The Chalice (62 page)

      
There was a thump inside Powys's head, as it all landed on him
like a big, thick book from a very high shelf.

Sam brought the book up
from the shop. 'This the one?'

      
Juanita nodded. 'Pop it down on the table. You'll have to flip
through the pages for me.'

      
It was one of those Glastonbury-in-old-photos books. Not
really Carey and Frayne subject-matter, with its sepia line-ups of long-dead
councillors and women in big hats.

      
'Stop,' Juanita said. 'No, sorry, carry on. Skip this section.
Hold it... there.'

      
Sam swallowed. Juanita extended, with some pain, a discoloured,
lumpy forefinger.

      
Sam looked up from the book.

      
'Oh, Jesus God,' he said. 'He's younger, but—'

      
'But that's him?'

      
Sam nodded. His face looked as blurred and lost and scared and
overwhelmed as one of the small boys in knee-length shorts on the very edge of
the photograph.

      
The caption underneath said:

      
October 1954: Children
from St Benedicts C of E Primary School receive their prizes from the
vice-chairman of the school governors, Col George Pixhill.

Part Five

... and though the well is
dark with blood, the Tor is bright with fire..

Dion
Fortune
Avalon of the Heart

ONE

Crow's Feet Deepening

She awoke to the voice of
Ceridwen.

      
The last transition for
a woman can be a wonderful and fulfilling time …also a time of disillusion and
decay, constantly chilled by the draught of death …

The moan of distress
brought Powys rushing in. He saw her head twisting on the pillow in a dark
swirl of hair, before she woke, big brown eyes full of dread and not
recognising him at first.

      
Arnold whined, his outsize ears pricked up.

      
'Um, Joe Powys,' Powys reminded her. He'd spent the night
under cushions and a rug on the living room sofa.

      
Juanita blinked at him. 'Is she …?'

      
Powys shook his head. 'Sorry. No sign.'

      
The winter morning hung in the window like a damp rag.
Juanita's head sank back. 'What are we going to do?'

      
On the wall opposite the bed was a Battle duskscape, the red
light reduced to a thin line. Powys thought of the St Michael Line, a ghostly
ribbon linking the high places.

      
And interlacing last night's feverish dreams.

      
While Arnold had stayed, watchful, in Juanita's bedroom.

'Maybe you could call her
father,' Powys said.
      
'Like he'd tell me if she was
there?'
      
'He might.'

      
'If she isn't there,' Juanita said, 'I don't think it would be
good if he knew she was missing. I also suggested to Sam that we should keep
quiet about what he saw - the road. Until we find Diane.' Gloomily, she
contemplated her face in the dressing-table mirror. 'What's Woolly's state of mind?'

      
'Not good. Somebody smashed up his shop window last night,
while he was out.'

      
'No.' Her face crumpling in pain. 'In Benedict Street? What's
happening to people?'

      
'Glastonbury First vigilantes. Woolly reckons. Or maybe just
ordinary citizens appalled that they voted for a man who caused the death of an
innocent child after hallucinating a black bus in the rush hour.'

      
'What do you think he saw?'

      
'Well,' Powys said. 'If Sam Daniel, who you say is a confirmed
unbeliever in
anything
, is categoric
about seeing Pixhill's ghost then, um, anything's possible. Isn't it?'

      
He held up the
Daily
Press.

Christmas Tree Horror

      
Most of the front page was filled by a panoramic picture of the
fallen tree half smothering the lorry. There was also a smiling mother-and-baby
photo from the Cotton family album.

      
And one of a crazy man staring into the camera with eyes which
were wide and glazed. He looked like a junkie or an absconder from some
high-security psychiatric hospital. There was a grim-faced policeman on either
side. The caption read:
'I'm shattered' ~
Councillor Edward Woolaston minutes after the horror.

      
'He says he's leaving town. Doesn't want to make his friends
uncomfortable.'

      
'He can't do that,' Juanita said firmly. 'I'll call him. We
need Woolly.'

      
He sighed. 'There's something else.'
      
Along the bottom of the front page,
it said:

MP moves on Tor Ban
- page three.

      
'It seems', Powys said, his voice flat, 'that your ailing
Member of Parliament, Sir Laurence Bowkett, is tabling a Private Member's Bill.'

      
He turned to page three and read:

      
'''The Glastonbury Tor (limitation of Access) Bill is tabled
with the full support of the local branches of the National Farmers' Union and the
Country Landowners' Association. It is also understood to have considerable support
inside the executive of the National Trust, which owns the Tor.'''

      
'Oh my God.' Juanita slumped. 'This could be passed. It could
be law It could be law next year.'

      
She turned to Powys. 'I wasn't taking this in very well last
night. Woolly sees it as some kind of Government conspiracy?'

      
'More of a cosmic conspiracy, I think. The establishment
becoming a tool for the forces of evil. Because of their economic tunnel-vision,
governments are particularly susceptible.'

      
'To the forces of evil as symbolised by...'

