The Resurrectionists

by Kim Wilkins

  Phone’s back on. Lights are back on. Everything’s okay.

  But then, from the kitchen, the strange noise again. Four, five, six breaths and she was rooted to the spot. Her body was frozen over with fear. A scraping sound like bones on linoleum, a faint whiff of decay. The lights flickered, went down again. Then, horribly, in front of her eyes, the candles re-ignited.

  Get out. Run.

  She raced to the laundry, flung open the door and was nearly bowled over by Tabby running in. Two steps out the back door, her breath ragged, she turned back. Tabby was waiting for her.

  No, Tabby was looking over her shoulder.

  Maisie shrieked and ran back inside, slammed the door and shot the bolts. Deadlocks, Maisie. There for a reason.

  Tabby skittered up onto the washing machine, but Maisie couldn’t bear to look out the window to see if the dark shadow was by the tree. The lights came on once more and the fridge hummed back into life. She went to the lounge room, extinguished the candles for the third time, then took them to the kitchen and immersed them in a sinkful of water.

  Maisie sagged against the sink with her hand to her face. Her cheek stung, and she remembered that Tabby had scratched her. She would deal with that later. Just for the moment, she had to collect her thoughts. Already the encounter – whatever it was – had taken on a surreal cast. Had it really happened at all? The memory of the candles, eerily flickering into life, already seemed indistinct, like a half-forgotten dream. Like something imagined.

  Tabby trotted in then, tail merrily in the air as though nothing were wrong.

  “Is he gone?” she asked the cat. In reply, Tabby went to the cupboard where her cat food was kept and tapped it with her nose. Situation normal. The cat wanted to be fed.

  Maisie dished out some cat food, checked all the locks again, cleaned up the scratch on her face, checked the locks once more for good measure, then sat in the lounge room with the television blaring.

  Although she was sure she wouldn’t sleep, she dozed off sometime around three.

  “Where the hell is he?” Tony Blake checked his watch for the third time in ten minutes, then gave the Reverend a sheepish smile. “Sorry, Reverend. Where the heck is he?”

  The Reverend shook his head dismissively. Blasphemy and cursing had long since ceased to offend him. He, too, would like to know where the hell Lester Baines had got to. He sat with the village constable in the patrol car, the cloying scent of car deodorant giving him a headache, hoping that Lester would turn up soon. And alone. He was already half an hour late and the Reverend had started to worry that he had run afoul of the law, that any minute a few detective cars from York would round the bend and it would all be over. He rubbed his hands together nervously, papery skin chafing against papery skin.

  “Don’t worry,” Tony said, as though sensing his thoughts. “He’s just late. He’s a criminal, we shouldn’t rely on him to be punctual.”

  “Yes, yes. You’re right.”

  “There’s another problem I need to discuss with you,” Tony said, shifting in his seat.

  “What’s that?”

  “Abe Cox is turning one hundred and thirty next month. We’ll need to sort out what to do about him. He’s too old.”

  The Reverend nodded. They had to do this occasionally. Couldn’t have a one hundred and thirty year old roaming around, attracting media attention, medical experts, new-agers. Usually, they had Dr Honour from Cross Street issue a false death certificate (the Reverend always found it amusing that Dr Honour could be relied upon to be so dishonest), and then the church provided a pension. On one or two occasions they had arranged for an entirely new identity for the person, which was far more risky. It involved bribing someone in public records, or employing Lester to do something illegal involving computers which the Reverend simply couldn’t understand, but which he feared was extremely chancy. “The church can afford to support him,” he said.

  “But Reverend, with a single payment to Lester, we can give him the identity of a recently deceased octogenarian and then –”

  “No. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Reverend, it’s not dangerous.”

  “I’d rather spend the money. The church isn’t going to go broke.”

  “If people keep living this long, the church will soon be paying for everyone in the village.”

  “Tony, not everybody lives that long. You know that.” Yes, there were one or two who made it to Abe Cox’s age, but they usually died within a few years. There was only one person who kept on living. The Reverend shivered despite the cosy temperature in the car.

