The Western Gate

Complete and Full Text of the book ~ ‘The Fallen Angel’

Foreword to ‘wordpress’ Edition;-
I remember now why I stopped using wordpress. I’d write poems or short stories, copy and paste them and suddenly the whole formatting was askew. Paragraphs popping up from some invisible dark matter dimension and sentences broken where, in the original, they wasn’t. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason or even for the benefit of the cosmic joker why WordPress, and admittedly pasting to other formats, decided they’d adopt their own way of presenting pasted text. Sometimes I’d spend longer formatting and realigning text than the time it took to actually write the piece. To be honest who can bothered with all that fuckery eh? so I gave up.
And now I’m back to square one moving three steps forward and one askew as the horse. Or as every esoteric chess player knows~ One move for the Goddess and one move for thyself.
So, lets try again, copied and pasted below is a book I released years ago, and yes, the formatting without a doubt isn’t 100%, there will be mid sentence breaks that continue on a new paragraph because WordPress has created some time-killing rabbit wormhole, for some reason.
I’m not going to edit anymore, because it’s a stupid waste of time wrestling with online text editors.
Anyway, the story! It was a collection of odd characters that were compiled to form a book. Now, yes, it is contrived. Lots of clichés etc, because each little piece has been bolted together to form a whole. The basis of all the characters and indeed places are all based on real people and real locations from one time or perhaps another. The events, sometimes dramatised (aren’t they all) are all based on experiences that happened perhaps with a pinch of seasoning for taste, and if you don’t believe me, I neither care nor am I concerned.

The Fallen Angel
By David Wenborn

Early Smiles(Dedicated to my wife)
i.
Let the night envelope you
In a trance of a thousand smiles.
I am not known but for the curtsey;
Of the wind upon my lips.
In dreams seek the wild and near misses.
I dream with the wolves,
I surrender to the dark and the moon.

ii.
Let the oceans shower you
with their mesmeric song.
I am not there, but for the mist;
Caressing your brow.
In thoughts find the paths hard and long.
I sing with the Ibis,
I bow to a long forgotten tune.

iii.
Let the lightning rage Empower your being.
I am a distant rumble; That beats with a heart.
Take all the chances of greeting or fleeing.
I talk with the serpents,
I hide in the woods whom I married.

iv.
Let the heavens above Sing your praises.
I whisper old love songs;
Seek the avenues of life and their phases.
I chant backwards to a cow.
I praise the seasons of the sun that she carried.
v.
Let the world to such beauty be spellbound.
I am but a glance; To admire your soul.
You will do as you will;
Take that, you found.
Pass me by! I am but a near silent desert.
The ever shifting sand.

Foreword
For as long as I can remember I’ve always had an obsession with the esoteric, the occult.
I’ve read those spiritual books, you know the ones that the well to do would praise in coffee shops or at art gallery launches before dismissing them months later when something else came along~ Paulo Coelho, The Celestine Prophecy, The Da Vinci Code etc, anything faddish, anything new and trending. Like fashion or trends, they seem to disappear. The fickle flight of fancy.
Now, let’s have a look at the problems, The Da Vinci Code… I don’t meet museum curators nor have prearranged audiences with professors. I can’t jet off on Inca trails or meet shaman in exotic lands at the drop of a hat. How do these people find time or the money for these pursuits? It’s not real, some of us struggle with doing things we need to do, let alone things we want to do. Every film or programme on TV will show you hapless adventurers and archaeologists flying all over the world at a moment’s notice when it takes me months of planning to go to a gig on my doorstep. These travellers have access to eminent anthropologists and mystics and gurus and professors….
…….,My insights come from crackheads and potheads, people with serious mental issues, in other words, my normal and local community.

