Mother’s Love
Eddie Heaton
Second Edition for Smashwords
Copyright 2009 Eddie Heaton
Strict Publishing International
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapter One
The little red sports car sped along the country road with its top down, the throaty purr of its engine reverberating across the moonlit Chiltern landscape. Angela sat in the passenger seat, her long blond hair streaming out behind her. They had barely spoken a word during the hour-long journey, but now, as they had just turned off the main road, Angela guessed they were approaching journey’s end and it seemed a good time for her to make some sort of stab at conversation.
“Are we nearly there?”
She had to shout in order to be heard above the noise of the rushing wind.
“We’re going to stop for a drink,” he shouted back.
“Where?”
“There’s a pub, in the village, about a mile from the house.”
The road dropped and followed the course of the river upstream for a mile or so until it narrowed, became little more than a country lane, and then veered away from the river again. They crested a rise and eventually reached a small village announced by a bizarre-looking stone church with a large globe at the pinnacle of its steeple where one typically saw a cross. Cottages lined the road, and there was a little country post office. Jamie slowed the car, and as they drove around a bend he had to come to a complete halt. An old man was standing right in front of them.
He wore a ragged suit and was leaning on a walking stick with a grimacing smile on his face, a fixed, ghoulish expression. His mouth was deformed.
Angela let out a shriek and grabbed onto Jamie’s arm. Jamie stopped the car and laughed.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s only Abe.”
They sat and waited, as Abe seemed in no hurry to move out of their way.
Before they were able to start forward, a face appeared at a ground floor window of one of the cottages on Jamie’s side of the car. It was the face of a young girl, but at the same time it bore a striking resemblance to the old man who stood before them. The girl had the same misshapen mouth and sad, pale blue eyes.
From behind the cottages came a kind of rustling movement followed by a scattering of shadows, as if a crowd of night creatures had left the copse of trees at the top of the hill and was scurrying down behind the row of little houses. They moved as though answering a call but were afraid to be seen on open ground. Pairs of eyes started to appear and disappear at the cottage windows like the twinkling of candles until a gallery of barely discernable faces filled the ground and first floor windows.
As suddenly as the faces had appeared, they were gone, and the cottage windows once again stared out blankly, like empty eye sockets.
Angela turned to Jamie, who returned her stare with an amused expression on his face.
The old man was no longer in front of them. He must have ambled off while she was pre-occupied with the village’s other strange inhabitants.
As she responded to Jamie’s smile with a nervous one of her own, his expression changed and she saw something akin to cruelty take shape around his eyes and mouth.
“Welcome to Ravenswing,” he said.
* * *
Chapter Two
Although she had often seen him around the place, they had not spoken until that afternoon in the quad.
She had been in the college library, sitting quietly and thinking about what she had just read when she saw him through the window. She gathered her books and left the library by way of the flight of bare stone steps that led into the elaborate medieval quadrangle. Statues of gods and goddesses gazed down at her from all sides, and high on the east wall was a huge sundial surrounded by the signs of the zodiac and the seven heavenly bodies of antiquity.
He wore a dark blue blazer with yellow stripes and tight, black trousers. He leaned back against the wall, smoking a cigarette. As he exhaled a pillar of smoke he said, in a cut glass, public school accent, “I’ve been meaning to have a word with you. You seem to be a little uncomfortable here. Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” she replied quickly. “Yes, everything’s fine.”
He smoked his cigarette in silence, considering this as she stood and waited.
“And have you been educating yourself in our ancient library?”
She nodded.
There was another smoke-filled pause.
“A few of us are going out this evening. Would you like to join us?”
She studied him for signs that he might be mocking her. This was the first whiff of a social invitation she had received since arriving at Oxford. Why now? Why him?
“I don’t think so, thank you,” she said and started to walk away from him.
“Oh, do come!” he said, deftly flicking away the remains of his cigarette and rushing after her. “I can see you’re having a bit of a beastly time, but it’s just a question of getting in with a crowd you know…”
“Well, where are you going?” she asked him. “And who’s going to be there?”
“A few of the chaps are meeting for drinks. That’s all,” he told her. “I know where you live. I’ll pick you up at eight.”
* * *
Chapter Three
As they entered the pub, the room fell silent. Every head turned to look at her, every eye in the room scanned her, and only then did the murmur of conversation start up again.
Jamie was immediately surrounded by young male admirers, and so Angela, left without anyone to talk to, manoeuvred herself next to two young men. She smiled at one of them, giving him little alternative than to include her in their conversation.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello, Angela,” said the pale, fair-haired youth, without looking at her.
“So you know my name?”
“Oh yes, we all know who you are,” he told her.
She pondered this for a moment and then asked him what his name was.
“I’m Tom,” he told her.
“And I’m Bertie,” said the other boy.
There was an awkward silence, and then Angela and Bertie both began to speak at the same time.
Angela said, “Go on. What were you going to say?”
“I was saying,” said Bertie, “how nice it is to see so many of one’s old friends from Eton.”
“Oh, I see,” said Angela, who had not attended that particular school.
They turned away from her and resumed their conversation.
She saw Beth, the only other girl on the course, sitting alone at a table so she walked over and said hello. Beth smiled and gestured for Angela to join her.
They chatted about the course and the college. Beth, an American, seemed as pleased and relieved as Angela was to have found some female company.
“Have you noticed,” Beth said, “how every single one of these young men seems to be utterly aristocratic? I mean, not just noble, but they’re all sort of quasi-royal!”
“How do you mean?” Angela asked her.
