But how do I know what it is? Georgina wondered. Have I felt it before?
‘. . . They brought young children to Christ, that he should touch them; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them . . .’
Georgina felt the church groaning around her, trying to expel her. No, trying to expel . . . Yulian? She looked at the baby and he looked back: his face broke into that unsmile which small babies smile. But his eyes were fixed, steady, unblinking. Even as she stared at him, she saw those darling eyes swivel in their sockets to gaze full upon the old vicar. Nothing wrong with that – it was just that it had looked so deliberate.
Yulian is ordinary! Georgina denied what she was thinking. She’d had this feeling before and denied it, and now she must do it again. He is ordinary! It was her, not the baby. She was blaming him for Ilya. It was the only explanation.
She glanced at George and Anne, and they smiled back reassuringly. Didn’t they feel the cold, the strangeness? They obviously thought she was concerned about the vicar, the service. Other than that, they felt nothing. Oh, maybe they felt how draughty the place was, but that was all.
Georgina felt more than the cold. And so did the vicar. He was skipping lines now, hurrying through the service almost mechanically, about as human as some gaunt robot penguin. He avoided looking at them, especially Yulian. Maybe he could feel the infant’s eyes on him, unwaveringly.
‘Dearly beloved,’ the old man was chanting at Anne and George now, the godparents, ‘ye have brought this child here to be baptised . . .’
/ have to stop it. Georgina’s thoughts were growing wilder. She started to panic. Have to, before it – but before what? – happens!
‘. . .to release him of his sins, to sanctify him with . . .
Outside, much closer now, thunder rumbled, accompanied by lightning that lit up the west-facing windows and sent kaleidoscopic beams of bright colours lancing through the interior. The group about the font was first gold, then green, finally crimson. Yulian was blood in Georgina’s arms; his eyes were blood where they stared at the vicar.
At the back of the church, under the pulpit, almost unnoticed all of this time, a funereal man had been sweeping up, his broom scraping on the stone flags. Now, for no apparent reason, he threw the broom down, tore off his apron and rolled it up, almost ran from the church. He could be heard grumbling to himself, angry about something. Another flash of lightning turned him blue, green, finally white as an undeveloped photograph as he reached the door and plunged out of sight.
‘Eccentric!’ The vicar, seeming a little more in control of himself, frowned after him, blinked at his abrupt disappearance. ‘He cleans the church because he has a “feel” for it! So he tells me.’
‘Er, can we get on?’ George had apparently had enough of interruptions.
‘Of course, of course,’ the old man peered again at his book, skipped several more lines. ‘Er . . . promise that you are his sureties, that he will renounce the devil and all his works, and constantly believe . . .’
Yulian had also had enough. He began to kick, gathered air for a howling session. His face puffed up and started to turn a little blue, which would normally mean that frustration and anger were coming to the boil just beneath the surface. Georgina couldn’t keep back a great sigh of relief at that. What was Yulian but a helpless baby after all?
‘. . . the carnal desires of the flesh . . . was crucified, dead, and buried; that he went down into hell, and also did rise again the third day; that he . . .’
Just a baby, thought Georgina, with Ilya’s blood, and mine, and . . . and?
‘. . . the quick and the dead?’
The church was thunder dark, the storm almost directly overhead.
‘. . . resurrection of the flesh; and everlasting life after death?’
Georgina gave a start as Anne and George answered in unison: ‘All this we steadfastly believe.’