Strange Dominions: a collection of paranormal short stories (short story books) (11 page)

“I was just saying as how it is something of a mystery to me,” Lucas said, in response to her question.

“Oh! Why is that?”

“Well, according to my records the effigy is supposed to be holding a misericord in its hand. True misericords were used to put an end to the suffering of battlefield victims. Their name is derived from the Latin for ‘pitying heart’. However, these were a special honour bestowed upon the knights by the King for their efforts in the crusades. Edmund’s is missing – jewel and all.”

“Didn’t Rector Philips fill you in on what happened before you took over his duties?”

“No. His departure to the mainland was rather sudden.”

“Then you know absolutely nothing of what happened here?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Jenny had, wherever and whenever possible, avoided protracted conversations concerning Lucy, but to tell the story of the missing misericord without once mentioning her involvement was akin to omitting the ‘great fish’ from the biblical story of Jonah. She took a calming breath before giving her account.

A look of surprise crossed the cleric’s face at the mention of her daughter’s name, occasioning Jenny to enquire if something was wrong.

He looked at her with uncertainty. Smiling nervously, he replied, “There isn’t, unless your surname happens to be Bowcombe.”

Her confirmation had a curious effect on him. He seemed reluctant to pursue the matter any further, inciting Jenny to ask again if anything was wrong.

The mention of Lucy’s name had set off a disturbing train of thought. “It’s nothing.” he said, ultimately. “Mere coincidence.”

“Coincidence?”

“Yes. You see Edmund’s companion’s name was Lucy Bowcombe, too,” he said.

Jenny sensed there was more to it than that. Something other than sheer coincidence had generated his nervous response and she intended to get to the bottom of it.

Failing to allay her suspicions, Lucas finally gave way. “You’re right;” he said, “I haven’t told you everything about the historical Lucy, and with good reason. I’m not sure I believe it myself. Perhaps if we apply the principle of Occam’s razor things will become clearer.”

“Occam‘s razor? Never heard of it,” Jenny admitted.

“Briefly stated it’s this: if something looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, the chances are it is a duck. In other words, there’s no requirement to form a more complex assumption or theory.”

Jenny was becoming agitated. “And the point is?”

“I’m coming to that. But first I need to check everything you’ve told me about your daughter is correct. You said she disappeared when she was fifteen, and that the jewel vanished at the same time – yes?”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“And you’re quite sure that all this took place on August the 10th?”

“Of course I am! I’m hardly likely to be mistaken about it, now am I?” she snapped. “If there is a point to this, Lucas, I wish you’d make it.”

He braced himself. “As a consequence of my investigations into Edmund”, he began, “I came across the story of Lucy Bowcombe. Apparently, after a terrible storm, a local farmer discovered her in the chancel. She was in a highly agitated state, and could remember nothing of her past, other than her name. Contemporary reports said that she was between fourteen to sixteen-years-old, and spoke in a curious tongue. The date was August 10, 1362.”

It was abundantly clear now what Lucas was leading up to, and Jenny balked at the absurdity of it.

“But you said this girl spoke in a foreign language,” she argued.

“No, I didn’t. I said that she was reported to have spoken in a ‘curious tongue’, which doesn’t necessarily mean she was foreign. Modern idioms and syntax are wholly different to what they were centuries ago. Back then they spoke Middle English, a substantial part of their vocabulary being French and stemming from the Norman Conquests. Edmund himself was of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, so Lucy’s speech would seem like a foreign language to him.”

Jenny fell silent. Circumstantial though the evidence was, she found it strangely compelling.

“And there’s one other thing;” Lucas resumed, “Clasped in her hand was a chrysoberyl gemstone.”

“Have you any idea how absurd that sounds? You’re telling me my daughter was whisked back some seven centuries in time Why? How?”

“The ‘why’ and ‘how’ of it I can only guess at. You said yourself that Lucy had never really gotten over the death of her father, and was often seen talking to the effigy as though it were he. She probably wished passionately for it to be true. Suppose that as she was in this frame of mind the lightning struck, triggering a kind of quantum rift in time.”