“Well, look,” said Beth and she pointed out a few of the young men nearby. “Bolingbroke, Neville, Spencer, Mortimer.”
“How come you know all their names?”
“I’ve been making some enquiries.”
She looked keenly at Angela. “What about you, Angela, are you blue-blooded, too?”
“Goodness me, no,” said Angela. “I’m as common as muck. Although, there is a family story about us being descended from nobility, on my father’s side, that is. Apparently one of my ancestors lost his title in a cockfight!”
“A what?” asked Beth, and then she giggled. “Oh, I see!”
While she was talking to Beth, the furniture had been re-arranged and Jamie now sat at the centre of a long table on a raised dais with half a dozen of his fellow students on either side of him. The girls seemed to have been sidelined. All the male students were sitting at what, if it had been a wedding reception, would have been the “top table,” whereas the two girls had been relegated to a little satellite of a table blatantly set apart from the main gathering.
“Strange seating arrangements,” said Angela.
It was then that she noticed the student seated nearest to them at the head of the top table was staring at them intently and eavesdropping.
Beth lowered her voice to a whisper.
“That’s Simon. The poor thing’s fallen for me.”
“Oh. Has he?” said Angela, diverting her eyes from Simon’s rather psychotic stare.
“Simon,” Beth said, nodding in his direction and smiling - a gesture that was reciprocated - “is my little spy in the camp. He’s told me quite a lot already and he is going to tell me a whole lot more, although he doesn’t know it yet. My interrogation techniques are far too advanced for the likes of young Simon.”
Angela giggled. “So what did you find out so far?” she asked conspiratorially.
“Well, apparently, he used to be Jamie’s fag at Eton,” said Beth. “Now the word, ‘fag’ means something completely different in America than it does here. I mean, I was kind of intrigued for a time there. Not really surprised, though. All these guys seem just a little bit faggy to me. Anyway, Simon explained to me that they have this weirdo system where the younger boys act as servants to the older ones. He was Jamie’s little helper and apparently fell into his power. He admits as much.”
“So Jamie must be quite a bit older than the rest of us?”
“Yes, he’s well into his twenties. He kept failing his exams because of being distracted by extracurricular activities. Apparently, he’s obsessed with the occult. His lordship takes himself rather seriously.”
“His lordship?”
“Oh, didn’t you know? Jamie is the twenty-third Lord Ravenswing. His father died a couple of years back, and he inherited the title.”
“No. I had no idea. We spoke for the first time today. We bumped into each other in the quad and he asked me if I wanted to come along for drinks.”
“I thought you two were an item.”
“Goodness, no,” said Angela.
She adjusted her clothing and quickly changed the subject.
“What made you decide to study overseas?”
“My dad came here, and he decided I should, too.”
“How odd, that’s pretty much my story, too. My mum died recently and I…”
“Your mother died recently?”
“Yes.”
“So did mine.”
* * *
Chapter Four
Angela’s father had told her that if she wanted to help her mother to get better she should study hard and pass her exams. She could have received no greater motivation, and she supposed her acceptance at this Oxford College now served to vindicate his ruthless encouragement. As well as acting as a spur, her schoolwork had also provided an escape for her from the loneliness and fear that had been her childhood companions. Her only other escape had been her faith.
For as long as she could remember, she had been fascinated by her storybooks about Jesus. He had proved a constant, ever present source of consolation for her. How she would gaze at His gentle features, at the kind, loving eyes, the hands that could heal and perform miracles. She prayed to Him several times a day and she knew in her heart He walked beside her, guiding and protecting her.
She remembered a golden time in her early childhood when her mother had taken her to mass and introduced her to the local priest. Father Mike had asked her what she was learning at school and she had replied, under her mother’s proud gaze, that she was top of the class. He had told her that the most important thing for her to learn was how to love. And then, before they left him - and as she thought back over this now, as a young adult, it occurred to her what a strange thing this had been for him to say - he had said, in a kind of stage whisper, “Long live God’s Holy Love!”
The phrase had stuck with her and she had used it as a mantra in times of difficulty ever since, and when her mother had taken ill and she had stopped going to mass, she often thought of Father Mike’s gentle features and his strange, almost magical words.
Her father had shown her no affection whatsoever. She could not remember having received a hug or kind word from him throughout her entire childhood. All he ever did was to relentlessly push her to work increasingly harder at her studies. She saw herself standing outside her mother’s bedroom, her father shaking his head and pointing the way for her, back to her own room and the pile of extra homework he had assigned for her that would take her another term or so beyond the scholastic achievements of her classmates. He refused to take her to Mass and was openly derisive about his wife’s faith. He told Angela that the only thing she needed to believe in was the importance of hard work. So she prayed secretly and recalled Father Mike’s little saying whenever she felt lonely or depressed and it always helped her.
As she grew older and continued to secretly read the New Testament, she really did try to learn how to love. She discovered that being truly capable of loving meant that she had to love even those who were cruel to her. She built a strong relationship with Jesus, and when her mother finally died, the belief that she had gone to Him helped her through that most difficult of times.
How lucky she was to have a chance to study at one of the world’s finest universities, despite the fact that she had had no say whatsoever in the choice of either college or course. Her father had told her she should study theology because of her genuine interest in religion, and that there was a particularly suitable course at his old college at Oxford. He had, he told her, already applied on her behalf, and she had been accepted.
She was thrilled at the prospect of going to Oxford and downright ecstatic to be moving away from her father, who, since the death of her mother, had been drinking heavily. It had not even occurred to her to assert her right to have a say in her own education. She was just happy to be handed the opportunity to get away.
