Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

‘In the poetic sense.’

‘In the spiritual sense. This hill is the mother of the city. The camp here was the earliest proper settlement, long before there was a town down there. Over a thousand Celtic people lived up here.’ She paused. ‘My ancestors.’

There was a touching tremor of pride in her voice.

‘So it’s kind of…’ Lol hesitated, ‘… holy in the pagan sense.’

‘It’s just holy.’ Moon still had her back to him. ‘This was before the time of Christ. Over a thousand people keeping sheep and storing grain, doing their spinning and weaving and dyeing. It would’ve been idyllic – for a time.’

‘What happened to them? The Dinedor People.’

‘Some of them never went away. And the spirit remains.’

Moon gazed down over the spread of the city towards the distant Black Mountains and Welsh border. Slowly she turned towards him.

‘And some… some of us have returned.’

He saw tears shining in her eyes.

And then he saw the black thing clasped to her stomach.

Katherine Moon …

Dick Lyden, the therapist, had briefed Lol as best he could about three months ago.

Twenty-six. Bright girl, quite a good degree in archaeology, but an unfortunate history of instability. Runs in the family, evidently. Her brother Denny, he’s the sanest of them; might look like a New Age traveller, but Denny’s a businessman, has his head screwed on .

After university, Dick said, Katherine had spent a couple of years freelancing on various archaeological digs across Britain. This was how she became obsessed with dead Celtic civilizations. Began wearing primitive clothing and strange jewellery, smoking too much dope, tripping out on magic-mushroom tea. When she arrived back in Hereford, the Katherine bit had gone; she was just Moon, and more than a little weird.

The reason she’d come back to Hereford was the lure of the big Cathedral Close dig. Also, perhaps, the impending death of her mother – as if Moon had sensed this coming. Her mother had died after several years in and out of expensive psychiatric residential homes – one of the reasons Denny had kept working so hard. Now it looked like he had another one to provide for.

But Denny’s wife, Maggie, had decreed that Katherine wasn’t living with them, no way – this stemming from the Christmas before last, when Moon had come to stay and Maggie had found her stash under the baby’s cot. What a dramatic Christmas that had been. Now it was: Let her take her inheritance, smoke it, snort it, inject it into her arm… Just keep the mad bitch well out of our lives.

No wonder Maggie was paranoid. Denny’s mother seemed to have picked up psychiatric problems simply by marrying into the Moon family, like their instability was infectious.

Meanwhile, Katherine had flipped again. Bought some speed from a dealer in Hereford, disappeared into pubs and clubs for three days, and been pulled in by the police after nicking two skirts from Next. Denny had taken her to Dick Lyden, as part of the deal for a conditional discharge by Hereford magistrates.

He’d refurbished the flat over one of his shops for her, suggesting she ran the store for a while. Knowing this wasn’t entirely satisfactory – right in the city centre, too convenient for pubs and clubs and dealers, it was not really where he’d wanted her. But where did he want her? Well, somewhere safe. Somewhere he wouldn’t have to visit her too often and risk domestic strife.

But certainly not Dinedor Hill. Not in a million years. As for fucking Dyn Farm…

We got to stop her, man! Denny with his head in his hands, beating it on the shop counter when he heard about the barn. She can’t DO this!

But Moon had the money from her mother’s bequest. She’d already signed the lease with the latest people to own the farmhouse and its Grade Two listed outbuildings.

Think about it this way, Denny , Dick Lyden had suggested. The hill might have terrible memories for you, but she was just a child at the time. She has no memories of it at all. To Moon it’s simply the birthright of which she was robbed. So going back to the hill – to part of the actual family farm – could be a healing thing. Who knows? Might even be the making of her. If I were you, Denny, and I couldn’t disguise my feelings, I’d keep my distance. Now she’s done it, it would not be good for her to be exposed to any negativity .

And then Dick had said, Tell you what, why don’t we get Lol here to keep an eye on her? Most inoffensive chap I know, this . Patting Lol on the arm. No threat, you see? She mustn’t feel pressured in any way – that’s the important thing .

So Lol Robinson, ex rock-star (almost), sometime songwriter, former mental patient, had become Moon’s minder. Possibly because no one else really wanted to take that responsibility.

But that was OK. Lol needed some responsibility. It was fine.

Until this.

The rain had begun again. It misted Lol’s glasses and made a glossy slick of Moon’s waist-length hair, falling black and limp down her back.

As black and limp as the dead crow she held.

She was leaning back against the tree now, her right hand cupped under the bird.

‘Moon?’ Lol took a step backwards, stumbled to his knees in the mud, looking up at her. She was beautiful. Her big eyes were penetrating, like an owl’s.

‘Look,’ she said.

There was a spreading patch of blood, already the size of a dinner plate, on her dress from the stomach to the groin.

‘It fell dead at my feet,’ Moon said, ‘out of the sky. Isn’t that incredible?’

‘Is it?’ Lol said faintly. Appalled to see that her left hand, bloodied to the wrist, was actually moving inside the body of the crow. Loose feathers were sticking to the blood on her dress.

‘To the ancient Celts the crow or raven was a sacred and prophetic bird.’ Moon spoke as though she was addressing not one person but a group of students in a lecture room. ‘The hero Bran was possibly a personification of a raven god. There were also several crow or raven goddesses: Macha, Nemain, Badb and the Morrigan.’

Lol stood up but moved no closer to her.

‘It fell dead at my feet,’ she said again. ‘It was a gift – from the ancestors. A greeting on this the day of my homecoming.’

‘Like a housewarming present,’ Lol said before he could think.

He expected her to flare up, but she smiled and her eyes glowed.

‘Yes!’ She looked at Lol for the first time, and began to cry. ‘Oh, Lol, I can’t tell you. I can’t express…’

Her hand came out of the crow then, full of organs and intestines and bloody gunge.

Lol felt sick. ‘Moon, if it’s a gift—’

‘The gift,’ Moon said happily, ‘is prophecy ! And inner vision. The point is that the crow was endowed with supernatural powers. It was honoured and feared and revered, OK? When this one fell to the earth, it was still warm and there was a small wound in the abdomen and I put my little finger into the wound and it just…’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Because it was meant , of course! By bathing my hands in its blood, I’m acquiring its powers. There’s a legend of Cuchulainn, where he does that. I…’ She held out the bird to Lol. ‘I don’t know what to do next.’

‘Bury it, I think,’ Lol said hopefully.

And Moon nodded, smiling through her tears.

Lol let her put the mutilated bird into his hands, trying not to look at it, fixing his gaze out over the city, where the Cathedral tower still merged with the steeple of All Saints under an orange-brown cloudbank.

Down below the ramparts, in the bowl of the ancient camp, they covered the crow with damp, fallen leaves. Lol wondered if maybe he should say some kind of prayer, but couldn’t think of one.