I’ve been to various seminars and lectures in London. There’s a few that pop up, from bookstores to small artisan café/bars and occasionally a small art gallery, but, to be honest though I love the subject matter I don’t seem to have much else in common with others that go, or perhaps I’m antisocial.
I feel distant, I feel apart from them even though we discuss the same things, To me I see them as fragile flowers and I feel like an invasive weed of a plant amongst them.
They seek, for want of a better word, enlightenment, I seek the same… perhaps, though it’s probably more knowledge I’m after to quench that existential worry.
They wear pseudo-hippy clothes, I wear doctor martens, jeans and combat jackets. Their hair drapes across their shoulders, mine is shaved to the skull, well actually it fell out in my 20’s, a mixture of testosterone and lifestyle.
They congregate in groups, lighting joss-sticks, smoking marijuana, analysing great philosophic tomes. I’d be at home or on a park bench drinking cloudy cider and flicking through the latest West Ham United football club program…… though that’s not strictly true. That’s my ego speaking, that’s me fulfilling the prejudices you’d have if you met me. That’s me talking down people, everything I’ve wrote so far is a blanket judgement, , to create some form of self pity, its me belittling myself because I do not adhere to what is perceived as we should be. It’s true I love football and cloudy cider but equally I immerse myself upon a spiritual path. And I don’t know why.
Many years ago I began studying the Indian Upanishads. This was because I decided to stop smoking copious amounts of pot, but still felt the need to blow my mind on something. I still needed that wild fire input of strange ideas and wow factors. So, philosophy… and The Upanishads a collection of wisdom gathered centuries ago and written in Sanskrit. I felt a connection, familiar. To a dyslexic person sentences seem warped and confused yet as I looked at the Sanskrit passages I became aware I had read this all before, and the strange warped and confused writing blurred into form. I recognized the Sanskrit writing and could finish some sentences before I had read them. When I progressed to the huge Buddhist archives, I convinced myself that in a previous life, I must have been a student of this teaching. It was all too familiar. I could imagine the reaction of the bohemians from the lectures if I dared to reveal this. So I kept quiet. I’m not suggesting for one moment I am a past guru or a present Bodhisattva… I was probably a very fidgety student somewhere, constantly getting slapped on the head by the teacher with a bamboo stick.
Who knows, as Carl Jung said, knowledge could all be an archetype that is inherent in everyone. The path is more experience than learning like a parrot I always believed, I’d take titbits of information and put it to the test.
Allow me to digress and return to that Herbert yobbo by which you would judge me. Football hooligans! I have seen and experienced huge adrenaline rushes in skirmishes that empower the muscles and heighten the awareness, an instant focus of ‘here and now’ oblivious to other concerns. There were old warriors called ‘berserkers’ who went into a trance becoming as strong as ten men. Is this spiritual? Or the body being self-protective? Is it divine strength from above or just adrenaline and cortisone and serotonin. This isn’t something some, as one of my friends describes them, “sandal wearing cunt” could achieve, breathing furiously during a tantric meditation in a freak-out ashram. No shifty eyed gurus in my world with fake smiles- just thousand-yard staring schizophrenics and frustrated laughter. I dedicate this to the subcultures- wiser than the middle-class ‘New Ager’ will ever, ever be.

Introduction.
I was to write a book! People told me I should. It was to be a collection of stories gained from travels around Britain, meeting pseudo hippies, new age travellers and commune dwellers from my network of ‘untouchables.’ Inspired by Tony Hawkes~ ‘Travelling around Ireland with a fridge.’ I would call it, ‘Travelling around mystical Britain with a goat called Baphomet.” The plan started badly. I couldn’t locate a horny goat nor find hotels willing to put up with the damned beast. From my travels I was directed to more offbeat locations not mentioned in new age texts, it was like entering a Masonic lodge and progressing through ever more obscure rites. I would wander this way and that way. Grabbing this morsel of information, this nugget in the rock seam to find fools gold, more often than not.
Would anybody be interested in my observations? The blogs I created on the Internet attracted 30 people then 300 then 3000 and I ceased writing having a phobia of attention.
I sit in pubs and psychoanalyze the people there, listening to conversations across the way with an invisible ear trumpet creating Edgar Allen Poe-esque novels from the glimpses and insights of what I see and hear. That’s how I think and write, these accounts, greatly exaggerated, tall tales and a big wallop of artistic license?
Just like new agers! Just like the bohemian hippies at the London mystical lectures. New agers see omens and signs in shifting cloud patterns when in reality it’s the part of the brain that deals with creativity, adapting to ever shifting patterns and assessing possibilities and permutations. Fuck all to do with extra sensory perception, just…imagination. Strange formations in rockfaces on Mars, suddenly become an old Egyptian sphinx, or patterns in tree bark must surely be the face of Jesus.
‘They’ understand a hidden meaning in an apparition arising, I saw the same illusion but understood, from solvent abuse, it was just the brain trying to create a familiar image to associate with, to label, familiar or peculiar. … to know if the strange image arising before me is danger or not.
My brain fills itself with ever spiralling situations and dramas from the simplest of observations. Though I know many of these paths are but a folly I still wander as a fool to tread them, if nothing else it is better to be alternative than the accepted and dismissed. It is better to be a fool and remembered than ‘normal’ and forgotten.
If we take the Tarot card as a reference, the path of the fool has no number,… free… I am not a number, I will not be constrained. I am the fool, unhindered by ambition to achieve great heights of fortune and fame, and happy to walk along the cliff edge to see, however treacherous, a better view.

