And wrath it was! Not the gentle voice of a beautiful little girl, but the tantrum of an angry spirit—brattier than the bully John after he’d lost a game of barres back at the abbey.
For a moment in the cathedral, watching that shadow crawl along the floor, Xan doubted the ghost. But then it had shaken the cathedral in a tantrum and wailed like a lonely wolf cub. Yet how could he ever get close enough to speak with it, to reason with it, to find out what it knew?
Christina had described poor dead Eleanor—little Nelly—as a sweet, holy child. Nelly had loved that cathedral, and Brother Andrew had admitted that she was likely in Heaven with the saints.
Perhaps the prayers of an innocent, cathedral-loving saint could do some good right now. “Nelly,” he whispered, putting his hands together and looking to the cottage roof. “Sweet little Nelly, if you’re in Heaven with Jesus, please pray for us. Help save us from this evil.”
He needed her prayers right now. But tomorrow he would need her prayers even more, along with everyone else’s prayers.
Tomorrow he must go back into that cathedral and confront the ghost again.
19
Palm Sunday
The cathedral amplified Xan’s breathing as he stood in the right aisle before a row of sweet-smelling candles that twinkled in the darkness. He was alone.
Suddenly a faint hint of a child’s innocent laugh arose, as though carried on a wisp of wind. It had come from somewhere nearby.
“Who’s there?” he whispered into the blackness.
Again, the bright laugh came.
He scanned the cathedral’s nave for the source of the sound. There!
In the left aisle across the cathedral, a small shadow passed by a row of candles.
Sprinting, he crossed the open space toward the vision, just as he’d done before. But nothing was there when he arrived except the statue of Mary holding baby Jesus.
Then behind him—a noise, like the movement of a dress. In the dimness, a golden light began to burn brighter. He jolted around to see.
There stood a small child: a girl dressed in a flowing white gown, her face blooming with health and a pleasant but distant smile.
His heart nearly stopped. “N-Nelly?”
The girl didn’t answer but raised her left hand from where it rested at her side. A tiny finger pointed out from her balled-up fist, a white sleeve streaming from it like a wisp of smoke.
He couldn’t bring himself to break that connection with her eyes, so full of life. Yet her small finger continued to point at something behind him.
He turned. There were the metal rows of candles in front of the Mary statue.
When he turned back to the spirit, he yelped in fear. Her glowing form was passing beneath him on her hands and knees, crawling toward the candles and the statue.
“Wh-where are you going, Nelly?”
She didn’t respond but continued creeping toward the candles until she made it under the black metallic candleholder and into the shadows.
“Wait!” he called. “Come back! I need to ask you something.”
Too late. She had disappeared without a trace.
He awoke, his brow dripping with cold sweat. In the dark room, gentle breathing from Father Philip, and a more pronounced snore from Brother Andrew.
What sort of strange dream had that been? The ghostly girl had seemed as though she were trying to give him a clue.
Brother Andrew had said that God could use dreams to speak to people. Indeed, hadn’t the Shadow come to Xan in a dream and given him a clue back at the abbey? Perhaps God was using Nelly to help him now. Unless it was just his own mind sorting through all the clues while he slept.
Either way, he knew what must be done now: tonight, he must get back inside the cathedral and make contact with the ghost. It might be waiting for him under the candleholder.
A rooster crowed in the distance: Palm Sunday was dawning.
“’Tis a joyous and sorrowful day,” Father Philip announced, as they headed down the lane to Saint Paul’s Church for Palm Sunday Mass. “’Tis a time to celebrate and to mourn.”
That made little sense. Why celebrate and mourn at the same time? Xan’s face must have shown his confusion, because the old priest tousled his hair in a friendly fashion and laughed. “Have I perplexed you, child? Today we celebrate the triumphal entry of our Lord Jesus into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey and hailed as the Messiah—a Savior. Just as the Jews threw palms ere our Lord’s feet, today we will raise willow branches to welcome our King.”
The priest’s initial words still made no sense. “Then why the mourning and sadness?” asked Xan.
“With two hearts we beat on Palm Sunday,” Father Philip said. “During Mass we also will sing out the Passion of our Lord: how he was beaten and scourged and crucified for our sins, betrayed by his friends, and rejected by those very people who hailed him as king.”
“Surely you remember these things from Hardonbury,” Brother Andrew said. “Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of the most holy week of the year.”
“And after Mass,” Father Philip said, “the whole town will meet at the West Gate and process to the cathedral, waving our willow branches like palms and chanting songs of praise, as though Jesus himself were riding among us on His donkey once more.”
Brother Andrew explained how this celebration would help ready them for the final days of Lenten fasting. Holy Week would bring with it many Masses recalling Jesus’s final days before His crucifixion. Then on Easter morning—only a week away!—a season of feasting would begin.
“Watch today, child, and learn,” Father Philip said, as they arrived at Saint Paul’s for Mass.
The service went longer than a usual Sunday, just as the priest had said. When it ended, the people picked up willow branches piled outside the church doors and headed for the city gate.
