The Guardian Stones (21 page)

Chapter Forty-six

He'd failed as a father.

Jack Chapman sat brooding on the anvil beside his cold forge and downed yet another mug of cider.

A real father would have knocked sense into his daughter's head. A father who was doing his duty would have beaten the badness out of Issy. Never mind what the rest of the village might think. They weren't living with evil like Jack was.

The cider—made by a local farmer—burned the back of his throat and churned his stomach.

Jack started drinking to kill the throbbing pain from the shrew bite as soon as he returned home from searching the pond. Nasty little buggers, those water shrews.

Drinking soothed the physical pain but didn't ease the agony in his soul. Or wouldn't until he drank enough to lose consciousness, his usual method of getting to sleep at night.

Through the forge's open doors he could see past the junk-strewn yard into the field across the road. He was dizzy from the cider or from the shrew's venomous bite. It wasn't dangerous but the effects were unpleasant while they lasted.

When he and Lilly were courting they strolled the fields at twilight. That was after the war. The first war.

He had returned wounded in his mind. You couldn't see the world the same way after you had turned to speak to a colleague and found he no longer had a head, after you tried to pull your hand out the mud after a barrage only to discover you'd been up to your elbow in your best friend's intestines. How could there be any good in a world like that?

No, the place he found himself after those experiences was nothing but a hell, populated by demons who claimed to be human.

When he was back in Noddweir a year he got to know Lilly. She was a sudden, undreamt-of light in a world where all the lights had been extinguished. She gave Jack a reason to live again. To believe there was still good beyond all the evil. They had married and planned a family.

And Issy had killed her, ripped her apart in the act of being born, the young heifer.

Jack was sure he would never see anything as horrific as what he had seen in the trenches. He was wrong. The lifeless face of the woman he loved was much, much worse.

So vivid was the pale, still image it seemed to materialize out of the darkness before his eyes. Untouched by the years that had passed. The features young, delicate. So unlike their coarse daughter. How could Lilly have given birth to such a monster?

“What have you done to our daughter?” Lilly asked him in a susurration as sad as the wind rustling the flowers on a child's grave. “You promised me you would take care of her and look what's happened.”

Tears welled up in Jack's eyes, blurring the phantom visage.

“Lilly…I did my best….”

Then he was lying on the ground on his stomach.

He rolled over feeling grit under his back. He must have passed out.

Staring upward he could dimly make out the rafters of his forge. Dawn must be approaching. He pushed himself up to his knees and the smoke stained walls spun around. He realized he was far from sober. He remembered the vision of his dead wife.

“Lilly?”

No answer.

His right arm felt sticky. It looked wet in the gray light. He smelled the coppery odor of blood.

What had he been doing? Stumbling around the smithy and injured his arm?

“Do you believe that?” a voice whispered.

“Lilly?”

He staggered to his feet and took a few wobbling steps in the direction from which the voice had come and out into the yard.

Above the treetops, in the graying sky, hung a sharp crescent of moon, a horned moon. His daughter was born under the dark influence of a horned moon. He should have drowned the child immediately.

“And whose fault is your daughter, Father? Not Mother's. Not such a good woman as Mother.”

Jack closed his eyes tightly. Forced himself back to his senses. He was still drunk. The world wouldn't stop spinning.

When he opened his eyes Issy stood in front of him, a misty ghost in the pallid light pooled in the yard.

“Devil!” he breathed.

The apparition laughed. “Who's the devil, Father? Did I ask to be born? Did I ask for the beatings you gave me?”

“I never beat you. Never.”

“So you tell everyone. Liar!”

“You lie! The devil lies!”

“It is time to stop lying, Father. It's time to do what has to be done.”

Jack saw that the ghost held in its hand a coil of heavy rope.

Chapter Forty-seven

Saturday, June 21, 1941

By mid-morning it was already sweltering—weather British newspapers would doubtless call a “scorcher,” Edwin thought. The younger children among those gathered at the church door for the parade were fretful.

He felt unsettled himself, acutely embarrassed by his confession to Grace, or more honestly, by her reaction. He had run into her briefly that morning as she went out on patrol. They exchanged awkward greetings. He wasn't sure how he was going to face her now. Luckily the parade gave him something else to occupy his mind.

Edwin scanned the crowd, mostly women with a sprinkling of farmworkers who had taken an hour off to see the parade. Mothers hushed their children's excited chatter when the vicar announced the arrangements.

“We shall form a line and Professor Carpenter and I will lead the children round the village so everyone can see them.”

