The Resurrectionists

by Kim Wilkins

  I gasped. “What do you mean?”

  “Below that hood, before darkness fell upon it, I saw a discord of features and voids to defy the imagination. And I know I never want to see that countenance in any sharper focus. I screamed, of course. I backed off, grabbed my coat and ran.” He shivered in spite of the fire. “There is a half-dug grave in the middle of the cemetery, but I shall not return to it.”

  I picked up his clothes and squashed them into the bowl, took them to the kitchen. Fetched a blanket and placed it around his shoulders. Working, working, because it was easier than thinking. Virgil caught my hand. “Gette,” he said, “do you think me mad?”

  “You will not return to work?”

  He shook his head. “I am done with it.”

  “Then we shall pack up our things, and we shall run away to London, and I do not care how cold it is, nor do I care if you are mad or not.”

  “We have debts in the village.”

  “We’ll leave at night, when nobody can see us. I care nothing for our debts.”

  “Then it shall be so,” he said. “Tomorrow night.”

  And that is tonight. And while I really should not spend the time sitting here and recounting it all – for I should be packing our things – I want to relate this tale for I think I shall leave this Diary behind. It is nothing but a chronicle of loss and sadness, and all shall soon be different. Thank God for those phantoms in the cemetery, thank God for Virgil’s delusions, thank God for sinister Dr Flood with his soul magic, whatever that is. For they have managed to convince Virgil to leave this cursed village at last!

  Tuesday, 16th December 1794

  It aches in my teeth that we are still here, but somehow it is unsurprising. It is as though the Old Gods have arisen on Mt Olympus and are plotting our destiny against our intentions. But on consideration, I rather think it’s an old Man in the abbey who is plotting our destiny.

  Virgil sleeps. Henri sleeps. Only I am awake.

  We spent yesterday packing what few possessions we had and deciding what to leave behind. Because we intended to leave at midnight and without being noticed, we had decided to go on foot to Whitby and take the morning’s mail coach. Yes, that is where I should be now, aboard a mail coach, on the way to London. Instead, I sit beside this fire, my belongings packed up around me. There are three or four books to my left, which I nearly cried over yesterday for we simply could not take them with us: my first Bible, a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets, some other childish idles which meant more to me than they could to anybody else. Now I would gladly leave them behind.

  Night fell. Early, as it always does this close to Christmas. We waited. Little Henri sensed our anxiety and grizzled and would not sleep. At around nine o’clock, Virgil stood near the window in the parlour and gazed out towards the cemetery. I had just managed to get Henri off to sleep, and I joined my husband.

  “What is the matter, Virgil?”

  “He knows I’m not coming by now.”

  “Flood?”

  “Yes, I would have been at work by now if I were coming. And he would wonder why I didn’t return to him with a corpse last night. And he would understand that I read about his methods for soul magic.”

  “There have been other times when you haven’t been to work. Perhaps he will think you are sick.”

  Virgil turned his face to me. In the dim light reflected from the fireplace, I could suddenly see that Virgil had aged. The anxiety, the opium, the awful circumstances of our lives, had aged him. And I knew then that, of course, I must have aged too. That I probably looked like no other nineteen-year-old woman, just as he looked nearly twice his twenty-three years. I had a sense that there was no going back – even if we did return to London and manage to make a comfortable life there (never so comfortable as the expectation to which I had been bred), there was no regaining our youth. We were weathered and worn down by circumstance. I looked at my hands and saw that the skin was not fresh and silken as it had been just a little over a year ago when I met Virgil. Life has scarred me.

  “He will know I am not sick,” Virgil said softly. “The Wraiths from the graveyard are his ears and his eyes above ground. I fear what he might do.”

  “He will do nothing. We are leaving in a few hours.” In the dark. Unprotected. “And he will be out of our lives forever.”

  Virgil did not reply, but turned back to the window to watch. I sat nearby and gazed upon him for a little while, then began to drowse, and eventually slept. When I woke, Virgil no longer stood at the window.

  “Virgil?” I called softly.

  He emerged from the bedroom, holding Henri in his arms. “Take the babe,” he said urgently. “Cover his ears, rock him so he doesn’t wake.”

  “What? What’s going on?” I said, taking the child.

  He made a motion for me to be quiet and led me to the window. “There,” he said. “Waiting for us.”

  I peered into the darkness. At the end of our front path, a dark, hooded figure waited. My blood froze in my veins. “Why is it here? How did it know we are leaving?”

  “It didn’t know. It has come to frighten me into going back to work.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I know how Flood’s mind works. Another is in the back garden, but I know not where the third is.”

  I felt helpless, hopeless. “What shall we do?” I asked, clutching the baby against my breast tightly.

  “We can do nothing. We must stay inside. London will have to wait.”

  From the back of the house, I could hear a faint scratching at a window.

  “No, Virgil. We must be away from here.” I began to sob, for I was afraid and I was desperate to leave.

  “I know, I know. Tomorrow night I will return to work for Flood. Just a few more times I shall work and convince him of my loyalty. And then we shall leave.”