I was directed to the subject of this book by an old gentlemen, eccentric of course, who, to his credit, said if I wanted to meet people to really fuck my mind (though he actually said ‘challenge the boundaries of my perception’) I should go to the ‘Fallen Angel Tavern’ in Priory Deeping.
I didn’t pay much attention to the dotty old fellow who tinkered with old clocks and had an overbearing smell of stale condensed milk until this location was also seconded by a new age questing fanatic, Vivienne Hodges. “Yes!” he declared as if this was some inner temple secret, “The area is full of curios and unwritten legends…the barmaid is gorgeous and barking mad too”.
This was from a guy who smoked pot like we breathe oxygen. Perhaps I should have been suspicious. I left the idea of visiting the area like a festering sore but time and time again this mysterious place was mentioned, synchronicity, hear it for the first time and like some magnetic convoy of fate it appears again and again.
It warranted a recce.
I could include it as a chapter in my book.
As it turned out, it ended up as the book.
Not having read ‘A dummies Guide to Writing a Novel’ I doubt my style is orthodox. I make no apologies. Self-taught guitarist, artist, sound engineer etc it’s how I like it.
Why can’t we all be renaissance in character? Explore our creative side. Why suppress it? Being passive in front of the hypnotic TV screen, the real opium of the masses. Watching soap operas of people who parody our lives whilst we wallow in stagnation, watching misery.
My hobby is hobbies, and most of them involve some form of creative input. With albums playing in the background (Vinyl of course! Nothing else but Vinyl!) I’d while away the cold winter nights making model tanks and making them look like post apocalypse vehicles, painting strange things on canvas, making fanzines, booklets, mock and fake literature to leave on the tube trains, making video blogs, the list is endless.
I’m not an expert in any of them. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I think the greatest gift we have as humans is that we never stop learning.
There’s always a new approach or scale to learn on guitar, a new artist whose works are wowing the glitterati in London or even old obscure artists who suddenly rise to the riflescope of a fickle public. There’s always a new focus and perspective with the camera…. But… writing… writing a book?
I don’t have the pleasure of an executive writing bureau with green leather inlay on which to conduct my writing. Instead I steal time at work scribbling my thoughts in smelly toilet pods or on workbenches, on overcrowded trains with nosey bastards trying to decipher my scrawls.
I did make one concession and purchased a notebook, a posh one!
Unlike my other projects I vowed I would continue this instead of having a story left in the corner of a shelf like other unfinished symphonies scribbled on cheap notepads.
So that’s it, my raison d’être, my excuses and introduction.
Does anybody read introductions, or forewords? I don’t. I skip straight to chapter one. So, if people like me read this book, then this introduction will be a waste of time.

DAY ONE
Chapter One
The Fallen Angel

“If you want to meet some really eccentric people, within an area of mystery then I thoroughly recommend you visit The Fallen Angel Tavern” said Bernard Crème- Clock wrecker extraordinaire peering over his glasses whilst whittling away at an antique clock. I had established Bernard had never actually fixed a clock though he is proud to boast he has been an avid collector and tinker of clocks for some thirty years. He inhaled deeply and quickly upon his rolled-up cigarette, spat out some tobacco and continued speaking with deliberate authority as if he were Basil Rathbone in a Sherlock Holmes mystery.
“I was informed of the area and became interested in a road adjacent to the Fallen Angel Tavern called ‘Dead Clock Lane’, I was told by some well thinking people that this was a charmed avenue that, for my interest, causes dead clocks to begin working again.”
He wafted his hands to dismiss the claim but then added, “perhaps it’s the content of magnetic granite type rock there or something.”
I sat bolt upright throughout this and listened as he relayed this tale spitting out tobacco at the end of every sentence.
“Very Strange,” he continued, “ mmm….”
He peered at me, wondering whether I viewed this story with ridicule and looked deep into me like he was a flame and I the moth.
His handmade cigarette dimmed, and I watched the last ember of burning tobacco die, neglected by Bernard’s attention.
“Bah!” he cried and struck a match to relight it, “ I love the taste of a striking match”
The sulphurous match flared and shot through the baggy clumsy cigarette that Bernard now inhaled upon.
“Did your clocks work there?” I asked.
His eyes squinted, and he answered, “no, I didn’t take my collection there.”
The irony caused me to slump back into the chair. He continued talking about the peculiar characters and how odd they all were. This daft old codger being self-righteous. It reminded me of a story;- how a lunatic was telling someone he was Napoleon because God told him so, whilst another lunatic piped up, “No I didn’t”. The pecking order of the asylum. That’s how it was as I sat there listening to Bernard.
He was one of those quirky characters whom I instantly liked when I attended mystical lectures at a paranormal bookshop in London, and I very rarely like anyone- “middle class white woman”- my mixed race girlfriend called them, and that meant they had their head up their arse, and their noses looked down at everyone but their own like click.
I was never sure why Bernard went, he had no extensive knowledge like the usual occult fanatics, he was just ‘out there’.
He could talk about anything, he believed it was better to know little about a lot of things than a lot about few things. I totally agreed, having been my approach to hobbies for decades. He would tell me about the beatnik scene as if he was there, then describe his days as a hippy before fast forwarding to describing those halcyon days when punk rock broke.
A scavenge around his bookshelves yielded little clues to his psyche.
His favourite book was, The history and processes of cement, signed by the author. “Who would buy or covet such a book?” He said.
I got it, I understood that reasoning, that infallible lust for individuality. In a way I suppose that book represented himself, outside of acceptability, jeered and ignored, but he didn’t care. I spied a copy of a book I once owned on his shelf~ ‘The Observers book of aircraft.’ It was the cold war edition, the Russian MIG fighter jets photographed secretly, grainy snaps. “Ah, my favourite aircraft,” he said taking the book back from me. He placed it precisely into an allocated spot on the bookshelf, “secret!” He said back to me tapping the book.
I knew he was off the beaten track, and that’s why I liked the afternoon sessions around his flat, tea with condensed milk, sharing the table with a stripped-down Triumph Bonneville engine. An engine that would never roar again whilst it was in Bernard’s possession.
The information regarding the Fallen Angel served to arouse my curiosity and he searched for some contact details. These he found in a shabby merchant’s cabinet in a drawer labelled, ‘bits of string no good for anything’ that was between drawers labelled ‘long bits of string’ and ‘short bits of string’. I don’t actually think there was ever bits of string in any of these drawers, it was Bernard’s strange metaphor for something or other. When I left Bernard’s house my immediate thought was to toss the information away as I would a phone number from some one off drunken back alley leg trembler (that’s not true actually, I was a gentleman and could count the one night stands on the elbows I’ve shoved in my ear)…… bits of string no good for anything… it wasn’t a good omen.
Well, that was the first time I had heard of the Fallen Angel Tavern, but after that, everyone I met in occult circles began talking about it.
“Synchronicity” (yes… that… again), that eminent parapsychologist boffin Carl Jung calls it. Like hearing a word for the first time and then it keeps popping up.
When Vivienne Hodges, a psychic quester of some talent began to sing its praises I phoned The Fallen Angel to book a room in its guest suites, for a week!
Why?
I don’t know.
The excursions for my tome involved overnight stays, at best a long weekend. I rang the tavern, to book a room for the weekend, and a sultry voice at the end of the line lured me in. I could hear the strange flute of snake charming music in the background. If ever there were reasons to question sanity? Seven nights in an area recommended by pedestrians of Loolally Lane. Somewhere over the rainbow. It was strangeness and quarks, it was bizarre, it was string theory. So I went.

