• • •
The cats slept in the farmyard, taking advantage of the midday warmth of the pale spring sun. Each had its own spot—a flowerpot, the sagging step at the kitchen door, the bonnet of the old white van that Garnet Todd used to deliver her tiles—and only the occasional twitch of a feline ear or tail betrayed their awareness of the rustle of mice in the straw.
Garnet stood in the doorway of her workshop, wiping her hands on the leather apron she wore as a protection against the heat of the kiln. She had almost completed her latest commission, the restoration of the tile flooring in a twelfth-century church near the edge of Salisbury Plain. The manufacture of the tiles was painstaking work. The pattern suggested by the few intact bits of floor must be matched, using only the materials and techniques available to the original artisans. Then came the installation, a delicate process requiring hours spent on hands and knees, breathing the dank and musty atmosphere of the ancient church.
But Garnet never minded that. She was most comfortable with old things. Even her work as a midwife—although it
had
honored the Goddess—had not given her enough visceral connection with the past.
Her farm, a ramshackle place she’d bought more than twenty-five years ago, was proof of how little use she had for the present. The house stood high on the western flank of the Tor, its pitted stone façade in the path of a wind that had scoured down from the hilltop for years beyond memory. The sheep that grazed the grassy slope were her nearest neighbors, and for the most part she preferred their company.
At first she’d meant to put in electricity and running water, but the years had passed and she’d got used to doing without. Lantern light brought ochre warmth and comforting shadows, and why should she drink the chemically poisoned water the town pumped out of its tanks when the spring on her property bubbled right up from the
heart of the sacred hill? Enough had been done in this town to dishonor the old and holy things without her adding to the damage.
A cloud shadow raced down the hillside and for a moment the yard darkened. Garnet shivered. Dion, the old calico cat who ruled the rest of the brood with regal disdain, uncurled herself from the flowerpot and came to rub against Garnet’s ankles. “You sense it, too, don’t you, old girl?” Garnet said softly, bending to stroke her. “Something’s brewing.”
Once before she had caught that scent in the air, once before she had felt that prickle of foreboding, and the memory filled her with dread.
Glastonbury had always been a place of power, a pivot point in the ancient battle between the light and the dark. If that delicate balance were disturbed, Garnet knew, not even the Goddess could foresee the consequences.
Glastonbury did strange things to people—as Nick Carlisle well knew. He’d come here for the Festival, part of his plan to take a few months off, see a bit of the world, after leaving Durham with a First in Philosophy and Theology. On a mild evening in late June he had rounded a bend in the Shepton Mallet road and seen the great conical hump of the Tor rising above the plain, St. Michael’s Tower on its summit standing squarely against the blood red western sky.
That had been more than a year ago, and he was still here, working in a New-Age bookshop across from the Abbey for little more than minimum wage, living in a caravan in a farmer’s field in Compton Dundon.
He often came to the George & Pilgrims for a pint after work. A fine thing, when a pub did duty as his home away from home, but then his caravan didn’t count for much—a place to put the faded jeans, T-shirts and sweatshirts that made up his meager wardrobe, along with the books he’d brought with him from Durham. The small fridge smelled of sour milk, and the two-ring gas cooker was as temperamental as his mother.
The thought of his mum made him grimace. Elizabeth Carlisle had raised her son alone from his infancy, and in the process had managed to make quite a successful career for herself penning North-country Aga sagas. She had managed her son’s life as efficiently as she did her characters, and had then pronounced herself affronted when he refused to feel grateful.
He had left home, sure that his true path would present itself as soon as he escaped his mother’s orbit. But freedom had not turned out to be the panacea he’d expected: he had no more idea what he wanted to do with his life than he had a year ago. He only knew that something held him in Glastonbury, and yet he burned with a restless and unfulfilled energy.
From his corner table, he surveyed the pub’s clientele as he sipped his beer. There was an unusual yuppie element this evening, young men sporting designer suits accompanied by polished girls in skimpy clothes. Nick could almost feel the rumble of displeasure among the regulars, clustered at the bar in instinctive solidarity.
But it was the man sitting alone at the bar’s end who caught his attention. He was notable not only for his large size and fair hair, but also because his face was familiar. Nick had seen him often in Magdalene Street—he must work near the bookshop—and once or twice they had exchanged a friendly nod. Tonight he sat hunched over his drink, his usually amiable countenance set in a scowl.
