Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'No,' said Milly. 'But Ma thought she'd be around for another ten years yet. I know that for a fact. Ma thought she'd see in the Millennium.'

'Who can say owt like that? Who the hell knows how long they've got?'

'Ma knew.'

'Aye. But she were bloody wrong, though, weren't she?'

Milly squeezed her lips tight.

'Makes you wonder,' Willie said bitterly, 'if it's not a load of old garbage, all of it, the whole caboodle. Makes you bloody wonder.'

'I'll not have that from you, Little Man,' Milly chided, 'even if you are in grief. That's part of the problem. That sort of talk's like decay.'

'Realism, more like,' Willie said, his fingers waking up, stretching themselves, then batting the side of his teacup in a soft chinking rhythm.

'Drink your tea. You're upset. We all are. I just wish I could get some insight about the Man.'

'Aye,' Willie said. 'And where's bloody Matt? Don't bear thinking about, this lot. Makes me think I'll happen have Ma cremated.'

'You never will!' Milly sat up so suddenly she actually spilled some tea.

'Nowt as goes in yon churchyard ever bloody stays down,' Willie protested. 'Aye, all right. I mean, no, I'll not have her cremated, settle down. Will you talk to Moira?'

'I don't know,' Milly said. 'Wasn't there talk of her getting into bad magic some while back?'

'Aye, and she got out again,' Willie said. 'You met her last night. How did she seem to you?'

'All right, I suppose,' Milly said grudgingly. 'But you can't tell. I should be able to tell, I know, but… Oh, Willie…'

Her shoulders started to shake and she collapsed against him.

'I'm out of mc depth. Why did she have to die like that? Why did she leave us?'

'Because she had no choice,' said Willie, almost managing to get his arm all the way around her. 'It's no good us keep getting worked up about it. What's done is done.'

But his fingers didn't accept it; they set up a wild, uncontrollable rhythm on Milly's arm, just below the shoulder. Ma was killed… Ma was killed… Ma was…

'Stop it!' Milly sobbed, 'I know. I bloody know! But what can we do?'

'Talk to Moira,' Willie said.

The church clock chimed, for 10 a.m.

'Be late for church,' Willie said.

'Not going,' Milly said. 'Means nowt to me now, that place. He's destroyed it. In one day.'

'Aye,' Willie said. 'And the well.'

'You what?

'Him or somebody. I never told you, did I? I forgot – what with Ma and everything. Me and Moira went up there looking for Ma, and the well had been wrecked. Statue smashed, right bloody mess.'

Milly rolled away from him, mashing her face into her pillow in anguish.

'I'm sorry, lass,' Willie said, 'I just forgot.' Sunday morning and the whole village was unaccountably silent. Moira walked to the church car park and loaded everything into the BMW.

It was coming up to 10.45, which probably explained the silence. This would be the time of the Sunday morning worship.

She walked across to the public notice board next to the lych-gate.

SUNDAY: HOLY COMMUNION 9.0. MORNING SERVICE 10.30 UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTIFIED

Life will go on. Unless otherwise notified.

She no longer felt observed. She wasn't worth it any more: a thin, bewildered Scottish woman coming up to middle age and her hair turning white.

Everything was unreal. The clouds were like stone. Her head felt as if it was set in concrete. She needed to get away, to sleep and think and sleep.

And then, maybe, to find Dic, track the little shit down, deal with this thing.

She'd see Willie and then leave. She didn't feel like talking to him – or to anybody. But Willie was the other link; there were things Willie could tell her.

And he was a churchgoer, or always used to be. She was probably going to have to wait until they all came out.

She slipped through the lych-gate. It began to rain, quite powerfully. The gargoyles glared down at her. She moved quietly into the church porch, but there was no feeling of sanctuary here now. The sense of walking into the womb had gone with the Sheelagh na gig. It was merely shelter now, from the rain and nothing else.

Moira stopped, hearing a voice, a preacher's lilt, from the body of the church.

'… Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moves us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, and that we should not dissemble nor cloak them before the face of Almighty God…'

It was cold in the porch, colder than outside. She hugged herself.

And there was something wrong with that voice.

… Wherefore I pray and beseech you, as many as are here present, to accompany me with a pure heart and humble voice, unto the throne of the heavenly grace, saying after me…'

The door to the church was closed. She would wait for a hymn and then go in.

'Almighty and most merciful father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep…

'We have offended against thy holy laws…

… and there is no health in us..

Cathy had been right. She was coming down with something, a cold, flu. Wasn't just shock. She was shivering again.

Should go back to the car, turn up the heater.

And then it came to her, what was wrong.

There should be responses. All these lines the minister was intoning were supposed to be repeated by the congregation. He was leaving the spaces.

'To the glory of thy holy name… '

But nobody was filling them. Not one person in this congregation was participating.

'Amen.'

Nobody repeated amen. He might have been talking to himself.

Holy Jesus.

'We shall sing… Hymn number six hundred and three. "Round The Sacred City Gather."'

She waited for the organ or the harmonium or whatever.

That sound they always made, like they were drawing breath for the first chord.

There was silence. Only that hollow gasping ambience these places had. And then the singing began.

'Round the sacred city gather

Egypt, Edam, Babylon.

All the warring hosts of error.

Sworn against her, move as one.'

A strong and strident tenor. One voice.

This guy was singing on his own.

And that was very seriously eerie. Moira began to feel scared.

'Get thee, watchman, to thy rampart,

Gird thee, warrior, with thy sword… '

Trembling, she pushed gently at the swing-door, opening it just an inch, just enough to peer in… and let out the voice, louder.

'Watch to prayer lest while ye slumber.

Stealthy foemen enter in…'

She almost screamed. Let go of the door, letting it swing back into place with an audible thunk that seemed to echo from the rafters.

I'm away. I'm out of here.

As she ran out of the porch, into the bleakly battering rain, she could still see him, fully robed, statuesque but crazy-eyed, arms filing out, balanced there on the steps before the altar place, singing to all those empty pews. All those completely empty pews. She walked back along the cobbles, to where she could see down the street as far as The Man I'th Moss.

Not a soul.

But the silence was more sorrowful than sinister, hung down like her confidence, somewhere around the soles of her shoes.

She looked along the blank windows of the cottages. The only sign of presence was some chimney smoking cheerlessly.

Maybe all this had something to do with the sudden death of Ma Wagstaff. A big death.

And the stealing of the Sheelagh, the removal of the candles, the toppling of the Autumn Cross. Like they didn't feel welcome in the church any more, these bewildered people who no longer knew where they stood in relation to their God or their Goddess.

She turned into the alley which led to Willie's house and she hammered on his door, her body flattened against it. Come on, Willie, come on.