  “Look. Is that Lester?”

  The Reverend held his breath as he peered through the windscreen. Headlights coming closer. Finally he could make out the shape and colour of Lester’s car. “Yes, it’s him. Thank heavens.” He opened his door and stepped out into the cold.

  Tony followed his example, and soon Lester met them in the beam of the headlights. “How goes it, Rev? Sorry I’m late. Had a bit of car trouble.”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine,” said the Reverend, following Lester around to the boot of his car.

  “This geezer had a bit of car trouble, too,” Lester continued in a chatty tone as he opened the boot. “Hit by a van. No I.D. Bit of a mess, but that doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “No. It doesn’t matter.”

  Lester and Tony hoisted the body in its black bag out of the car and started towards the abbey. The Reverend was following close behind them when Tony tripped on a rock and pitched forward, dropping his end of the body. The bag was clearly not properly zipped, because the upper half of the corpse slipped out, its head thudding onto the ground. Lester dropped his end and kneeled to scoop the body back into the bag, but it was too late. The Reverend had already seen it in the glow of the headlights. The left arm was mangled almost beyond recognition, and huge spidery contusions purpled the left side of the body. His face, which had clearly been dragged along the road some distance, was a mess of grated flesh that would never heal, scraped down to the skull on one side of the forehead. The Reverend clutched his stomach and turned, sour bile shot up into his throat. He spat it out and took deep breaths, willing himself not to vomit.

  “Reverend? You okay?” This was Lester, a hint of amusement in his voice.

  “He’ll be fine if you give him a minute,” Tony said. “He has a delicate constitution, our Reverend. I’ve even seen him pass out at the sight of blood.”

  “Yeah?” Lester was, by now, clearly perplexed. “Then why does he…I mean, what does he do with…?”

  “You don’t need to know, Lester,” the Reverend replied, straightening his back. “Is it…? Is he…away, now?”

  “Yeah. You can turn around,” Lester said.

  The Reverend turned back to them. They had the body, anonymous once more, between them and were heading towards the abbey. He walked with them, unlocking the iron door while they laid the body on the ground.

  “Are you all right with it, Rev?” Lester asked.

  The Reverend nodded. “Thank you. Tony will pay you.” He dragged the body into the spire. “You may go now.”

  Tony and Lester left and he paused at the top of the cold staircase, looking down at the body. Already queasy, he was remembering sickly smelling leaves of vellum, impossibly antiquated handwriting, dispassionate discussions of “extractions” and “immurements”. A blunt, nauseous dread welled up within him. Sometimes he felt as though things were out of control. He was frightened, and absolutely certain that he was too old for these arcane adventures.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Maisie and Cathy sat in a cramped corner of Cafe Concerto on High Petergate, a half-demolished lunch of soup and baguettes between them. Cathy’s chatter was just what she needed after two long bus rides to get to York with only her thoughts for company. She had tried to call Sacha before she left, to see if he would invite her to spend Christmas with him. But the obnoxious phone had rung out over and over and now she’d be away from h
ome for three days and he wouldn’t be able to contact her.

  This time it was more than embarrassed desire that made her desperate to speak to him. She wanted to know if opening up her energy centres that day could have attracted Monday night’s haunting. She didn’t want it to happen again, so she had sworn off experimenting with psychic powers until she could talk to Sacha about it.

  Sacha, Sacha, Sacha. The locus to which her thoughts always returned. Default setting: fantasise about Sacha. About how his hands might feel on her ribs, how his lips might feel on her face, how his hair might fall if he was on top of her.

  Stop.

  It was all she could do not to pound the table in frustration with herself. Cathy was rummaging enthusiastically in her woven handbag. Maisie watched her, distractedly picking beansprouts off her baguette.

  “Do you know anyone who actually likes beansprouts?” Maisie asked.

  “Sure. But not me.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I’ve got something for you. Only I can’t find the damned thing.”

  “What is it?” Maisie leaned over, curious.