“You may be accustomed to believing in miracles,” Jenny asserted, “but I’m certainly not. It’s absolutely ridiculous!”

“Is it?” countered Lucas “There are some quantum physicists who would disagree. If their hypotheses of the existence of elementary particles that can travel faster than the speed of light are true, then time travel is possible.”

“You’re concluding a hell of a lot from a mere premise. We’re not talking about sub-atomic particles here, but a living, breathing, human being.”

“But isn’t that part of what we are; nothing more than a package of atoms strung together?” Lucas responded.

Later that evening Jenny pondered on Lucas’ words and the documented cases he had cited in support of his argument of people claiming to have undergone temporal sojourns. Like theirs, her life had changed dramatically. Everything she had cherished was gone. Perhaps there was now a need to believe in the fantastic; to seek hope in the embryonic science of quantum physics, just as Lucy had sought hope in religion.

The following morning she awoke from a troubled sleep. Her disquieting dream imagery had evaporated with the onset of wakefulness and was no longer retrievable. One thought persisted, however: ‘Lightning never strikes the same place twice.’ She knew this was a common fallacy, and later cursed herself for not having immediately understood her post-dream message. Unpredictably, she found herself entertaining a quite improbable notion.

For five years Lucas bore witness to the comings and goings of his friend, Jenny Bowcombe. Of all the islanders he alone knew of the obsession that drew her to the chapel on storm filled days and nights. Then, on one particular August night, all hell broke loose.

A ferocious storm front struck the island, growing in intensity as it tore across the landscape. Only one person would venture out on such a night, and Lucas had taken up his station behind the large bay window that overlooked the chapel to watch the lonely, bedraggled, figure trudge its way through the storm and into the chancel. Past experience had taught him that it would be some time before Jenny would leave and would probably ride out the worst of the storm there. Closing the drapes, he settled down to work on the rest of his forthcoming sermon.

Time passed and the storm grew worse. Rattling windowpanes and flickering house lights began to disrupt Lucas’ train of thought. He looked up from his study as an ominous peal of thunder rumbled across the night sky. The chancel was no place to be on such a night, he told himself.

As his predecessor had done before, he stepped out into the tempest and was instantly taken aback by its sheer ferocity.

A cyclonic wind buffeted him mercilessly, propelling him into the rivers of mud being washed from the neighbouring hills. He pushed on through the blinding rain, his face puffed and swollen, driven by an unbending sense of guilt, which hung like a millstone about his neck. How he wished now he had kept silent all those years ago.

On entering the churchyard he suddenly pitched forward, his lungs burning with sheer exhaustion. The air rasped sharply from his chest. He drew in his next breath as if it were his last. Coughing and spluttering uncontrollably, he rolled onto his back and opened his eyes.

The transformation was stunning. As a former merchant seaman Lucas had seen St. Elmo’s fire only once in his life. It had been a brief encounter, its scattering of energy streamers confining themselves solely to the masthead. But that had occurred in a temperate climate, and one more favourable to the phenomenon. What he was witnessing now was impossible.

He watched in awe the profuse streamers as they radiated out from the chancel in a state of constant flux, arcing from one structure to another. Most alarming of all was the luminescent energy field that had encompassed the churchyard. Beyond this miraculous dome the storm raged, unabated. Within it, all was eerily calm.

Jenny Bowcombe stood before the temporal vortex, which had opened at a point just above the effigy. Its dimensions were expanding and would soon be large enough to enter.

Despite the irrefutable evidence gleaned from her most recent research, doubts began to weaken her resolve. What if she were catapulted to a time centuries before the history of Edmund D’Lyle or a future world that was totally alien to anything she had ever known? The possibilities were as infinite as time itself.

She pulled Lucy’s photo from her rucksack. Filling her mind with her daughter’s image, she told herself that it was now or never and edged nearer to the portal.

“No, Jenny!” Lucas barrelled down the aisle toward her, the opening shimmering briefly, as if disturbed by his unheeded appeal.

She stepped forward and was swallowed up in the blinking of an eye.

In that instant a powerful shock wave burst from the portal, hurling him pell-mell into the pews and rupturing the luminescent energy barrier. Darkness engulfed him.

