He shook his head, unable to make the connection, and turned back to the book.
‘This picturesque village gives the modern visitor no clues to its violent and dark past. It is one of many places laying claim to the title of Most Haunted Village in England.’
Not just the most godless, then, noted Adam.
‘Now, in the mid-20th century, an array of ghostly figures are said to walk the quiet streets of this sleepy hamlet. At the crossroads, a spectral coach and four thunders past on moonlit nights, while a white lady is abroad at the manor house.’
Adam raised his eyebrows, wondering what effect a white lady might have on the village’s resident pornographers. He couldn’t imagine she’d approve of what was going on.
But ghosts aren’t real, he told himself sternly.
‘In the churchyard, the figure of a hanged man has been spotted swinging from the branches of an old yew tree.’
What rubbish. What sensational nonsense. Whoever wrote this was counting on an influx of gullible tourists to swell the coffers of the pub and tea-rooms.
‘But Saxonhurst’s most unpleasant secret concerns the ruined barn on the edge of the fields.’
Adam shut his eyes, remembering that fateful day at the aforementioned edifice, Evie in rut, her naked body glorying in its lascivious degradations. She had bewitched him that day. Perhaps something unearthly did dwell amongst those rotting spars. He read on.
‘To fully understand its gory history, we must go back 300 years, to the time immediately after the English Civil Wars, when Royalist Parham had been comprehensively trounced in battle by the forces of Parliament. Cromwell and his Puritan followers were never popular in Saxonhurst and its environs, and the village traditions were threatened by the arrival of missionaries, bent on changing everything.
‘In this solemn time, everything was banned. Maypoles and dancing on the village green, drinking at the inn, even the convivial suppers villagers had enjoyed on quarter days – all were frowned upon under the new regime. But Saxonhurst did not take well to the Puritan yoke, and resistance was mustered. This core group of rebels were led by one John Calderwood, a gentleman of the village, thought to have practised law in Parham.’
Calderwood? Adam racked his brain to think of any villagers of that name, but he couldn’t. Either the man had no descendants, or they had long since left the area. Before he could return to his studies, the phone rang.
The conversation with the Archdeacon about parish affairs and plans and the next Diocesan Council meeting drove the book out of his head.
He went up to bed, leaving it open on the coffee table, forgetful of its presence.
From his bedroom window, he could see the Fleece and he tried to make out the window of Trevelyan’s room. A chink of light shone through the curtains, but surely nothing could have happened between Evie and the journalist, especially considering the state he was in. No, Trevelyan would be snoring, fully clothed, in his bed, and Evie would have given up in disgust and gone home.
She was at home. She was asleep, in her bed, curled up, eyelashes dark on her cheeks … She was not with a man.
He would never sleep if he thought she was with a man.
The coffee had been a bad idea, on reflection, and he tossed and turned in his lonely bed, jumbled thoughts crowding in his head and refusing to clear. The maypole, Evie leaning over so he could rub cream into her bottom, the haunting of Saxonhurst, that Trevelyan character, Evie’s family, the order of service for next Sunday … It went on and on, turning unexpected corners, coming back to the same places, like Alice’s looking glass world.
He must have fallen asleep at some point, because his bedroom became a different place, with an open fire crackling in the sealed-up fireplace and plain white walls. Dark beams crossed the ceiling overhead, and outside in the churchyard he could hear unholy shouts and wails.
He rose from his bed and padded to the window. The uncovered floorboards were splintery and rough on his bare feet. He opened the casements, then pushed aside the wooden shutters. Outside, in the churchyard, there was a small bonfire made under the yew tree, and villagers were dancing and carousing around it.
The heathen spawn of the devil! In the house of God too.
He felt himself overcome with rage and he bellowed through the window at them to put out the fire and go to their homes.
They wore masks, so he could not identify them, and their replies came in the form of rude gestures.
This was the village he was meant to save. What chance did he stand?
He lit a candle, pulled on his clerical garments and hastened down the stairs, ready to disperse them with threats of calling the soldiers from the garrison at Parham.
When they saw him bustling down the path, they disappeared, leaping over the gate with catcalls and laughter. He tried to give chase, but only one of them was slow enough to be caught.
He whipped off the mask and found a girl, a young woman, a beautiful vision with dark curls and glowing, impudent eyes.
Evie.
He knew it was her, and yet she was a stranger and this their first meeting.