Illustrations by Ash Turton.

THE RINGING OF A BELL.

The Ringing of a Bell.

PART ONE

KENDAL, CUMBRIA, SPRING OF 1961.

“No lad, you completely misunderstand. I don’t live like this because I’m waiting for a husband or because I prefer women. I live like this because it makes me a better weapon,” she said.
She dressed quickly. First a low slung holster holding a small pistol and a slender knife. Over that, a long, floaty red skirt. Then a white blouse and red jumper . Then, over the knee high socks she had not removed, a pair of scuffed, black boots. Finally, she adjusted the band of crimson velvet that held back her hair.
She did not look back as she walked briskly out of the door, but his eyes never left her.

LIVERPOOL, AUTUMN OF 1940

She first met the man when she was a child. He was the only one walking towards the danger rather than away from it. Like a longship through a stormy sea, he passed through the fleeing crowd. When he was alone in the square with the abomination, he calmly took a handful of salt from his pocket and rubbed it into his hands. Then he announced that he was with the Gods.
When he was finished he picked her up and carried her home.
“You did not run,” he said to her.
“We live here,” she had replied

In those days the bombs fell so thickly on Liverpool that the great adversary could do anything they wanted. Who would notice another monster amongst the Fascist bombing?
Her parents had died a day ago. She had sat alone and unnoticed in the ruble.

“The Gods are good, but they are drunk and insane, so we must endure,” he tried to tell her.
“But God has mercy. Surely we must believe that God has mercy?” she had asked as a child, and never stopped asking.
“Believe it if you wish. I see no mercy here.”
Looking around at the squalid terrace house where she now lived, and at the bombed out streets surrounding her, and the pinched faces of the people struggling grimly all around,it would have been easy to agree with him.
So she had decided to become God’s mercy. The embodiment of His mercy on Earth.

On the rare evening when the air raid sirens did not sound, they would climb a ladder and sit on the roof of his house. There, they would look out over the dockyards and the sea beyond.
“There are three wars being fought,” he once told her. “The first is on this earth, between soldiers, sailors and airmen. The second is being fought in our hearts and minds by the witches and shaman of Britain against the Fascist Occultists. The third is fought in the sky- between the Gods and the forces of Destruction.”
She liked to look at the sky, where she believed God lived.

The second time that she met the enemy was in the winter, 3 months after her parents had died. She was 7 years old.

A creature had been haunting the street for weeks, he explained as they walked down the road. It had tormented them in their beds, filling their sleep with nightmares and draining their energy. Then it had settled in the home of an old woman who lacked the strength of will to defend herself. Neighbours had told the local witch and the witch had called on him.

They knocked on the old ladies door. To the girl, the woman looked impossibly old and terribly tired. She invited them into her front room where they drank tea and ate biscuits, it was like visiting an elderly relative.
Eventually, he politely asked to be shown to the old woman’s bedroom. She led them there awkwardly, then returned to her front room.
“Stay behind me at all times,” he told the girl.
She had no intention of entering the room, it felt terribly cold.
Then he took from his bag a bell, a bag of salt, and a small silver hammer. He gently rang the bell seven times whilst carefully looking around him. Then he threw handfuls of salt into three corners of the room.
Next he went to the fourth corner, spoke a few words in a language that the girl couldn’t understand, and started striking at the air with his hammer.
The girl looked on in astonishment. After a moment she blinked, then she saw it. A shrunken, humanoid creature that covered its face with long, clawed hands. The silver hammer was striking its head.
The creature stopped cowering and looked her directly in the eyes. It pointed at her with one of its talons and screamed. Then it faded to nothing.

On their way out, the old lady gave her a tiny bar of chocolate. It was a rare treat.

Attempts were made to reunite her with any living relatives, but in vain. She had no living family in Liverpool that she knew of. As far as the girl was aware, her mother had lost contact with most of her family and many of her fathers relatives were dead. Her mother had no close friends and her father’s friends were in the war.

Many of the nights that Winter were spent in the Anderson Shelter which he had built in the tiny backyard. They spent a lot of time in that small room (designed for a family so not too crowded), protected by corrugated iron, sand bags and earth. It was too dark to read, so he would tell her stories to distract her from the sounds of destruction all around.
Never anything serious, but light hearted legends of Robin Hood or King Arthe, his knights and his sister Morgana.. She would often imagine herself as the mysterious Fey Enchantress. She would be tall, beautiful and wild with subtle yet unlimited power. As Morgana La Fey she would be both feared and loved.

KENDAL, CUMBRIA, SUMMER OF 1961.

