by M S C Barnes
through.
It was pitch black as he stepped onto the grass. He widened his eyes, trying to get them to adjust to the darkness, just as a car whooshed past, its lights on full beam and Seb was momentarily blinded by the dazzle. He turned back to face into the blackness of the road verge and saw the silver speckles as the door dissolved. Noting its position in a huge holly bush, he knelt on the ground.
With a heavy heart he realised that his idea of seeing the place, in the hope he could rid himself of ghostly memories, was flawed. He had expected to be here in daylight so that he could see the location where the dog had run out, where the car had come off the road and where his father had been laid out by the ambulance crew and police. But stepping through doors wasn’t stepping through time and if it was night at The Hurlers, then of course it would be night here.
So, kneeling in the darkness he gazed around. It felt strange to be alone. He listened to the gentle wind rustling the leaves of nearby trees and tried not to think of Alice. He didn’t want to give away his location and knew it was important that no one ever knew where he was or what path he was taking.
Quickly now he placed a hand on the grassy, gravelly roadside. He had wondered if he would be able to sense something, feel the latent print of the event, but there was nothing, just the breeze and the occasional whoosh of a passing car. He wasn’t sure why he had needed to come here first but he felt more at ease with where he was going next
He stood up and made the door reappear. Seizing the knob, before he took the next step, he glanced back at the spot where his father had died in the moment before he became corrupt and drove his own son’s soul out of his body. Shuddering, Seb stepped back through the door.
He was prepared this time for the darkness of the night he walked into. With all his recently acquired knowledge he hoped this place would not freak him out, yet it still did. A slight fog hovered on the ground.
“As if I needed that to complete the picture,” he mumbled.
Checking first to see where the door was so that he could relocate it, he called for flamers. The graveyard was creepy enough in the daytime; with darkness and this spooky fog it was like something out of a horror film. So he welcomed the warm, cheering glow of the little orbs which now festooned the many gravestones and the bottom branches of a huge yew tree Seb knew to be his destination.
Bending under a low-hung branch of the tree he knelt beside the small mound of earth, in which a flat, slate stone had been embedded, marking the resting place of his father’s body. He read the epitaph:
Too soon his soul departed
Adam Sebastian Thomas
The words made Seb freeze. In all his visits to this spot with his mother and sister since his father’s death, this was the first time he had really read them.
Shrugging off the creeping fear, he began to dig with his fingers, clawing out grass clods and dirt from the back of the mound. After several minutes he had only managed to dig a hole about six inches deep – not deep enough. He realised his idea had not only been fairly ghoulish but also rather ill-conceived.
His plan was to place the knot bar on the lid of his father’s coffin.
“Why did I think that was a good idea?” he complained to himself. But he knew why. Graves were seldom, if ever, disturbed. He felt confident that to leave the bar in his father’s grave would ensure that, for centuries at least, it would not be discovered.
The only thing was he had insufficient time and no tools to carry out the plan. He dug faster, his fingernails now clogged with soil and the tips of his fingers sore. The cut he had received from the thorn when uncovering the small boat in the woods was stinging and bleeding again and he noticed that, as his thumb came into contact with the soil, little green tendrils would sprout. He stopped for a second, uneasy.
He couldn’t abandon the plan, though – he couldn’t think of a better place. And then his heart leapt: someone or something was behind him; he could hear hoarse breathing. Spinning around quickly he stared into the darkness behind the tree trunk, trying to control the urge to run.
And then he laughed. “Cue, what are you doing here?”
The big beast strode out of the shadows. Seb was so relieved it wasn’t a ghost or some nondescript monster that he hugged the wolf. As he let go, Cue lifted a huge paw, slammed it into the earth and scraped a swathe of mud and turf out of the grave mound. Within the space of a few seconds the wolf had managed to dig a hole all the way to the wooden coffin.