Edwin glanced up the High Street. Villagers stood at their garden gates, many holding small flags. A lump rose into his throat at the sight. This was not his country, but he and Elise had always admired Britain. Besides which, a sincere show of patriotism was undeniably moving, notwithstanding that it was called the last refuge of scoundrels. He hastily turned his attention toward Timothy Wilson, who continued speaking in a labored whisper.

“We shall stop at the top of the High Street, where I'll present each entrant and everyone can get a good look at them. Every child will receive a book and the winner will receive two.”

“Three cheers for the vicar!” came a yell and the crowd obliged, despite remonstrations from Wilson.

Mothers marshaled the children into a ragged line and Edwin and Wilson led them away, followed by the adults.

Cheers and waving flags greeted the children as they progressed up the dusty street. They might have been a conquering army returning from the wars. Even the smallest child, a little girl pushing what Edwin deduced to be the family dog in a doll's pram—nobody was quite sure what she was meant to be—was caught up in the excitement. A happy grin illuminated her face as she trundled along beside her mother.

“It's remarkable how inventive people can be using whatever is to hand,” Edwin remarked. “I never thought I'd see Britannia wearing a colander helmet and carrying a dustbin lid shield and garden fork trident!”

Wilson smiled. “A splendid effort. But I'm afraid the lady who does the cleaning for me will be annoyed when she finds the feather duster has been destroyed for the tail of the baby duck.”

Edwin glanced back. The oldest evacuee billeted with Wilson was leading her youngest sister, who was dressed as a duck in a yellow pullover, cardboard beak held in place with string, and a bundle of feathers tied to her back. “The children will enjoy the attention,” he said, “not to mention the books.”

“Yes.” The word came out as a long wheeze.

“Do you think you should walk this much, Timothy?”

“I'll be fine.”

Edwin hoped his friend wasn't overestimating his strength. From what he was told, he wouldn't have expected Wilson capable of a continuous walk around the village, especially on such a hot morning. Shading his eyes, he glanced at the sky where scattered clouds avoided the sun's blazing orb. He couldn't help noticing the knob of Guardians Hill.

Wilson must have seen the direction of Edwin's lingering gaze. “It's strange that we're having our jamboree on the summer solstice. Celebrations in the old days were a lot more, shall we say, robust?”

“So Harry Wainman was telling me.” Edwin recalled the surly farmer's account of naked dancers among the stones.

Wilson stopped and turned to address the children. “In a moment each of you will walk round the line so everyone can get a close look. My friend the professor here has agreed to be judge for the best costume, having—as Americans say—no horse in the race. And then we shall parade back to the church for the prize-giving.”

The first contestant to break away from the others was an older village boy, whom the vicar described as a sandwich board man, pointing out the slogan urging everyone to Dig For Victory daubed on cardboard oblongs worn front and back. “And as you see, John has been digging for victory and has a basket full of vegetables to show for it.”

“I grew 'em myself and they're better'n anyfink you'd pick up in town,” the patriotic lad boasted as he moved to one side.

“Next, we have a representative of our gallant allies the French, ground under the Nazi boot but still fighting,” Wilson went on as a boy wearing a black beret took a hasty circuit. Edwin did not have the heart to mention he heard the boy tell the sandwich board brother that he thought it was a stupid idea to pretend to be a famous painter with no brushes, only a beret.

Wilson next described the baby duck's trio of siblings. “They are, as you see, swathed in brown paper and string, and I understand this represents parcels. Let's hope there's no postage due!”

Despite the laughter, several women wiped away tears. Were they thinking about parcels of little comforts they sent to their sons and husbands overseas?

A tow-headed boy dressed in his blue Sunday suit, shiny with wear, though well cared for if a little short in the legs, came next. He carried a homemade wooden airplane and made zooming noises as he paraded around the line. “As you see, Albert is an RAF pilot like his father, now posted as missing and for whose safe return we pray.”

A special round of applause greeted his remarks. Again Edwin felt a lump in his throat. How could these people go on trying to live normal lives when they could never be sure from one day to the next what might happen? Then again, wasn't he living here with them, coping with the same situation? Hadn't he gone on despite Elise's death? What else could you do?

Now three village boys pranced along together in the guise of a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker, carrying a large knife, a mixing bowl, and a tin candlestick. The next entrant brought several frowns. It was an evacuee with a lock of hair stuck to his forehead and a burnt cork mustache. His goose-stepping effort was spoiled by his wellingtons and a ripple of laughter broke out, mixed with vigorous booing.

Several other children had their turn in the spotlight, most dressed as such old favorites as gypsies wearing a shawl and paste jewelry or mice with string tails and brown paper ears attached to headbands. Wilson kept up his commentary, pausing to cough occasionally, his voice reduced to a near whisper.