In her head, the bombs were falling.
The priest silently watched the young lady who had been sitting in a pew at the back of the church for at least an hour. She looked utterly serene, but in her head the bombs were still falling.
She remembered little of her parents. Her mother had been a quiet, religious woman. Every Sunday morning they would go to church, and eating or sleeping without praying first had not been an option. Her father, he remembered, was an impossibly tall man who smoked constantly, he was often away on business but when was around he had been kind in an awkward way.
Two things haunted her dreams. The demon who had pointed at her when she was a little girl, and the bombs that had taken her family away.
She thought also of the pagan man who had adopted her. He had been heroic in the truest possible sense of the word, but also oppressively morbid and fatalistic
The night before her seventeen birthday, she had snuck out of his home and never returned. They had argued about religion: she could not amandon her mother’s simple faith. Also she had craved independence and to escape the city that held so many terrible memories. So she had travelled north.
Sometimes she admitted to herself that she simply didn’t need him anymore.
Quietly, she walked out of the church, along the river and onto the old, stone bridge where she watched the steely water flow.
It looked to her like the river and plants beside were the creation of a loving God. However, she had once read that it was the effect of countless millions of years of evolution and geology. The man who raised her had said that the ancient people believed that the world was thrown together in war between gods and giants, torn out of blood and chaos.
A tiny flower with purple petals grew in a crack between the stones of the bridge. Gazing at it, she chose to believe that it was the art of God.

The Globe, the pub where she worked, had a reputation.
That had made it easy for her to get and keep a job there. That was convenient, but some nights it was not convenient.
It was quarter to midnight and it should have been closed, but a lad had won on the horses and was celebrating. He had been buying people drinks all day, including the landlord, so he had been allowed to stay. Now he was sitting with one mate and still in no mood to leave despite hardly being able to speak.
A tall, gaunt policeman had just walked in and reminded everyone, in no uncertain terms, that the pub should be closed.
A glass mug flew across the room and exploded against the door frame near his face. He did not flinch, but produced his truncheon and advanced toward the table where there were two men and one pint mug.
There followed an extremely one sided fight between one very sober and angry man and two men who were so drunk that they could hardly stand.
When it was over, she had to clean up the blood and broken glass before she could go home.
She was tired as she walked home. She hated being tired in the alleyways at night, because sometimes the shadows moved in ways that they should not. They could tell when she was weak.
Kendal was a beautiful town, but it had a lot of long, narrow alleys. Especially on the side of the hill where she lived. Some of the houses were over 300 years old and overdue for demolition, and some of the lanes even older. The word squalid often came to mind.
Something hissed behind her, she drew her dagger and spun round intime to see a rat scurry away.
Fighting the urge to rush, she continued walking, up a final cobbled stairway, then round a corner to her home. As soon as she was inside her tiny flat she could relax- nothing was getting in there unless she invited it.
She really needed to sleep.

Morning sunlight entered through the tall, narrow window of her bedsit, easily passing through the faded curtains.
If anyone had seen her sleeping- which none had done since she was a small child- they would have said she looked angelic. Never, from the serene look on her face would they have guessed the dreams which haunted her.
A large wooden cross hung above her bed. Apart from that and a vase of flowers on the dining table there were no decorations. On the same table was a large pile of books. On the tiny bedside table there was a copy of The Hobbit (which she was reading for the ninth time) with a feather to mark the page, a small notebook, a pen and a glass of water. The room was impeccably tidy and smelled of sage.
She could have slept all morning, but her phone rang.
“Good morning,” she answered sleepily.
“Alright luv? Would you like to get some lunch today?” a man’s voice asked.
“What time is it?”
“11 o’clock.”
“Ok, I’ll meet you in an hour. Same place as last time?”
“Aye, The Union, that’ll be grand, see you there.”
“Goodbye.”
“See you luv.”
She drank the water by her bed, put the kettle on and washed her face. George again. He seemed like a decent guy. Worked late shifts in the shoe factory so their schedules almost fit. He was taller than her, which was unusual, had massive hands and was not bad looking. This would be the fifth ‘date’. She didn’t want him to get too attached, this should be the last time she met him for a while.

They stayed out longer than they intended and drank more than she intended. As he walked her home, lust overwhelmed them so they stopped in a corner between alleyways to kiss passionately.
He smiled drunkenly as he saw her gasp for breath then slowly reach down, pull up her skirt, run her hand against her bare leg-
-Then a pistol was in her hand, resembling a small Luger. She fired one silent round
into nothing. A dark patch of stone wall emitted a horrible shriek, like a dying fox.
“What the bloody hell was that?” he exclaimed.
“I’ve got half a bottle of gin in my room, if you really want to know, come with me.”

“Can I see your gun? Is it, like, magic or something?”
The gin was almost finished. They sat on her bed in the light of a few candles.
“Here… No, just an air pistol, but the pullets are solid silver, a friend makes them for me…” she was getting tired of explaining things to him. “I’m going to sleep. I recommend you stay here tonight. I’ll trust you to be a gentleman and keep your pants on… because I’ll be wearing my dagger. Good night.”
She kissed him on the cheek and crawled, fully clothed, into bed.

A few days later, she had another night off work. She didn’t feel like meeting anyone, so she stayed in and tried to write;
Nothing causes the lights in the trees,
Those shadows move without a breeze,

The stars fall beyond the sky,
We have lost the wings to fly,

Then she ran out of ideas. There was a sense of being haunted and hunted her whole life that she could never express. There was no one to talk to who could understand. She held on to a fantasy that if she could express it perfectly in poetry, a small weight might be lifted from her.
But she could not write anymore that night, so she read and drank tea.

