Wild Wood (32 page)

Alicia stares at him. “What?”

“Well, it’s not magic, obviously.” He laughs. “But I can’t explain what’s happening. I really cannot.” He says, thoughtfully, “I’ve just got to keep Jesse engaged for as long as she’ll permit me to work with her. That might not be easy now.”

Alicia is silent. Her face is faintly guilty as Rory says, half to himself, “This place is the key.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know, but I’d like to find out, that’s for sure and certain.”

Alicia closes the book. “You think I should apologize.”

“Up to you. This is your house.”

That statement sits between them.

After a pause, she says grumpily, “Oh, all right. Jesse can stay. But only if you help me smooth things over when she comes back.”

“Love to, but when I’ve got the car again, I’ll be off. Mum’s expecting me for dinner.”

Alicia rolls her eyes. “Typical. Scoot out from under when you’ve created havoc
and
expect someone else to clean it up.” She stands. “If you’re finished, you can clear the table.” A haughty sniff.

Grumbling, he pushes back his chair. “You don’t play fair, Alicia Donne.”

“And who taught me that, Rory Brandon?”

But they’re grinning.

29

T
IRES SPIT
gravel as Jesse steers the Saab toward the inner ward. Crossing the bridge, she’s grateful the drive to the front gates of the estate is so long. Despite what she said, she needs every bit of that oak-lined mile to get used to driving with one hand. But she’ll cope. There’s no way she’s going back right now.

Once out of Hundredfield’s gates, Jesse finds the road to Newton Prior without trouble. Along the way, she makes one false turn—and ends up at the entrance to someone’s field being stared at by cows—but it’s still quite early in the afternoon when she drives down Silver Street between the old, gray houses.

In the Beast Market, Jesse stops the car and, sweating as the tension ebbs, leans her forehead on the steering wheel. She’s sick of thinking, sick of trying to work out what’s going on, sick of . . . An impulse makes her look up. The Archangel Michael is frowning from his perch on the façade of the church. He’s not offering any kind of welcome, but right now Jesse declines to pick a fight with anyone. She gets out from behind the wheel with some awkwardness and, as she locks the Saab, stands back and looks more carefully at the church.

“And do you find you like this building?” a cultured voice intrudes.

Jesse swings around. “Pardon?”

The man’s dressed in a black cassock with a pectoral cross, and he’s carrying a lit candle in a silver holder. Odd, in daylight. “
Like
. It’s a useful word. Noncommittal when you don’t want to say what you really think.”

“Um. Well, I suppose it is a bit intimidating.” Jesse’s bemused.

“That’s what they were, the Normans. Professionally so.” He turns to look at her. “You don’t like it all, do you?”

“No. I must admit I don’t.”

He grins. “Fred Stewart’s my name. I’m the rector. Come inside. It gets worse.”

There doesn’t seem to be another option, so Jesse follows.

Closing behind them, the sound of the door echoes like a handclap. Fred waits for Jesse to speak.

She whispers, “What’s
that
?”

The interior of the church is dim, as if natural light is somehow not permitted, and it’s not just Fred’s candle that flickers in the gloom—ranks and rows of candles are everywhere. But that’s not what Jesse’s pointing at.

“It’s called
The Harrowing of Hell
.”

“The what?”

Fred leads Jesse to the altar, where she genuflects unself-consciously. He says quietly, “A one-of-a-kind survival in the north, this.” He gestures at the fresco covering the wall behind the altar. “It was lost for centuries and thought to have been destroyed in the dissolution of the monasteries, but when the Victorians got stuck into renovation here, they found it behind Tudor paneling.”

Jesse takes in the monstrous images of devils eating women, demons pushing children into flaming pits, men skewered by tridents and torn apart by monsters. “It’s just”—she searches for a word—“terrifying.” What she’d really like to say is that she’s
revolted. “I mean, what must the congregation have thought? The children’s nightmares!”

“That was the point. It helped keep everyone in line when people couldn’t read. Their version of cartoons, I like to think.”

Jesse turns in a circle. “I’ve never seen a church like this. Don’t think me rude, but it’s dark.”
And I’m not talking about the opposite of light, either
.

