To Dream of the Dead

‘They sent me some cuttings, including a picture of the girl who started all the fuss. Objecting to the housing, if I’ve got this right, because it was on a ley line or something? That was before they found the stones.’

Jane said nothing. Lensi peered at her, the camera swinging free, dense coppery hair falling over one eye.

‘You are!’ She began flapping her jacket. ‘Jane, what fun!’

‘Fun?’

‘Sorry!’ Lensi backing off, palms raised. ‘I know — serious matter. I realise that. Is it true you didn’t know anything about the buried stones when you started your campaign?’

‘Nobody did. And if you were at the meeting last night then you already know all this.’

‘Oh… none of that came out. It was quite disappointing. Jane, look, I’m sorry if I offended you. I just want to get this right. How you found out about the stones — just for information, I’m not writing it down or anything.’

Jane sighed. Eirion, who was planning a career in journalism, was always saying that pissing off the media was counter-productive. How could you expect them to publish the truth if you didn’t tell them the truth?

‘Please?’

‘OK… I’m like standing on Cole Hill.’

‘That’s the—’

‘It’s the only hill around here worth calling a hill. It was one evening last summer, and I had this… I’m not calling it a vision or anything, it was just some things coming together.’

How could you explain it to a stranger? How could you convey the sudden awareness, at sunset, of this dead straight ancient track, passing like quicksilver through the field gates at either end of the meadow in direct alignment with the church steeple?

Perfect example of a ley, as first discovered by Alfred Watkins, of Hereford, nearly a century ago, in this same countryside. Alfred Watkins wasn’t known to be an actual ancestor of Merrily and Jane Watkins, but who could say? She’d certainly felt he was there with her, like Lucy. Well, maybe not quite like Lucy.

‘Leys are… nobody knows for certain what they are. Just straight tracks from one ancient site to another, or maybe lines following arteries of earth energy. Or spirit paths. Where the dead walk?’

Lensi said nothing. The sky was shining dully, like a well-beaten drumskin.

‘The dead are very important,’ Jane said. ‘To a community. You need continuity.’

‘Really.’

‘Ancient people knew that, in a way we don’t today. It’s important, for stability, for the spirit of the place, to have the ancestors around, keep them on your side. Which is why we need to keep this ancient path open… passing through the church, through the graveyard and the medieval orchard… then through the standing stones, to the top of Cole Hill, the holy hill.’

‘Why is it holy?’

‘It’s like the guardian hill for the village. Cole is actually an old word for juggler or wizard. And Coleman’s Meadow, at its foot… The Coleman… the shaman? So, like, if you uncover the old stones after centuries and then take them away and build an estate of crappy executive homes for wealthy—’

The sapphire earrings twinkled.

‘If you build houses we don’t even need,’ Jane said, ‘then you’re breaking the only link we have with the earliest origins of the village for purely commercial reasons. So we set up the Coleman’s Meadow Preservation Society—’

‘We?’

‘Me and my… ex-boyfriend.’

‘This was a pagan sort of thing, was it?’

‘Kind of.’

‘As in worshipping old gods?’

‘The sun. The moon. Yeah, I suppose old gods. But obviously it’s not only pagans, it’s everybody who’s concerned about preserving what’s important. We’ve had a lot of support from all kinds of people, all over the country… abroad, even.’

‘Old gods.’ Lensi smiled in her patronising way, like all this was so incredibly quaint. ‘It was a stone circle?’

‘Just a stone row, they think.’

‘And that’s where the dead walk, is it?’

‘It’s a big subject.’ Jane looked up as a few isolated raindrops fell. ‘Look, I’m sorry… if I don’t get back I’m going to miss the school bus. I need to change.’

‘Of course. Jane,’ Lensi looked down at her camera, ‘I’d like to take a few pictures of you, if I may. I don’t mean now, obviously…’

‘Some people reckon we’ll have floods in the village,’ Jane said. ‘Could be some pictures for you there.’

‘Ordinary local news… that’s not really my thing.’

‘It’s just I got a lot of stick over it last time.’

‘Because of your mother’s job? What kind of pagan are you, exactly, Jane?’

‘I’m sorry — why are you interested?’

Lensi shrugged. Maybe she was just looking for a coven or something to join. It happened. Happened a lot these days, apparently. Like in the old days incomers would want to know about the tennis club or the bridge circle.

And this was a set-up, wasn’t it? This woman had recognised her and followed her into the churchyard. Didn’t really give a toss about the sunrise.

‘Look, I’ve got to — Going to be late for school, OK?’

The rain came on suddenly, like all the taps in heaven had been turned on. Lensi was shielding her camera, Jane backing off towards the vicarage, dragging up the hood of her parka, then turning to run, hard against the downpour.

Hearing Lensi calling after her, but she didn’t stop.

10 Peace on Earth

There was a sourness to it, this weather. The rain was rolling down from the Black Mountains like bales of barbed wire. It was relentless, and it sapped you.

Merrily slowed the Volvo behind a tractor and trailer. About five roads were closed, diversions in place. The route to Hereford took you through hamlets you’d forgotten existed, past flooded fields with surfaces like stretched cellophane. Was there such a condition as rain-sickness?

‘Why do they never dredge the rivers? That’s my point.’ Phone-in voice on Radio Hereford and Worcester. ‘How do they expect us not to get flooded if they don’t dredge the flamin’ rivers? Can you tell me why, Colin?’

Studio voice: ‘I’m afraid I can’t, Robert, but it’s a good point and one we’ll be putting to our expert from the Environment Agency who, of course, should’ve arrived by now but he’s — yes, you’ve guessed it — been held up by the floods.’

On days like this, virtually every programme on Hereford and Worcester turned into a flood programme. Which was useful but not the main reason Merrily was listening.

Finally showing up, with about ten minutes to spare, Jane had claimed she’d only been checking on the river.

Been away too long just for that, of course, but there was no time to go into it before the kid was off to catch the school bus, carrying a slice of yolky toast across the square. Merrily guessing she’d been over to Coleman’s Meadow to make sure nobody had come in the night and dug up the stones.