The Lamp of the Wicked

‘Right.’ Jane slid out of the car. She was aware of the sharpness of the wind and the shape of the cobble under her shoe: texture.

When they reached the chapel, Merrily was thinking: Question everything.

The feeling was confirmed once they were inside the wooden porch and Ingrid had pulled her keys out, while Huw put down his bag of wine and wafers, lurched ahead with his torch and tried the door.

Which, thank God, stayed shut.

‘You wanted it to be open, didn’t you?’ Merrily said in dismay. ‘Just like in the stories.’

Huw didn’t reply. He levelled his torch beam at the lock so that Ingrid could fit her key. He wanted it to be open. He wanted someone waiting there for him.

From just outside the porch door, someone said hesitantly, ‘Would this be the one about how, if you find the door open and you go in, something’s… ?’

‘Lol?’ Merrily stared at the compact silhouette against the sludgy sky.

‘It’s just that I’ve had another long talk with the person who started it all,’ Lol said. ‘Who was asked by Lynsey Davies to plant the story. As an experiment. She had to sit in a cafe in Ross, where the schoolkids go, and tell the story to some friends in a very loud voice.’

‘That actually happened?’

‘Must’ve been all over the school by going-home time,’ Lol said. ‘What happened after that was that Lynsey would borrow Piers’s keys some nights and go down and unlock the chapel door. So that, you know, sometimes it was locked and sometimes…’

Sometimes kids, like Zoe Franklin and Martin Brinkley, would be able to walk into the hollow vastness of it, and the air would be vibrant with the power of suggestion. Could it be that simple?

Ingrid Sollars sounded relieved. ‘I’d never have admitted it, but that scared me. If I had to come down here after dark, I’d get Sam to come with me.’ She looked over her shoulder at Lol. ‘I’m sorry – I don’t even know who you are.’

‘This is Lol Robinson,’ Merrily said comfortably. ‘Him and me – we’re like you and Sam, only even more secretive.’ She started to laugh.

Huw snarled, ‘Shush!’ He turned the handle and slammed his shoulder against the door. ‘That changes nowt.’ He went in roughly, the door juddering. ‘Lights!’

Ingrid followed him in and snapped down the switches. The filaments in the hanging bulbs strained to reveal what they could of the former Underhowle Baptist Chapel in all its shabby splendour – and of the Reverend Huw Owen who, with his dusty, scarecrow hair and his liver-spotted dog collar, was looking suddenly like the minister it deserved.

‘In fact,’ Huw said, ‘what the lad’s just said makes it worse. The bitch was trying to feed it.’

He looked around the hacked-at walls, at the dust sheets hanging from the gallery. Then he moved into a shadowed area the size of a carport and came back dragging a plywood tea- chest, which he upturned and placed at the opposite end to the gallery, kicking shards of plaster into the corners.

‘Altar,’ he said.

The door just opened. As soon as Jane touched the knocker, the door fell away under her hand into the oaky darkness, and she stumbled forward into Chapel House.

Moira’s hand came from behind, took hold of Jane’s arm above the elbow and pulled her back.

‘All I did was touch it.’

‘I know,’ Moira said soberly.

‘Why would she leave it open? I mean, even in Ledwardine.’

‘She wouldn’t, Jane. She wouldnae do that.’

As they’d walked across the square from the lightless rectory, just a minute ago, Jane had seen Jenny Box at the top of these steps, at the door of Chapel House. She must have rushed in, leaving the door unsecured.

But there were no lights on inside. The wrought-iron lantern over the adjacent alley also remained unlit, just like the other night.

‘If you want the absolute truth, Jane,’ Moira said, ‘I do not like the feel of this.’

Jane held on to the railing and glanced back down the steps. Just a few doors away, the Black Swan was fully lit, a couple of men chatting by the entrance. A car door slammed on the square. The whole situation was absolutely normal.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘we’re going to look stupid if we start raising the alarm and then it’s nothing. It’s not like this is some remote—’

Shush a minute.’ Moira slipped inside.

‘Can you hear something?’

‘I won’t hear a bloody thing if you don’t— Just stay there, all right?’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m trying to… OK, c’mere a minute.’

Jane stepped into the darkness. She thought for a moment that she could smell the beautiful, sensuous scent of apple wood, but then she couldn’t.

‘What’s that?’ Moira said.

‘Oh.’

There was this gilded sliver in the middle distance, low down in the darkness.

‘Don’t move, hen.’ She could hear Moira’s hand sliding about on the wall, and then the lights came on: subdued, concealed lamps sheening the old oak panels.

Something was lying on the floor. Jane clutched Moira’s arm.

‘It’s a rug,’ Moira said, ‘rolled up. But what’s that alongside?’

The golden bar was a slit in the floor, a light on underneath it.

‘Trapdoor,’ Jane whispered. ‘That has to be her chapel down there.’

Moira called out, ‘Hello! You left your front door open!’

Nothing.

Moira went and tapped on the trapdoor. ‘Hello down there? Mrs Box?’

‘There’s a ring handle.’

‘Yes, Jane, I can see the ring handle.’ Moira sighed and pulled it. The trapdoor came up as easily as the front door had opened, as if it was on a pulley system, uncovering a mellow vault of light.

‘I’ll go down,’ Jane said. ‘She knows me.’

‘You bloody well will not go down.’ Moira called out, ‘Hello! You OK down there, Mrs Box?’ She pulled a face and put a foot on one of the stone steps.

‘Be careful.’

‘Aye.’ Moira went down. She wasn’t creeping, she was clattering, which was sensible. If Jenny was holed up in there, expecting trouble, best not to scare her.

Moira was down there like for ever, or that was how it seemed. Jane looked out of the front door, could see the tail lights of a car on the square, could hear voices. ‘Yeah, cheers!’ someone shouted, and a car horn beeped. Situation normal.

Jane was about to go down the steps when Moira emerged.

‘Right, Jane,’ she said briskly. ‘Let’s go, yeah?’

With no make-up, you could tell straightaway how pale she’d gone.

Jane said, ‘Oh shit. What?’

‘Jane…’ Moira pointed at the front door. ‘Out.’

‘What?’

‘Let’s keep this nice and quiet, huh? We’ll talk about it outside.’

Jane slammed the front door, shutting them in, something welling up in her chest. ‘No! I want to know. What’s happened to her?’

Moira sighed. ‘Isnae her. It’s… it’s him. I guess.’

‘Gareth?’

‘Big moustache?’

‘Yes.’ Staring at Moira, Jane moved towards the steps.

Moira pushed down the hatch and stood on it. ‘I really don’t think so. I… it’s not that I don’t think you can