Priory Deeping Station is little more than a rundown hovel, complete with old posters from the sixties that have never been replaced. Advertisers obviously regarding the commercial possibilities of the village as negligible. The flowerpots caked with moss and filled therein with all manner of weeds. Pointless me having bought a ticket. There was no-one there to collect it, I should have bunked the fare and saved myself a few ‘bob.’
No taxi rank outside. No bus stop. There was a welcoming sign in the window of the café opposite, however. I walked into the homely café with the express intention of asking directions to The Fallen Angel Tavern but ended up purchasing a cup of tea served in a bone china cup and saucer. A fragile piece that frightened the life out of me. My clumsy fingers manipulated the pathetic handle, sized for a delicate person taught the art of finesse and etiquette…I wobbled the piece towards my mouth. I’m sure the proprietor of the café knew my struggle as she eyed me, waiting for me to drop the piece. It was some test of my character and status. Some weird village initiation. I wished I were in Greece, so I could throw the damn thing, and watch it shatter into a billion universes. Bernard told me once tea should always be best served in a bone china cup or at least translucent porcelain, he said this matter of factly whilst we sipped from cheap mugs at his place.
When all was done I carried the cup and saucer back to the lady so she could put it back on the shelf with all the other fragile la-di-da crockery.
I asked in my poshest attempt, “The Fallen Angel?”
With eyebrows raised, she looked me up and down and then pointed a reluctant finger out of the window which seemed to conduct a serpent’s jig over ancient Phrygian scales. I didn’t have a clue what she said; she may well have spoken lost Gaelic dialect. Perhaps she did. I managed to decipher her wiggling finger enough to reason the approximate way. It was early. Eight o’clock, I was in no hurry, it didn’t matter if for a while I got hopelessly lost.
The air was rich and perfumed. It battled with the clogged lungs of London life. I felt queasy, nauseous and strangely high. I whistled ancient melodies, old snake charming music and walked on.

Priory Deeping.
A typical English village, a trance, a suspended time zone. Satellite digital receivers give the village an appearance that it is in fact of this century, but there’s obviously something amiss, something very Stepford about it.
Still and quiet.
Empathetic to a graveyard, even the birds seem to sing futile songs. Slow chirps of surrender. Lyrics about spending all day pecking for worms. I wandered aimlessly and got the feeling that I’d entered a time slip and expected to see old Victorian gentlemen with handlebar moustaches walking with a stiff cane.
A quick scan to see the TV satellites appeased the wandering mind. A steam punk paradise…
A short walk when lost seems like you’ve walked for ages. I came to a mound by the roadside upon which a rustic bench was perched. I decided to rest and eat my homemade packed lunch. The bench overlooked a garden and there a rosy cheeked woman was pecking away at the flower beds.
She glanced at me. She saw a tall man with bovver boots and busied herself as if I were invisible. I found myself spying on her moves and was sure she noticed me looking at her.
My mind drifted, still paddling in the strange country air that made me high, reminiscing, I remember years ago lazing in my garden in the summer and I was looking at the next-door neighbour gardening. Every now and then the neighbour caught me looking. I thought nothing of it until two days later her husband erected 6ft high fences. I came to the awful conclusion she had regarded me as something of a leering pervert, which to be honest I was. Peering down her blouse, admiring her bottom as she knelt over her flowerbeds, rear end saluting welcoming visitors, and of course the augmented reality I impressed had me revealing a sub-plot from the worst soft-porn films of the 70’s.
With that memory I averted my attention from the gardener and began to eat my sandwiches, now feeling quite alone. I felt like Paddington Bear on that bench. All alone but happy to be eating marmalade sandwiches. Curiosity got the better of me and wondering what pose and posture the buxom gardener was in I flicked my head around. She was standing there. Facing me.
“Not ‘round here are you?” she asked sternly and somewhat predictably.
“No”, I replied “ I’m looking for the Fallen Angel Tavern?”
She looked me up and down in much the same manner as Miss Prim and Proper from the café.
“Follow this road around, turn left up Lamed way to the crossroads, there, you will see it.”
With that she folded her arms and glared at me. A hostile stance, the body language of which said, Now Fuck Off. So fuck off I did.