Her father had simply sent her off. He gave her a slip of paper with the address of the college on it, train fare, and enough money for a taxi from Oxford station to the college. He said goodbye without kissing her, although that did not surprise her. She could not remember any time in her life when he had kissed or embraced her. He simply returned to his room, presumably to carry on drinking.
Anyway, her new path excited her, despite the fact that she knew there was something odd, wrong even, about the way she was going off. She had never even seen a description of the syllabus or been told anything about the college; she just did what her father told her, as she had always done.
* * *
Chapter Five
Jamie stood up and tapped the side of his wine glass with a fork and the room fell silent.
It looks like the master is about to propose a toast,” said Beth.
“Gentlemen,” he said, raising his glass, “the Guild.”
“What’s the Guild?” Angela asked Beth as the assembly stood as one, repeated Jamie’s words, and drained their glasses.
Beth shrugged. “Some spooky undergraduate society, I suppose.”
The young men got up from their seats, split into groups of threes and fours, and started talking amongst themselves. Simon approached and sat down next to Beth.
“This is Simon,” said Beth.
Simon looked at Angela with no more than a swift glance and an expression of what might have been pity, and then quickly turned back to Beth, muttering something to her in a low voice.
Angela left the room to give them some time on their own, and was not surprised on her return to find that they had wandered away and were whispering together in a corner.
She surveyed the room. The young men were drinking and talking, and ignoring her as usual, and if she did manage to make eye contact with any of them he would immediately look away. She was a pretty girl with long, curly blonde hair and pale blue eyes, a combination that had always inspired her fair share of male attention - until she arrived in Oxford. In the week she had spent so far in this “City of Dreaming Spires”, her self-esteem had taken its first real blow. What with the male students, most of whom she found extremely immature anyway, showing no interest in her whatsoever, she had been left to her own devices until Jamie’s unexpected invitation. Now he was ignoring her too.
Her eyes scanned the room, and eventually she found him. She thought him slightly ridiculous now that she had learned he was of an age at which most people had to earn a living, but she was compelled by his good looks: shoulder length dark brown hair and eyes to match, and long, almost feminine, eyelashes. She noticed that he was staring at Beth and Simon, intensely so, ignoring the conversation that gripped the small group with which he was standing. The power of his gaze made Angela glad she was not the focus of it. He suddenly did not seem ridiculous at all.
Her eyes moved from Jamie to Beth. Her dark hair framed an artfully made up face of ruby red lips, subtly rouged cheeks, and dark, vibrant eyes. She was doing all the talking while Simon sat, passively and attentively, like an early learner.
Her eyes travelled back to where Jamie was standing, but he was no longer there. She started to scan the room for him again, having decided to make an attempt to find him and to talk to him.
Tom and Bertie sauntered past where she was standing.
Have you read the list?” she heard Bertie say.
“Yes, we’re all on there. We were at Eton with most of them.”
“I find it fascinating; a confirmation of one’s superiority.”
Their voices faded as they moved past her.
At that moment Jamie appeared. “Come along, Mary, it’s time to go now.”
“My name’s not Mary, it’s Angela!”
“Shall we?” Jamie asked. She nodded, allowing him to lead her out to his waiting car.
Neither of them spoke during the short drive home, and when it was over and he had pulled up outside the college gates he turned and gave her an enquiring look.
“Well,” she said, allowing just a trace of sarcasm to season her voice, “thank you for an interesting evening. I don’t really know what to make of…”
“You are still a virgin, aren’t you?” he asked.
She could not have been more startled if he had taken out a revolver and shot her in the kneecap.
It was the one question she feared above all others. The fact that she was still a virgin at eighteen, nearly nineteen, was abhorrent to her. It made her feel like a freak. At times, it seemed everyone else had been learning about sex and love while she was busy poring over textbooks. Although she literally was unable to speak, she suspected that the colour in her cheeks was answer enough. In the end, she simply shrugged.
He sat looking at her and shrugged back.
After a long, awkward silence he finally said, “Hadn’t you better be going in?”
She nodded and started fumbling for the door handle. She became flustered and embarrassed when there did not seem to be one, and she groped blindly along the panel of the door.
“Wait!” he said. He leaned over her, found the door handle, and lifted up on it. “Goodnight, Angela.”
She got out of the car and started to say something.
Can you close the door, please?” he said flatly, without the slightest emotion in his voice.
She closed the door and he drove away, leaving her shivering in the cool autumn air.
* * *
Chapter Six
“…the Devil was invented by the Church to rid the people of their old beliefs; they diabolised those with the old knowledge and labelled them witches. It was a war of the sexes, the male-dominated church with its misogynistic priests on one side and the wise women with their sacred feminine knowledge on the other. Unfortunately the wrong side lost.”
Beth sat on the arm of a leather couch, a balloon of brandy in one hand and a Monte Cristo in the other, speaking, for the most part, directly at Jamie, whose expression revealed him to be less than interested in what she had to say. Simon sat next to Beth on the couch while Angela sat on the floor at Jamie’s feet with her legs curled up beneath her.
“Any misguided fool who ‘worships the Devil’ is just perpetuating a lie, denying those elements of spiritual truth that survived in Christianity even after the Romans hijacked it for their own political purposes. Witches aren’t devil worshippers; they worship the Goddess and Her male consorts. They follow the old truth that all that exists does so as a result of a union between male and female, with the female as the chief nurturing force. That ancient truth was attacked and almost destroyed by the absurd, dogmatic notion that one male deity was responsible for creation.”
