Clive Barker: Sacrament

The coffin had been lifted from the back of the hearse and was now being carried into the church, the mourners filing in behind. The first figure to come after it was, he assumed, Frannie, though he could not make out her face at this distance. He watched while the congregation entered the church, and disappeared, leaving the drivers to lounge against the church wall and chat amongst themselves.

Only now did he continue on down the slope. He would go back to Hugo's house, he decided; there he could bathe, shave and change his clothes, so that by the time Adele came back from the funeral (where she'd surely be) he'd be looking more presentable.

But as he got to the bottom of the hill, he was waylaid by the sight of the village streets, which were as far as he could see completely deserted. He could afford to put off going back to the house for a few minutes, he thought, and took himself over the bridge.

The bell had long since ceased tolling; the valley was hushed from end to end. But as he wandered down the street, enraptured by the stillness of the scene, he heard the sound of something behind him. He looked back. There on the bridge stood a fox, ears pricked, tail flicking, watching him. There was nothing about its appearance which made him think that this was Lord Fox, or even one of his innumerable descendants, except for the fact of its presence here, defying him to question it. He'd seen better kempt creatures, to be sure; but then the fox could have made the same observation in reply. They'd both had wild lives of late; both lost some of their early glory; grown ragged, grown a little crazed. But they still had their wiles, they had their appetites. They were alive, and ready for another day.

'Where are you off to?' he asked the fox.

The sound of his voice breaking the quiet of the street was enough to startle the animal, and on the instant it turned and briskly departed back over the bridge and up the pale slope, gathering speed as it ascended, though it had no reason to run except for pleasure's sake. He watched it until it gained the ridge of the fell. There it trotted for a little way, then disappeared from sight.

The question he'd asked it was here answered. Where am I off to? Why, I'm away; somewhere I can be close to the sky.

Will watched the hillside and the track upon it for a little while longer, hearing in his head what Lord Fox had demanded when the animal had first appeared at his bedside. Wake up, it had said. Do it for the dogs, if you must. But wake up.

Well, he had; finally. The season of visions was at an end, at least for now, and its inciter had departed, leaving Will to take his wisdom back to the tribe. To tell what he'd seen and felt in the heart of the Domus Mundi. To celebrate what he knew, and turn it to its healing purpose.

He looked off towards his father's house, picturing as he did so the empty study, where that last undelivered lecture lay yellowing on the desk; then let his eyes wander to the church, and to the bleak churchyard where Sherwood's remains would presently be laid; finally returning his gaze to the village streets.

It would be in him always, the spirit of this place. Wherever his pilgrimage took him he would carry these sights, along with the sorrows and the ambitions that had moved in him here. But for all their significance, he would not let them keep him from his ministry another moment. Just as the fox had taken its way off where it could be true to its nature, so would he.

Turning from the deserted village, and from the church and the house, he walked down to the river, and following the track that wound beside it, began his journey back to his only true and certain home, the world.