Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

There was a shot of the church from across a river. The male voice-over commented, ‘The last religious service at Old Hindwell Parish Church took place more than thirty years ago. Tomorrow night, however, this church could be back in business.’

Cut to a shot of a dreary-looking street, backing onto hills and forestry.

‘But the people of this remote village close to the border of England and Wales are far from happy. Because at tomorrow night’s service, the ancient walls will echo to a different liturgy.’

Ancient black and white footage of naked witches around a fire, chanting, ‘Eko, eko, azarak...’

‘And to one local minister, this is the sound of Satan.’

Talking head (Eirion had taught her the jargon) of a really ordinary-looking priest, except that he was wearing a monk’s habit. The caption read: ‘Father Nicholas Ellis, Rector’.

This Nicholas Ellis then came out with all this bullshit about there being no such thing as white witchcraft. His voice was overlaid with pictures of candles burning in people’s windows – seriously weird – and then they cut back to Ellis saying, ‘It’s out of our hands. It’s in God’s hands now. We shall do whatever he wants of us.’

Over shots of their farmhouse, the reporter said that Robin and Betty – Betty, Jesus, whoever heard of a witch called Betty? – were in hiding today, but ‘a member of their coven’ had confirmed that the witches’ sabbath would definitely be going ahead tomorrow at the church, to celebrate the coming of the Celtic spring.

‘The Diocese of Hereford says it broadly supports Father Ellis, but seems to be distancing itself from any extreme measures.’

Then up came Mum: ‘Personally, I don’t care too much for witch-hunts.’

On the whole, Jane felt deeply relieved.

She called Eirion again. This time it rang, and she prepared to crawl.

Eirion’s stepmother, Gwennan, answered – a voice to match the house, or maybe it just sounded that way because she answered in Welsh. Jane almost expected her to hang up in disgust when she found it was someone who could only speak English, but the woman was actually quite pleasant in the end.

‘He’s in his room, on the Internet. Seventeen years old and still playing with the Internet, how sad is that? Hold on, I’ll get him.’

‘OK. I’m sorry,’ Jane said when he came on. ‘I am so totally sorry. Everything I said... I’m brain-damaged. I make wrong connections. I don’t deserve to live.’

‘I agree, but forget that. Listen...’

‘Charming.’

‘Are you online yet?’

‘No, I keep telling you. Mum’s got the Internet at the office in Hereford. If there’s anything I need, I look it up there. Too much surfing damages your—’

‘I was going to give you a Web site to visit.’ Eirion sounded different, preoccupied, like something was really getting to him. ‘I’d like you to see it for yourself, then you’ll know I’m not making it up.’

‘Why would I think that?’

‘I mean, the Web... sometimes it’s like committing yourself into this great, massive asylum.’

‘Irene...?’

‘I was checking out pagan Web sites, trying to find out what I could about Ned Bain and these other people, OK?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m off school and I got fed up with walking the grounds contemplating the infinite.’

‘And where did it get you?’

‘To be really honest, into places I didn’t think existed. You start off on the pagan Web sites, which are fairly innocent, or at least they seem innocent afterwards, compared with the serious occult sites you get referred to. It’s like you’re into a weedingout process and after a while it’s kind of, only totally depraved screwballs need apply, you know? Like, you can learn, among other things, how to effectively curse someone.’

‘What’s the address for that one? Let me grab a pen.’

‘Jane,’ he sounded serious, ‘take my word for it, when you actually see it on the screen it suddenly becomes less amusing. It’s like getting into some ancient library, where all the corridors stink of mould and mildew. All these arcane symbols.’

‘Sounds like Dungeons and Dragons.’

‘Only for real. You start thinking, Shit, suppose I pick up some... I don’t know... virus. And periodically you get casually asked to tap in your e-mail address or your name and your home address... or maybe just the town. And sometimes you almost do it automatically and then you think, Christ, they’ll know where to find me...’

‘Wimp.’

‘No. Even if you put in a false name, they can trace you, and they can feed you viruses. So, anyway, I got deeper and deeper and eventually I reached a site called Kali Three.’

‘You mean, like...’

‘Like the Indian goddess of death and destruction. That Kali.’ Eirion paused. ‘And that was where I found her.’

Found her? For some reason, Jane started thinking about Barbara Buckingham. A shadow crossed the room and she sat up, startled.

It was Ethel. Only Ethel.

Jane said, ‘Who?’

‘Your mum,’ Eirion said. ‘Merrily Watkins, Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford, UK.’

‘Wha—’

‘She came up on Kali Three pretty much immediately. There was a picture of her. Black and white – looked like a newspaper mugshot. And then inside there was kind of a potted biography. Date of birth. Details of the parish in Liverpool where she was curate. Date of her installation as priest-in-charge at Ledwardine, Herefordshire. Oh... and “daughter: Jane, date of birth...” ’

‘Picture?’ Jane said bravely.

‘No. But there’s a picture of your dad.’

‘ What? ’

‘Another black and white. Bit fuzzy, like a blow-up from a group picture. Sean Barrow. Date of birth. Date of... death. And the place. I mean the exact place, the flyover, the nearest junction. And the circumstances. All of what Gerry said at Livenight and more. It says “Sean and Merrily were estranged at the time, which explains why she afterwards retained the title Mrs but switched back to her maiden name.” It says that “She is”... hang on, the print goes a bit funny here... yeah, that “she is still vulnerable”... something... “the death of her husband. Without which she might have found it harder to enter the Church.” ’

Jane exploded. ‘Who are these bastards?’

‘I don’t know. There are several names, but I don’t think they’re real names. I think it’d take you a long time to find out who they are – if you ever could. They could be really heavy-duty occultists or they could just be students. That’s the problem with the Net, you can’t trust anything on there. A lot of it’s lies.’

‘But... why? What kind of...?’

‘That’s what scares me. There’s a line at the bottom. It says, “The use of the word ‘Deliverance’ is the Church’s latest attempt to sanitize exorcism. Having a woman in the role, particularly one who is fairly young and attractive, is an attempt to mask what remains a regime of metaphysical oppression. This woman should be regarded as an enemy.’

Jane felt herself going pale. ‘Mum?’

‘And there are all these curious symbols around the bottom, like runes or something – I’ve no idea what a rune looks like. But it – this is the worrying bit – it points out that “Anyone with an interest can see Merrily Watkins on the Livenight television programme”, and it gives the date, and it says that the programme will be coming live from a new Midlands studio complex, just off the M5. So that’s out of date now, but it must have been there before the programme took place, obviously. And it says that if anyone is interested in further information, they can get it from... and then there’s a sequence of numbers and squiggles which I can’t make any sense of, but I don’t think it’s another Web site, more like a code, so... Jane?’