‘I would be lying to you if I said that I knew,’ said Father Salter. ‘I am hopeful, though, and I am placing my trust in the Lord.’
‘But some of them have been trapped in that room for decades, or even longer,’ Portia put in. ‘If we manage to set them free… won’t they be incredibly old?’
‘Again, I don’t know. This is completely unknown territory for me, spiritually speaking. As I say, I am familiar with the ways of Satan and his legions, and the modern ways of dealing with them. They made several fundamental errors in that film of The Exorcist. If I had been there, instead of Father Karras, I would have dismissed that petty demon in a matter of minutes. I certainly wouldn’t have allowed him to screw that poor girl’s head around in a circle like that.
‘This force, though, this presence… he’s a different kettle of fish altogether. If he predates the Druids and the Romans, he may not have a grasp either of English or of Latin. It is no good trying to dismiss a demon who can’t understand a word you’re saying to him.’
Vicky held on to Rob’s arm and said, ‘I’m frightened.’
Father Salter gave her a wry smile. ‘So am I, my dear. More than you can imagine.’
*
They climbed the stairs and walked along the corridor to the stained-glass window. Rob now knew that the figure in the black cloak with his back turned wasn’t Old Dewer, but he tried hard not to think of his real name, or even the fact that William Blake had misheard it as ‘Jesus’. Instead, he tried to recite Jerusalem in his head: Bring me my bow of burning gold, Bring me my arrows of desire.
He lifted the window seat and pulled up the crucifix. Father Salter watched apprehensively as the pulleys beneath the floor clicked and whirred and the dado panel swung slowly inwards.
‘This is remarkable,’ he said, bending sideways so that he could peer underneath the dado rail into the witching room. ‘I have never seen a priest’s hide as enormous as this. Forget about a single Jesuit, you could fit half the diocese in here!’
Rob glanced at him, and realised by his expression that he was only trying to sound light-hearted to hide his fear.
Rob ducked down and went in first, followed by Father Salter and then Katharine and Vicky. Grace came in, too, to stand by Rob and Vicky.
Portia held back. ‘My heart’s pounding like a hammer,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and lie down for ten minutes and give myself ten minutes of intensive vipassana meditation.’
The witching room appeared to be empty, although the blankets were still lying in untidy heaps on the horsehair flooring. Rob couldn’t be sure if the blanket that he had taken downstairs was back here now, because they were all the same colour and equally filthy.
Father Salter walked slowly down to the end of the room and back again, his hands pressed together in a gesture of prayer. Now and again he hesitated, as if he had bumped into somebody, and once he stopped dead and looked around, as if somebody had called him by name.
‘My goodness,’ he said under his breath, when he came back to join the rest of them. ‘It’s crowded in here. Crowded with souls! I can’t even guess how many. They’re here, of course, but they’re not now.’
‘You can actually feel them, can’t you?’ said Vicky.
‘Only faintly, but yes… and I can sense so many different feelings among them. Some of them seemed to be resigned to their fate, and have accepted that they could be here for as long as this house remains standing. There are some others, though, who are still filled with pent-up rage because they’ve been imprisoned. Perhaps the more recent captives.’
He frowned, and closed his eyes, and lifted his fingertips to the lobes of both ears, and when Grace started to say something he said, ‘Shh! Quiet, please, for just a moment!’
They waited, and then Rob asked him, ‘What? What can you hear?’
‘I believe that I can hear a child crying. It’s very indistinct, and I can’t tell for sure if it’s a boy or a girl. But, yes… it is a child, and it sounds as if it’s crying in its sleep – as if it’s having a nightmare from which it can’t wake up.’
‘Oh my God, it’s Timmy!’ Vicky gasped. ‘It’s Timmy and he’s here and he’s still alive! I knew it, Rob, I knew it, I knew it!’
She clasped her hand over her mouth and started to sob.
Father Salter touched her shoulder and said, ‘Have faith, my dear. Have courage. When they lifted Our Lord down from the cross you can imagine what Mary felt, and how she must have wept. But her son rose again, did he not? And if God is willing, your son, Timmy, will reappear to you in just the same way.’
For the first time since Timmy had disappeared, Rob had a blasphemous thought. If God is willing? He’d better be fucking willing. I’ll never forgive Him if we don’t get our son back.
Father Salter went over and stood between the two stained-glass windows that overlooked the garden. It was still raining and the rain tipped and tapped against the windowpanes. Rob thought the rain sounded as if there were beggars outside, persistently trying to catch their attention, beggars walking on stilts so that they could reach the first floor. He didn’t know what had conjured up such a bizarre and disturbing image in his mind, and he kept glancing at the windows to reassure himself that it wasn’t real.
Father Salter raised both hands and said loudly, ‘All of you souls in this accursed room, I implore you to listen to me. We cannot see you, because you have each been imprisoned in a moment that has now long passed, some of you for very many years. We know, however, that you can see us, and hear
