Hungry Moon (19 page)

^{He let the car coast backward down the slope at once, before he tried to turn it. He was dismayed to realize how welcome the excuse was that Vera had offered him. He glanced at her, then he looked over his shoulder while he reversed toward the ditch. As soon as he caught sight of Eustace, his panic flooded back. Eustace was as scared as Craig knew Vera was - as he was himself. This time it wasn't just his childhood fear that he was retreating from. Whatever was out there, they had seen it too.}

^THIRTY

^{Throughout that morning Diana felt as if she hadn't woken up. However many lights she switched on in the cottage, it still seemed too dark. The lights could neither drive away the thoughts that had kept her awake half the night nor clarify them. When she opened the front door, hoping that fresh air would clear her head, the darkness settled over her like a fall of dirty cobwebs. She went back to the percolator in case coffee might free her from her prickly stupor, her sense of being unable to organize her thoughts.}

^{The first black gulp seared her throat, but that was all. Perhaps she needed her yoga techniques to help her sleep. The trouble was that when she'd tried them in the early hours, she'd felt on the edge of something much larger than relaxation, much larger than the glimpses she'd had of Mann in the cave. Nathaniel Needham had hinted that he'd experienced visions, but could Diana be that Celtic just because of her ancestry? She felt in danger of coming face to face with something she dreaded without knowing what it was.}

^{The shrilling of the doorbell almost jerked the mug out of her hand. Jeremy Booth was outside, shading his eyes with one hand as if to ward off the dark. 'What do you think about this, then?' he said, rolling his eyes to indicate the sky.}

^{'I don't know what to think about it,' Diana said, more certain every moment that she did. 'Time for a coffee? I've been drinking alone all morning.'}

^{When she brought him a mug in the front room, he was gazing at the children's paintings, months old now. 'So what will you be doing when the summer's over?' he said.}

^{She wished the question didn't seem so ominous. 'I still haven't decided. I want to see how the kids are.'}

^{'You don't mind staying, then.'}

^{'Somebody has to.'}

^{'We would if there were anything to stay for,' Jeremy said, obviously feeling rebuked. 'But between ourselves, I don't like the way things have been affecting Geraldine. It was starting to get through to me as well.'}

^{'In what way?'}

^{'My youthful excesses catching up with me, I think.' He gave a token laugh. 'My psychedelic past. I'd have thought it would have worked itself out of my system by now, but it must have been the pressures we've been under. I started to see things.'}

^{'Do you mind if I ask you what sorts of things?'}

^{'I'd rather not talk about it, Diana.' He drained the mug and stood up. 'Don't think me rude if I scoot away. I don't like leaving her alone while it's like this, it's making her nervous.'}

^{'Were you here for a reason?'}

^{'Well, yes. Gerry tells me you'll be staying for a while, and we both admire you for it. If we leave you the key, would you mind keeping an eye on the shop? We're going up to Wales to look at some new premises.'}

^'Now?'

^{'Tomorrow, but I thought I'd better ask you now in case you'd rather not.'}

^{'There's nobody else if I don't, is there?'}

^{'To be honest, I don't think there is.'}

^{Committing herself to staying on behalf of one more person hardly mattered. She'd already been singled out by her ability to see more than the townsfolk could, and there was no point in resenting having been chosen like that without being asked. 'Leave me an address where I can get in touch with you if I need to,' she said.}

^{She watched him as far as the lamplit corner. Tne moors loomed above the town as if the black sky were solidifying. The massive blackness overhead took her breath away, made her body shudder with a frustrated urge to tear the blackness open. A line of Needham's song ran through her head and let the chill seep into her, but she was damned if she'd hide in her cottage. She grabbed a coat and made for the shops.}

^{'Not blaming Godwin Mann for that as well, are you?' the newsagent growled when she wanted to know why there were no papers. She was tempted to say that she was, but she went out to the hotel instead. At least she wasn't totally alone in what she suspected. She had to know the worst, she told herself, before she could begin to plan.}

^{She was crossing the lobby to the reception desk when a beaming young woman headed her off. 'Godwin knows you want to see him. He'll come to you as soon as he can.'}

^{Diana suppressed the nervousness that made her feel. "Do you know someone called Delbert, a thin guy, Cali-fornian?'}

^{'Oh yes, we all know Delbert.' The smile didn't change, yet it suddenly looked smug. 'Did you want a word with him?'}

^{'If he's here.'}

^{'He'll be where he's lodging. He's been a bit excited since yesterday. Godwin thought he needed to stay with someone who could take care of him, so he's staying with Mr and Mrs Scragg.'}

^{Surely the Scraggs wouldn't refuse Father O'Connell access to him. She left the lobby, where the dark seemed to turn the ceiling into a void above the chandeliers, and headed for the church. As she passed the school, the children were singing a hymn. The sound brought tears to her eyes, but at the same time it made her uneasy: were they celebrating Mann's triumph or singing to make the darkness go away? People had halted under streetlamps and were smiling toward the school, and Diana felt more outcast than ever.}

