‘I don’t have it. Look,’ she said, speaking over Adam’s increasingly frustrated expostulations. ‘I can tell you all about it. Are you sitting comfortably?’
He grimaced, but leant back in the sofa as if ready for story time.
‘Then I’ll begin. Saxonhurst has always had its rituals. The one you saw, for Robin Goodfellow, is one of the earliest. Nobody knows how far it goes back, but it certainly pre-dates the Civil War. For centuries, people left Saxonhursters alone to our funny little ways. There was, I believe, always an “Evie” – a village girl at the heart of the rituals.’
‘Why did it all start?’
‘I’ve told you. Nobody knows. Presumably it used to be more widespread, but gradually died out everywhere else. Now it’s only us carrying it on. I don’t know if it’s behind our amazing harvests, but I don’t think anyone wants to test it.’
‘It’s ludicrous.’ Adam shook his head but Julia shushed him.
‘So it seems, to a modern mind set. But we’re not big on modernity here in Saxonhurst. And neither are you, are you, darling? But your archaic attitudes are different to ours – that’s all.’
‘Mine are from God.’
‘You keep on telling yourself that. Anyway, this was Saxonhurst, carrying on in its merry little way until the Civil War happened and we had Puritans and witchfinders crawling everywhere. You know how that affected us. Saxonhurst was deemed a village of witches and heathens. Tribulation Smith was sent to clean it up, but he couldn’t do it alone and the witchfinder was called in.’
‘Who was John Calderwood?’
‘An ancestor of mine.’
‘Of yours?’
‘Yes. He should have been lord of the manor, but his father disinherited him after some scandal or disgrace. He set himself up as a coven master and tried to start a cult of some sort. Obviously the Cromwellians took a dim view.’
‘He said he was married to Evie.’
‘I suppose they did some daft binding ritual or other. She was pregnant by him, though, and eight months after all the business with Tribulation Smith, she gave birth to a daughter.’
‘And was she all right? Was her life – all right?’
‘I don’t really know. I suppose the village rallied round. They look after their own, in Saxonhurst.’
‘I see. She looked exactly like Evie.’
‘That whole clan does – the women, anyway. Have you met her grandmother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Exquisitely beautiful woman. She did all the ritual stuff before Evie.’
‘So she’s doomed, by her blood, to be this village – sex toy.’
‘Ah, you’re going to start all that salvation stuff again, aren’t you? Hasn’t your dream taught you anything?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You can’t save Evie. She doesn’t want to be saved. She has a Calderwood of her own, and you’re their pawn.’
‘I don’t understand you. What Calderwood of her own? Who?’
Julia rubbed tired eyes with her fingertips.
‘Listen, darling. Bad things happen to vicars who get involved with Evie and her forebears. Take it from me. You don’t want to follow in their footsteps.’
‘What bad things?’
‘J.E. Lydford. He went mad. Ask Evie’s grandmother all about it. She knows.’