As Xan walked, a finger tapped his shoulder. Christina stood beaming behind him, holding a willow branch and wearing a black frock that made her hair even sunnier in contrast. Simon stood by her side, in black pants and a black shirt. The two of them looked dressed more for mourning than for celebrating.
“Good dawning,” she said. “I didn’t know you’d be processing with our church today.”
“Here I am,” he said. “And I need to talk to you both.”
As they marched to the gate, he told them about his dream and his plan to enter the cathedral in the dead of night to confront the ghost face-to-face.
Christina’s expression grew more perturbed as she heard the entirety of his plan. “Now listen here, Alexander,” she said, pointing a willow at his nose. “If you think I’m going to let you put me and my little brother in danger again, then you’ve gone dotie.”
He folded his arms and looked at Simon. “You mean you won’t come with me?” Simon’s silence, allowing his sister to speak for him, was all Xan needed to know about the boy’s feelings. Simon must be terrified, especially after those angry tremors in the cathedral.
“Exactly right,” she said. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t go either. Tell your monk friend or Father Philip about all this. Let them send in the sheriff or the King’s men to handle it.”
This was not a bad idea, but Xan needed a chance to communicate with the ghost, or at least attempt to communicate somehow. How often did one find a real ghost in the world out there? He might never have this opportunity again.
None of that would matter to Christina, though. She was the kind of girl who would make up her mind one way and never change it no matter what else anyone said to her. Unlike Lucy, who could be reasonable at least.
That was how they left the matter. Soon, Christina and Simon were off with their parents for the procession, leaving Xan alone with the priest and the monk.
When they reached the West Gate for the celebration, the guards were all in a commotion. Even the people there were shouting out in hostility, looking at something outside the gates.
Xan squeezed through the crowd to see.
There, a stone’s throw away, the guards were waving their spears in the air and screaming at a small group of ragged travelers—four women, three men, and two children.
The guards were shooing them away, but the unkempt group seemed unwilling to go. They were pleading with the guards in a strange language no one seemed to understand.
“Filthy Northmen!” a man in the crowd called. “Go back home with the rest of your kind.”
It had been almost three weeks since the guards had chased them off in the middle of the night. Yet they seemed more determined than ever to get back in—or at least this small group did.
A drumbeat sounded, and the crowd turned their attention away from the gate toward the clergy who had started the procession of willows toward the cathedral.
As he walked with the other peasants, Xan began to doubt himself. Would he truly be willing to go into that cathedral alone? Maybe he should tell Brother Andrew, like Christina said.
That’s when Lucy appeared in her pretty red frock, heading his way. “There you are, Xan. Happy Palm Sunday! My father said I could come to the procession today, as long as I get back in time to help the cooks prepare a special dinner for the royal judges.”
“I’m glad to see you,” he said. “I’ve got to tell you something.” As they processed, he told her about little Nelly visiting him in his dream and about his plan to enter the cathedral at night—alone if he must—to confront the ghost.
“I’ll go with you,” Lucy said, after hearing how Christina had responded.
“Your father will let you out walking in the middle of the night?” That seemed unlikely.
“Father sleeps upstairs, with the other court assistants. I sleep in the servants’ quarters.”
He smiled. So, Lucy was willing to sneak out in the middle of the night to help him in this dangerous mission, without a care for her own safety or a worry about getting in trouble.
That showed how much he misunderstood girls. He’d thought that Christina would be the one to sneak around and Lucy the one to insist on staying home and praying for them.
“Are you sure you want to break the rules like that?” he said. Somehow, it felt wrong to get Lucy to act sneaky.
“I wouldn’t be breaking any rules, technically. Father never told me anything about this, one way or the other. Plus, remember when the boy Jesus went to the Temple in Jerusalem without permission? His parents searched three days before they found him there.”
He’d heard that story. When Mary confronted Jesus about how worried she and Joseph had been, He simply told her that He needed to be in His Father’s house. God may have sent Nelly to Xan in his dream, so maybe the Lord was calling him and Lucy to be in the cathedral tonight too.
“All right,” he said. “If you’re certain about it.”
“I am.” She smiled wider than he’d ever seen. “At midnight, the bells will toll to announce the changing of the guard on the castle walls. That will be my chance to slip out.”
He chuckled. “You really are a sneak, aren’t you? Fine, then. Meet me at the stone wall outside Father Philip’s cottage after midnight.”
20
Night Terrors
After the grand procession, which had ended at the steps of the haunted cathedral, Xan spent the rest of the afternoon with Brother Andrew, who’d insisted he catch up on his studies.
The monk pulled one of Father Philip’s Scripture books, the Vulgate, off the shelf and had Xan practice reading in Latin. Of course, the monk chose for him the Passion story from the Gospel of Matthew, which described Jesus’ words and deeds during Holy Week.
After a dinner of warm bread, a cooked strip of pork, and boiled vegetables, they retired early to bed, exhausted from the day’s events. Soon the monk and priest were both snoring.
Xan waited the long hours until midnight, slipping in and out of a fitful sleep.