At that time, George was struggling to focus on his work.
His mind had been opened to a world that was far larger and more terrifying that he had previously imagined. There were things out there which only belonged in horror stories. Conflicts were occurring on his doorstep that did not belong in this life.
It will be break time soon. For a change, he thought, it would be nice to sit on the roof and smoke… just to have some time alone and look at the stars…

She sat in the sunshine beside the river. Her pencil was between her teeth and she was looking at a blank page in her notebook.
A shadow was cast over her.
She looked up and saw the tall, gaunt policeman.
“Alright?” he greeted her sternly.
“Morning,” she said.
“You’re not from my town are you?” he stated.
“I live here,” she replied.
“Scouser? Thought so… I’ve seen you in my church sometimes, you seem like a nice lass. Also see you all the damn time in the Globe? What are you doing there?”
“Working.”
“That’s not that I mean.”
She looked at him and was tempted to ask if it was a crime to sit by a river, but decided better of it. He was looking at her, but she felt that he was not actually looking at her, but the space where she sat and all the land behind her.
“You take care,” he said.
His shadow silently moved from her. A few moments later she put her pencil and notebook into her handbag and stood up. It was time to meet Helen in the cafe.

“How’s your new fella?” Helen asked.
“He’s learning,” she replied slyly.
Helen burst out laughing. Despite having what many people would call a terrible life, Helen was the most cheerful person she had ever met. Helen worked like a slave as a maid in a hotel and shared a tiny house with her alcoholic mother. Her dad and brothers had died in the war. Helen had not been blessed with beauty, intelligence or good luck, but what she did have was endless energy.
At that time, she was feeling much less enthusiastic tha Helen. George had tried to call her a few times, but she’d been avoiding answering the phone. She just didn’t know what to tell him and wasn’t in the mood to meet. After the shock of the last date she thought it would be better not to see him again.
This is why I cannot get close to anyone.
“I don’t really want to talk about lads,” she continued. “What are you listening to these days?”

That evening, George sat on the factory roof again. It was nice to be alone. He didn’t have much to say to people these days. It all seemed a little pointless.
Why didn’t she answer his calls? She was the only person he could talk to and she wasn’t there…
Every night he dreamed about the monster he had seen in the alleyway with her. Had that been real, or another nightmare. He was very tired.
He looked down. 3 floors. Probably not high enough.

21.45 on a Tuesday night. The tall, gaunt policeman leaned on the bar. He’d been sipping on a glass of whiskey for an hour and talking occasionally. There were no other customers and she wanted to go home.
“The thing about rescuing a drowning person, is that they usually fight back…” he spoke in a harsh yet somehow dreamy voice, as though he were far away. “I remember when our boat went down in the Med’, in’44… The Corporal couldn’t swim. I held him round the chest, under the armpits, just like they showed us in First Aid. Thing is, also in First Aid they told us that if the buggers struggle you should give them a smack round the head, knock them out if you need to. Better than both of you drowning. But I couldn’t do it- couldn’t hit him- respected the man. He was trashing away like a madman. Me trying to cling on and keep us both afloat. It was hard, very hard… If that dinghy hadn’t come he’d have killed us both.”
The room was silent for a few moments.
“Is that why you’re always beating up my customers?” she asked.
He smiled, put a coin on the bar and walked out.

George was sitting on the roof of the terrace house he shared with his mum and dad.
A short, thin figure sat next to him. Almost like a child but terribly thin. Its face was a little too narrow, the hands and feet a little too long. It was always in darkness, its features always hidden in shadow.
He was used to it following him around, it felt like it had been with him forever. He almost enjoyed the company- he was so lonely- there was no one who he could talk to and she never called these days.
“It would be easier… much easier…” it whispered to him.

PART TWO

It was so convenient.
The town hall clock tower was being maintained, and the scaffolding was easy to climb. Just like his little friend had said. Now George stood at the top and looked down at his home town.
“Men were not made to fly, they were made to fall,” his friend told him.
The stars shone overhead. Smoke drifted from nearby chimneys. It was so peaceful.
No more nightmares. No work, no cold, no hunger, no loneliness. It would be so easy, his little friend had told him many times.
“YOU GET DOWN FROM THAT ROOF SON.”
A voice came so clearly through the night air that for a moment George thought it was the voice of God.
However, looking down he saw the tall, gaunt policeman. In one hand he held a lamp, the other was pointing up at him with absolute authority.
His little friend vanished and George suddenly felt very scared and alone.
Slowly and carefully, he climbed down the scaffolding.
“Suicide is against the law,” the policeman told him, “but I’m going to let you off this time. Tomorrow morning I’ll be round your house at dawn, I know where you live George, and we are going to see either a priest, a doctor or that girlfriend of yours. It’s your choice.”
“Yes sir,” George replied, and trudged home.

