“Don’t mock. There wasn’t time for a real massage, but she did something she calls energy work on my neck and shoulders—I couldn’t believe how many knots I had in my neck. Feels great now.” Felicity rotated her neck like a rag doll to demonstrate her flexibility.
“Was Anne there?”
“No, she was out, but the shop really is quite lovely in a New Agey sort of way; stained glass and crystals catching the light in the window, bells and wind chimes tinkling through sitar music, a little waterfall splashing. And the smells! All kinds of scented candles and aromatherapy oils.” She leaned forward so he could smell her neck. “She used lemon oil and lavender on me. To relieve stress, she said.”
Antony looked at his companion’s serene smile. But he was still uncomfortable about all this. “Felicity—” He wasn’t sure how to express his discomfort. “Crystals, chakras—all this new age stuff just isn’t compatible with Christianity. Be careful.”
“Yes, I know. It all seemed great until I was leaving and spotted these.” She pulled a flyer from her pocket and handed it to him. He knew what it would be. The act of unfolding the paper made the double-headed snake printed there appear to slither.
“Another empowerment lecture,” Felicity began, but then her placid look vanished.
It or they were all around them. And yet Antony could see nothing. He had a sense of the corbels circling the room laughing and jeering at him. You’ll never get us. We’re stronger than you are. Smarter, quicker and more powerful, they mocked.
Chapter 23
Friday
St David’s
After breakfast the next morning, Felicity followed Lydia out onto the terrace where Nancy, Evie and Kaylyn were already sitting on a bench overlooking the bay. Lydia stood apart and Felicity joined her. “How are you holding up, Lydia? Has there been any word about Adam? This must be so worrying for you.”
Lydia shook her head. “I’m worried about Adam, but not in the way you think. I’m sure he’s fine. They’ll find him holed up with a friend no one knew anything about, or having a grand adventure in a deserted shack in some woods. He’s done things like this before. I worry because I can’t imagine what we’ll do if the school kicks him out.”
“So you don’t think he’s been abducted? The police…”
“Oh, I know. They have to do all the ‘missing child’ search things. Doing their job. That’s good. But he’ll turn up. I told them.”
Jared, Ryan and Michael joined them. “Pembroke Castle today,” Ryan declared. “Who’s up for it?”
“Pembroke Castle?” Felicity asked.
“An enormous oval castle with a huge circular keep,” Michael replied. “Pembroke Castle may have been a base when the Roman fleet patroled the Bristol Channel.”
“What a pity Colin isn’t here to go with us,” Evie said.
Felicity smiled at the Goth’s immediate enthusiasm. Pilgrimage was often life-changing, but the change wasn’t usually so dramatic. Nancy, however, chose to remain at St Non’s. “I think I’ll have a quiet day.”
Michael turned to Lydia. She shook her head. “I’m sure you can take care of it without me. I’m going to see if I can get hold of some more of Adam’s school chums. His bunks don’t usually last this long.”
Michael placed a hand on her shoulder. “God help you, Lydia. I can’t imagine how worried you must be. Do you want me to stay with you?”
“No, of course not. You’ve got your job.”
Michael turned to Felicity, “You up for an outing?”
“It sounds like a great—” Felicity started to join in the plans when Antony came around the corner. The morning sun seemed to highlight the worry lines at the corners of his eyes. She didn’t finish her sentence, but went to him.
“Two things,” he said, walking on toward the corner of the lawn where they wouldn’t be overheard by the others. “Chloe has some photos she wants to show you, and Dilys rang. She’s found some things in Hwyl’s desk. I think we ought to go back to see her again.” He nodded toward the group on the terrace. “That is, unless you…”
“No, no. But I think Michael is planning to use the van— they want to visit Pembroke Castle. I’d rather go with you, though.” Always and anywhere, she finished silently.
“Good.” He gave her a brief smile. “That sounds a good plan for them. I do appreciate Michael seeing to the youth when I’ve got all this on my mind. I’ll ask Sister Nora if we can borrow their car.”