Intrigued, Nick saw that he seemed to be writing or sketching on a pad, and that every few moments he raised visibly trembling fingers to brush a lock of hair from his forehead.
When Nick made his way to the bar for a refill, the blond man was staring fixedly at his beer glass, his pen poised over the paper. Nick glanced at the pad. It held neat architectural drawings and figures, and, scrawled haphazardly across the largest sketch, a few lines in what looked to be Latin.
It is for my sins Glaston suffered
… he translated silently.
“You’re a Classics scholar?” Nick said aloud, surprised.
“What?” The man blinked owlishly at him. For a moment Nick wondered if he were drunk, but he’d been nursing the same drink since Nick had noticed him.
Nick tapped the sketchpad. “This. I don’t often see anyone writing in Latin.”
Glancing down, the man paled. “Oh, Christ. Not again.”
“Sorry?”
“No, no. It’s quite all right.” The man shook his head and seemed to make a great effort to focus on Nick. “Jack Montfort. I’ve seen you, haven’t I? You work in the bookshop.”
“Nick Carlisle.”
“My office is just upstairs from your shop.” Montfort gestured at Nick’s empty glass. “What are you drinking?”
Montfort bought two more pints, then turned back to Nick. Now he seemed eager to talk. “Working at the bookshop—I suppose you read a good bit?”
“Like a kid in a sweet shop. The manager’s a good egg, turns a blind eye. And I try not to dog-ear the merchandise.”
“I have to admit I’ve never been in the place. Interesting stuff, is it?”
“Some of it’s absolute crap,” Nick replied with a grin. “UFO’s. Crop circles—everyone knows that’s a hoax. But some of it … well, you have to wonder.… Odd things do seem to happen in Glastonbury.”
“You could say that,” Montfort muttered into his beer, his scowl returning. Then he seemed to try to shake off his preoccupation. “You’re not from around here, are you? Do I detect a hint of Yorkshire?”
“It’s Northumberland, actually. I came for the Festival last year—” Nick shrugged, “and I’m still here.”
“Ah, the rock festival at Pilton. Bane and blessing of the locals, depending on whether it affords an opportunity for commerce or just clogs every road for miles round.”
“You’re from Glastonbury, then?”
“Born and bred. I came back last year to take care of my parents’ affairs, and I’m still here. Like you.
“Never made the Pilton Festival, though,” he continued. “I had my sights set on the bright lights of London in those days. I suppose I missed something memorable.”
“Mud.” Nick grinned. “Oceans of it. And slogging about in some farmer’s field, being bitten by midges, drinking bad beer and queuing for hours to use the toilets. Still …”
“There was something,” Montfort prompted.
“Yeah. I’d like to have seen it in its heyday, the early seventies, you know? Glastonbury Fayre, they called it. That must have been awesome. And even that didn’t compare to the original Glastonbury Festival—in terms of quality, not quantity.”
“Original festival?” Montfort repeated blankly.
“Started in 1914 by the composer Rutland Boughton,” Nick answered. “Boughton was extremely talented—his opera,
The Immortal Hour
, still holds the record for the longest running operatic production. All sorts of luminaries were involved in the Festival: Shaw, Edward Elgar, Vaughn Williams, D.H. Lawrence. And Glastonbury had its own contributors to the cultural revival, people like Frederick Bligh Bond and Alice Buckton.… And then there was the business of Bond’s friend, Dr. John Goodchild, and the finding of the ‘Grail’ in Bride’s Well. That caused a few ripples.…” Aware that he was babbling, Nick paused and drank the foam off his pint.
Looking up, he saw that Montfort was staring at him. Nick flushed. “Sorry. I get a bit carried away some—”
“You know about Bligh Bond?”
The intensity in Montfort’s voice took Nick by surprise. “Well, it’s a fascinating story, isn’t it? Bond’s knowledge was prodigious, regardless of his methods; his excavations at the Abbey were proof of that.”
“It’s his methods that were in question, not his results.”
“I suppose one can’t blame the Church for being a bit uncomfortable with the idea that Bond had received his
digging instructions from monks dead five centuries or more.”