She paused for a moment and then turned to Jamie.
“Church propaganda depicted witches as devil worshippers in order to scapegoat women and increase their own control over their congregations. Witches are not devil worshippers and never have been.”
“You’re completely wrong about that,” Jamie said quietly and without emotion. “There are plenty of accounts and confessions of devil worship from all over the world.”
“Oh, come on!” said Beth. “Most of those confessions were tortured out of those poor women.”
“You’re fundamentally wrong,” he told her. “Yes, of course the old religion involved the worship of the Goddess, but there was certainly devil worship, too. It seems to have become accepted these days that all witches were innocent dupes and that their confessions were tortured out of them, but it’s not true, you know. I’ve done extensive research on the witch trials, and the accounts I’ve read weren’t confessions: they were proud proclamations of faith. Those accused clearly belonged to a higher religion that they would die for rather than renounce. They defied their accusers to the end and boasted that the faith they died for was superior to Christianity.”
“Yes,” said Beth, in an exasperated tone, “as I said, the old religion.”
“Not at all,” countered Jamie. “It had nothing to do with paganism. It was a monotheistic cult whose central object was the Devil. The witches believed Him to be a true god.”
“That’s crap,” Beth said. “Christian anti-female propaganda!”
“Why? The Devil isn’t female,” he said.
“No, but all His fictional devotees were. The Church was determined to cast powerful women in a negative role, but one that still made them subservient to a male.”
There followed a long silence at the end of which Beth said, “Anyway, I have to go now.”
“Me, too,” said Simon.
“Why don’t you come along?” Beth said to Angela.
“That’s okay, I’ll take Angela home,” Jamie said.
“Come with us if you want,” said Beth, ignoring Jamie.
Angela shook her head and moved closer to Jamie, much to Simon’s obvious relief.
Beth caught Angela’s eye. “Can I talk to you for a moment, please?”
They went into the hall, where Beth said, in an urgent whisper, “Why don’t you come with us?”
“No, I want to stay. I mean… I really want to, Beth.”
“Okay,” said Beth, “I can understand that, but there’s something weird going on here. I can’t tell you what it is now, but you should be careful. I don’t want to leave you on your own with him.”
“I’m fine,” Angela said. “Really, Beth.”
Beth looked at her thoughtfully. “Be careful, honey. That guy is not what he seems. Oh, I know he’s the cutest thing on two fucking legs, but… just be careful, that’s all.”
“Okay,” said Angela. “I mean, he’s not that cute!”
“Can you meet me tomorrow?” Beth asked.
“Sure,” said Angela.
“Come round to my place any time after six, sound good?”
“See you then,” said Angela, and they returned to the den. The two men curtailed their conversation as soon as the young women came in.
“Don’t mind us,” said Beth.
Jamie showed Beth and Simon out, and when he returned Angela got up quickly and started to tidy up the room.
“I was falling asleep,” she said. “Let me give you a hand clearing up.”
“No need,” he said. “I have someone who comes in to do all that. Let’s have a coffee. Come and talk to me while I make it.”
They went into the kitchen and sat down at the table.
“I hope you didn’t find the conversation too boring,” he said.
“No, it was interesting,” she said. “You obviously know a lot about it.”
“Well, yes, I do, actually. More than Beth, anyway.”
“Oh yes, that’s obvious,” she told him.
“I hope you’re not shocked by this stuff,” he said. “You’re a Christian, aren’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
“His light shines in your eyes,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m a Christian, too!”
“So what about all this…?”
“Oh, that’s just a silly game.”
“Is it?” she said. “I thought so.”
He picked up their coffee cups and carried them into the den, where they sat down next to each other.
“Anyway, I owe you an apology,” he said.
“Oh? What for?”
“I was terribly rude when I dropped you off the other night. When I asked you if you were a…”
“Oh, that? You don’t have to apologize.”
“It’s a good thing, you know.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, I think so, don’t you? I think it says a lot about you.”
“That I couldn’t find anyone to sleep with me?”
“Well, I must admit I find that impossible to believe.”
“I suppose that’s not exactly true.”
“My first time was an absolute catastrophe.”
“Was it?”
He nodded. “Make sure when it does happen, it’s with the right person under the right circumstances.”
“I intend to,” she said.
He looked at the floor for a moment and then met her gaze. “I’m having a few guests over to my house this weekend. Would you like to come?”
“It’s my birthday on Saturday,” she said.
“Is it really?” he said, “Well, that’s perfect then. You must come to the Hall and we’ll celebrate it in style.”
“Sure,” she said. In the context of what they had just been talking about, it was practically a contract.
“Excellent,” he said. “Come on then, I’ll take you home.”
This time when he dropped her at the college gates he kissed her on the lips and stroked her cheek before saying goodnight.
* * *
Chapter Seven
Beth took a sip of orange juice and placed the glass on the table next to her chair.
“You know I’ve been seeing Simon?” she said.
Angela nodded.
“Well, I’m just using him to gather information.”
“Yes, you told me.”
“You probably think that’s bad, but hear me out.”
“Okay,” Angela said and smiled.
They were in Beth’s studio. She lived in one big room that overlooked the river. It was part of a converted chapel, with high ceilings and huge, arched windows.
“Well, I found out some stuff from him about this weird set up, this ‘guild’ they’ve got going. For Christ’s sake, Angela, don’t mention this to Jamie. Simon is scared, I mean, genuinely scared. It seems to me that this is more than just undergraduate games, you know?”