Felicity returned his smile. “Right. You arrange that and I’ll see what Chloe wants. Where is she?”
“Sister Nora’s office. Chloe borrowed her computer.”
Felicity found her American friend busily cropping and enhancing her photos from the Bishop’s Palace. “Looks like you got some great shots.”
“I thought you’d like to see the ones I took of you. They turned out so well. It’s great of Nora to let me use her computer. I get so far behind on my editing. And I love to keep up my photo journal blog when I can. Everyone at home is following me.”
Felicity pulled a folding chair up to sit beside Chloe. “Oh, you did a great job of framing me in that window.”
“So glad you were wearing red. Nothing photographs better. Especially against the brown stone. And with your golden hair.”
Chloe turned through several photos, some of Felicity and Antony together. “Oh, not fair. We didn’t know you were taking a picture.” The photo was of Antony kissing her.
“You’re darling together. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not.” Actually she liked it. “How did the ones we took of you come out?”
Chloe clicked on through her album. “And these of the corbels are fun. I used my telephoto so I could get interesting angles and show their features.” She turned through a variety of pictures of little medieval heads. “This is a fun one. I caught Michael looking around the parament, just like one of the corbels. I’m sure he had no idea I was there.”
No, Felicity agreed. She was certain he didn’t know. Why had he pretended he wasn’t there that day? And wasn’t that part of the parapet walk closed off? What was he doing there?
She was still puzzling over it when Antony came to tell her he had their transportation sorted out. “How nice of Sister Nora to loan us her car,” she said as they started down the lane.
“She was more than happy to when I told her we wanted to call on Dilys Pendry. Father Hwyl was much loved here. He had led healing retreats for the Sisters several times.”
“What has Dilys found?’
“She didn’t go into detail. She said it would be best to show us. But she sounded worried.”
And Dilys looked worried when she answered the door of the vicarage. “Thank you for coming.” She stood back to hold the door for them to step in. “I was cleaning out Hwyl’s desk.” She began immediately, without preamble or further greeting. “I thought since my sister is here I didn’t have any more excuses to put it off.” She led the way down the hall to the office, crossed the room to the desk and picked up a file. “You asked me if I’d seen that emblem before.” She shoved the papers at Antony as if they stung her fingers. “I wanted to burn them, but I know they’re probably important.”
Antony sat at the desk chair, and Felicity stood behind him, leaning over his shoulder. The first thing in the file was one of the ubiquitous fliers for the Orbis Astri empowerment lecture. Below that were notes in Hwyl’s handwriting, apparently on research he had done on satanic ceremonies. Antony nodded. “Yes. We covered some of this briefly in my seminar.”
“Are these notes from your class?”
“I wouldn’t think so. But perhaps remembering something we discussed there led Hwyl to dig deeper into these practices.”
“Seven high holy days a year: Christmas, Easter, Guy Fawkes, beginning of the four seasons. Blood sacrifice required, usually an animal…” Felicity shivered. She didn’t want to consider what the blood sacrifice would be if it weren’t an animal. “A mix of C
hristian and national and pagan celebrations,” she mused. “The beginning of the seasons… June 21, summer solstice…”
“The Eve of Corpus Christi. The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.” Antony finished her thought. “Next Wednesday. The day Christians around the world prepare to celebrate the Body of Christ, consecrated in Holy Communion.”
“And occult practice requires a blood sacrifice.” Felicity’s voice was barely above a whisper, yet it seemed to echo in the room. She counted on her fingers: today was Friday, Sunday would be Trinity, celebrating the three persons of God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—then three days to the Eve of Corpus Christi which this year fell on the summer solstice. If the Orbis Astri was planning something more sinister than one of their lectures, they had just over five days to figure out what was going on. So many questions. So little time.