  At precisely this moment, we heard an awful scuttling sound from above us. Virgil’s eyes went heavenwards. Henri woke and his little face began to work as though he might cry. I was too horrified to move.

  “What was it?”

  As though in answer the thing upon our roof let out a demonic screech. I jumped. Virgil drained of all colour and yelped. Henri began to sob. I rocked him and shushed him, as the footsteps receded across the roof towards the back of the house.

  My heart was beating madly. “Now, Virgil!” I cried. “We must leave now!”

  “Not now. Within a week, perhaps.”

  “A week! I want to go now. Tonight.”

  “We cannot go tonight. Those creatures would tear us to pieces.”

  The horror settled upon my heart and suffocated the last shred of Hope it contained. A year of desperation overcame me, and I lowered myself on to the ground to cry. Virgil crouched next to me, gently removed Henri from my arms. With a free hand he stroked my hair.

  “Gette, I’m sorry. I am impossibly, unbearably sorry.” I could hear the catch in his voice and knew that I had made him cry. I stopped my own sobbing immediately.

  “I’m fine, Virgil, I’m fine,” I said, though I was far from fine. “We shall go in a week. You’re right. We must be prudent.” I dared not look at him, for his eyes are so forlorn when he cries.

  “I shall make amends for this,” he muttered, getting to his feet. “All the suffering that Flood has caused. I shall make amends.”

  Virgil took Henri back to the bedroom. I waited near the window, watching the creature in the dark. It stood like a statue, seemed only to move when I looked away briefly, almost as though it could feel my gaze upon it. Virgil returned, stood by my side. I looked up at him.

  “What is it? What is that creature? Is it a man?”

  “It was once and perhaps will be again,” he replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It is a kind of ghost. Flood told me as much. Three of them work with him.”

  I shuddered, and he pulled me closer. “I find it so unbelievable,” I said.

  “I have seen
many unbelievable things.”

  “Whose ghost is it, then? Do you know that?”

  Virgil spoke softly. “Three priests worshipped here in Solgreve before Britain became Christian. Although they are long dead, Flood summoned their souls. One of his experiments is bringing them back into this world.”

  “And these are the pagan priests?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can he bring them back? Who can bring men back from the dead?”

  “I can tell you no more.”

  “But are they evil? Is Flood evil?”

  He raised his voice, pulled his arm away from me. “Ask me no more!” he cried. Then, softer, “Gette, ask me no more.”

  I turned him to me, my fingers resting upon his cheek. “If it causes you pain, I shall ask you no more.”

  His eyes were black in the firelight. He blinked once, twice, slowly. Then leaned forward and gently pressed his lips against mine. It was like the first time all over again, it had been so long since he had kissed me in this way.

  “Gette, Gette,” he murmured against my lips. “I love you so.”

  “I know,” I said, for his love was a tangible force in the room, full of despair and yearning. Then his kiss grew more intense, violent almost. He kissed me as though he might die were he to stop. I returned his passion, felt the familiar giddiness of desire sparking in my nerves. He parted my lips with his tongue, bent me so far I almost feared my back would break. We slid to the ground. An ache grew deep inside me. His despair was contagious. I held him as one might hold on to life itself. His warm hands had pushed up my skirts. I freed my breasts from their stays and his lips moved upon them, closing over the nipples one by one. I gasped and arched my body towards him. My hands fiddled with buttons and bindings, and I managed to get him half out of his clothes. But when I reached down, between his thighs, to find the hardness I wanted so much to guide within me, I found nothing but a handful of softness.

  “Virgil?”

  He did not reply. His face rested upon my breast. I stroked him, I kneaded him. Nothing. I pushed him onto his back, boldly attempted to arouse him with my lips and tongue, but he remained soft and powerless. Already my desire was waning – one cannot maintain lust through sadness, and Virgil seemed so hopeless, lying there half dressed. I could not speak. I readjusted his clothes and my own, and curled next to him on the floor in front of the fire.

  “Never mind,” I said, for I felt I should say something.

  “In a week, we shall be away from this place,” he said. “Everything will be different.”

  “Of course. We shall have our happiness back.”

  We took our embarrassed bodies to the bedroom, exchanged chaste goodnight nods, and soon Virgil was asleep. I could not sleep. I rose and returned to the window. The dark sentinel still stood there. I wondered where the others were. I sat in the chair by the fire, drowsing occasionally, getting up to check on the dark figure in between dozes. At one stage I was lost in dreams until the day broke. When I woke and looked again, the figure was gone. A creature of the darkness.

  Pagan priests coming back from the dead. Where did my life take such a turn away from the ordinary and acceptable? Was it eloping with Virgil? Agreeing to move to Yorkshire? Maybe all this ruin is my own fault, for I cannot be harder on Virgil, I cannot force him to behave appropriately. His pain and guilt are a burden too great for me to bear. Falling in love has led me to such Misery, Diary. If I could live the last fifteen months differently, I should never do it again.