^{The lit church was deserted. The interior felt cold and stony. She couldn't help faltering as she came out of the porch: the graveyard, steeped in darkness, seemed larger; the gravestones looked like rocks sprouting jag-gedly from the unkempt grass. The children's voices drifted to her along the High Street, but the line from Needham's song was louder in her head. 'The night's in the sun,' the voice repeated as she hurried across the road between the meagre streetlamps. Her footsteps sounded small and flat as she went up the path to the presbytery and rang the doorbell. Something thudded against the other side of the door, scratching at the wood, snarling.}

^{Of course it was Kelly, the priests's Alsatian dog. She stepped forward from where she'd flinched back, heart lurching. No wonder the dog was on edge with the dark. Could Father O'Connell be asleep? The noise the dog was making should wake him. She glanced round in the hope of seeing him on his way to the church or the presbytery, and as she did so she glimpsed a light on the moor.}

^{She ran to the gate for a clearer view, cupped a hand next to her eye to block off the glow of the streetlamp. She was beginning to think she'd imagined the light out there when it flared again, nearer. It was a car. Surely it was coming from beyond the dark, which meant the dark had an end, and she could ask the driver where. She opened the gate and waited for the car.}

^{It swung into view at the top of the slope above the church and came racing down, too fast. When she stepped onto the pavement and waved urgently, the brakes screeched, the car slewed across the road toward her. She dodged back into the presbytery garden as the tyres scraped along the curb with a tearing sound and a stench of rubber, and then the passenger window was rolled down. 'What is it, Miss Kramer? Why did you want us?'}

^{It was Eustace Gift. His small mouth under his large nose was screwed smaller, but he didn't mean her to laugh. 'Where have you just come from?' Diana said.}

^{His eyes went blank. 'You'd better ask the driver.'}

^{The driver, a balding man, climbed out of the car and rested his folded arms on the roof. Diana saw that his arms were trembling. 'I don't know where we got to,' he muttered. 'A couple of miles or so. The road's blocked somehow. No way through.'}

^{His companion, a woman with a delicate face, went round the car to him. 'It's something to do with this dark,' she said defiantly.}

^{'Blocked how?' Diana said, glancing at each of them in turn. Nobody seemed to want to answer. Eustace looked away from her as she glanced at him. 'You've left the door open,' he said.}

^{Diana looked back. The presbytery door was ajar. 'The dog must have clawed it open,' she realized.}

^{'That's the priest's house, is it? I wouldn't mind a word with him,' the driver said, and strode up the path. 'Be careful, Craig,' his wife called and ran after him, Diana at her heels. Eustace came up to them just as the driver eased the door open and dodged aside, pulling his wife with him. 'Careful,' Eustace stammered, 'look at its eyes.'}

^{He meant the dog. It was cowering in the hall, glaring terrified out at the dark, it raw tongue lolling between its teeth. 'Come on, boy,' Craig said, stepping forward minutely, and then the dog leaped past him, fled whimpering along the path as Diana shoved Eustace out of its way. She saw it clear the fence and race toward the moor, and felt as if it had infected her with its panic. She made for the lit hall of the presbytery, so as to be out of the dark. She was first to see what the dog had done to Father O'Connell, but it was the driver's wife who began to scream.}

^{THIRTY ONE}

^{When the hymn ended Andrew went on singing by mistake. Some of the children giggled - not the ones who'd come to Moonwell just last month. Miss Ingham gave him a smile, the one that stayed on her face whatever she was saying. 'Let's kneel down now and talk to God,' she said.}

^{Andrew squeezed his eyes shut until they filled with swelling light and prayed as hard as he could, though not in the words she was using. He prayed so hard he ceased to feel the floorboards bruising his knees. He was praying that his father was cured now that Mr Mann had made the cave into a holy place.}

^{Whatever was wrong with his father, it had something to do with the cave. He'd seen his father creeping up there in the moonlight, he'd felt his father growing tense when Mr Mann went down the rope. His father must have been asking God to go down with him, to kill the giant or the devil that had heard Andrew's parents the first time Mr Mann had called everyone to the cave. If Andrew's mother hadn't spoken up that time, it wouldn't have singled out his father. But Mr Mann had done what he'd been called to do and come back safe, he'd said so. The trouble was that since then Andrew's father had been more secretly nervous than ever.}

^{He mustn't be sure that the demon was dead. Maybe he was afraid to look over the edge of the cave to make sure, or afraid that someone would see him looking and want to know what he was doing. That was why Andrew had to go and look, to make sure it was a holy place now so that he could tell his father. 'Please God,' he said, for everything to come right, and joined in as the crowded class said, 'Amen.'}