Three loud knocks on the door.
George rolled over.
Dawn. Who actually does things at dawn? What is this, a cowboy film?
He dressed quickly, opened the door for the policeman and made them both a cup of coffee.
“Where next?” the tall, gaunt policeman asked him.
Still half asleep, George tried to think. He’d been given 3 choices. He didn’t want to wake her up. He wanted to talk with her, but not like this. A priest was not really an option, George had been raised in the Church of England, but he hadn’t thought about religion for most of his life. Church was just where you went for weddings, Christenings and funerals. In the last few days he had been thinking about that type of thing a lot, but not in a sane way… If demons exist then God must exist too, but it was all too complicated.
“I think I should see a doctor, maybe he can give me something to calm my nerves. But can I cook us some breakfast first?”
“Aye, good lad.”

Her phone rang later that morning. Groaning, she dragged herself out of bed and answered it.
“Alright? It’s me, Helen.”
“Morning… I hope this is important, you know I don’t like mornings.”
“Yeah it is. It’s your lad, George. Did he tried to jump off the town hall last night-”
“What?!”
“Yeah, he was standing on the roof talking to himself, all crazy, but then that scary policeman came and told him to climb down… so he climbed down… haven’t you heard?
“No, how do you know about this?”
“It’s Kendal. If you do something daft at night the next day everyone knows about it before you.”
“Right, thanks for telling me. I’ve got to call him, check he’s alright. See you.”
“Alright, see you.”
She immediately tried to call George’s house but there was no answer. She washed, dressed and made a cup of tea, still no answer.
So she finished her tea and set off walking to George’s house.

It took about 20 minutes.
She knocked on the green plywood door. When there was no reply after a minute, she knocked again much louder and rang the doorbell. She was getting worried.
Looking around frantically, she saw George’s mother walking up the street with a basket of groceries. She took a deep breath to calm herself, then waved at her.
“Alright luv!” his mum shouted. “ I’m so glad to see you! George has been awfully queer recently, then this morning that policeman came and took him away… I don’t know what’s going on. Come in, I’ll put the kettle on.”
They sat at the kitchen table drinking tea and eating piles of biscuits as George’s mum explained how George had become extremely unsociable and often disappeared all evening with no explanation. That morning she had woken up in time to see him and the policeman walking away from the house. If she knew anything about George trying to jump off a roof, she clearly didn’t want to talk about it.
“What’s he going to do with my son?” she continued, almost in tears. “He scares me, that policeman… George can’t go to prison, he’s such a good lad. I tried calling the police station but they wouldn’t tell me anything, said they didn’t know what I was talking about. I don’t trust those -”
“Don’t worry. He’s not that bad. I meet that policeman a lot at my pub, you know how it is, and he’s a fair man. Scary, yes, but not bad, he just takes his job very seriously.”
“I hope you’re right, luv.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be alright. If we’ve not heard from George by tonight, I’ll ask that policeman. He always comes into the pub at closing time. But I’m sure George will be home soon.”
“Good lass. I’m sure you’re right luv. Have another biscuit, you’re too skinny…”
They both promised to call each other when they saw George, and after a few more biscuits, she left.

About half an hour after she had left, George walked through the front door of his house, looking very tired.
“Where the bloody hell have you been?” his mum shouted, before rushing to hug him.

It was the afternoon of the next day and Helen was sitting with her outside a cafe and chain smoking. This was usually a sign that she was excited. Helen loved gossip more than anything else in the world.
“… and the next morning that policeman took him to the doctors to get him some medicine to help him sleep. His mum was so worried, but she’s alright now,” she concluded.
“Have you met up with him yet?,” Helen asked her.
“No, not even talked on the phone. This mum called me soon after he came home. I should call him later today, but I guess he’ll be really embarrassed,” she replied.
Really, it was she who felt terribly guilty for introducing him to a world that he could not handle, then abandoning him.
“Poor George…” Helen lit another cigarette with the end of the last one, “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I got a new job!”
“Oh, good, what is it?”
“Cleaning in the town hall, I’m going up in the world! Or down actually, I’m going to be working in the basement and cellars… My mate Sue got me the job. She’s been working there for years- it’s a council job- you know… she says no one wants to work there because it’s so creepy, but I’m not bothered about a few cobwebs.”
“That’s great,” she smiled and then finished her coffee. “I should get going, get home and call George.”
“Aye, you should, he’s a good lad, such big hands,” Helen winked.
“Good bye Helen, good luck with your new job.”
“See you!”

That policeman woke at 0500 hours. The same as everyday.
In his head, the bombs were still falling.
He washed his hands and face. Shaved. Brushed his hair. Put on his uniform.
Deep in his heart he wished it was khaki. Still, the police uniform was better than nothing.Then he put on his boots, which had been polished the night before. The same as every day
By the time he had gone downstairs, his daughter had made his porridge and tea. He wished her a good morning and thanked her because he loved her very much.
The same as everyday. There had to be something to fight for.
In his head the bombs were still falling.
At 0600 hours he left the house and walked towards his station. It was a Sunday, so he would meet his family in church at 0900 hours. If anyone minded him going to church whilst on duty, they didn’t complain about it to his face.

She dragged herself out of bed at 8.15 am. She hadn’t slept much, but she felt like she should go to church this morning. She made a milky, sweet cup of tea for breakfast and dressed quickly, then set off.
She had a lot of thinking to do as she walked. It had been good to talk to George on the phone last night, but exhausting too. She had promised to meet him in the evening. She had to find a way to protect him from the world she had dragged him into.