  Wednesday, 17th December 1794

  Virgil has been much occupied in writing today, furiously scribbling as I have not seen him do in nearly a year. While it buoys me that he is immersed in what he loves, I am still apprehensive about tonight, which is when he intends to return to work. I am also apprehensive about a call we had this morning from the glass man. Our account is overdue and because he knows how poor we have been in the past, he is demanding full payment immediately. I gave him a crown (which I had hoped to use for food on our way down to London) and promised him the rest by the end of the week, by which time I hope to be away from here. But I do so hate to lie and to cheat and to steal.

  Virgil insists that Flood will pay him tonight and we can use that money for our journey. I would do almost anything to get Virgil away from here and not have him go to work tonight, but I would not risk my son’s life out there in the dark with those ghostly pagans waiting for us. So I remain in anticipation of our eventual escape, and I try not to panic –

  As I was writing the last, Virgil approached me and handed me a sealed letter. It seems he has not been working on poetry at all today.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “It is a letter, detailing all of Flood’s activities. We will deliver it to the authorities in York on our way down to London.”

  “Then why give it to me?”

  “Tuck it for safekeeping in the back of your diary. I know you protect it avidly. And if anything should happen to me…”

  “What will happen to you?” I asked, frightened. “Do you anticipate something happening to you?”

  “No, no,” he said, smiling gently, shaking his head. “Only if. He must be stopped.”

  I turned the letter over in my hands, examined the seal.

  “I have sealed it against your eyes, Georgette,” he said soberly. “I am sorry.”

  He then readied himself for work, and I farewelled him half an hour ago. I did as he asked, and have tucked the letter in the back of this Diary. I long to pick off the seal and read its contents, but he would know the instant he saw the letter again that I had betrayed his trust. Perhaps one day when we are away from here, he might volunteer to tell me what he knows.

  I think I shall not sleep until he comes home, whole and uninjured. I do not like him to say “if anything should happen to me” as though it were a possibility.

  Late

  He is home and in bed next to me. My worries were unfounded.

  Wednesday, 24th December 1794

  These silent words fall upon no ears, and yet I must keep producing them, for should I leave the words inside me they will bruise me and poke me with their scratchy edges and heavy lines. So here are the words I must write, to preserve myself.

  We were packed and ready to leave on Monday night, anticipating Christmas in York. I was anxious because it had started to snow in the afternoon, but by nightfall the snow had eased and not much had settled upon the ground. I was aware that my little Henri is not the most robust of babes, and I worry excessively about the cold. I knew that our journey on foot to Whitby would be cold, unpleasant, miserable – but I was eager to make it, to say goodbye to Solgreve.

  Virgil had worked six nights in a row, and the dark figures had not returned to our home. Still, Flood had refused to pay him.

  “He says he cannot pay me until next week,” Virgil admitted, coming home empty-handed again early Sunday morning. “But I do not want to wait. I suspect he is withholding the money because he has some idea I’m leaving.”

  “Have you told him?”

  “No. But Flood is an intuitive man. There have been times when I have thought he may be able to read my mind.” Here he laughed nervously, but I remembered the time I visited Flood and suspected that he could hear my thoughts.

  “You shall not go to him again,” I said firmly. “We will away on our journey tonight. Sleep now. We will survive without Flood’s money.”

  He woke in the early afternoon and we passed our time in preparations and plans. We thought we would stop by in York for a few days – I hoped that Virgil would not be too proud to call in on Edward Snowe, who I was certain would help us on our way to London. I would not even have minded staying in York, for it is a big town and I was certain that Virgil could find work there. Decent work so that Henri could one day be proud of his father.

  Night fell, we waited. We had supper, though neither of us had much of an appetite. The snow had eased and the sky was clearing through clouds above,
so some stars were visible. Stars that should have smiled down upon us on our way.

  At last we gathered our few belongings. It soon became apparent to me that we would hardly be able to carry half of them, as I had to hold the baby and Virgil had only two arms.

  “I have thought ahead, Gette,” Virgil said. “I brought home with me last night the cart I use for transporting the bodies.” And then he laughed and said, “the cart I used, for it is no longer my occupation.”

  I squeezed his hand and smiled up at him in hope. Yes, hope.

  “You gather our possessions by the door. I have hidden the cart around the side of the house. I shall bring it, and we shall be away.”

  He went to the door. I returned to the parlour, took a last look around, then picked up one of our bags – Henri’s clothes and a few books Virgil would not part with. I was halfway to the door when I heard the most –

  How can I carry on? How can I write this as if it is of no concern to me? My whole body shakes and I cannot –

  I heard the most appalling scream. I knew instantly, with the sickest dread in my heart, that it was my husband. I dropped everything, careless. Nothing mattered. My body was hot with fear, alive and on fire with fevered realisation. I raced, I ran as fast as I could. My eyes seemed to have clouded over, my senses…as though in a dream, a nightmare. The cold air outside stung my face. I did not even think for my own safety. I saw the creature speeding away towards the graveyard. And a pale shape on the ground.

  Virgil, oh God, my husband, my only love, the other half of my soul.