“Uncomfortable?” Montfort snorted. “They fired him. He never worked successfully as an architect again, and if I remember rightly, died in poverty. If the man had had an ounce of bloody sense, he’d have kept his mouth shut.”
“He felt he had to share it, though, didn’t he? I’d say Bond was honest to a fault. And I don’t think he ever actually claimed he’d made contact with spirits. He thought he might have merely accessed some part of his own subconscious.”
“Do you believe it’s possible, whatever the source?”
“Bond’s not the only case. There have been well-documented instances where people have known things about the past that couldn’t be accounted for otherwise.” Glancing at the paper Montfort had partially covered with his hand, Nick felt a fizz of excitement. “But you’re not talking hypothetically, are you?”
“This is—” Montfort shook his head. “Daft. Too daft to tell anyone. But the coincidence, meeting you here … I—” He looked round, as if suddenly aware of the proximity of other customers, and lowered his voice.
“I was sitting at my desk tonight, and I wrote … something. In Latin I haven’t used since I was at school, and I had no memory of writing it. I tore the damned thing up.… then this …” He ran his fingertips across the scrawl on the sketchpad.
“Bugger,” Nick breathed, awed. “I’d swap my mum for a chance at something like that.”
“But why me? I didn’t ask for this,” Montfort retorted fiercely. “I’m an architect, but my knowledge of the Abbey is no more than you’d expect from anyone who grew up here. I’m not particularly religious. I’ve never had any interest in spiritualism—or other-worldly things of any sort, for that matter.”
Nick pondered this for a moment. “I doubt these things are random. Maybe you have some connection to the Abbey that you’re not consciously aware of.”
“That’s a big help,” Montfort said, but there was a gleam of humor in his bright blue eyes. “So how do I find out what it is, and why this is happening to me?”
“You know it wasn’t Bond who did the actual writing, but his friend, John Bartlett. Bond guided him by asking questions.”
“You want to play Bond to my Bartlett, then?” Montfort sounded amused.
“You said you came from Glastonbury. That seems as good a place to start as any.”
“My father’s family’s been in Glastonbury and round about for eons, I should think. He was a solicitor. A large, serious man, very sure of where he stood in the world.” Montfort took a sip of his beer and his voice softened as he continued. “Now, my mother, she was a different sort altogether. She loved stories, loved to play make-believe with us when we were children.”
“Us?”
Montfort was silent.
“Us?” Nick repeated.
“My cousins and I. Duncan and Juliet.” Montfort smiled. “My aunt and uncle had a penchant for Shakespeare. We always visited them in Cheshire on our holidays. It was a different world. The canals, and then the hills of Wales rising in the distance …”
He fell silent, his eyes half-closed. Nick was about to prompt him again, when, without warning, Montfort grasped the pen. His hand began to move steadily across the paper.
Nick translated the Latin as the words began to form …
Deo juvante … with God’s help … you shall make it right
.…
In that instant, Nick knew why he had come to Glastonbury, and he knew why he had stayed.
Faith Wills rested her forehead against the cool plastic of the toilet seat, panting, her eyes swimming with the tears brought on by retching. She had nothing left to
throw up but the lining of her stomach, yet somehow she was going to have to pull herself together, go out and face the smell of her mother’s breakfast.
It was a bacon-and-egg morning—her mum believed all children should go off to school well fortified for the day. They alternated cooked eggs, or porridge, or brown toast and marmite; and on this Thursday morning in March, Faith had struck the worst possible option.
A whiff of bacon crept into the bathroom. Her stomach heaved treacherously just as her younger brother, Jonathan, pounded on the door. “You think you’re effing Madonna in there or something? Hurry bloody up, Faith!”
Without raising her head, Faith said, “Shut up,” but it came out a whisper.
Then her mother’s voice—“Jonathan, you watch your language”—and the crisp rap of knuckles on the door. “Faith, whatever’s the matter with you? You’re going to be late, and make Jon and Meredith late as well.”
“Coming.” Unsteadily, Faith pushed herself up, flushed the toilet, then blew her nose on a piece of toilet tissue. Easing the door open, she found her mum waiting, hands on hips, and beyond her, Jon, and her sister, Meredith, all three faces set in varying degrees of irritation. “What is this, a committee?” she asked, trying for a bit of attitude.