Beth took Angela’s hand in hers. I think you should be careful with Jamie.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I just think there’s something weird about the way he’s hitting on you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I just get the impression he’s using you.”
“So you don’t think he actually likes me?”
“I don’t know, honey,” Beth said. “I mean, we haven’t known each other for very long, but guys like that…”
“Don’t normally go for girls like me?”
“Well, to be honest, no.”
“You’re saying I’m not in his league?”
She pulled her hand away.
“I didn’t say that!”
“Well, I’m not going to stop seeing him, Beth.”
“Okay, okay, I just wanted to be honest with you, as a friend that’s all. You’ve got to make your own decisions.”
She paused and took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
“There was something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Yes?”
“Your father sent you here, no consultation or discussion, just, ‘Here’s your fucking train ticket,’ right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, same with me. Do you have any money of your own?”
Angela shook her head. “I don’t really need any. My accommodation and all my meals are provided…”
“Same here. This place is paid for and I eat on campus. I have no cash, no credit card, I mean… I’m a member of one of the wealthiest families in America, you know? My father’s told the rest of my family not to give me money, that if they did I’d spend it on drugs. So, in a sense I’m trapped here. Same as you, I guess. I mean, you could leave, but where would you go? Have you spoken to your father lately?”
Angela shook her head. “We don’t really talk.”
“That’s so like me and my dad. Do you have any other relations you could turn to for help if you really needed it?”
Angela stared bleakly out of the window at the river.
She shook her head wanly. “It’s a funny sort of family.”
They sat without speaking for several seconds. Finally Beth broke the silence her speech rapid and sombre, as if she were giving away government secrets.
“Before I came over here I was in rehab.”
Angela said nothing.
“I got strung out on blow, you know? Coke? I had to have a full detox and they had me on Librium and fuck knows what else. After a couple of weeks I got better and I just wanted to get the fuck out of there, but they kept me there for another month or so and I had to undergo group therapy. I guess they try to find the reasons you took the drugs in the first place. Anyway they used hypnotic regression and took me right back to my childhood.”
“That sounds horrendous!” said Angela.
“Yeah, well, we all did this group work. I mean, I was in a group with other people who had similar problems, and we took turns re-enacting traumatic scenes from our childhood.
“And stuff started to come up. Gradually I began to remember things about my upbringing, and one day, when we were in group, it just suddenly all came back to me.”
Her voice started to waver. She paused to collect herself before continuing. “He used to come into my room when I was little and do things to me, the fucking bastard. I completely blotted it out, you know, refused to accept that it had happened, but it happened, and when my mom died it was like my one line of defence was gone. And that was when I started doing blow. Anyway, that’s what I learned.”
With that she stood up and walked over to the other side of the room.
Angela sat and waited, and eventually Beth returned to her seat.
“I had this really cool counsellor. Her name was Sandra. She told me all about the Earth Mother.”
“The Earth Mother?”
“Yes,” said Beth, her eyes beginning to shine.
“I don’t know if you know this, but she was once worshipped all over the world by different ancient civilizations that had absolutely no knowledge of one another. Here in Europe, in Asia, in South America, and all the stories about her have so many features in common that it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. For instance, she is described by the various cultures as having two male consorts who attend to her and fertilise her eggs with their seed. There are other examples, too”
She broke off, appearing suddenly self-conscious, but Angela encouraged her with a smile, engaged by the other girl’s enthusiasm.
“Anyway,” Beth went on, “I became fascinated and decided I wanted to study Her and the religions that followed and the history of how they came to replace Her. Male authority figures have been attacking women through the ages as if they are afraid of something. That’s what I want to find out! For thousands of years they’ve used us for sex and to produce heirs, denying us any political power or social freedom. I mean, how dare they? Yet at one time it was women who held the power through the Goddess.
“Then I got to thinking about my own mom and how she died, and the more I thought about it, you know, I think he killed her. I mean, my family, that is, my father’s family, is incredibly powerful. He never fucking spoke to her, Angela. She was just in the way. I think he killed her or had her killed.
“When I got out of rehab I went back to our Boston apartment and did a little research. I went in his study and found all kinds of weird shit, descriptions of bizarre fucking rituals and lists of family trees, and I went on his PC and found e-mails from people, incredibly powerful people, Angela, in the government and in your government, too, and other governments around the world, and I pieced together that they all came here and were members of this… ‘guild’. Not all at the same time, of course, but once they leave Oxford they all get admitted into some kind of weird alumni organization. And what freaks me out, most of all: they’re all men! Not a single woman.
“So anyway, then he says he’s sending me over here and I think, ‘Okay, I’m going to find out what’s going on.’
“Then I met you and you told me about how your dad sent you here and your mom just died, too, and in the meantime, I’d already started to work on Simon. It didn’t take long before he was… confiding in me. And you know what, Angela? His mother died, too, just over a year ago.”
Angela considered this for a moment.
“Coincidences do happen, you know.”
“I think this is rather more than just coincidence. I mean, don’t worry, we’ll work it out, but be careful. Just stay away from them, that’s all, and make plans to get the fuck out of here. I mean, I actually don’t think it’s safe for us to stay here. I really think we could be in real danger. We should get away from… ”
Angela stood up abruptly. “I’m leaving now. I have to get ready. I’m going away for the weekend.”
“You’re not going away with Jamie, are you? For God’s sake! After what I just told you?”
Angela was through the door and in the street before Beth had finished her sentence.