Seb’s relief at Cue’s help was overshadowed by the eerie and disturbing sight of that tarnished wooden box. He tried to suppress his brain’s tendency to envision the rotting corpse of his father’s body, to try and guess whether it would be a skeleton yet – he didn’t know how long that normally took – or whether there would be rotting flesh hanging from the bones. He reminded himself that whatever was left in that box was simply a shell; his father’s soul, he knew, was already living a new life in his brother’s body. All said and done, a body was just that – a body, not a person. He thought sadly of the lifeless body of Mr Duir at the stone circle and then a nudge from Cue brought him back to the task at hand.
Quickly now Seb removed the bar of metal containing the white jewel from his pocket and then took his jumper off. He felt the chill night air bite into his body. He rolled the tool inside the jumper and placed it on the coffin lid.
“Can you bury it again?” he asked Cue, and the wolf scraped the soil back into the hole. It was obvious that the earth had been disturbed but Seb hoped that, having dug away the side of the mound that butted up to the yew tree, the disturbance would not be noticed and nature would, in short time, cause grass and weeds to overgrow the freshly turned dirt. He didn’t need to wait though. As Cue sat beside him, Seb saw green shoots popping out over the mound. They thickened and leaves spread from the stems. Within minutes a small bush had grown – a blackberry bush.
Strange as the phenomenon was, Seb didn’t have time to worry about it. Patting Cue, he trudged through the mist to the church wall. A wave of his arm and the door appeared. Seb opened it and stepped back into the bright light of the stone circle, where everyone waited.
Just a Body
“Well that took you ages, Seb,” Zach moaned. “We were all set to walk home!”
Nothing much had changed in Seb’s absence other than a layer of sandy dirt had been spread over the Shield Knot.
Mr West called Seb over to it.
“Seb, the knot must be disguised.”
“What do I do?” Seb asked.
“I believe the word is ‘helan’,” Mr White said.
Seb shrugged and, shining reflected light from the fairy dome onto the knot, he spoke the word. There was the slightest flash and the knot vanished. All that was now visible was the inlaid, lichen-covered, scarred, sandstone.
“Nicely done.” Zach slapped Seb on the back. “Good as old,” he smiled.
Mr West seemed tentative, nervous even. Standing beside Seb, looking at the stone, he murmured, “We should return to the Ancient Place. The Ceremony is still required.”
There was a tense silence and Seb had the feeling something had happened while he was gone.
“I have said he will not stay here.” Dierne’s rustling voice broke the quiet.
Mr West answered, obviously anxious, “Dierne, you know it has to. We must leave the body here.” His words sounded hard and unfeeling to Seb and that appeared to be the issue. Dierne frowned angrily.
“I agree with Dierne,” Scarlet blurted. “It would be monstrous to just leave him to be discovered by some passing hiker in the morning. Monstrous,” she almost shouted.
“Scarlet, we have discussed this. It is not him. It is a shell, a cape, a host – nothing more.” Years of dealing with souls in and outside of their hosts, Seb realised, had made Mr West immune to the emotional associations humans give to bodies. “If it is found by a hiker then so be it. It is nothing but a body.”
>
Dierne’s frown deepened. He looked ready to shout but held his peace.
“I can’t believe you can be so heartless,” Scarlet said.
This argument had obviously been raging while Seb had been gone. He wondered who was on what side and where he fitted into all this. He had to admit he understood both views, since he had already begun the process of divorcing his emotions concerning the physical presence of a person’s body and the essence of that person. Had he not just desecrated his father’s grave? But as he looked at the lifeless body of Mr Duir he felt a pang of sadness and a need to bury him properly.
Miss Angel put an arm around Scarlet. “Scarlet, he is gone. His body is just that, a body. Do not be emotional about it.”
Scarlet pushed her arm off.
“Well I can’t help it. It isn’t just a body – it’s his body. A body that you lived with for centuries, which acted out his ideas, his thoughts, his wishes, a body that was his means of touching this world. You can’t just let it lie in the open and rot!”
Dierne’s frown lifted and he zipped over to join her.
“You know my feelings.” His voice fluttered as he addressed the teachers. “As far back as Dryad history goes no Custodian’s body has ever remained after their passing. We owe him the honour of a befitting memorial. His body will not remain to be consumed by nature or defiled by onlookers.” He stared furiously at the teachers. “This is not up for debate. I will take Aelfric, my