The bells from the castle barely could be heard down at the cottage. What if he missed their ringing and left Lucy out there alone all night? He pictured her sitting in her red dress on the stone wall, expecting him to come. Then she gave up waiting and went to the cathedral by herself, where she taught the ghost to pray and helped it pass from this life to the next—maybe to Heaven. Then a woodpecker knocked lightly upon a pillar in the cathedral, gently tapping. Tap-tap-tap. What a silly-looking bird. Tap-tap-tap.
He awoke to the tapping sound at the cottage door. He’d fallen asleep! He’d probably missed the bells. That must be Lucy trying to get his attention, even while the two men snored.
He slipped on his leather shoes and tiptoed to the door, cracking it open and slipping out. “Where have you been?” Lucy said. “I’ve been waiting here almost an hour!”
When he told her what had happened, she laughed. “A woodpecker tapping at a pillar? Teaching a ghost to pray? Really, Xan, I don’t think your dreams come from God at all!”
They passed along the cobblestone path toward the cathedral, under the moonlight and the fresh chill air—a pleasant break from the stuffy cottage.
“See how the night deepens,” he said. “’Tis all my fault. I’m sorry, Lucy.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me how we’re going to get inside with the doors all chained up.”
He scratched at his itchy brown tunic. “I noticed some side doors and low windows when I went around the cathedral with Simon. If the front doors are chained, we can try those.”
They arrived at the cathedral, its tall spires and thick walls blending perfectly into the dimness of the night. Sure enough, the front doors were locked tight with chains. Xan shook them, and they rattled upon the wooden door, echoing through the vastness inside.
“Shhh!” Lucy said, her dark eyes black in the moonlight. “You’ll wake the whole town.”
“C’mon.” He headed for the side of the church. “This way.” They followed the long path around the cathedral, trying all the side doors and pushing at the thick glass in some of the low windows. Long they sought in vain for a way into the church. At this rate, they’d never make it inside; he’d never get the chance to communicate with the ghost; and he’d forever be guessing about Mother and Father and their wishes for him.
“Well, this could be the shortest adventure in history,” Lucy said, slumping down in the grass in surrender. She made the Sign of the Cross and began an Our Father prayer.
“What hour is it, I wonder,” Xan said, leaning on the thick cathedral wall. “Wait, look!”
There, behind a shrub near the tall stone wall, a broken window glinted in the moonlight, so low to the ground and hidden that he’d missed it earlier. The jagged opening was blocked by a wooden board that had been pressed up against it from the inside, but which clearly was loose.
“What do you think?” He pushed the board back, fully revealing the opening. It was wider than the slit windows he’d squeezed through at Harwood Abbey.
“Do we have another choice?” Lucy said, crouching down to take a closer look.
They made their way through the opening—careful not to cut themselves on the glass—and found themselves in an old back chapel of the cathedral that had fallen into disuse.
“Now what?” Lucy whispered in the stillness. They had no candle to guide them because they had not made it to the altar and the candle that glowed near the Blessed Sacrament.
Suddenly her fingers touched his arm and made their way to his hand, just like that night along the convent path so many months ago. The memory of that moment shot joy through him.
“We find our way to the nave,” he said. “Then we light one of the candles below the—”
His thought was cut down by a loud scraping noise that seemed to screech from the darkness at the heart of the cathedral before echoing into silence.
Lucy squeezed his hand, perhaps out of fear. “That’s the same sound we heard before.”
“Aye, and I think I know where it came from.” Probably by those scratches on the floor.
They felt their way along t
he cold stone of the chapel wall, eventually coming upon a door that opened with a long, high-pitched creak.
“Well, the ghost knows we’re here now,” he said, in the lightest tone he could muster. With his fingertips passing over the coarse walls of a long hallway, they followed the only sign of light that flickered at the end of the passage.
“That must be the lamp of the Blessed Sacrament,” Lucy said, as they drew closer.
They saw no sign of the ghost. Indeed, the chilling quiet was scarier than any haunting ghoul. Not knowing the ghost’s location was worst of all.
The passage emptied into the right aisle of the church. Across the nave, the altar stood in the apse. Behind it hung a bright lamp, casting a glow on the semicircular walls. But that wasn’t the only lit candle in the cathedral. In the center of the left aisle, another candle burned below the statue of Mary holding the baby Jesus.
“Let’s use that candle,” he said, stepping into the wide space within the nave.
“Wait.” Lucy squeezed his hand again. “Don’t you feel that?”
He paused and closed his eyes. Indeed, Lucy was right. There was that feeling again within his senses—not something to see but to understand with the heart. “Aye,” he said. “It feels like we’re being watched. We need to get out of this open area.”
Brother Andrew had said that naves of churches were meant to resemble the shape of Noah’s ark, which had brought ancient man to safety during the great flood. The church builders had envisioned followers of Christ—baptized with water and standing in the nave—sailing within the ark of Jesus, who saved all from the devastating waves of sin and death.
But right now, with the feeling of ghost eyes upon him, it felt as if the ark was sinking.
They crossed the nave—empty and cold, alone and exposed. Step by step they closed the distance to the statue and the lit candle beneath it. Though they walked as carefully as possible, the slap of their leather shoes echoed against the hard stone.
The Haunted Cathedral Page 13