Following the road around I exited Priory Deeping and left its miserable birds to sing their staccato laments. Lamed Way lay before me, a long straight path that veered left in the very distance. Overgrown meadows either side odorized the air with a different, unfamiliar scent, I could feel my brain trying to decipher the olfactory assault. At first the smell was enlivening but then as I progressed it became a subtle narcotic altering my already anxious consciousness into a comfortable reverie. As I marched on, the distant curve of the road seemed static. Unmoving. Was I making any progress at all? I felt like a driver in mid-west America on one of those long wide roads that cut through the desert. Focusing on a distant mountain, far into the horizon, driving for hours, the mountain appearing the same. Perhaps it’s the poppies I reasoned and reminisced on Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, sprawled out by the poppy field, the gentle narcotic. As it was, thinking of those things I snapped from my daydream and the road was turning left! Bizarre.
To the right of me on this next stretch of road a thick dense wood lay, dark and mysterious. To the left up ahead a car park and farther up some small cottages. Deep into the distant I could see the road veered to the right. The processional time slip would play havoc with my mind again, however at least now I had marker points on which to rally my progress. I reached the car park and a sign read, ‘Car Park for Tamblin’s Wood ~ No Fires, No Picnics, No Litter, No Climbing, No Felling’, underneath it in a childlike scrawl somebody had wrote, ‘No Fun’. I walked on and came to the four cottages which were in fact four small shops.
The first an antiques shop, the second a pharmaceutical come general store, the third a rather sparse bakery and finally a shop with blacked out windows. All of them closed.
It was at this point I had the first of many doubts. What was I doing here? Why have I come to this place?
I’m sure the psychic quester Vivienne Hodges would liken my predicament to a pilgrimage, some quirk of instinct that belies common sense. Some insight or shamanistic vision. Some dance in the midst of chaos to witness the manifestation of form. Some other worldly complete load of bollocks.
The woods to my right crawled with invisible eyes. From deep inside I could hear peacocks squawking or crying, or whatever sounds it is they make. Crows watched my progress, I viewed them like vultures, waiting for death. Or maybe like the crows in the Disney film Dumbo, mocking me.
I reached the next turn of the road and old lightning hit trees greeted me. Gnarled knobbly stumpy beasts they were, obscuring a small church, almost fighting for space amongst climbing foliage that strangled the living daylight from them. Again, I pictured Dorothy in Oz reaching the woods where she and the scarecrow would throw apples at the trees. I vowed to never think of Oz again this week.
The trees cast an oppressive awe, it was as though God looked at the place and said, ‘this is a dwelling place of heathens’ and then threw a dozen thunderbolts at them, those guardians of the fruit of temptation.
My conclusion confirmed as I peered into the distance, the church was low lying, strange, why would lightning strike here and not in the hills or places so obviously on higher ground. It was a desolate place, a gothic scene, wonderful.
An overgrown graveyard marked the resting places of travellers like me who could venture no farther. It was that sort of feeling. I expected to find a cobweb ridden bus stop complete with skeleton.
In broken lettering the sign outside the church read. “Magdalene Church. Parish of Priory Deeping.” There was no order or service however, no communion times. Closed….. like the shops.
I paused for a moment, wondering whether to venture in, to poke around the desolate God forsaken place but the rising moorland ahead of me lured me forward, and not far down I could make out a crossroads. Nearly there. My steps quickened, I whistled, hummed and sang quietly through two old punk classics, ‘Lie lie lie’, by 999 and ‘Lullabies lie’ by the Crabs, the first songs I could think of about denial.
I looked up to view my progress. The crossroads. I was there. No scarecrow without a brain alas. just me.
Oz, ! its back again. Imagine if fate follows the will of your focus. You think of the story of Oz and some quantum entangled multiverse reveals the plot for you……
A four-finger sign displayed the ways. From whence I came~ Priory Deeping- 1 mile; to the left – Witch Peak Moor; Ahead – Pilgrims Folly (The Ironic Pass) and to the right unmarked…. nothing. No scarecrow without a brain, just me… meh.
However ! There, by the roadside, sunken so that only a battered looking thatched roof was visible, what must be, The Fallen Angel Tavern!