“That’s why I’ve got this.” Fred holds up his candle. “I had spares in the car.”

She sniffs. “Is that incense?”

Fred nods.

“This is a Catholic church?”

“No, but they all were once. So, how are we going?”

“Pardon?” Jesse’s confused. But Fred’s asked the question of the dark above their heads.

Someone answers, “Pretty much done.”

Jesse swings toward the sound, can’t place its origin.

“Up there.” Fred’s amused. “In the pulpit.” As Jesse looks up, a disembodied head floats in the shadows of the canopy. The head moves and reveals itself on top of the body of a man dressed in dark coveralls. He’s packing up an electrician’s tool kit.

Fred says conversationally, “Actually, the church is darker than it normally is. We had a power failure and that’s where the fuse box is.” He protects the candle flame with one hand as he gestures toward the altar. “I agree about the fresco, by the way. What were they thinking? So, you know my name. What’s yours?”

With such a contrast between his ceremonial clothing and the informal way he speaks, Jesse’s nonplussed, though she shakes the proffered hand. “Jesse Marley. Hello.”

“Call me Fred. Everyone does.”

As if by sorcery, a blink of light flickers—on/off, on/off—then stays on; and the interior of the church jumps into being, all shape and form and height.

“There. Much more cheerful. You can see all the colors now.” Fred’s staring at the fresco, smiling slightly.

“Yes, you can.”
All those flames and blood.
“Isn’t that good.”

“Now, is there anything I can do to help?” Fred’s looking at her encouragingly.

She says cautiously, “Maybe.”
He has such kind eyes.

“Good. You looked a bit lost out there.” He gestures to the door of the church. “I can spot that, you know. Years of training.” Another smile, dispensed free.

Jesse hesitates. “Well . . .”
What have you got to lose?
“Parish records. The lady in the library says there’s still quite a good collection among the border churches?”

“The lady at the library is right.”

“I’m looking for my birth family, actually. I was born in Scotland, you see, but was adopted and brought up in Australia.”

“Ah. Well, since I don’t have any customers right now, perhaps we can shed a bit of light together.” A gracious sweep of the arm shows the way as Fred strides to a side door. “A lot of church records have been stored in the larger towns for easier access, but you’re very welcome to see what we still have. We’ve microfiched many of the oldest records. There’s so much interest in ancestry these days, and I was concerned about damage to the physical documents. This way. I’m just next door in the parish hall.”

Fred’s office is long and narrow with high windows and walls painted a drab beige. It looks like a converted corridor, and what available space there is is crowded by pigeonholes on both sides.

“There’s just too much stuff in here. Space. Such a problem. The ladies of St. Michael’s Auxiliary had already colonized the hall before I arrived; didn’t want to give much of it up. So I got this. Never mind. Do sit.” There’s a visitor’s chair, but the seat’s been slashed. “Sorry about that.”

Fred doesn’t explain, and Jesse doesn’t want to ask.

“So, this is the business end of what you want.” He pats an odd-looking metal box with a hood and some kind of screen in
its depths. “Much quicker than going through all that paper, the microfiche. Now, information. What do you have?”

“Green. That was my mother’s surname. Her first name was Eva. I don’t know where her actual birthplace is, though it might be in the borders somewhere because I was born in Jedburgh. Just have to start somewhere.”

A polite nod. “And your father?”

Jesse takes a breath. “It’s not recorded.”

Fred doesn’t react.

“But I’m planning to ring all the Greens I can find in Scotland. Someone must be able to help me.” She’s speaking too fast. Nerves.

Fred considers what she’s said. “As good a plan as any, to get you on your way. I should just explain something, however. The more common names will often need a little work to track down the correct person. You’re lucky Eva is less usual, so let’s see if we can find any information about your mum in our records. Do you have her date of birth?”

Jesse unfolds the birth certificate from her bag. “It says 1940. And I was born in 1956—Jesse Mary. Here I am.” She offers the piece of paper.

Fred doesn’t comment.

Jesse aches when she thinks about it. Sixteen? So, so young. Of course, it must have been impossible, o
f course
Eva would have given her to other people. How could her mother, still a child herself, have kept her in those days?