* * *
Chapter Eight
A weathered, creaky sign above the door of the pub announced it as “The White Hart.” Jamie parked the car and they got out and stretched their legs a little before going inside.
They were greeted by an amply proportioned publican with an apron and a big round face that beamed with pleasure at the sight of them.
“Well, if it ain’t the young master himself! Welcome, Master Jamie. Sit yourself down and let me get you some refreshments. Would you like something to eat, sir? I’ve got a lovely piece of cold beef; I could serve you some of that with a nice potato salad?”
“No thanks, Pete, we’ll be having dinner at the hall. Just a pint of bitter for me, and...?”
He turned to Angela, as did the publican, who looked at her for the first time, his eyes full of curiosity.
“I’ll just have an orange juice, please.”
“And an orange juice. Coming right up, miss.”
The pub was warm and nicely lit, thanks in large part to a log fire that roared in the grate. The walls were cluttered with horse brasses, bedpans and portraits of long dead country folk.
Jamie excused himself, and while he was gone Pete brought their drinks to the table.
“Come far this evening, miss?” he asked her.
“Just from Oxford,”
“Oh that’s not far then. Traffic bad, was it?”
“No,” she told him, “not too bad at all.”
He smiled and set the drinks down on the table and she smiled back.
“Have you known Jamie long?”
“All his life,” said Pete, “and his father before him. Why, on the night the young master was born, the old lord and some of his friends was in here celebrating, so they was, and a fine old night we had of it, drinking and talking. Carried on all night, we did.”
“Oh? Is his father still alive?”
“Been gone these ten years,” Pete told her, “And of course his late mother, Lady Ravenswing, gawd bless her, died only a few months back. ‘Course we never saw her in here, kept very much to herself, she did. Not that you’d expect a lady of class and breeding like her to be frequenting a public house, even one as respectable and as well kept as this one, miss, but she very rarely left the hall, especially not later on, you know, towards the end.”
Jamie returned, sat down, and took a drink of his beer.
“Thank you, Pete.”
Pete nodded obediently.
“If you need anything else, Master Jamie, just give me a holler and I’ll be right there, sir.”
He went back behind his bar.
“He’s nice,” Angela said.
“Yes,” said Jamie, “his family has kept this pub for as long as anyone can remember, probably for centuries.”
“Who was that old man in the village?” she asked.
“He’s one of the locals,” Jamie said with a dismissive smile. “Just an old fool.”
“I thought I saw some other people, too, on the hillside behind the cottages.”
“Did you?” he said. “What kind of people?”
“It was really odd,” she said. “I couldn’t quite make it out. They were…”
“They were what?”
“Oh, never mind,” she said.
“Perhaps it was a flock of sheep,” he suggested.
“Yes,” she agreed, “that’s probably what it was.”
They sat in silence for a moment while Angela looked around the pub. Her first impression was that it was empty apart from the two of them, but she now noticed, as she scanned the bar area, that there was another room, where three men sat on bar stools, smoking cigarettes and talking with pints of beer in front of them.
It was then she recognised one of them. It was Simon. She craned forward until she could see the others as well and was alarmed to see that the other two were Tom and Bertie.
“Oh God!” she said, “Look who it is!” It was the very people she had been most hoping to avoid.
Jamie turned and looked.
“Oh! Yes. What a coincidence.”
Surely this was not the case! He must have invited the others to his house as well. She had been rather looking forward to spending some time alone with him.
But then it all became clear. It was her birthday the next day. Of course! He was throwing her a surprise party. How wonderful! She hoped she had not spoiled it by noticing the three young men.
“Shall we?” Jamie asked as he finished his drink.
They got up and started to move towards the door.
“Good night, miss,” said Pete in a booming baritone voice befitting his great bulk.
“Goodnight, Master Jamie. I hope it all goes well tonight.”
“Thank you, Pete,” said Jamie. “I’m sure it will.”
* * *
Chapter Nine
They left the village behind and were soon motoring sedately through the pale gloom of the open country. They journeyed down a long, straight road at the end of which was a large wooded area. So dense was the forest that for a mile or so the branches of the trees formed an oppressive canopy above them, blocking out the moonlight and giving the impression they were in some great cavern.
Once they had passed through the forest the road began to climb steeply and they were driving over grassland once again.
As they reached the crest of the rise, she saw the silhouette of a stately house in the lush valley bottom beneath them. It was a converted Abbey, a hideous amalgam of architectural styles, part Gothic, part Classical, a rambling, chaotic mass of ill-composed shapes that dominated the rolling landscape in which it sat.
“Is that…?”
He nodded tiredly. “That’s the old pile.”
They rode along the top of a ridge for a short time, giving them a clear view of the bizarre house. She could not help but feel a little invigorated by the thought that they had reached their final destination.
Something caught her attention, a flickering movement seen out of the corner of her eye. Were those torch lights, fording the open country and heading towards the house? Shocked by the sudden apparition, she grabbed hold of Jamie’s arm.
“Look! What’s happening there, Jamie?”
He looked in the direction she was pointing, but the road had already dropped away behind a hill and there was nothing to see.
“What was it?” he asked her.
“I thought I saw a long line of people carrying torches,” she told him.
“Are you feeling all right?” he said with a laugh.
“I did see it!” she told him.
“Maybe it was the lights from the main road.”
“Well, I suppose it could have been.”
“Nearly there now,” he told her.
He turned into a narrow driveway at the entrance to which was a faded sign that proclaimed, in scarcely legible letters, ”Ravenswing Hall.”