On coming-to, he saw Arken’s Fire Chief, Pete Layton, standing over him.

“You’re one hell of a lucky guy,” he said, “If you hadn’t been lying between the pews when the main roof supports collapsed you’d be a gonner for sure. As it is you‘ve suffered only a few minor burns and abrasions.”

Lucas made a feeble effort to rise from the sofa, “Where am I? How…?” He slumped back, weak and nauseous from the effects of smoke inhalation.

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, the Chief continued, “but the chapel didn’t fair as well. It’s sustained quite a bit of damage. Its walls are still structurally sound, though the roofs going to need some restoration. A bit of elbow grease and a lick of varnish should soon remedy the scorched pews. Which reminds me! Is this yours?”

Lucas stared at the seared rucksack Chief Layton was holding. “Er, yes, it is.”

“You don’t seem too sure about that.”

“Yes, it’s mine.”

With the departure of the paramedics and fire crew, Lucas delved into the rucksack. Amid the many reams of hand-written documents, and a treatise on fourteenth century England, he came across what looked like a copied portion of text. It was badly scorched and nigh impossible to read. Fortunately, he was able to read the catalogue number, which showed it came from the research facility at Fendlesham Library, on the mainland.

Its coding further revealed that Lucy’s search into Edmund D’Lyle was way in advance of his own. He recognised, too, the words of an ancient poet she had paraphrased in the final entry of her diary:

‘
Time may bring to light whatever is hidden and it will conceal and cover up what once shone with the greatest splendour’
.

Within a short space of time, Lucas would come to comprehend the true meaning behind those words.

“Sorry to bother you, Reverend,” said Chief Layton the next day, his face suitably grimy from his ongoing investigation at the fire scene, “but one of my men has discovered something at the chapel that I think you should see.”

A look of mild suspicion behind his bespectacled eyes made Lucas more than a little apprehensive.

“Take a look inside,” The Chief pointed to the chapel’s memorial plinth from which a sizeable portion had been broken. “Personally, I haven’t the faintest idea about ancient burial rites,” he said, “but I thought you might.”

Lucas scanned the murky interior. The most salient feature that struck him, as it must have Chief Layton, was that three distinctly separate bodies had been interred there. Then he caught sight of something in the mouldering winding sheets that caused his heart to skip a beat. It was a gold bracelet. Although he could not make out a hallmark he knew that the single charm that hung from it would date it conclusively to modern times.

“What do you make of it, Reverend? A little unusual to have three bodies in the same grave don’t you think?”

“It’s certainly unusual, but not unheard of,” Lucas declared. “I believe that what we’re looking at is the fourteenth century equivalent of a family plot.”

“Mystery solved then.”

“Mystery solved,” said Lucas, somewhat shocked by the ease with which his story was accepted; an outcome that would have been far different had Pete Layton paid greater attention to his local history lessons at school regarding the D’Lyle genealogy. Edmund had been the last of his line and could, therefore, not have shared his plot with any descendant.

Lucas’ major concern now was the bracelet. It was a modern artefact and if it should be uncovered and examined during restoration work on the tomb questions would be asked, questions for which there were no plausible answers. It’s removal, therefore, was vitally important.

Fortune smiled again on the young cleric, and when the Chief was called away by one of his men Lucas saw his opportunity and took it.

“Well that’s about it. I’m finished here,” said Pete Layton on his return, adding, “If you’ll take my advice, you need to have that plinth sealed up right away. I’m sure I noticed something of value in there. The last thing you need is to have some would-be grave robber come along and take it.”

Lucas flushed, “No, that wouldn’t do at all. I’ll see to it right away.”

In the privacy of the rectory he examined more closely the bracelet he had hastily stuffed into his pocket. It was just as Jenny had described. Unquestionably, one of the tomb’s occupants was her daughter. Could the third body, he wondered, be Jenny‘s?

He later recalled the scorched document and speculated on what it may have contained. The fact that Jenny had copied it showed that it held some significance for her. He resolved to find out what it could possibly be and made arrangements to visit the mainland’s library the very next day.