      
'The Dark Chalice. If the Holy Grail is the symbol of harmony
and light and the healing power of the spirit, the Dark Chalice - the anti-Grail
- represents hatred and division, greed and corruption and ... well, you get the
idea.'

      
'And was there a Dark Chalice? Is there anything in British
mythology corresponding with that?'

      
'Um ... I reckon Pixhill invented it. He wanted a symbol.
Something easily understood. Maybe it's taken on a life of its own. If Diane's
seen it—'
      
Juanita sat up. '
Where
?'

'Sam, I think I got dis
bug. Feel rotten, all bunged up, so it don't look like I'll be id for a couple
of days. Sorry boss.'

      
Ah well. He was relieved, if anything. Couldn't sit here, after
last night, and listen to Paul rabbiting on about megabytes and CD Rom.

      
The machine said
. Click,
whirr
. That's the lot.

      
No word from Diane. His head throbbed. Where was she? Walked
out of this door, very sad.
It's all
real. Everything is part of everything else and it's all real
. An hour later
it's all mayhem and chaos in Magdalene Street. Where was she?

      
It was nearly half past nine. Outside, the town was wrapped in
dour grey-brown fog. Sam stood at his window watching people moving about, not
laughing, not wishing each other Merry Christmas.

      
A sombre stillness settled around him and the world seemed a
denser place. He caught himself wondering if any of the muffled passers-by were
ghosts, his mind still squirming away from the dismal image of an old man who
could not speak, only scream in silence.

      
Shit, Sammy. Too heavy,
son.
What he should be doing was getting on to Hughie, hanging it on him
about Pennard and the new road. Calling in the eco-troops. Mass protest,
mass trespass.

      
Wait till we find Diane.

      
Would he ever find Diane?

      
Did anything ever happen
to you that you couldn't explain?

In the sky,' Powys said.
'Over the Tor. A cupped hands effect. Something very dark between them. And
also in the fire. At the heart of the flames.'

      
'When Jim ... '

      
He nodded. 'Or so she says.'

      
'Maybe she didn't tell me because she thought I'd dismiss it. She
thinks I'm cynical.'
      
'Which you aren't, of course.'

      
'I've tried. God, I've tried.' She turned back to the mirror,
shook her hair, winced, 'Look at that. Bloody hag. There was the residue of
something before the fire. Funny, but that very night I got all dressed up for
Woolly's protest meeting, saw myself in a shop window and I was quite cheered.
I thought, there's something left, you know? Now I'm a hag. The last transition.
Chilled by the draught of death.'

      
Powys saw the reflection of her eyes widen in panic, the
crows' feet deepening. 'That's absolutely not true, Juanita.'
      
He stood up and came behind her,
picking up a hairbrush from the dressing table. 'Tilt your head back.'

      
She closed her eyes. Brushing her hair, he felt the softness
of the skin on her long neck. He thought of that yellowing cover of
The Avalonian
, the sylph in the
nature-goddess headdress.

      
'There's something I haven't told you,' Juanita said.

Don Moulder waited until
Mrs Moulder was out collecting the eggs and then he rang his neighbour, Melvyn
Carter, and he said, 'That bit o' ground, Melvyn. 'I'm ready to talk, look.
Now.'

Melvyn expressed surprise
and deep suspicion on account of it was only two weeks since Don had refused to
discuss. even the possibility of selling Melvyn a certain four and a half acres
of pasture at any price.

      
'I'll be reasonable, Melvyn, I promise you. In return I need a
particular favour and nothin' else will do. Your son-in-law, look, still in the
police is he? Oh. Inspector now, is it? Well, I d'need his help and I d'need it
fast. With regards to …'

      
Don's hand sweating on the phone.

      
'... with regards to a certain buzz.'

      
Feeling better now it was out. The Lord had thrown him into the
heart of the Great Conflict, and. Yea, though he walked through the valley of
death, he would turn his face unto the light and not be afeared to put his arse
on the line.

'His hat? They took his
hat?'

      
'They seemed to find that funny.' Juanita said, 'I was bloody
terrified. Totally convinced we were both going to die. How could they chop off
his head and let me go? You think New Age travellers are either young idealists
pioneering a new way of life or else sad, urban refugees who need to be
perpetually stoned. But these were very sinister. The guy in the mask, I can still
hear him whispering. Didn't speak. Just whispered. I swore to Jim I'd never tell
a soul.'

      
'Can't harm him now.' Powys stood up. 'How about I run you a
bath?'

      
'The story's not over. I saw his hat, I ... I've been blocking
this out, OK. You're the first person to hear this. I'd virtually talked myself
into believing I'd imagined it. Until that copper...'
      
'Jim's cat.'

      
'When they hold the inquest on Jim, early in the new year, I'm
going to have to give evidence. I'm going to have to explain why I ran at the
house, why I...'

      
'I know.' Powys gently squeezed her shoulders.

      
'You
don't
know.
That's the point. Nobody knows. They all think I threw myself on the bonfire
all trussed up like some Indian wife. Even I...'

      
The phone rang. 'Ignore it,' Powys said. 'They'll leave a message.
Go on.'