The tall, gaunt policeman arrived early, took his usual pew in the church and waited for his family. He looked around him, noticing that the huge nave was already half full, and taking a moment to enjoy the stained glass. A few moments later, he saw that girl walk in, she looked tired. Then his own family entered, just a minute before the service began.

She came in and sat at the rear of the church, near the door. It was a sunny morning, but it felt freezing inside the church. Churches were always cold. At least the stained glass shone brilliantly. After getting herself as comfortable as she could, she noticed that policeman. Did he ever take off his damn uniform? Was that his wife and daughter? It was hard to imagine him being a family man.
After a brief greeting the priest began to read in Latin from the Old Testament.
She couldn’t understand. The man had tried to teach her a little Latin, along with some old Norse runes, but as a child she had never seen the point. They were dead languages. It all seemed so pointless…
It was misty on top of the mountain where she stood. Misty and lonely.
A star shone in the sky, then rapidly became brighter. An angel was descending. Its vast wings cut through the mist and it looked down on her with its beauteous face. She looked up, filled with expectation. Was this a message from God? A divine mission?
The silence was broken only by the flapping of the angelic wings.
The serenity was disturbed by the stomping of boots.
A gigantic man strode up the mountain. Naked from the waist up, his bronze flesh was covered in scars. A silvery moustache covered most of his weather beaten face and one eye was reduced to a mass of scar tissue.
The titan grabbed the angle by one wing and pulled it down. They wrestled- for but a moment.
With a massive hand, he ripped off the angel’s face — or mask- to reveal a second visage.
Now it wore a human face- ugly and consumed by pain and self pity.

She awoke in the church.
No one seemed to have noticed. That was why she sat at the back.
She felt refreshed, but terribly cold.
The priest kept talking.
Restlessly, she sat through the rest of the sermon. As soon as possible, she left the church, rushed home, ate a sandwich and read restlessly- trying to distract herself until it was time to meet George.

LIVERPOOL, AT THAT MOMENT.

He sat, very much alone, on an old crate in an abandoned sector of the docks. The grey sea lapped against the seaweed infested pier.
Where is she now and what is she doing?
He hadn’t really tried to find her when she had run away.
It had been inevitable. At first he had only intended to look after her until he could return her to her parents- a few hours at most. That had turned to days and any family had been unreasonably difficult to find. He had no choice but to raise her as his own child and had come to love her very much. He had taught her as best he could, she was a natural fighter, but she had never taken to the old gods. She loved the Arthurian legends but never grasped their true meaning.
She was always going to leave.
He looked out at the sea and cloudy sky above and suddenly felt very old.
Damn it- he was getting old.
How old would she be now? 24? 26? He cursed himself for not remembering.
Maybe soon it would be time to look for her. Maybe.
He stood up and stretched.
There was a job to do that evening. Basic exorcism. He needed a cup of tea and a pie first.

In the darkness, he walked home feeling weary. The streets were narrow and damp and smelt of salt. He loved those streets
He was so tired that he almost didn’t notice the envelope which had been posted under his door. But he did notice it. He put his kettle on, sat in his armchair then opened it.
Inside was a paper pulled from a notebook. A single word was written, neatly in pencil- KENDAL.

PART THREE

KENDAL.

She could tell from the look on his face that this was not what he had been expecting when she invited him back to her home after a few drinks. She ignored the look on his face and continued.
“It’s a bottle of holy water, it can protect you,” she explained.
She handed him a small glass bottle the size of a hip flask. It had a silver neck and lid which were decorated with celtic crosses and knotwork.
“How much of it do I drink?” George asked.
“You don’t! Merely carrying it should protect you, if you see one of the Enemy again you can splash water at it.”
“I see, cheers.”
“And I know you can’t carry this all the time, but you can wear this all the time. An unbroken ring of silver. It will protect you and you can think of it as a holy knuckle duster.”
He grinned as she handed him the narrow ring, then his face lit up with pride as he put it on his little finger. He leaned forward to kiss her, firstly shyly, then passionately but with a gentleness greater than his massive shoulders and hands would suggest possible.
This pleased her greatly, until one hand slowly reached up her blouse.
“No, not now!” she pulled back sharply. “But you can sleep next to me tonight if you like.”
He nodded sheepishly and took off his boots.

She was pleasantly surprised when she woke the next day to see him fully dressed and making cups of tea.
When he saw that she was awake, he kissed her on the cheek and stroked her hair. She slowly got out of bed and sat at the table next to him. They both were still sleepy and didn’t have much to say. Awkwardly, he started looking through her pile of books. Most of them seemed to confuse him.
“Oh, King Arthur! I loved those stories when I was a lad,” he said at last.
“Yes, they are beautiful stories, but there’s a lot of symbolism in them also….” she replied.
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, he thought for a while.
“How about we go up Serpentine for a walk after breakfast,” he suggested after a while.
“Where?”
“Serpentine Woods… you know… Coffin Woods? I forget, you’re not from Kendal. You know, the woods just behind Fell Side, on the hill, it’s not far from here.”
“Serpentine? Coffin? Why do they have such morbid names?”
“I’ll tell you the story if you go there with me.”