  Cathy pulled out a piece of paper, unfolded it, then screwed it up. “Not that. God, I’ve got so much junk in here.”

  “You’d love my grandmother’s house.”

  “I’m hoping to see it after Christmas. I’m on holiday until January the seventeenth.” She brushed a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. “Ah. Here it is.”

  “What is it?” Maisie said again.

  “I wrote it down. About your Reverend Fowler.” Cathy unfolded a handwritten note, and smoothed it on the table, pushing her soup dish out of the way. “I tracked down some university and church history lists.”

  Maisie caught her breath. Please, please, don’t let him be two hundred and fifty years old. She was sure she’d go crazy.

  “Linden Abraham Fowler,” Cathy read aloud. “Born fourteenth of April, nineteen hundred and two, in Solgreve. Studied theology at University College, London. Worked for a few years in Devon as a clerk. Took over the rectorship of Solgreve Church from his father in nineteen thirty-two.” She looked up. “Answer some questions?”

  “God, he’s ninety-eight!”

  “You said he was old.”

  “He’s in good nick for ninety-eight. I thought he was in his seventies.” Maisie leaned her elbows on the table. Ninety-eight.

  “There’s more. The rectorship of Solgreve has been in his family since sixteen seventy-five. So the Reverend Fowler in the diary is probably his great-great-something-or-other.”

  “But definitely not the same man.”

  “Definitely not. You didn’t seriously suspect that did you?”

  Maisie shook her head. “No. Not seriously. Though it was kind of creepy to consider. Anyway, it’s not as though you haven’t had kooky ideas yourself. Last time I was here you were talking about spirits and contacting the other side.”

  “Yes…but that’s different.”

  “It’s the supernatural. Believe one thing, you have to believe everything.”

  “I just like to believe in the good things.”

  “That’s a bit limited.”

  “I need to be able to sleep at night.” Cathy folded the piece of paper up and handed it to Maisie. “Besides, if there were dark spirits, they would never be attracted to someone who only believed in good spirits.”

  Maisie considered her. “That makes absolutely no sense.”

  “Look, nobody can figure the universe out,” Cathy said patiently. “You have to make sense of it your own way.”

  Maisie opened her mouth to tell Cathy about the presence in her house on Monday night, the dark shape in her garden. Then changed her mind. She would not think about it, not talk about it, not encourage it in any way. “Do you want a coffee?” she asked.

  “If you’re having one.”

  Maisie caught a waiter’s attention and he cleared their table and took their orders for coffee.

  “Do you ever have a feeling when you first meet someone that they’re going to be important to you somehow?” Cathy asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.” She remembered her reaction to Sacha, but that was different. He was good-looking. She couldn’t assume sexual attraction meant anything prophetic.

  “Well, you know when we all used to go out for coffee after choir practice and you used to come with Adrian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I always used to get a vibe off you.”

  “A vibe?”

  “Sure. I somehow knew that you would be important in my life in some way. That we were meant to be friends.”

  Maisie forced a smile. If Cathy had been getting any kind of “vibe” off her, it would have been of the fuck off and leave my boyfriend alone variety. “Really?”

  “So I wasn’t surprised when you turned up in Yorkshire.”

  Maisie didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. Silence lay between them. She had no idea how that silence sounded to Cathy, but to her it sounded embarrassed. She turned to look through the restaurant to the front doors. Outside, Christmas decorations dripped off everything. People huddled into long coats and scarves, hurrying past in the pale winter haze.

  “A winter Christmas is so much better than a summer one,” she said.

  “Absolutely,” Cathy replied. “Just imagine, back home it’s probably thirty degrees already.”

  “And humid. Don’t forget humid.”

  “And families will be having outdoor Christmas lunches – cold meat because nobody can bear to cook in that weather – and there will be flies buzzing around and sweat patches under everyone’s armpits. They’ll wash it all down with cold beer or chilled riesling.”

  Maisie sighed. “And there would be the sound of children splashing in swimming pools. Cicadas buzzing. The overripe smell of frangipani.”