Edwin imagined him as a young man, lending what aid and comfort he could in the hell of the trenches. Who could guess that so many years later he would be offering solace to others caught up in evil closer to home?

Violet was the last to parade, tripping over her long skirt and wearing a cardboard crown and feather boa. Described by the vicar as “our gracious queen, may God bless her and King George,” Violet smiled on all and sundry in regal fashion, the effect marred by her need to keep adjusting her crown and muttering “bother the thing.”

Edwin guessed that her costume was her mother Meg's idea.

There was a hearty round of applause and Wilson asked Edwin to name the winner.

Edwin adjusted his glasses. He didn't mind handing out grades to his university students, but judging these hopeful and excited children made him uncomfortable. “It was a really difficult decision,” he finally said, adopting his best academic tones. “But as a representative of British spirit and inventiveness, I think Britannia should be awarded first prize.”

Britannia whacked her shield with her trident and yelled in triumph. Everyone laughed. Then the vicar said “Now for the prize-giving!”

The two men led the parade back down the High Street to the church door. Edwin wondered if Wilson would make it to the end of the parade route. Despite having almost lost his voice during his commentary, Wilson moved at a steady if slow pace. Edwin remembered Harriet's claim that the vicar could move better than he let on. Feeling guilty, he dismissed the thought. That Wilson kept walking by sheer force of will was hardly a cause for suspicion.

The sun burnishing the landscape vanished suddenly behind fast-moving clouds. For a moment the contrast darkened the world. The temperature dropped.

“The box of books is inside the door, Edwin. If you would oblige?” Wilson looked dead on his feet.

“Of course. The key?”

“We never lock the church during the day. Spiritual comfort is everyone's right and they may seek it within.”

Edwin turned the iron ring handle on the worm-eaten door. The box of books sat nearby and as he picked it up the sun came out again, filling the church with multi-hued light.

At the base of the altar, bathed in colored light from the stained glass window behind it, lay the mutilated corpse of Joe Haywood.

***

Snatches of muted cheering drifted to Grace's ears while she patrolled. Twice, through gaps between cottages, she caught sight of the ragtag parade marching along. She felt isolated, a lonely ghost wandering empty streets, though they were abandoned only temporarily by those watching the festivities. She told herself she needed to make certain nobody got up to mischief while householders were elsewhere. But in truth she also wanted to avoid Edwin.

How could he think she cared for him? Surely she couldn't have given that impression? Or had she? Living in a tiny village, she rarely dealt with people she did not know and who did not, at least to an extent, know her. Maybe among strangers in London, or in Rochester in the United States, her normal, unguarded friendliness would convey more than it did in the close-knit community of Noddweir.

Stupid of her. Edwin was such a nice man. He had suffered so much and yet was not hardened or bitter, only sad. She hated to hurt him more. She sensed an innocence about Edwin, which was strange since he was a highly educated man from a big city as compared to the country folk here in Noddweir. But in the country one grew up closer to the world's harsh realities, even if your father wasn't abusive.

Too bad her father hadn't been more like Edwin.

And after all it was too bad Edwin was old enough to be her father.

Her gaze darted from side to side as she walked briskly along the High Street, alert for furtive movement. She spotted only a cat slinking past the front of Emily's closed shop.

The cat rushed over to her, meowing. She bent over to scratch its ears. “Sorry. I can't offer you anything.”

She straightened up, checking the pocket of her blouse, making sure her report to the Craven Arms constabulary hadn't fallen out. She hadn't wanted to leave it at the house. Grandma was acting strangely of late, Grace wasn't sure anything left in the house with her would be safe.

She wondered how Jack Chapman was faring with his shrew bite. He was another man who had suffered, but unlike Edwin he had turned mean and bitter. Of course Jack had lived with his loss for far longer than Edwin had. As the lonely years went by would Edwin finally succumb to despair?

Her knock on Jack's door elicited no response so she went around to the smithy in the back.

Walking into the shadeless yard was like stepping into an oven. The hard-packed dirt radiated heat.

“Jack?”

No answer.

Grace strode past the wagon parts littering the yard. The long rod Jack had used to probe the pond leaned against the smithy's brick wall.

He must have drunk himself into a stupor to dull the pain. It was a good excuse, not that he usually needed one.

“Jack. It's Grace.”

She paused in the doorway, dazzled by sunlight and blinked into darkness, which gradually lightened as her eyes adjusted. An unseen fly buzzed loudly.

It took her mind a second to register what she saw, so unexpected was it.

In the far corner, at the end of a rope tied to a rafter, hung Jack Chapman.