Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'No, lass, she's…'

'I meant, isn't she a feature of a listed historic building?'

'Oh,' said Alfred Beckett. 'Aye. Happen. But Mr Beard reckons she's not safe and could fall on somebody's head. Same as she's not done for the past umpteen centuries.'

'Aye,' Moira said eventually. 'It's a bugger all right.' 'Now then. Why aren't you at school?'

Benjie threw his arms around Ma's waist and burrowed his head into her pinny. He started to sob.

She pulled him into the kitchen, shut the back door. 'Now, lad. What's matter? Tell owd Ma.'

Ma Wagstaff sat her grandson on the kitchen stool. Spine still giving her gyp, she reached up for a bottle of her special licorice toffees. Never been known not to work.

When it was out, Ma said, 'The bugger.'

Benjie with his swollen eyes and his wet cheeks bulging with toffee.

'The unfeeling, spiteful bugger,' Ma said.

Biggest thing that had ever happened to Benjie, Ernest Dawber putting him in charge of the Autumn Cross – a whole afternoon, inspecting the twigs and branches, acorns, bits of old birds' nests and stuff the other kids had brought, saying what was to go into the cross, what was right for it, what wasn't good enough. Standing proudly, top of the aisle, the day Alfred Beckett had come with his ladder, and the cross, all trimmed and finished, had been hoisted into place, and everybody cheering.

Biggest thing ever happened to the lad.

'Leave him to me,' Ma said. 'I'll sort that bugger out meself, just you see if I don't.'

Benjie stared at her, wildly shaking his head, couldn't speak for the toffee.

'Gone far enough,' Ma said. 'Got to be told a few things. For his own good, if nowt else.'

'No!' Benjie blurted. 'Don't go near it, Ma.'

Ma was taken aback. 'Eh?'

'…'s getting bigger, Ma. Every day, 's getting bigger.'

'What is, lad?'

'The dragon!' The little lad started crying again, scrambling down from the stool, clutching Ma round the waist again, wailing, 'You've not to… You've not to!'

Eh?

Mystified, but determined to get to the bottom of this, Ma detached his small hands from her pinny, squatted down, with much pain, to his height. 'Now then. Summat you've not told me. Eh? Come on.' She held his shoulders, straightening him up, feeding him some strength, not that she'd much to spare these days. 'Come on. Tell owd Ma all about it.'

He stared into her face, eyes all stretched with terror. 'Bigger, Ma… 's bigger.'

'He might look big to you, Benjie,' Ma said gently. 'But he's only a man.'

'No. 's a dragon!'

'Mr Beard?'

"s a dragon.' So the new curate was in combat with the Forces of Evil.

As represented by Our Sheila and the Autumn Cross.

And whatever Willie's Ma was doing inside Matt Castle's coffin.

Last night – early this morning – as the dregs of hot chocolate were rinsed from the mugs, she'd at last got it out of Cathy, what it was all about – or as much of it as Cathy knew.

'So, the coffin's on the ground and the light's been lowered, and the lid is open…'

'I didn't see it!'

'And your friend, old Mrs Wagstaff has her hands inside… and I'm wondering if maybe the old biddy has a passing interest in necrophilia…'

'That's a terrible thing to say!'

'I know… so tell me. What's going on, huh?'

'It was… I think it was… a witch bottle.'

'I thought you said she wasny a witch.'

'It's just a term. It's a very old precautionary thing. To trap an evil spirit…?'

'Matt's spirit…?'

'No… I don't know. Maybe if there was one around. In there with him.'

'In the coffin?'

'I don't know… it's no good asking me. You're going to have to talk to Ma. If she'll talk to you.' And Lottie. Today it was important to talk to Lottie, because Lottie was not part of this place, had not been returning, like Matt, to the bosom of a tradition which was older than Christianity.

… a more pure, undiluted strain… than you'll find anywhere in Western Europe…

Moira had come through the lych-gate, was standing at the top of the cobbled street, the cottages like boulders either side under a blank, unyielding sky – a sky as hard as a whitewashed wall.

… this writer… Stanton, Stanhope…

… he's on his feet, and is he mad… this guy's face is… this guy's face is… this guy's face is…

White.

The plump woman in the village Post Office looked like a chief Girl Guide, whatever they called them now. Also, although she wore no wedding ring, she struck Moira as a member of the Mothers' Union.

'I wonder, um, could you help me? I'm looking for Willie Wagstaff.' She'd forgotten to ask Cathy where Willie lived, and Cathy had set out to drive fifteen miles to the hospital to visit her dad.

'Willie? Have you been to his house?'

Moira smiled. 'Well, no, that s…'

'Sorry, luv, I'm not very bright this morning.' The postmistress rolled her eyes. 'Go across street, turn left and after about thirty yards you'll come to an entry. Go in there, and you'll see a cottage either side of you and it's the one on the left.'

Moira bought ten postage stamps and two packets of Arrowmint chewing gum in case she ran into Alfred Beckett again.

There was no answer at Willie's house, a narrow little cottage backing on to other people's yards. Moira wondered if he lived alone. She squashed her nose to the front window. There was a bowl of flowers in it, with ferns. A woman's touch. Females had always been drawn to Willie, born to be mothered. In the old days, it used to be said that otherwise worldly mature ladies would turn to blancmange when little Mr Wagstaff smiled coyly and let them put him to bed.

Moira was not that mature, yet. The reason she needed Willie was to talk about Matt, and also to meet his mother. She came out of the entry, unsure what to do next. There was no one else in the place she knew, except…

At the bottom of the village street, Moira found herself facing the pub, the last building, apart from a couple of wooden sheds, before the street widened into the causeway across the peatbog.

This was the difficult one.

Against the white morning, the pub looked hulking and sinister, like a gaol or a workhouse. Stonework so murky that in places it might have been stained by the peat. Outside on the forecourt, a man in an apron was cleaning windows.

A red-haired woman appeared in the porch, handed the man a steaming mug of tea or coffee, stopped and stared across the forecourt. Waited in the doorway, watching Moira.

You ready for this, hen? 'They're not Ancient Monuments, these circles. Ancient, possibly. Monuments… well, hardly.'

Joel Beard kicked at a stubby stone.

'No signs pointing um out, anyroad,' said Sam Davis. 'Not even proper tracks.'

'That's because they're not in the care of any Government or local authority department. Unlike, say, Stonehenge, where you have high-security fences and tunnel-access. Which is why these places are so open to abuse.'

The Reverend Beard, in his dark green Goretex jacket and his hiking boots, striding through the waist-high bracken. Action priest, Sam thought cynically.

'Lights, you say?'

Although they were less than a hundred yards from the first circle, it wasn't even visible yet. This was the most direct route from Sam's farmhouse, but he reckoned that mob last night must have come in from behind. over the hill.

'Cocky bastards,' Sam said, breathing harder, keeping pace with difficulty, due to shorter legs. 'Bold as brass. If wife hadn't kicked up, I'd've been up theer last night.'

Sam bunched his fingers into fists. 'I'd give um bloody devil worship.'

'I know how you feel,' the minister said, 'but you did the right thing in coming to me. This is my job. This is what I'm trained for.'