  “I told you you’d start to miss it.”

  Maisie turned back to Cathy. “I don’t.”

  “You can’t fool me.”

  “It just seems so far away.”

  “It is far away. Do you miss Adrian?”

  Good question. Whenever she thought of Adrian these last few days, it was with an awful sense of guilt. “I miss him physically. I want to be able to put my arms around him.” But she didn’t want to go back to him. Not yet. And why was that? Did she want to wait and see how things progressed with Sacha? That was ridiculous. She spent a lot of time and energy on ridiculous thoughts lately.

  “How wonderful to have a boyfriend to go home to. I’ve been loveless for longer than I can remember.”

  The waiter brought their coffee. Maisie spooned sugar into it. “Aren’t there any nice guys at your uni?”

  “There’s this one guy in my Old English class who seems nice but I’m pretty sure he’s gay. I found it hard enough to meet guys back home, but here it’s impossible.”

  Maisie sipped her coffee. It was too strong. “Yuk.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Too strong.”

  Cathy waved the waiter over and asked for some hot milk, which he brought back a few moments later. Maisie added some milk to her coffee and tried again.

  “Better?” asked Cathy.

  “Not bad. It’s drinkable.”

  “Hey, how about your gypsy friend?”

  “What about him?” Maisie said, her fingertips tingling. Guilt? Fear?

  “I mean, do you think he has a girlfriend?”

  “What? Why?”

  “You could introduce me to him. You know, seeing as how I can’t meet guys down here.”

  “Oh.” Was she serious?

  “I’ve read a lot about gypsies. Does he have an accent?”

  “A bit. But it’s only his mother who’s a gypsy really. His dad’s an anthropology professor or something.”

  “Even better. He’s got good genes, smart genes.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know him that well.”

  “But is h
e good-looking?”

  Maisie couldn’t help herself. “Very. Very, very.”

  Cathy raised her eyebrows. “Now, Maisie. I hope you’re not keeping him all for yourself. That would hardly be fair.”

  “No, of course not. Really, I just don’t know him that well. Not well enough to set you up on a date in any case.”

  “You like him, don’t you?” Cathy asked, smiling.

  “He’s nice enough.”

  “I mean like him – in the ten-year-old sense.”

  Maisie couldn’t meet her eye. “I don’t know. He’s okay I guess. But, you know, I’m spoken for.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And I’d never cheat on Adrian.”

  “Of course not. God, I’d kill you if you did. He’s such a sweetie.”

  Maisie pushed her coffee away. She no longer had an appetite for it.

  “Is it hard?” Cathy asked. “After being with someone for such a long time, is it hard not to get tempted?”

  “I love Adrian,” Maisie said simply. “It’s not hard.” And here she was thinking of Sacha again, thinking about those intimate things she had laid out in her mind in loving detail. And knowing it would never be like that, not really. It was a fantasy, and in the real world she would never do it. “Affairs are so sordid,” she said, “and there’s nobility in unrequited longing.”

  Cathy laughed. “I know I’ve said this before, but you are soooo lucky.”

  But if that was true, how come she felt so dissatisfied? “Thanks,” she said. “I know.”

  Outside York Minster, a cold and graceful gothic cathedral on a windy corner, the twilight world of Christmas Eve gathered, with all its tumult of anticipation and goodwill. Maisie stopped at the street corner, Cathy by her side, shivering and wishing she wasn’t going to be alone on Christmas Day.

  “Shall we go inside?” Cathy said. “I know it’s a while before the service starts, but it’ll be warmer.”

  “Good idea. My ears are aching.”

  “It might snow.”

  That would be too perfect. Too perfect to enjoy. It would simply make her melancholy. Miserable.

  They found their way inside, sat right at the back wall so they could fit their overnight bags between their feet. Huge vaulted ceilings soared above them, and a pipe organ played quietly. Maisie leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Cathy was fiddling with the program, making comments to Maisie about her favourite carols.