Short Stories, Crimes, Cults and Curious Cats

by Jonathan Day

quarry with steep walls of pink sedimentary rock. Some layers were being newly worked. Spoil was piled at regular intervals, and wooden crates were stacked nearby.

  ‘It gets a bit tricky going down, but it's quicker than taking the carriage route,’ announced Hetty.

  Violet was predictably horrified. ‘You live down there!’

  Emily was more intrigued by the tall, conical building planted like a huge crystal outcrop at the centre of the quarry. ‘Do the carriages visit to see that strange building?’

  ‘Yes, and to collect our latest finds. Some of them can only be lifted out by horse and cart.’

  ‘You surely can't be mining feldspar for the potteries, Hetty?’

  ‘Not down there. Something far more valuable.’

  Emily was too intrigued to stop now and, despite Violet's protests, wheeled her after their escort down a perilously narrow path that took them to the quarry floor.

  ‘Is this limestone?’ she asked as they reached the lower level.

  Hetty was impressed. ‘You are interested in stones, then?’

  ‘My father imports Italian marble and brother studies geology.’

  Violet obviously did not approve. ‘The young man is one of that tribe of nonconformists who refuse to believe God made the Earth in seven days.’

  ‘Violet's father is a bishop.’

  Hetty’s home was surrounded by a rickety lean-to shelter containing the various sized rocks she was working on.

  Emily was delighted. ‘You discover fossils, Hetty! How wonderful!’

  Violet was more inclined to believe that she had been wheeled into the lower depths of the Devil's lair, but knew nothing she said would dampen her friend's enthusiasm. But even she was impressed by the strange, conical building sitting in the middle of the quarry, its triangular, stained-glass windows radiating down from its summit as the sun's rays were reflected from an oval device on its apex.

  ‘What is that?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Our church.’

  ‘What an odd church,’ added Violet.

  ‘What an odd place for a church, Hetty?’

  ‘Not at all, Emily. This quarry is filled with relics of the creator.’

  Emily was baffled and hoped Violet hadn't heard. Her friend had the embarrassing tendency to jump to conclusions before knowing the facts.

  The fossil hunter's home was surprisingly tidy inside. Both young women had been expecting something far more chaotic. Fortunately Violet was distracted from thinking too hard about why anyone interested in investigating the Earth before the Biblical creation, and familiar with Mr Darwin's and Mr Wallace's theories, would have been a member of any church, let alone live so close to one.

  Hetty bandaged Violet's ankle so well the young woman was able to put a little weight on it. She also reassured them that the church leader would shortly leave in his carriage, which had room for both of them and Emily's bike.

  But Emily was in no rush to leave. She was enthralled by the fossils of fish, crustaceans, plants and small dinosaurs arrayed about the room. Her brother would have been in his element with such a collection and excited that many more were waiting to be liberated from the rock.

  ‘Are you paid much for these marvellous discoveries, Hetty?’ asked Emily. ‘It must take so long to make the rock relinquish them?’

  ‘Goodness no. It is all done in the name of the Creator.’

  If it were not for the proximity of the church, it would have been a peculiar response from someone whose discoveries undermined the teaching of the Old Testament. Violet's religious conviction did not allow her to comprehend how so many scientists had kept their faith, especially those persuaded by Mr Darwin's “On the Origin of Species”.

  The young woman frowned as she looked across the quarry to the tall, conical church. ‘What denomination do you belong to, Hetty?’

  ‘Not one you would have heard of. Our order is newly founded, but the word is spreading rapidly. That is why we share our finds with other believers.’

  ‘What miracle gave birth to this new creed?’

  ‘Why, science, of course. It was science that revealed the truth of the Creator. The Word is far more ancient than the gospels give us to believe.’

  ‘But the gospels are the Word of God!’ protested Violet. ‘What miraculous discovery inspires you to contradict that?’

  ‘Creatures extracted from these cliffs are proof of a much greater truth. The evidence of one’s senses cannot be denied,’ explained Hetty. ‘Let me show you.’

  Violet allowed Emily and the fossil hunter to help her across to the church as the distant click of hammers echoed about the quarry.