“Your mother was born during the war, of course.” Fred wrinkles his brow as he pulls open a filing-cabinet drawer. “
G
,
G
. . . Let me see.” Another drawer. “Here we are. All the
G
’s I have.” He sorts through hanger files at a rapid rate. “Graeme, Grahame—a lot of those—Grayling, Grave, Gread,
Green
 . . .” He pulls out a folder of transparencies and puts them next to the microfiche reader. “You’d appreciate that a number of births were, shall we say, irregular during the war? We had both army and air-force bases close to the village.”

“So, is 1940 likely to be a problem?”

A kind smile. “This was not my parish then, as you’d understand, but I do know there was a fire in the hall after blackout one night; a cigarette, we think. Not serious for the building, but an annex was burned out. That was where church records were stored, and some were lost. I’m hoping that’s not the case here. Green, Green, 1940, let me see . . .”

Jesse wills her heart to slow, wills the blood to be still in her veins. If she thinks of waterfalls, the sea, snow falling, as the minutes pass, she’ll center herself. Her mum taught her how to do that when she was stressed or unhappy. Her mum in Sydney.

“Hmm. Nothing for January to March 1940.” The rector swaps cellulose sheets under the lens of the microfiche. “So, April.”

The kindness of strangers. Jesse doesn’t know how to respond as she watches the priest; his hands are magnets.

But it’s unbearable just to sit and observe someone trawling for evidence of her life, or her mother’s life. Jesse gets up quietly and mimes going back to the church. Fred nods, absorbed.

She picks a chair in a tiny side chapel. The altar is no bigger than a card table, but votive candles flicker before a statue in a wall niche. Carved with more faith than talent, the paint and gilding have mostly flaked away from the Madonna and her son, and wormholes pock the ancient wood. But Jesse finds the simple image comforting, and the jaunty baby in Mary’s lap makes her smile. She’d intended just to sit quietly, but the kind expression on the Madonna’s face slips under her defenses. Without thinking, she kneels and joins her hands. And prays.
So many women must have asked you for help. My mum. Was she one of them
?
She was just a girl and I don’t know if anyone cared.

Our Lady of Sorrows. The name floats into Jesse’s head, and she sees her mother’s stricken face in Sydney; the moment when, sobbing, she’d slammed the bedroom door. And shut Jesse out.

Being in that house had been impossible from that afternoon on. And now she’s here.

Jesse opens her eyes. Even this far from the altar, the power of the fresco is enormous. The barbarism, the cruelty, the sheer
relish
in God’s vengeance against the so-called wicked. It’s an assault to the eye and the soul. Angry, upset, she scrambles off her knees.

“Apologies.” Fred’s been waiting for her. “Hoped I wouldn’t disturb.”

Jesse wipes her hand across her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s—that is, I should be apologizing to you. What a ridiculous world this is.”

The priest says gently, “No. Just full of surprises.” He smiles and she responds. A little. “Come back to my office.”

She knows, looking at his face. He would have said he had good news, but it’s still no easier hearing the truth.

“I’m sorry, Jesse, but I haven’t found Eva Green or, indeed, any records that mention you.”

She slumps.

“Not yet, that is.
But
”—Fred turns back to his desk, picks up a piece of paper—“I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve made a quick call on your behalf.” He taps the number that’s written there. “I saw you were born at Holly House. It’s a private home now, but I was able to find the number through a colleague—a Catholic priest. I rang the contact he gave me, and the owners were very helpful.” He offers the paper to her. “This is for a nursing home in Jedburgh.”

“Nursing home?”

“Yes. They have a resident whom you might like to meet. She was a nun—a nursing sister—at Holly House in the fifties. Her name’s Sister Mary Joseph. She lives there in retirement with a number of her former colleagues. I knew her slightly some years ago. A fine person. Very compassionate.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Holly House was a home for unmarried mothers when you were born. It was run by the Catholic Church, and the pregnant girls worked in the commercial laundry that was managed by the sisters.”

Jesse stares at what he’s written. “This is very kind of you, Reverend Stewart.”

“Fred, as I said. Just my job. The nursing home has liberal visiting hours; you can make an appointment or just turn up as it suits you.”

Jesse stands. “I feel so lucky, meeting you today.”