The Great House loomed ahead of them and grew by the second as they approached along its meandering driveway, through its outer gates, and over a shallow moat into a large, walled, inner courtyard. The house towered above them like a cliff face, and above it the moon hung like a colossal beach ball that had been pushed off a high tower and had remained there, defying gravity.
She caught a glimpse of a crowd of young people inside through a leaded ground floor window. She heard people talking, but the heads she saw were all of animals: a wolf, a cat, a fox.
“Oh! Fancy dress,” she said to Jamie.
“You didn’t tell me it was fancy dress. I haven’t brought a costume.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll think of something.”
* * *
Chapter Ten
He picked up her bag, pushed open the front door, and motioned for her to walk in ahead of him.
They passed through a stone portico that was bigger than her room at the college. Down either side were seats with red velvet cushions, and on one wall was a huge oil painting of a scene from Dante’s Inferno.
Jamie opened the inner door for her, and when she walked through she found herself standing in a cavernous entrance hall. Ahead of her rose a grand sweeping staircase of a scale that Angela had only seen in films or on visits to stately homes with her parents.
To her right was the room where the group of young men was assembled, and she could now make out a whole menagerie. Apart from the cat, the wolf, and the fox there was also a pig, a rat, a sheep, and an ibis. Despite the variety of masks there was a bizarre uniformity to the ensemble in that each beast and fowl wore a black dinner suit, a white studded shirt, and a white bow tie.
And, despite the fact that the young men’s faces were concealed, the hum of conversation and the collective body language of the group held a sickening familiarity.
She was once again in the presence of the thirteen.
A young woman appeared. She was about Angela’s age and was dressed conventionally, in jeans and a blue sweatshirt.
Jamie said, “I assume you’ll want to freshen up?”
Angela nodded.
“Show my guest to her room, would you, Gladys?”
Angela tried to establish eye contact with the girl, but she turned away and picked up Angela’s overnight bag.
Angela followed Gladys, who set off with her bag up the great staircase. At the top, she led her along a smaller hallway, through a connecting room, and down a long, dimly lit passageway at the far end of which were four doors, two on either side. Gladys pushed open one of the doors and went inside, and Angela followed her in.
The room was large and sparsely furnished. It contained a double bed, a wardrobe, and a dressing table. There was a window concealed by long scarlet curtains and another door leading somewhere. Angela opened it to find a small bathroom with an old-fashioned porcelain washbasin and bathtub.
Gladys put down the bag and stood by the door. Angela sat on the bed, expecting the girl to take her leave, but instead Gladys closed the door and took a seat on the bed next to Angela.
“What have you been told?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Are you aware of the nature of the gathering that is to take place here this evening?”
“I know it’s fancy dress. I couldn’t help seeing the others in their costumes on the way up, but I don’t have a costume.”
Gladys stared at her.
“Can you help me?” Angela asked her. “Do you think we could improvise something?”
Gladys continued staring at her as if Angela had spoken a foreign language.
“No?” Angela said. “I mean, those animal costumes the guys downstairs are wearing, they were probably all hired from the same fancy dress shop, weren’t they? I just thought there might be a spare one, you know.”
Gladys shook her head as if to clear it. “There is a costume for you,” she said finally.
“Is there?” Angela said. “Oh, thank goodness for that. Can I see it?”
Gladys stood up, walked over to the window, and pulled back the heavy red curtains. “Look,” she said.
Angela went over to the window and looked out.
She was just in time to see the tail end of a line of people, some of whom were carrying torches, disappear through a gate into the walled courtyard at the back of the house.
“I saw them from the car!” she exclaimed. “Who are they? What’s going on?”
“There’s to be a gathering,” said Gladys.
“What kind of gathering? What’s going on? I don’t understand,” said Angela.
Gladys smiled sadly. “No one really understands. Even they don’t understand… everything.”
Angela looked again at the stream of people marching towards the back of the house.
“The Great Room has been prepared,” said Gladys. “They’ve set up an altar in there.”
“Is this a joke?”
“No,” Gladys replied. “No, it’s not.” She sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands.
Angela continued to look out of the window, but there was nothing else to see. After a time, she turned away and walked over to where Gladys was sitting. She noticed that the girl was shaking. Gladys was in tears.
“What’s wrong?” Angela asked her.
“I’ve done it now and you don’t believe me,” said Gladys. “And that means you’ll probably tell him what I said and that will mean… I don’t know, it could mean anything, it could mean the end of me. You don’t know what they’re like! I been told I should try to help you, but now I’m too scared to!”
“Who told you that you should try to help me?”
“Promise you won’t tell?”
“Yes, of course I promise! What’s all this about?”
Gladys stood up and rubbed her eyes and then turned and looked at Angela uncertainly. “All right, I’ll tell you,” she said, “but if they ever find out I’m really going to be in a lot of trouble. I mean, really bad trouble. You… you just don’t know what they’re like. You really promise not to tell anyone, ever?”
“I absolutely promise, Gladys,” she said. “Hang on.”
She went to her bag and took out a bible. She placed it on the bed between her and Gladys and put her hand on it.
“I swear by almighty God never to repeat whatever Gladys is about to tell me.”
Gladys watched her carefully and sat silently for a moment. “You a Christian then?”
“Yes, I am. Aren’t you?”
“No. Fact is… I ain’t never met a Christian before… ‘tho I seen them on the telly.”
Angela studied the younger girl’s face carefully. Was this some sort of practical joke? But the girl seemed completely serious.
