‘I was at the Altar after Morning Prayer . . .’he began, ‘and I felt something going through me. Like electricity almost. It made my hair stand on end. Literally on end.’
Coot’s hand was running through his short-cropped hair as he remembered the sensation. The hair standing bolt upright, like a field of grey-ginger corn. And that buzzing at the temples, in his lungs, at his groin. It had actually given him a hard-on; not that he was going to be able to tell Declan that. But he’d stood there at the Altar with an erection so powerful it was like discovering the joy of lust all over again.
‘I won’t claim … I can’t claim it was our Lord God – ‘
(Though he wanted to believe that; that his God was the Lord of the Hard-on.) ‘ – I can’t even claim it was Christian. But something happened today. I felt it.’
Declan’s face was still impenetrable. Coot watched it for several seconds, impatient for its disdain.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘Well what?’
‘Nothing to say?’
The egg frowned for a moment, a furrow in its shell. Then it said:
‘God help us,’ almost in a whisper.
‘What?’
‘I felt it too. Not quite as you describe: not quite an electric shock. But something.’
‘Why God help us, Declan? Are you afraid of something?’
He made no reply.
‘If you know something about these experiences that I don’t . . . please tell me. I want to know, to understand. God, I have to understand.’
Declan pursed his lips. ‘Well …” his eyes became more indecipherable than ever; and for the first time Coot caught a
glimpse of a ghost behind Declan’s eyes. Was it despair, perhaps?
‘There’s a lot of history to this place you know,’ he said, ‘a history of things … on this site.’
Coot knew Declan had been delving into Zeal’s history. Harmless enough pastime: the past was the past.
‘There’s been a settlement here for centuries, stretches back well before Roman occupation. No one knows how long. There’s probably always been a temple on this site.’
‘Nothing odd about that.’ Coot offered up a smile, inviting Declan to reassure him. A part of him wanted to be told everything was well with his world: even if it was a lie.
Declan’s face darkened. He had no reassurance to give. ‘And .there was a forest here. Huge. The Wild Woods.’ Was it still despair behind the eyes? Or was it nostalgia? ‘Not some tame little orchard. A forest you could lose a city in; full of beasts . . .’
‘Wolves you mean? Bears?’
Declan shook his head.
There were things that owned this land. Before Christ. Before civilisation. Most of them didn’t survive the destruction of their natural habitat: too primitive I suppose. But strong. Not like us; not human. Something else altogether.’
‘So what?’
‘One of them survived as late as the fourteen hundreds. There’s a carving of it being buried. It’s on the Altar.’
‘On the Altar?’
‘Underneath the cloth. I found it a while ago: never thought much of it. Till today. Today I … tried to touch it.’
He produced his fist, and unclenched it. The flesh of his palm was blistered. Pus ran from the broken skin.
‘It doesn’t hurt,’ he said. ‘In fact it’s quite numb. Serves me right, really. I should have known.’
Coot’s first thought was that the man was lying. His second was that there was some logical explanation. His third was his father’s dictum: ‘Logic is the last refuge of a coward.’
Declan was speaking again. This time he was seeping excitement.
They called it Rawhead.’
‘What?’
The beast they buried. It’s in the history books. Rawhead it was called, because its head was huge, and the colour of the moon, and raw, like meat.’
Declan couldn’t stop himself now. He was beginning to smile.
‘It ate children,’ he said, and beamed like a baby about to receive its mother’s tit.
It wasn’t until early on the Saturday morning that the atrocity at the Nicholson Farm was discovered. Mick Glossop had been driving up to London, and he’d taken the road that ran beside the farm, (‘Don’t know why. Don’t usually. Funny really.’) and Nicholson’s Friesian herd was kicking up a row at the gate, their udders distended. They’d clearly not been milked in twenty-four hours. Glossop had stopped his jeep on the road and gone into the yard.