least he knew the sounds well enough to recognize Margaret's gasps and moans. He supposed the neighbors were clacking their tongues, but Cedric's own mother was in the house, so it stopped the priest from bothering them. It was laughable; the idea of Rose as a chaperone made Tom's eyes roll.

No one told him what to do anymore. No one told anyone what to do. His brothers worked half-heartedly, but without Noreen's energy behind them, more and more was left undone.