Dilys moved to ascend a small stepping ladder by the book case. She lifted down a rectangular wooden box perched on the top shelf. “I found this, too. It looks very old. Maybe valuable.” She took a rolled sheet of paper from the case and handed it to Antony.
He very gently unrolled a few inches of the sheet. “Mmm, very old, yes. And brittle. I don’t want to destroy it.”
Felicity looked at the edge of the exposed drawing. The arcaded parapet was distinctive. And the checkerboard decoration. “The Bishop’s Palace. Do you suppose that’s an original plan? Think how valuable that would be.”
Antony smiled. “Wouldn’t Rhys Morgan’s committee love to have this, if it is?”
Dilys looked worried. “I don’t think—”
“No, I don’t think I’d recommend you give it to them. If that’s what it is, I suppose it’s rightly the property of the current bishop.”
“Would you like to take it to him?” Dilys asked. “He would know who could safely unroll it, at least.”
Antony nodded. “I’ll be happy to take care of it for you. I think his assistant said he would be in St David’s today.”
As they spoke, Felicity gazed around Hwyl’s study. An office could tell you a great deal about its occupant. Hwyl’s numerous books were carefully shelved. His desk was less tidy, but that could be the result of his wife’s cleaning-out. Some files were stacked on the floor, but they gave the impression of someone who was busy, focusing hard on their work, not of haphazardness.
Crucifixes hung over the door frame and above the window. A statue of St Anthony stood on a table by a lamp. A fine print of Botticelli’s Head of Christ hung over the desk. And Hwyl’s fondness for seabirds was evident in two nicely matted and framed photographs, one of a puffin and one of a sooty tern. “Did Hwyl take these?” Felicity asked.
“Yes, shortly after we moved here. I had them framed for him for Christmas that year.” Dilys bit her lip.
Felicity nodded. “You said he loved puffins.” Perched around the room, on the edge of a book shelf, in the windowsill, on the lamp table stood the stuffed puffins Dilys had mentioned he collected. The ones he would now never be able to pass on to a child. Felicity picked up a particularly appealing one tucked in the corner of an easy chair.
But she dropped it immediately. It didn’t feel cuddly. “Ooo, that was cold.”
Antony was immediately attentive. He regarded the appealing-looking toy in the large overstuffed chair. “Did Hwyl use that chair a lot?”
Dilys nodded. “It was his favorite chair. He often sat there to read. That’s why he placed it under the window.” Her face softened. “Sometimes I would come in and find him dozing. He didn’t always sleep well at night—especially the last few months—so I was always glad when he could…” She turned away abruptly.
Antony nodded solemnly. He took a vial of holy water from his pocket and pulled out the heavy crucifix he wore under his shirt that day. He made the sign of the cross over the stuffed seabird and placed his crucifix on it.
Felicity was never certain whether the metal of the cross sliced the fabric as Antony placed it on the plush toy or whether it came apart miraculously, but she knew she cried out when the three iron nails fell from the bird’s belly.
Dilys gasped. “What is that? What does it mean?”
Antony emptied his small bottle of holy water over the nails before he answered. “It’s what I suspected when we were here before, but I looked in the wrong place.”
“Imitative magic…” Dilys’s voice was so soft Felicity feared she might be going to faint. She led the small woman to sit in the desk chair. “Like the nails…”
“That pierced Christ’s hands and feet,” Antony concluded.
“But how could they have been effective… ”Felicity began, then stopped. This wasn’t possible. It was something out of a Halloween story. Scary. Done to produce nothing more than chills. But this wasn’t childs’ play.
“I don’t expect the hex was effective on its own. Not against a person of deep prayer. But whoever put these here believed they would work.”
“But he had the pains,” Dilys protested.
“Did Hwyl have arthritis or anything like that?”
Dilys shook her head. “Not that I was aware of.”
“Well, whoever was doing this could have worked on him with psychological suggestions as well.”
Felicity could tell Antony was making excuses, trying not to add more to Dilys’s worries, but she felt certain Antony was wondering if his former student might have let his spiritual defenses down.