My euphoria turned to instant gloom however as approaching the disheveled hovel I saw a sign that read “The Sword and the Stone Public House.”
Amongst the serenity of this isolated piece of Britain I filled the air with curses that went something like, “For fuck’s sake, for fucking fuck sake.” I quickly scoured the scene around me, looking in all directions for another pub. Crossroads in these outback places often had a few drinking houses.
My ignorant mind reasoned that there was fuck all else to do here but farm and get drunk, but there was no other taverns. Fuck all else.
I looked over and saw Bernard Crèmes much beloved “Dead Clock Lane,” and hated it instantly. All along its path nothing but a few cottages. Equally run down. So, worst foot forward I ventured into the Sword and the Stone public bloody house to ask where the Fallen Angel was.
I climbed down three steps each of them sloped a different way so the weary traveller found himself falling headlong into the place. I walked across a small wild country garden created presumably by a maniac armed with a sack full of various seeds who scattered them to all four winds and every fart in a thunderstorm. Every colour represented. Foxgloves and Hollyhocks and frilly things and fragile things, wild herbs and poisonous things that would probably kill you in an instant, all fighting for a piece of the sun.
The door in front of me looked to have been borrowed from an old barn, a colossal hunk of a door. “Opening time 9:50, Closing time 10:10 or thereabouts”
With a gentle heave-ho it surrendered itself and opened to a gust of perfumes and incenses. Exotic smells. The subtle hints of nature yielding to a blitzkrieg of fragrance. I can’t say the Tavern and its patrons came to a nervous silence as one would hope in a wyrd scenario, wandering into an old village tavern. I think they all sat there like that.
In the corner sat an old man hunched over a pack of playing cards spread across the table. He looked at me with apathy, his glass frozen between the table and his mouth. Nestled beneath the window that overlooked the garden, a boy and a girl sat, both about twenty, both very similar looking. A married couple who fell in love because they looked like each other, or twins? But! The window. Magnificent. From the outside it looked like a huge grimy arched window, but inside! A beautiful stained-glass masterpiece. Instantly recognisable as St Michael slaying the Devil. “The Fallen Angel?” I questioned.

Upon the floor like some grandiose doorstopper, a red figure some 3 foot in height. I recognized the piece from my mystical travel research as being very similar to the demon Asmodeus whose statue resides in a church in the strange French town of Rennes-Le-Chateau. Immediately my suspicions were raised. Rennes-Le-Chateau being the subject of hoaxes, charlatans perpetuating fantastical myths. As soon as anything is remotely connected with Rennes-Le-Chateau my alarm bells trigger. A hoax. New age bollocks.
A fireplace roared displaying all manner of hues, and flames licked at blocks of wood which spat and hissed releasing the odours that first punched me in the face when I opened the door. There was nobody behind the bar as I walked towards it, but a clock displayed the time as 12:30. Ridiculous. I quickly removed my phone to check. It was true. Just as I was about to say the words I was caught by the song playing in the background. “Who knows where the time goes” the Fairport Convention classic. Sandy Denny singing my thoughts, It was a beautiful piece of coincidence. But, where had the bloody time gone. Four hours to walk one bloody mile? How long had I sat on that bench, or in the cafe or that strange timeless jaunt along Lamed Way. Confused I waited at the bar for someone to appear.
“Knock!” called the old man in the corner pointing to a gothic knocker affixed to a column on the bar. His bony finger shaking at it, the beer in his glass spilling over the rim onto his playing cards below. “tsk” he cursed.
I gave the knocker a few raps. Polite taps but the iron ornament gave out a colossal BANG BANG !
I might as well have emptied two shotgun barrels. I heard approaching footsteps that teased my anticipation and she walked from an unseen door behind the bar.
Floating.
A succubus beauty with long flowing red hair wearing a floor length emerald dress. Eyes that pierced me with accusation. I felt as if I were in the company of an old school mistress moments before a damn good thrashing.
She looked at the bastard knocker and then offered her hand, “Lillian De Court” she said emphasizing the T at the end of the name like a toastmaster announcing royalty.
Do I kiss the hand or what?
I shook her hand and said, “I take it this is the Fallen Angel Tavern? I’ve booked a room?” She half smiled, more that I shook her hand I gathered than revealing I was to be a lodger for a week.
She looked at me, probing. “Indeed, the Fallen Angel.”
As she said this she cast her hands over the tavern like an artist opening invisible curtains onto their finished painting, or Hannibal Lecter conducting an invisible orchestra before battering to death some vulnerable victim.
I unhooked my rucksack and tried to relax, “It said the Sword and the Stone outside, I wondered if it was the right place,” and laughed, a false nervous giggle. Cocking her head sideways she replied, “it’s always been the Fallen Angel, ignore the sign, they tried to rename it, but it never caught on.”
Her face relaxed a little and at last I saw some friendliness. The first hint of warmth since I arrived at Priory Deeping.
“The room’s not ready until two, would you like to eat or drink?”
“I’d love a scotch” I said.
As I spoke these words she had already plunged a glass into a malt whisky optic and plunged it upwards before I had even said the word, ‘scotch.’
Or maybe I hadn’t, maybe my mind was wandering still, walking aimlessly along a pointless path. “Here” she said, “On the house, brewed locally.”
With that, she scoured the tavern and glided back from whence she came.
“From whence she came I do not know” I said to no-one.
I shook my head, “what the fuck”, I frowned at my random words and spoke to myself again, “Tourette’s……fuck off.”
I stood there now, with three other people in the bar and an hour and a half to kill, presumably to drink my shot of wild west whisky. I’m damned if I was going to rap that devilish knocker again, I’d have to wait until someone else wanted a drink and tailgate behind them.
I took a seat by the psychedelic fire.
I looked around the Tavern and could see why Bernard and Vivienne so enjoyed this place. The rich aromas from the fire gave an impression with eyes closed that you were in a temple or a Moroccan Bazaar.
There was a large bookshelf by the statue of Asmodeus filled with old expensive looking tomes. The sort I’d pick up in a second-hand store and want immediately regardless of what the title was or what the book was about. Even if it was, The history of Cement.
These books wouldn’t last five minutes in a pub in my native Dagenham. Not that we’d steal them or anything so industrious. The locals would delight in throwing them on the fire.
I reminisced, the mind wandering like the spiraling smoke from the perfumed fire about some wisdom the local policeman (for that read: bastard in blue) revealed to us years ago when… I were a lad. P.C. Wilmot was his name. He’d greet you with a boot in the shin and ask you his name. “Wilmot” we’d say. Then he’d boot us again. “PC Wilmot to you”.
Anyway, he said the difference between boys from Barking, the neighbouring town, and those in Dagenham was that Barking boys would break into the school and steal the computers whilst those in Dagenham would break in, shit on the teacher’s desk and smash the place up.