^{'God see you safely home,' Miss Ingham said, which meant they could all go. Andrew thought of joining the others as they swarmed out, of inventing a reason on his way to the cave why he hadn't waited for her - but she was smiling at him, and the only way he could move was toward her big, wide face, her broad shoulders that made her look like a triangle balanced on thin legs. He still wished she were Miss Kramer. 'Don't forget to say your prayers before bedtime,' she called after the children. 'Remember, God likes to look down and see you on your knees.'}

^{'I don't know how He can see anything with all this dark,' Sally murmured to Jane.}

^{At least Andrew could ask the teacher one of the questions that were troubling him. As he followed her into the schoolyard, he said, 'The dark's the bad coming out of the cave, isn't it?'}

^{Miss Ingham smiled at him with a frown above her eyes. 'What do you mean, Andrew?'}

^{'Mr Mann killed the demon in the cave, didn't he?'}

^{'He did what God sent him here to do.'}

^{'Then is the dark all the bad coming out and going into the sky?'}

^{'Do you know, I think maybe it is.' Her smile had turned generous. 'That's why God makes children like they are, because they can see more clearly than us sometimes,' she said, and to him, 'And maybe people aren't praying hard enough. Tomorrow we'll all pray for a wind to blow the dark away.'}

^{He hadn't quite meant that. Looking up at the black sky, which seemed lower and more solid every time he saw it, he wondered if it could really be that simple - just a wind and all the cold, dark stillness that made the town feel like a ghost of itself would be swept away. He had a sudden sick feeling that her smile was meant to pretend that everything was all right, the way all the people he saw in the dark street seemed to be pretending. Now God had come into their lives, mustn't it be true and not a pretence? He wanted to believe that, and perhaps he could once he knew that his father was just his father again.}

^{His mother was at the shop, poking a brush at the dim corners of the ceiling. 'Has Andrew been good today?'}

^{'He's been a credit to you, Mrs Bevan.' The teacher took the orange comb that made Andrew think of a centipede out of her hair, which fell blackly over her shoulders as she dropped the comb into her canvas bag. 'If you give me the key, I'll take him home and start dinner.'}

^{'You needn't do so much for us, Miss Ingham, really.'}

^{'That's right,' Andrew's father said, coming out from peering round the stockroom door. 'You've been working hard all day. We're glad to have you staying with us. You don't owe us anything.'}

^{'Think nothing of it. I love cooking when I'm using ingredients fresh as God made them. I really do believe it's a way of praising God.'}

^{'I hope it isn't a sin to open a can occasionally,' Andrew's mother said, so sweetly that he winced.}

^{'Oh, I'm sure God understands,' the teacher said smiling. 'I could show you some recipes one evening if you'd like.'}

^{Andrew looked nervously out of the window, for he felt as if they'd forgotten the dark. Maybe they preferred to behave like this so as to distract themselves, or didn't they even realize? He felt all the more nervous when he saw one of Mr Mann's helpers coming toward the shop.}

^{She was looking for Miss Ingham. 'The pub is going to show that video tonight, the one where Godwin's father plays the devil.'}

^{'You'd think they'd have something better to do,' Andrew's father said loudly. 'Childish, that's all it is, just because they don't agree with Godwin.'}

^{'We want to make sure there'll be plenty of us there to show what we think of it,' the woman with the cross on her front said.}

^{'We'll tell some people to be there, shall we?' Andrew's mother suggested.}

^{Andrew almost couldn't speak for eagerness. 'I will.'}

^{His mother opened her mouth, then glanced almost imperceptibly toward Miss Ingham. 'All right, seeing it's for God. Just tell the people in Roman Row and come straight back.'}

^{'Two streets,' Andrew pleaded.}

^{She stared at him as if he were showing her up, and he was terrified she'd say he couldn't go at all, ruin his plan. 'Just Roman Row and Kiln Lane, then,' she said in a voice that promised she'd have something to say to him later. 'But don't you dare cross the big road.'}

^{Why was she anxious that he shouldn't cross the High Street when there hadn't been any traffic along it for days, maybe longer? He ran out of the shop and round the corner into Roman Row and dashed from house to house. Every time a door opened he was already on the next path and ringing the next doorbell. He called his message over the hedge or the fence and raced on. He'd rung Mrs Wainwright's bell before he realized that she would hardly want to help Mr Mann. He dodged next door, hoping she wouldn't appear. But her door wavered open as he rang the neighbouring bell.}

^{'Sorry, Mrs Wainwright,' he said and gawked at her. She no longer just looked plump, she looked puffed up. Her cheeks were dragging her mouth down, or her body was. She peered at him as if she didn't know him in the dark, then turned away painfully, trailing the door shut behind her. He was still staring at it when the old woman whose bell he'd rung poked him with a bony finger. 'Well?'}

^{'They're going to show a video tonight at the pub with Mr Mann's father in it, and I'm supposed to tell people who don't want them to.'}

^{She pushed her lower lip over her moustache as if to show Andrew what she could do with no teeth. 'All right, my lad, you run along home. I'll give the street their marching orders.'}

^{'I'm supposed to tell them in Kiln Lane too.'}