The Stranger House

She headed round the back of the church, thinking she might find another way out here. But when she put the building between herself and the road, she pulled up short.

Here, at the centre of a quincunx formed with four yew trees which overshaded but did not overpower it, stood what must be the famous cross mentioned by Mrs Appledore.

It was at least fifteen feet high. Its shaft was ornately carved with intricate knotwork patterns interspersed with panels depicting various human and animal forms. The most striking image, both because of the vigour of the carving and its position at the centre of the wheelhead crosspiece, was a wolf’s head. Its gaping jaws were wedged open by a sword, but the one huge visible eye seemed to glare straight down at Sam, tracking her hesitant approach, promising that this state of impotence was temporary.

She broke eye contact to look at the Guide. This informed her in measured prose that the cross was Viking of the ninth century. Like many similar crosses, it made use of old Norse mythology to convey the new Christian message. The Reverend Peter K. commended the craftsman’s skill and gave a detailed interpretation of the symbols used.

The huge snake coiled around the lowest section of the shaft base devouring its own tail was at the same time Satan seducing Eve, and Jormungand, the great serpent which encircles Midgard in the northern legends, while the figure leaning out of a boat and beating the serpent’s head with a hammer was both the thunder god, Thor, and Christ harrowing Hell. As for the wolf, this was the beast Fenrir, which the Nordic gods thought they had rendered impotent by setting a bridle round its neck and a sword in its jaws. Eventually, however, it would break loose to join in that destruction of the physical universe called by pagans Ragnarokk or the Twilight of the Gods, by Christians Judgment Day.

Whether this meant the wolf was a good or a bad thing wasn’t all that clear.

There were two other problematic areas. One was a front panel from which the image had disappeared almost completely. This defacement, Peter K. theorized, probably occurred in 1571 when a group of iconoclasts toppled the Wolf-Head Cross. It lay in several pieces for nearly twenty years and it was only when it was repaired and re-erected that the second problematic inscription was discovered on the lowest vertical of the stepped base. The symbols revealed didn’t look like anything else on the cross. A series of vertical lines with a stroke through them (runic? postulated Peter K.); an inverted V, and another with the lines slightly extended to form a disproportioned cross (Greek?); an oval with two wavy lines through it (hieroglyphic?); and a surround of swirls and whorls.

Sam was amused by the number and variety of ‘expert’ interpretations: a prayer for the soul of a local bishop; a verse from a hymn to an Irish saint; a magical invocation.

That was always the trouble. Like some proofs in maths, once you got started, the sky was the limit, but often it was finding the right place to start that was the big hold-up.

Illthwaite, she told herself firmly, was a wrong start point. All she could hope was that the dark man at the Stranger House would let her enjoy a good night’s sleep, then up in the morning and on to Newcastle.

And if there was nothing new there, then maybe it was time to follow Pa’s example and let the dead take care of the dead.

With her back to the church she took a last look up at the Wolf-Head Cross. What had this remote and eerie place been like when those distant inhabitants had decided fifteen feet of carved granite was what they needed to make life comprehensible? Indeed, what had attracted them to settle in this dark and dreary valley in the first place?

Well, whatever it was, it looked like it had worked. Centuries later, and their descendants were still here, though maybe more under the earth than over it.

She shivered at the thought and forced her gaze away from the intricate scrollery of the carving which led you round and round into places you didn’t want to go, and eventually, inevitably, back to the eye of the wolf. She checked out the high wall beyond for another exit gate but found none. What she did notice was that the sheep-grazed neatness and order which prevailed elsewhere was scutched here by an outcrop of briar and nettles and rosebay willowherb against a small section of the wall. As the gusting wind moved among this vegetation, out of the corner of her eye she got a brief impression of lines more regular than those provided by the curved stones with their tracery of mortar. She advanced beyond the cross and squatted to take a closer look.

The briar was studded with such ferocious hooks that she could see why the sheep avoided grazing here. It was hard enough for her to brush aside the veiling vegetation but she finally succeeded at the price of several scratches and stings.

Her reward was to discover her glimpse of regularity hadn’t been delusive. On a huge base stone someone had carved a quatrain of verse, arranging it in a perfect square.

She read the first line and felt the ground tremble beneath her feet as though the ancient dead were turning in their long sleep.

Here lies Sam Flood

She steadied herself with one hand on the cool damp turf and blinked to bring the stone back into focus. Then she read on.

Here lies Sam FloodWhose nature bid himTo do much good.Much good it did him.

Nothing else. No date, no pious farewell, not even an RIP.

She stood up and watched as the wind rearranged the briars and nettles till the carving was once more invisible.

She thought she heard a noise and turned quickly. She was sure she glimpsed a movement on the tower. Well, almost sure. That bloody tower could easily become an obsession. She certainly wasn’t going to interrupt the funeral service to take a look. Probably it was pure fancy, and the sound had come from the stomach of a nearby sheep.

But suddenly the cross, the four dark yews, the crouching building, were an insupportable burden.

She hurried round the side of the church and up the path to the gate.

As she reached it, suddenly there was a burst of sound from behind, the voices of what must be a large congregation upraised in a hymn. There didn’t seem to be any musical accompaniment but she could make out the words quite clearly.

Day of wrath! O day of mourning!See fulfilled the prophet’s warning!Heav’n and earth in ashes burning!

Above the church, the wind was shredding the veil of low cloud, and now at last she saw the mountains, much closer than she’d imagined.

The church crouched like a guard dog on their skirts. Back home she’d seen country much wilder and mountains twice as high, but nowhere had she ever felt so out of place.

She turned away and began the long trudge back to the Stranger House.