Trails curved and interlinked crazily up the sleep slope where the woods grew. Wild masses of oak, yew and ash were occasionally interrupted by short, jutting limestone cliffs. The slope and trees prevented you from seeing far and the paths crossed at absurd angles, yet George navigated effortlessly. As they walked he explained how, after a great plague, the woods had been used as a mass burial site. This didn’t seem to bother him at all, but he did mention how only a madman would come to the woods after dark. She made a mental note to investigate the area one night.
“… and this place I reckon you’ll like the most. We call it the fairy spring,” he continued proudly.
Under the shade of a huge yew tree, a spring trickled down a moss covered cliff into a circular pool made of roughly cut stone blocks.
The area radiated timeless calm. For a moment, she was transported back to reading about Morgana La Fey in her childhood.
Wordlessly, she embraced him.

As they kissed, Helen was far from happy
In the Town Hall’s little, messy staffroom, she was frantically trying to call her friend. Her free hand- which held a cigarette- shuck terribly as she listened to the phone right again and again. After the fourth try, Helen gave up. She went out onto the street and lit another cigarette.
On the busy, sunny street, it didn’t seem so bad. She would just stay above ground cleaning for the rest of the day, there was plenty to do upstairs.
The other girls wouldn’t mind me doing their job for them. It’ll be alright. But I have to see her soon. I could go to The Globe in the evening. That would be nice.

She didn’t feel like working. It had been such a nice day, and now she was stuck doing the 5pm to 10pm shift in that stuffy pub. Everything smelt of stale beer and cigarettes and it was so gloomy. The pub was full and half the customers were already drunk. If she was lucky she’d be able to leave by 10.25.
Suddenly Helen burst in with a cigarette in one hand and a pie in the other. She looked panicked for a moment, but as soon as she saw her friend, her face returned to its usual cheer.
“Bloody hell, I’m glad to see you, can you get me a pint of lager and lime, I need it!” Helen blurted out.
She sank half her pint in one go and finished her pie, then started talking- a lot.

With frequent swearing and pausing only to sip from her pint, Helen told how the cellars of the town hall were always so cold and it made her miserable to work down there. Then this morning (it was embarrassing to say but she swore it was true) she had seen a ghost. She couldn’t describe the ghost, other than it was really, really scary.
“Ghost can’t hurt you,” she said, pouring her friend another drink and REALLY hoping that it was only a ghost.
“That’s what my boss said, but he doesn’t have to work down there alone all day,” said Helen.
“Alright… try to make it as bright as you can, keep all the doors open… There might be a ghost, it’s an old building, or it might just be cold and dark… Could you take a radio down there to cheer you up?”
“Maybe… but there are the tunnels too, that’s the worst bit, the room with the locked trapdoor down to all the tunnels… miles and miles of bloody tunnels…” Helen was getting upset.
“I’ve heard about that, but I thought the tunnels under Kendal were just a story for kids,” She said.
“No, they are real,” the tall, gaunt policeman had silently joined them and decided to speak, “I’ve been down there, years ago. Don’t recommend it.”
“Really? You’ve been down there?” Helen’s curiosity got the better of her fear.
“Aye. Once. There are bad things down there, but I didn’t see any ghosts, so don’t you worry about that,” then he walked off without another word.
This seemed to improve Helen’s mood. For the rest of the evening she was happy to gossip about that policeman, and George and a ‘fit’ clerk she had met at work.
She was exhausted by the time she finally got out of The Globe. She walked home as fast as she could, thoughts flashing through her head like a storm. Helen- Ghosts- Policeman- George. It was too much. Fortunately she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Moments after she fell asleep and only a hundred yards from her home… a purse snatcher ran from the scene of his crime, leaving a distressed, drunken, teenage girl in his wake.
He jumped nimbly down a short fight of steps and kept going.
Not far now, round the corner, two more alleys then I’m home, safe and sound…
Then a blinding pain in the face that knocked him on his back.
It was as though he had run into a brick wall. But that was impossible, he knew the streets like the back of his hand.
The horrible reality of the situation dawned on him after he received a brutal kick in the ribs, followed by being relieved of the purse. Looking up through bruised eyes, he saw a narrow, tanned face with icy blue eyes bearing down on him.it was that policeman. Shit.
He had run round the corner into an expertly placed truncheon.
“Remember, I’m always here lad, always watching, all the bloody time,” the tall, gaunt policeman said, then kicked him again.
He walked off to find the victim of the crime. Then he could go home. It had been a good day.

He arrived in Kendal on the train the next morning.
The first thing he noticed was the overwhelming greyness. Grey cliffs, grey buildings, grey sky.
The second thing he noticed was the absence of the smell of the sea. It smelt of smoke and animal shit. There was not a hint of the familiar saltiness of the Liverpool coast.
Immediately he began to miss the sea.
Why would she choose to live here?
He took another moment to look around him and get his bearings- rows of grey houses, factories, a ruin on a hill.
He started walking into town, trusting his instincts to guild him.