It seemed a million miles away sat here. I looked upon the fireplace and saw a bronze statue. A hunched figure with wings, deep in thought like Rodin’s The Thinker. I got up oblivious to being watched by the other patrons and read the plaque. “Jean-Jaques-Feuchere- 1807-52- Satan.” I became mesmerised by the piece as I sipped the whisky, octane fuel, drinking a handful of bird’s eye chillies. A punch up the spinal column, deep into the brain where endorphins spilled to calm the attack. My forehead pounded in an instant. The whisky was that good.
Slightly unsteady I walked to the jukebox next to the fireplace. It was one of those old fifties looking things with hypnotic neon lights. On closer inspection though it housed in its frame a keyboard and VDU. “Enter Song Title” flashed the monitor. I’d never seen one of these before. Technology in duelling banjo country?
I thought for a moment before typing in an obscure, to non-punk rockers, title; – ‘The Beginning Of The End.’
“Enter Artist” the jukebox arrogantly requested.
“Cockney Rejects” I typed.
“Enter 20p” came the response.
For a moment as I stood there with twenty pence ready to drop into the slot I knew that I’d never see the money again, nor hear the song. The penny dropped (well the 20 penny), and Priory Deeping and Dead Clock Lane succumb to the street punk riffs of London’s east-ends finest herberts.
I couldn’t turn the damn thing down, but I felt warmed by the colossal onslaught of noise in this once silent sanctuary. The power chords of the song riffed their way to the almighty crescendo, the chorus yelled, “This is the beginning, the beginning of the end!”
“Indeed, it is!” called Lillian from behind the bar waving a remote control which in a zap reduced the volume to background audibility.
With that, she disappeared again.
I inspected the rest of the fellow patrons, half expecting them to be shielding their ears with their hands. The two lookalikes just sat there glaring at me with inquisitive eyes. I nodded to them. The girl nodded back, the boy turned and glared at her. The old man in the corner was oblivious. Staring blankly at his game of patience or other lonely card game spread over the table. I looked back at the jukebox and wondered in amazement what other obscure classics I could conjure but for now submitted myself to the tranquility of the place, walking back to my table so that I could analyze further this place. I looked along the jukebox to a corridor which pointed the way to ‘Male Toilets’.
I saw behind the open door a shadow fall across the floor. It lay there motionless. I craned my neck to reveal the figure, but it stepped backwards. I looked at the inky shadow for a while, still nothing emerged. A coat perhaps?
Across the roof of the tavern a huge oak beam stretched its way from one side to the other. Carved with bawdy scenes and roughhewn figures like misericords under old church pews. Midway into the tavern this rafter was supported by an intricate twisting column. It looked marble and again was carved with all manner of beasts and devils falling from height. I thought of the mystical ‘apprentice pillar’ in Scotland’s Rosslyn chapel. I looked at Asmodeus and then at the Rossyln column, my soul questioning as I sensed I was trapped in some sort of supernatural archetype, and it was a facade. This must be a facade. I stood in contrived occult surroundings.
Throughout the tavern pictures on the wall depicted scenes of angels in despair and other ornaments and oddities. An elaborate witch’s besom, Greenman bosses, some richly painted scarlet shoes~ruby slippers! A macabre Cuddly toy.
It was a gothic paradise.
I wondered if this was why Bernard and Vivienne loved the place but was it just a Disneyland for Goths… in the middle of nowhere.
Across the bar I saw a sign pointing to another corridor which caused me some mild excitement;- “Entrance-crypts-tours, second Monday of each month.”
In chalk below someone had added with an arrow, ‘and Ladies toilets also this way’
No-one I had spoken to before regarding this place had mentioned crypts before. Perhaps it was a folly sign. Thinking about it though, when this place came up in conversation the information came in short spurts. Like a secret. A closely guarded treasure. Little was said without prompting. “You have to see for yourself ” spoke Vivienne.
I took another sip of whisky. POW! right between the eyes. Immediately I felt I had to get up and walk around. I walked to the bookshelf and read the titles, “The Lost Books of Enoch”, “The Agnihotra Upanishad”, “The rites of Bon-po”, “Chronicles of the Nephilim”, “The critiques of Solon”…..the arcane list went on. Sprawled across the shelf some leaflets; – The Fallen Angel Tavern ~ A short history.
I took one back to my table and read;