Antony, however, turned to the business at hand. “Is there a shovel in the garden shed?” When Dilys said there was and gave him the key, he scooped the nails and torn toy into a box sitting on the floor. “This won’t take long.”
Felicity started to go with him, but he suggested she help Dilys put the kettle on. “The river is near. I’ll burn the puffin and bury the nails in the riverbed. When I come back I’ll cleanse the room. See if Dilys can remember anything that might be helpful.”
Dilys’s sister, Tressa, already had the tea brewing in a big brown pot. The three women sat around the kitchen table. “What a beautiful name,” Felicity said. “Is it Welsh?”
“Cornish,” Tressa replied. “Our father is Welsh, mother Cornish.”
They talked about the beauties of the Cornish coast, and Felicity was trying to find a way to get the subject back to Hwyl when Dilys, who had been very quiet for some time, said, “I had been so worried. I urged him to go to his bishop. He was so distracted. I don’t know, it just seemed like he spent more time on other things lately.”
“What things?”
“If only I knew. I had the feeling he was looking for something.”
“Do you think he found it?” Felicity asked. “Do you think that’s why…” She paused as Dilys just looked at her wordlessly.
“Do you have any idea who gave him the puffin?” Felicity resumed softly.
Dilys shook her head. “We don’t have a church hall, so it’s pretty much open house at the vicarage most of the time—was, that is. Anyone could have left it. It just appeared one day. Hwyl said it must have flown in.” She attempted a smile.
Before they set out for St David’s, Antony had phoned Bishop Harry’s assistant and was told the bishop could see him for a short time at the end of the day. “Perfect,” he’d commented. “Time to have a late lunch, and to take you back to St Non’s.”
Felicity agreed, although when they stopped for lunch in St David’s the thought of the malice that would put cursed spikes in a child’s toy took her appetite away. Antony, however tucked into a plate of Welsh rarebit quite happily. They had had a silent journey; Felicity not wanting to ask Antony for details regarding the puffin toy, and Antony apparently lost in thought.
“Did you learn anything more from Dilys?” Antony asked at last.
“She didn’t really say that Hwyl had let his devotional life slip, but she hinted at it. And she said she had the impression he was searching for something. I wonder if that document she found had anything to do with it.”
Antony fro
wned. “So much speculation. Perhaps the bishop will be able to help us on that score.”
The day was warm and Felicity had been unable to shake the stifling feeling she’d got from Hwyl’s office. She pushed her sandwich aside. “Don’t bother taking me back to St Non’s. I’ll walk.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. I’m desperate for some fresh air.” She looked around as if the walls of the little café would close in on her. No matter how she reasoned with herself she couldn’t get her breath. “I’ll see you later.” She almost ran from the coffee shop.
It was a good thing there was only one main street leading out to the countryside and St Non’s Lane or she would surely have lost her way. She walked with her head down and more than once almost cannoned into a passerby on the narrow sidewalk. She wanted to get out on the coastal walk. Away from buildings. Out where the sea breeze blew unhampered. That would blow away the darkness.
It was perhaps an hour’s walk back to the retreat house on the cliff above the bay. Felicity wouldn’t have stopped at St Non’s at all, but she was choking for a drink. She would just get a glass of water and use the loo. Then she would walk and walk and walk until she was free of whatever was hovering over her. She clutched at her stomach. Something wanted to get in, like those nails had been in the bird.
The bracken along the sides of the lane offered protection without smothering her, and she began to relax. Until a gull swooped over her head and she ducked as if being attacked.
“Oh, Felicity, hi!”
She startled and almost cried out. Once she reached the dirt lane she had felt as if there was no one for miles around. “Chloe.” She forced her mind to clear. What nonsense had she been thinking, anyway? “Hi. What are you doing?”
“I’m off for a photoshoot. Will you come with me? I’d really like some company. Everyone else had gone.”
An Unholy Communion Page 26