She woke up in the afternoon, looked at the clock and cursed.
She had slept in. Quickly, he washed, then made tea and boiled an egg.
She walked to work rapidly. With every step thoughts flashed through her head. She needed to call Helen on her first break to check that she was ok. George was coming to see her near closing time.Suddenly she stopped dead in her tracks. Something was different. The air was a very pale blue between the clouds. The air smelled different, but very familiar. No time to ponder it, she was already late for work.

“Yeah, I think she’s alright,” the town hall clerk said, “I saw her at morning tea break, but haven’t seen her since then,”
“Ok, if you see her, please ask her to pop in The Globe when she finishes work.”
“Aye, will do.”
“Thanks.”
“Alright, see you.”
She hung up, finished her tea and went back to work at the bar. She really hoped that Helen would pop in later. For now, she had to focus on her work. Fortunately it was a quiet night. It was raining heavily, so not many people were out. Two old men sat in a corner drinking stout and a younger man was practising darts alone. Apart from that it was empty, so quiet that she could work on her poem.
Helen didn’t turn up.
By 9.45 the pub was empty so she swept the floor and went home.
As soon as she got home, she rang Helen, but there was no answer. Then she ate supper and called George. He didn’t have much to say, just complained about the weather and planned to meet her at the weekend. It was reassuring to have a down to earth conversation. She tried to call Helen and again there was no answer. Her mum must be out somewhere. Hopefully Helen was with her. She decided to visit the town hall the next day.

That Policeman was not having a good evening. Helen’s mother had come into the station at about 2100 hours and was clearly very drunk. She insisted that her daughter was missing and that he send out a ‘search party’. She tried to explain that it was too soon to report her as a missing person, and she should call the station if Helen was not home in another 24 hours. Her mother wouldn’t listen, or leave. He reassured her that it was normal for young women to spontaneously stay with friends. Then he called the hospital to check that she wasn’t there. Then he sternly asked her to leave and stated that he had more important things to do. He went to check on the prisoners and write a report. When he came back, she was still there, sipping from a hip flask. Eventually he promised to file a report and that he, personally, would look for her tomorrow. Only then did the woman stagger home.

She woke just before midday, had tea and porridge, washed, then tried to call Helen’s house. When there was no answer, she decided it was time to take things seriously.
In addition to the usual weapons, she packed a small bag with a torch, candles, a lighter, chalk and a small jar of salt. Then she walked over to the town hall. For the first time in many years, she wished that the man from Liverpool was with her.
First she went to the staff room to ask if anyone had seen Helen. No, they hadn’t and the manager was not happy. She behaved as though she was going to leave but quietly went downstairs to the first basement.
Immediately she knew why people didn’t like working down there. It was unreasonable cold (she knew well what this could signify) and the outdated lighting cast odd shadows where there should be none.
The first cellar was large and contained piles of spare furniture for special occasions. The room next to that was smaller and had a long row of old filing cabinets and some antique chairs. The next door led to a steep, narrow stone staircase. There was a lightbulb, but it flickered. She started using her torch and moved her dagger to her belt before descending.
The stairs seemed to go down forever and the tiny, uneven steps forced her to walk at a snail’s pace. The air grew dramatically colder and damper. She had the unnerving sense of being watched, but she did not yet directly feel the presence of evil. She walked until she finally reached a wooden door which she fumbled to open.
That room was a large cube. The bare stone walls were damp but apart from that it was clean. Ofcourse, Helen had cleaned it only a few days ago. There were piles of mouldy wooden crates and nothing more. On the opposite wall was a solid iron door with a huge bolt.
The cold was intolerable. She almost heard footprints, but too faint to be sure, it could be dripping water. She looked carefully at the door. There were no locks, only the bolt. Its only purpose was to lock out something. First she shattered salt in front of the door. Then she made a circle of salt on top of the highest crate and placed a lit candle in it.
Taking a deep breath, she dragged the massive bolt across and pushed the door open.
This room had no lights but a little shone through the door. Looking around with her torch, she saw that this room had never been cleaned. Mould, moss and rat shit were everywhere. The only feature was a stout trapdoor with another massive bolt. She lit another candle on the driest patch she could find and began struggling to slide open the rusty bolt.
“I cannot let you go down there-” a voice boomed.
She turned to see the tall, gaunt policeman, lantern in hand, looking down on her from the iron door.
“You can’t stop me!” she snapped.
“Let me finish,” he said. “I can’t let you go down there alone. I’m coming with you.”
In a moment her frustration was replaced with relief.
“Can you help me with this bolt?” she asked.

The stench in the tunnels was horrendous. Damp and the droppings of rats and bats (which shattered at the approach of their lights) and something else sickly sweet. It was by following that smell that they soon found Helen.
Rats had already started to gnaw at her. There were strangulation marks around her neck.
She knelt down beside her friend, grasping her cold, bloody hand, and wept.
The policeman methodically took out his notebook and started to write neatly in pencil. Only after a couple of minutes did he seem to remember the woman.
“This is a police matter now. Her mother will be informed. Please go home, rest, meet George… G
But please go home,” he told her.
Silently, she stood and walked away. As she climbed the steps she could hear him talking on his radio. The unnatural cold had left the tunnels.
They wanted me to see that, she thought.

