The Cure of Souls

summer frock, and her mouth’s twisting, spittle on her lips, and this like slurred, bitter voice, going, “I’m gonna cut him this time, I swear, I’m gonna put him away for ever…” ’

‘—way for ever,’ the walls sang. Jane dragged her hand away from Eirion’s, shoved it down into a pocket of her fleece.

‘So she… like, she really was possessed, then. Mum got it completely wrong.’

‘No.’ Layla shook her head briskly. ‘No way. She’s a medium. It’s a different thing altogether. The medium has control. The medium can let the spirit come through and shut it off whenever. Jane, I am psychic. I get insights. A lot of people are, you know that. It’s either in the blood or it isn’t. But it’s nothing I can control. I’ve spent years trying to master it – since I was about twelve. Read hundreds of books, tried all kinds of stuff. And I’m not a medium. I’m just one of a million people who get insights. She made me very jealous, did little Amy.’

Layla stood up, lifted up the chalice, sniffed the contents and put it back. Whatever Eirion thought, Jane’s feeling was that this was the absolute unvarnished truth, as Layla saw it.

‘So what did you do?’

‘I just marvelled, Jane. I just wanted to understand. The complete injustice of it. I wanted to understand how come this obnoxious little—I’m going, “How long’s this been happening to you? You had experiences like this before? You must have!” She’s like “What d’you mean?” ’

‘Did that mean she hadn’t? Or she just didn’t understand what you were talking about?’

‘I still don’t know for sure. What I felt – feel – is that she hadn’t, or wasn’t aware of having had any serious psychic experience. Quite often it’s something that doesn’t happen until puberty. But also she’d been brought up in this strict religious household, with the fear of the Devil and all this stuff hanging over her, and the Bible on the bedside table. She was surrounded by this big, white wall of sterile, puritanical—You know what I mean?’

‘Yeah,’ Jane said, excited now. ‘You kind of dislodged that. You knew about her past, you did the ouija thing, you pushed out the block. It all came flooding out, and not only these awful suppressed memories, but the whole —’

‘The whole wall collapsed.’ Layla nodded. ‘The wall her parents – the Shelbones – had thrown up around her, maybe thinking they were protecting her, I don’t know, but I think more likely they were just making sure she was theirs. I’ve read about this loads of times – often people’s psychic side gets awoken by some trauma. Like it could be physical, a bump on the head – or, in this case, something deeply emotional.’

‘Like you suddenly find out what your dad did to your mum.’

‘No, Jane, you remember what your dad did to your mum, ’cause you were there and you saw it all.’

‘This is incredible stuff,’ Jane said.

‘Let’s not…’ Eirion walked off into what she could now see was an aisle between, not rows of pews, but stalls and mangers. ‘Let’s not get carried away, ladies.’

‘Doesn’t this move you at all, Irene?’

‘It makes me a little scared, if you want the truth. But then I come from a stiff, puritanical, religious—’

‘But not so much any more.’

‘No,’ he said, as if this was a cause for regret. ‘Not so much any more.’

‘So where do things stand now?’ Jane said to Layla.

‘You tell me. It’s all out now. The Shelbones are on the rampage. I suppose the police’ll be out looking for the kid. I mean, I was excited, sure, but I also felt responsible for her – still do, obviously. A person I don’t even like. But it was me that broke her through, trying to help Allan. Does that matter now? Seems so trivial: money, again. He’ll go on piling it up, and then he’ll die.’

‘And you were going to meet her tonight,’ Eirion said. ‘Here?’

‘I’ve already said. We were both excited. Hyped up for the full moon. Look, it’s started to run away with itself. Bit like me when I first found out about my dad. Changed my whole world. She’s been rejecting the Shelbones’ church for a while – which is OK. Except she needs something to replace it and what’s been replacing it is her.’

‘Justine,’ Jane said. Her own voice sounded hollow.

‘Justine was real, God wasn’t. I think she thought that tonight she was actually going to see—It nearly happened before… I would swear, it nearly happened.’

‘What?’ But Jane was not sure she wanted to know.

‘It was just a haze, a mist – a fine, grey mist. But it was coming.’

‘Justine.’ Jane was shivering inside the fleece.

‘I think.’ It was as if the cold was even getting to Layla now, she was hugging herself. ‘You want the truth, I’m not sure how much I like Justine.’ She looked up, towards the ventilation slit. ‘Why doesn’t the bloody kid come back? She can’t think I’ve deserted her, just because I was late. Sometimes you could almost believe the stupid Shelbones were her parents.’

‘I think we should call the police,’ Eirion said. ‘If she’s wandering the streets of Hereford… Well, it’s not the genteel country town it might once have been, is it?’

‘Christ, no,’ Layla said. ‘Junkies out there, muggers, violent people – like Amy’s dad. Yeah, give it a few minutes, then call the police. Maybe it’s working out for the best, after all. Maybe it’s better if she does go back into care. Maybe I let a bloody monster loose.’

‘Justine?’ That name had a disturbing symmetrical sound for Jane now. She had to keep saying it.

Layla looked up at the Black Virgin. ‘I lied about this lady. She’s my protection – nothing to do with Amy. I always felt this affinity with Sara. The patron saint of gypsies. But more than that, like I said: as long as she’s up there, watching over me, I feel protected – against whatever Justine turns out to be.’

‘More than I do,’ Jane confessed. Not that it was hard confessing anything to Layla Riddock any more. It was as if, in these past few minutes, she’d shed some age, was far closer in years to Jane. ‘Look, I’m sorry, you know? I got this badly wrong.’

Layla patted Jane’s arm. ‘We’ve all got this wrong at some stage.’

Eirion watched them from a few yards away. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is something I find moving. I’ll go out to the car and ring the police. Where…?’

‘Follow the aisle and you’ll find a wooden door at the end. It’s barred on this side. Hang on, take a candle with you.’

Layla walked back to the flickering altar, where the grotesque but evidently benevolent Black Virgin hung above it in her white robe.

As she reached the altar, the Black Virgin fell, with a slithering sound, down from the screen, in front of the candles. ‘Oh God.’ Jane rushed back down the aisle. ‘She’ll catch light.’

The Black Virgin rose up to meet her, its white arms flapping, which was kind of spooky, but Jane laughed and brushed the cotton robe aside, and then Layla fell into her arms.

‘Oh Jesus!’ Eirion cried out.

Layla was coughing. Jane was aware of movement to her left, but she was too intent on staying upright because Layla was pretty heavy, a big girl. Jane staggered back into the aisle under her weight, her arms wrapped around Layla, who just kept coughing. Jane’s chin and neck were hot and wet now with what Layla was coughing up – vomit or bile. Oh, gross.

It was when she became aware of the salty, coppery tang that Jane’s arms sprang apart in true horror.

One of the candles did set light to the robe of Sara, the patron saint of the Romanies. Jane saw the flames suddenly leap. And then, in their light, she saw the girl with straight, blonde hair in a white dress – it looked like a confirmation dress – standing on the altar with the carving knife held high and dripping.

Then Amy Shelbone leaped down from the altar and ran jerkily up the aisle and, as Jane stood there, with Layla’s lifeblood on her throat and chest, Amy also stabbed Eirion.