  The interior was different from any place of worship the young women had encountered before. In the triangular stained glass windows were representations of antediluvian creatures unlike any living thing Noah would have known, let alone allowed on his Ark. Under the conical roof, the pews were set in a circle around a statue covered by a richly embroidered shroud. There was no font, altar or rood screen, and more long-extinct animals paraded about the circular wall.

  Violet was too amazed to be indignant. ‘This is extraordinary. How can these mythical creatures be part of God's plan?’

  ‘They once existed, so therefore must be His work,’ the fossil hunter explained benignly. ‘God made them before he created us so they must have been closer to His Glory.’

  ‘But it is written that mankind is made in God's image!’

  ‘How could our ancestors have understood that he created these glorious creatures before breathing life into us? Our arrogance has made us misinterpret the words of Genesis.’

  There was no irony in her tone, which worried Emily.

  Hetty flourished a callused hand respectfully towards the tall, serious-looking man approaching them. ‘This is Father Horace. I am sure he will be happy to assist you ladies back to civilisation.’

  As he was breathtakingly handsome, Violet hardly noticed that his raiment was a little too extravagant, even for High Church. The devices embroidered on Father Horace’s vestment smattered more of sorcery than Christianity.

  The priest dipped a courteous bow. ‘Welcome ladies. I see that one of you has met with a minor misfortune?’

  ‘My bicycle threw me,’ Violet blurted out, more accustomed to equestrian pursuits than machines which did not do as they were told.

  ‘I would be honoured to take you young ladies back in my carriage. I have another sermon to preach this evening and there will be plenty of time.’

  Emily's curiosity could no longer be suppressed. ‘What does that cover conceal?’

  Father Horace's face lit up with holy fervour. ‘The one and only proof that the Bible avoids. The Face of God.’

  However good-looking the man was, this was too much for Violet. ‘But surely no one can look upon the face of God?’

  ‘That is why His face remains covered.’ Father Horace reverentially kissed the hem of the shroud covering the sacred statue.

  Unlike Violet and the intransigent dogma with which she had been raised, Emily understood that other denominations worshipped God in different ways. But this one, surrounded by such peculiar relics of the Supreme Being, had to be the weirdest she had ever heard of.

  Father Horace could see that she was curious. ‘This shroud prevents Him from being looked upon by unworthy eyes, but the genuinely interested may see.’

  ‘May I please?’

  Violet wasn’t sure she was ready to see the face of the Creator. It went against the Christian tenets indoctrinated into her. She wanted to protest, but wicked curiosity made her hold her tongue. It would probably only turn out to be a poor representation of the God in Michelangelo’s ceiling after all - ancient, paint-peeling plaster stained by candle smoke.

  Emily doubted it and held her breath in fearful anticipation.

  Father Horace and the fossil hunter each carefully took corners of the shroud and gently lifted it from the statue.

  ‘Behold the Face of God!’


  Emily stepped back in surprise.

  Violet fainted.

  The face of their God was the huge head of a carnivorous dinosaur, sharp-toothed and small-eyed, with a smile that demanded blood sacrifice.

  Our Lady of the Herbs

  Bunting girdled the twisting high street and swags of foliage festooned every public house, café and shop front. The maypole had been erected in the community park and trestle tables set up in side streets.

  The parade would begin under the banner bearing the legend, “Our Lady of the Herbs”, which straddled the mediaeval arch leading to the parish church of Weaving Todbury.

  The Reverend Tina Palmarsh was busy polishing the altar candlesticks while church helpers garlanded the mediaeval windows with the ivy which annually tried to choke the trees in the cemetery. The fruiting yew branches would have made a better show, but the poisonous berries were too tempting for the fingers of infants able to reach from the pews. As the saviour who bestowed the miraculous herbs that prevented the mediaeval town from being ravaged by the plague, green was Our Lady of the Herbs colour. The tomb of the cleric who had witnessed the miracle being celebrated was decorated with marigolds and lavender, and the huge alabaster font large enough to baptise a baby hippo, festooned with rosemary.

  Nobody really knew why Our Lady had appeared at the very moment of need, strewing the aisles of the church with the medicinal herbs responsible for purging the local population of the blight sweeping the rest of the country.

  Joining the enthusiastic crowds gathering to watch the parade was a bespectacled young man with an unruly quiff which flopped over his