Oisín McGann - Ancient Appetites

'Perhaps we could break with tradition this once,' he said in a loud voice, glaring defiantly at Edgar. 'I think everyone should have the chance to say goodbye to Marcus.'

Gideon wore an expression of disgust, Eunice one of triumph. Nathaniel was standing back with Gerald, both of them suppressing mocking grins. As the coffin continued on its way, Daisy spotted a man at the edge of the crowd pressing his thumb to the top of his head. But then his wife slapped the back of his neck and he sheepishly cut short the gesture.

In the end, as the men bristled with indignation, over a dozen women followed the casket into the cemetery. All the family's recent Patriarchs were interred in a huge, gothic marble mausoleum at the top end of the cemetery, near the church. Further down, the Heirs who had died before reaching the position were placed in another mausoleum; not quite as grand but mightily impressive nonetheless. The great iron door stood open. Above the columns framing the entrance, an eight-foot, white marble angel raised the tips of his wings straight up towards heaven.

The men filled the path on either side of the door, and Daisy found herself standing beside Eunice on the grass in the shadow of the angel. The archbishop started droning on again in his professionally mournful voice. The six footmen carried the coffin inside on its bier. She had to raise her head to see over the men's shoulders. Her shoes were not well suited for walking on grass and she could feel the high, narrow heels starting to sink into the soft ground. She leaned her weight onto the balls of her feet.

Looking at the other women in their black silk crepe dresses, she was struck once more by the obscene amounts of money spent on funerals. These designer dresses would be used once and then thrown away; it was considered bad luck to keep funeral outfits in the home, even though most of these women would continue to wear black for months after the burial. This would be done partly because they were in mourning, but also out of fear of the dead. It was believed that dead souls clung to the living and that dressing in black hid the grieving family from the recently departed. As this unholy thought went through her mind, Daisy stared at the iron door of the mausoleum and a shiver ran down her spine. Born to a family like this, what kind of souls haunted that dark cavity?

'Bloody clergy, you can never shut them up,' Eunice muttered. 'I wish he'd get on and be done with it. These shoes are killing me-'

And then it seemed as if Judgement Day burst over them. The ground erupted with a cracking, deafening boom, muffling everything that followed with a whining silence as a shock wave lifted the people off their feet and cast them aside like leaves in the wind. Daisy found herself sliding across the flagstones of the path, yards from where she had been standing. She couldn't hear a thing and grit filled her eyes. Soil was falling from the sky.

She struggled against the confining folds of her unwieldy crinoline dress and staggered to her feet. Tearing off her veil, she rubbed her eyes, blinking rapidly to try and clear them. Bodies lay tossed and tangled all around her.

A coffin crashed to the ground – and then another, splitting open to spill out broken skeletons wrapped in shreds of cloth. Others fell in pieces. It rained splinters of wood and bone.

Nathaniel was near the door of the mausoleum, looking stunned and trying to stand up. His mouth was open and he had his hands over his ears. There was a long angel-shaped shadow on the ground around him and as Daisy watched, it moved. She looked up at the roof of the mausoleum. The marble angel above the entrance was teetering forward. Daisy screamed at him but he could not hear her.

For a second she froze – and then something crashed to the ground behind her and the fright it gave her started her running. She just managed to reach Nate before her foot caught on the hem of her dress and she stumbled, careering forward and shoving him aside. Daisy sprawled on the ground and before she could get up, the towering marble sculpture toppled from the roof and slammed down on top of her.

Nathaniel experienced a moment of complete confusion. One second he was standing watching his brother's coffin being deposited in the mausoleum, the next he was conscious only of being hurled against the mausoleum wall by a huge and sudden force. Then he was falling forward onto the ground, winded and stunned. Reflex had him back on his feet almost immediately, but it had the effect of spinning the world around him in a most unsettling way. He wondered why he couldn't hear anything… and why the air was filled with dust and debris.

He was gaping in awe at a sky filled with smoke, earth and flying coffins when a second thrusting force threw him forwards onto his face, knocking what little air was left out of his lungs. His jarred senses gave up their valiant struggle and tipped him into unconsciousness.

When Nate came round, he was surrounded by a criss-cross flicker of running legs. Lifting his head, he coughed up and spat out some crumbs of soil that he had somehow swallowed. His chest hurt, but not as much as his neck, head and shoulders. Getting stiffly to his feet, he looked around.

The cemetery was in ruins. Downhill and to his left yawned a massive crater of fresh earth. Tilted and broken gravestones formed angular black and white marks in the new carpet of fresh topsoil. Ruptured coffins lay scattered all around them, and in places a macabre snow of shattered bone had fallen with them. People were running everywhere; screaming, panicking, or making frantic efforts to help the injured.

As his hearing returned, Nate became aware of a voice behind him.

'… Nate? Nathaniel!'

He turned and was astounded to find the marble angel from the mausoleum's roof standing on its head behind him. Its upraised wings were embedded into the ground almost to its shoulders and its square base jutted into the air. Lying trapped beneath it was his sister-in-law.

'Would you be so kind as to help me?' Daisy hissed through gritted teeth.

Nathaniel took time to assess the situation properly. It posed a fascinating problem. The statue had landed on its wings in such a way that its head was still clear of the earth; but the wings had nailed the folds of Daisy's wire-hooped crinoline dress firmly to the ground on either side of her. She must have been thrown forward at the time because the dress was up around her waist and was pinned so tightly that she could not move her body. A quick peek behind the sculpture confirmed that her frilly, white, ankle-length bloomers were clearly visible.

'Nathaniel!' she screeched. 'Have you no decency?! Good God in Heaven, I'm in this position because I just saved your life!'

'I'm much obliged,' Nate replied, thinking it highly unlikely that she was telling the truth.

'It's a decision I'm already beginning to regret. Are you going to help me or not?'

He regarded the upturned statue with great deliberation as she lay there fuming.

'I think,' he said at last, 'that it'll take a team of men to draw your new friend from his scabbard. I'll have to get help.'

Daisy made a barely audible whimper, but maintained a dignified expression as she looked up at him from between the shoulders of the embedded sculpture.

'You will be discreet, won't you?'

'Of course,' he assured her, taking his coat off and draping it over her exposed undergarments. 'You can trust me.'

'And don't take too long,' she added.

'Don't worry' he called back to her as he walked away, 'you'll be quite safe. After all… you have an angel watching over you.'

Francie woke to find himself being carried through the settling cloud of dust. He coughed hoarsely, gagging on the grit in his throat. As his head lolled to one side, a nightmarish shape charged towards him and he heard snorting and panting breath over the rapid stomp of hooves. The drayhorse galloped past him, its eyes wide with panic, its flanks streaked with wounds. The remains of its cart clattered along on broken wheels behind it. In seconds it was lost from sight in the dusty fog.