When she got home she took her notebook and simply wrote;
“There is no God.”
Then she lay on her bed and cried.
After just over two hours, she was roused from her bed of misery by three loud knocks on the door. She quickly washed her face and opened the door to find that policeman.
“Yes?” was all she could say.
“Alright? I came to check up on you,” he said as gently as he could, which was not very gentle.
“Thanks, but there is nothing you can do for me,” she replied.
“In that case I must inform you that in a few days you will be invited for formal questioning- as a known acquaintance of the deceased. Is there anything you can tell me now? Any thing that might assist us?… Anyone you may have wished Helen harm?”
“No. There is no PERSON who would have wished her harm. No enemies or rivals or ex boyfriends.. And I can tell you that your investigations will never find the true killer. I have nothing more to say to you. Goodbye.”.
“I reckoned so. If you won’t talk to me, maybe you’ll want to talk to him.”
As the policeman left, George appeared meekly from behind the door. She immediately fell into his arms.

The next morning George cooked her breakfast and then they went for a walk up to the castle.
As they walked hand in hand up the steep hill, he noticed the look of surprise on her face as the crumbling walls and towers of the ruined castle slowly came into view.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been here either?” he asked.
“No, I don’t get too much time to myself,” she replied.
He thought about this for a moment and decided to just keep walking. Soon they stood in the centre of the old castle. One tower and the keep were almost intact. The rest was a jigsaw ring of broken walls and hints of buildings.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said. “Do you know much about its history?”
He told her a great length as they walked a circuit. On top of one high wall, a man was sitting with his back to them as though he was gazing down on the town below. His long, white hair blew in the wind.
It cannot be him, it’s impossible.
She decided to keep walking and listening to George. Before long they were back at the spot where the gates used to be.
“Where would you like to go next?” he asked.
She squeezed his hand, pleased with how hard he was trying to distract her from her grief.
“To be honest, I’d like a drink… anywhere apart from The Globe.”
“There is a nice larl pub at the bottom of the hill,” he said and gently led her.

Dawn light appeared through the paper thin curtains.
She lay with her arms and legs wrapped around George. It had been good- really good. Not quite what she had expected, but then she had never really known what to expect. Helen had gossiped about second hand accounts, but that was all.
Poor Helen.
George was still sleeping and she wanted him to stay that way. He looked so peaceful.
She wrapped the blanket closer around herself, suddenly feeling cold.
The shadows began to lengthen.
Not now, surely not now!

“She died because of you…” the voice whispered in her ear,” and this is how you mourn her?”
“No…”
“And how will you defend yourself now? Where is the purity that guarded you? You are no longer as pure as the ringing of a bell. You are a broken thing. Dirty, soiled and lost.”
She tried to move but her limbs were as cold and solid as ice. She tried to talk but her mouth was bone dry.
“Helen was first. George will be next- while you watch. Finally we will finish you. We have been waiting a long time for you, we can wait a little longer to savour the moment,” it hissed inside her head.
And then there it was, sitting on her dining table. It pointed at her, just as it had done when she was a child.
She focused all of her energy into her right hand, trying to raise it to form a warding sign. She could not. Her weapons lay on the floor, mixed up with her clothes, not that it mattered when she couldn’t move.
It reached out to her with impossibly long arms.

The door flew open and the old man was standing there. The man who had carried her from the ruins long ago. He stood shirtless, long, white hair flowing- the runes of his barbarous Gods scrawled in purple on his muscular body.
“I am Deus Ex Machina. You did not think I would abandon you?” he asked her.
He took a step forward, taking in the scene and understanding all.
“Morgana! Stand up, in the eyes of the Gods of our ancestors you will always be pure,” he called out.
At that moment, George woke up but was paralysed by shock.
The demon stood, clenched its clawed fists and grew until its head touched the ceiling. Darkness swamped half of the room where it loomed.
Far away, church bells rang out for morning service.
She gathered the strength to raise one hand.
“Get the bastard,” George managed to mutter.
An image of Helen’s smiling face flashed before her eyes. Then an image of her mutilated corpse. Deep in her soul, she heard bombs falling over Liverpool.
With the agility of a panther, she leaped from bed and stood to face the monstrosity.
“Where is my sword and where is my cup?” she demanded of the universe.
A chalice of golden fire appeared in her left hand, a sword of burning silver in her right. Her face radiated light and her naked body was aglow. The bells continued to ring, the sound clear in the silent room.
“The Earth belongs to us,” she stated.
Then she thrust her sword where the demon’s heart should have been.
All darkness left the room.

THE END

LIVERPOOL, 1974

“Sometimes I still remember that night,” George said wistfully as he sipped his whiskey. “Did it all really happen? Sometimes, it is like it never happened at all.”
She looked out of the window at the narrow street where children played. Then up above the crowded roofs at the cloudy sky. Where the Gods live.
“Yes, sometimes,”she said and stroked his hair.
But for her, it was never over.