5 a nice straight country road (#ulink_efb28018-d841-5753-910d-f30e3c3c524b)

The weather had improved considerably when Mig Madero came out of the pub. Gaps were appearing in the clouds and westward the sun was setting in a wash of pink against which the intervening heights lay in sharp silhouette.

He took his laptop off the back seat, plugged it into his mobile, got online and checked his e-mail. He had one message from his mother, reminding him to keep in touch. Realizing he was now past his forecast time of arrival in Illthwaite, he keyed a brief equivocating line saying he had safely arrived in Cumbria. Then he wrote an e-mail to Professor Coldstream.

Max, thanks for suggesting Southwell—everything you promised—good and bad! Ever hear of a man called Molloy? Some sort of journalist, up here asking questions about Father Simeon a few years back, possibly in connection with a book on Topcliffe and his associates e.g. F. Tyrwhitt.Talking of whom, anything new from your man Lilleywhite in Yorkshire? Off to Illthwaite now. Mig.

His messages despatched, he brought up the map, which confirmed what he knew, that Skaddale with its village of Illthwaite lay on the far side of those silhouetted heights. The most direct route seemed to be via the next township of Ambleside to a village called Elterwater from which ran what looked like a nice straight country road. With luck, he might at last be able to let the SLK really express itself.

Half an hour later he was beginning to understand why the haddock had been so good. God, being just, had clearly decided that the journey would be expiation enough.

The only traffic he’d met was a slow tractor, but that had been on such a narrow twisty bit of road that overtaking was quite impossible. Nor did things improve when finally the man pulled in at a farm gate. The anticipated long straight empty stretches where he could gun the engine didn’t materialize. The road wound onwards and upwards, so far upwards that, despite the clearing skies he’d observed earlier, he found himself running into a patchwork of mist whose threads finally conjoined into an all-enveloping quilt. Full headlights bounced back off the shrouding whiteness. Dipped headlights showed just enough of the road to permit a crawling advance.

Then the road began to go downhill and he thought the worst was over. So much for these so-called mountains, if such low heights deserved the term. Wasn’t there another word they used up here? Fells, that was it. Not mountains but fells. A modest little word for modest little eminences.

But even as he relaxed, the road began to climb again. Ten minutes later, as the curves became zigzags and an ever-increasing angle of ascent meant that from his low seat he spent as much time looking up at the sky as down at the road, he recalled his mother’s reaction when he’d bought the sporty Merc. She’d objected to almost everything about it but hadn’t mentioned he might find himself driving on worse roads than he’d encountered in the Sierra Nevada. God must be really pissed with him!

Soon he was back in the mist. Things weren’t helped by the fact that many sheep seemed to regard this twisting ribbon of tarmac as their own personal mattress. Nor were they in a hurry to get out of his way. Slowly they’d rise, stare at him resentfully for a long moment, then step aside with no sign of haste. Some even took a step or two towards the car first and struck an aggressive hoof against the ground.

Dear God, if the sheep were like this round here, how did real wild animals react?

Then at last he was on the flat for a short space before the road began to descend. It was still twisty and narrow and steep but the lower he got, the thinner the mist got, till suddenly he was completely free of it. Above he could see a sky crowded with stars and, even more comfortingly, below he could glimpse the occasional twinkle of house-lights.

Soon he was running along a valley bottom, the road still narrow and bendy but at least it was flanked by walls and hedgerows which kept livestock in their proper domain. He met a couple of other cars and, despite the inconvenience of having to back fifty yards at one point to enable safe passage, he was glad of their company. When he saw the brightly lit windows and well-filled car park of a small hotel, he was tempted to turn in. But a glance at his screen told him he was close to his destination now and he pressed on.

The next road to the right should take him into Skaddale. He almost missed it, but was driving slowly enough to be able to brake and turn. There was no signpost but as his map showed no other turn-off for miles, this had to be the one.

After a few minutes his certainty was fading. The road soon grew narrow and serpentine and though he had no sense of rising terrain, he found that once more skeins of mist were winding themselves around his windows. He began to wish he had succumbed to the lure of the brightly lit hotel. To make matters worse, he had begun to experience that strong sense of ghostly presence as he drove up the valley. He resisted it—the last thing a man driving along a narrow road in a mist wanted was the company of ghosts—but the price of resistance was the onset of a bad migraine. It was as if the mist had somehow got into his head where it swirled around wildly, occasionally pierced by dogtooth lines of brightness like the after impression of a light bulb’s filament. The laptop screen was going crazy too. It was all jags of light and swirls of colour, no longer a map, at least not a map of any place you wanted to be. He switched it off. It didn’t help.

In the end he had to pull up. He felt sick. He lowered the window and leaned forward to rest his forehead against the cool windscreen. He could hear the noise of rushing water, and of wind gusting through trees. And now as his headache eased, there was something else in the wind…voices…angry voices…calling…threatening…and something…someone…running in panic…cold air tearing at his lungs as weary muscles drove him up the steep slope in his effort to outpace the relentless chasers…

This was worse than migraine. He tried to will the headache back. It would not come. But there was pain very close. He could feel it. Very very close…

Mig in the car could not move. But there was part of him out there with the fugitive, feeling the cold air tearing at his lungs, branches lashing across his face, runnels of muddy water sucking at his feet…

And then he was down…stumbling over an exposed root, he crashed to the ground and looked up at the bole of a blasted tree, looming menacingly out of the mist.

And then they were all around him, feet kicking at him, hands clawing him and hoisting him off the ground and binding ropes tightly around his chest and stomach, till he hung from the ruined tree.