“How can that be?” she asked. “You live in a Christian country.”
Gladys shook her head. “There’s no Christians round here,” she said. “Those of us from the village and the land between the village and the river… well… we’re different, see. I mean, those of us whose families have lived here for generations. We all follow the old religion. And we don’t mix with no-one else, never have done.”
“What old religion? You mean Paganism?”
“Dunno what that is. We just calls it the old way. I first got told of it by the elders when I was thirteen, though by then I’d already been told by kids who were a bit older or who had older brothers or sisters. I was ‘nitiated into it as soon as my periods started. For a boy it’s when his voice breaks. We’re all sworn to secrecy, and no one ever talks. Believe me, we’re all too scared to. It’s the men what’s in charge, see. The lord tells them what to do and they tells the women what to do and we was told that it’s the dark one that tells the lord what to do so really it’s the dark one himself what’s telling us. So if we don’t do what we’re told, well, it’s him we’ll have to answer to.”
“So why do you want to help me to get away from them?”
Gladys looked Angela straight in the eye. “Coz I’m one of the sisterhood now.”
“Sisterhood? What sisterhood?”
“My mum and two of my aunts told me that they was secretly worshipping the Earth Mother but that wasn’t allowed so I had to keep it secret. They took me to a secret coven in the woods that was only women and I was accepted into the Sisterhood. And since then I’ve been going with them regular.
“Then they said they wanted me to come up to the hall and work here, but I was really going to be working for them, like a secret agent, see, and that I had to report back to them what was going on. Anyway I agreed coz I’d do anything for my mum! But then she died a few months back, and I never heard from them till yesterday and they told me you was coming and said that if I could, I should help you, but that I should be careful and, like, sound you out first, make sure you didn’t just assume I was talking a load of complete bollocks and go straight off to Him and tell Him everything.”
Angela sat perfectly still on the bed next to Gladys, suddenly aware of a strange tingling sensation behind her ears. Had she stepped through the looking glass? What in the name of God was she hearing? She opened her mouth to speak, but no words would come.
“Then the steward,” Gladys went on, “the bloke what’s in charge of the household here, comes to me this morning and says that I have to prepare you, bring you up here like what I done and make sure you bathes and puts the robe on. So I agreed but decided I’d tell you what was going on and give you the option, like, of whether to leg it or not and help you if you wanted to leg it. Coz my auntie told me that’s what I should do, help you to get down to the village and then tell them you legged it. But they said I should be aware that if you didn’t believe me you might tell them what I’d said and then I’d be for it.”
Gladys went over to the wardrobe and took out a very short, very plain, white robe. “This is what they want you to put on. It’s what we wear for ‘nitiation ‘cept what they’re doing it’s a lot bigger ‘n a ‘nitiation coz why are all that lot coming?” She gestured with her head towards the window. “And the lord’s special guests is all up here and the great room is done out like a temple and I ain’t never seen an altar like it!”
Angela went into the bathroom, and closed and locked the door. She looked in the mirror and then closed her eyes and asked for guidance. What was going on? Was this girl some kind of crazy fantasist? Should she go down and talk to Jamie about this? Tell him the joke had gone far enough, that she was really getting scared. But she had just sworn a sacred oath not to reveal what Gladys told her. And then there was the procession. Surely all those people were not all in on it? She remembered what Beth had told her yesterday in her apartment. Perhaps it was all an elaborate joke and Jamie and Beth were part of it. But why would anyone go to so much trouble to play a joke on her?
She thought about Jamie’s sudden interest in her, and realised now how flattered she had been by it. How quickly she had allowed herself to become infatuated by him, or rather the fantasy of him, his title, his stately home.
She recalled all that had transpired since she had arrived at the college and thought about how little she knew him, how little she knew any of them. And then she remembered him questioning her about her virginity the first night he had dropped her off. At the time she had been too mortified that he had discovered her guilty secret to consider what a strange question it was, coming from a relative stranger.
Did they intend to sacrifice her to the devil? Could that really happen in this day and age? But then, who would know? Her father? And once again she remembered the conversation she had had with Beth. What if her father was in on it? What if he was one of them? After all, he was the only person who would miss her, and if everyone at the college was involved…
Except Beth. Surely Beth was not one of them too? Beth had tried to warn her, but she had been so blinded by her own feelings that she had jumped to the conclusion that Beth was trying to steal Jamie away from her.
“Long live God’s holy love,” she said to herself. She closed her eyes, and an inner voice told her that she had no option than to trust Gladys and try to get as far away as possible. None of it made any sense, but she sensed the danger was real enough and that the only sensible option was, as Gladys had put it, to “leg it.”
She unlocked the bathroom door and opened it. Gladys was still sitting on the bed, round-shouldered, her head bowed.
“Is there an American girl here?” asked Angela.
Gladys shook her head.
“Are you sure? Isn’t one of the guests a girl, an American girl called Beth?”
There’s thirteen expected for dinner,” she said quietly. “All men.”
“No other girls apart from me?”
Once again Gladys shook her head.
What kind of a party was that? Thirteen men and only one girl!
“I’m going to make him take me home,” Angela said as she stood up. “Don’t worry, Gladys, I won’t breathe a word about anything you’ve told me.”
Gladys stood up too. “You can’t do that! They’ll just grab you if you do that. You got to leg it. It’s the only way. I can help you. I can get you away. Let me show you. I know a secret way, a tunnel what leads to the village. Then my auntie will drive you home in her car. They been planning it. They know what’s going on. Let me show you the way. Please?”