The History Of The Sword and the Stone Tavern formerly The Fallen Angel
A tavern has stood upon this ground since the 5th century at the earliest and 7th century at the latest estimated date. The origins of this building reveal it was first erected as a chapel but evidence shows it was also used as a drinking establishment. This has lead to the theory it was constructed as a sectarian and selective temple which is authenticated by old architectural drawings which were signed with the seal of an order of knights known as “The Holy Order of Mary the Red”. There are no other records of such an order, this was some 700 years before the existence of the order of the Knights Templar. Details of the existence of a pre-7th century building are recorded in a command from the King- Wilfred- to have the “chapel and all its foundations ground to dust, that lieth upon the approach to the spiral folly path, that lieth before the great moor that overlooketh the expanse. Upon the ground thou shall erect a new and sacred site.”
Now that’s how it was wrote, English as far as I understood was a new language, made standard by Elizabeth the first? So there’s no way king Wilfred would speak like that, I reasoned that I had been duped. I looked about the tavern. I’ve spent a lot of money to stay here ….for a week… I felt deflated. It was like coming to a place you’ve been looking forward to, where you dream of what it would be and are met with a shabby façade…. Reluctantly now I read on,
Further records show this was used solely as a chapel and recorded in the Doomsday book. “A quaint and select chapel for the (sic) m.use of soldiers of the majesty and Christ”. In 1190 the building became a Tavern, how this conversion came to be is unclear, but it was decreed and sanctioned by the King. In 1655 under the rule of Oliver Cromwell the tavern was renamed “The Sword and the Stone”. However, it has always been known, even to this day as the Fallen Angel Tavern.
The underground crypts have been in use for hundreds of years, tours are monthly and there one is shown the origins of the name, “The Fallen Angel”.
Suspicion has been cast on what exactly the congregation of the Tavern worshipped with images of goatly Gods and horned creatures carved throughout though these tend to be symbols for fertility. There are some scholars who link the Tavern to the Greek God Pan, others to the old Celt God Cernnunos. However, it is clear they held the Magdalene as sacred.
I stopped reading for a moment. Another story about Mary Magdalene, “Christ’s wife” I thought aloud, this sort of legend will ruin the entry in my book. The leaflet went on to describe the importance of the Tavern, it’s uses as a court, as a prison, as a crypt. It was a bit of a Jack of-all-trades. A bit of a jamboree bag of everything you’d write for a fictitious sacred abode.

Something caught my eye; some shuffled motion caught my ears.

I looked for where the disturbance was prompting me and noticed again a shadow sprawling across the floor from the toilets entrance. I observed it for a moment and noticed the shadow figure hunch down, then it seemed to lay flat.
I saw a small fleck of hair begin to emerge from the doorway. Orange hair. Spikey.
The figure then popped its head out. A beady eye staring in alarm straight back at me. Immediately the strange character withdrew, the shadow motionless. I sat bolt upright. A short pause and the tuft of orange hair began to emerge again and poked its way into the tavern. I stared emotionless at the intruder as our eyes met. His pupils dilated before me in panic, then despair. The character jumped to its feet and pounced into the tavern punching his fist into his other hand.
“Aw ! you’ve seen me !” he cried. The weird character walked my way as if walking upon an imaginary tightrope. He wore a suit of garish purple, tatty with faded patches. As he fumbled towards me he held out his hand.
A broad smile swept across the maniac’s face.
“How do! How do, fare thee well, do, do, how do thee do” he bellowed.
I stood up and took his hand which he shook ferociously whilst continuing his introduction, “Mr. Wenborn, Mr. Wenborn from the city. I am Severance, with a c, I am here to assist you during your stay, and tell you that your room is ready.”
He smiled again, and only then stopped shaking my hand. The fellow before me stooped and bowed as a ragdoll, then snapped upright. Saluted. Smiled and shook my hand again. Then, he nodded distinctly, put his hands behind his back, puffed out his chest and awaited my next move.
“I was told it would be ready at two?” I asked.
His eyes followed a path to the clock. Twenty past two. I had been here for nearly two hours! “I can’t believe that’s the time,” I said confirming it with the clock on my phone.
The buffoon before me spoke quickly and moved his lips methodically as if talking to a deaf person, “Dead Clock Lane” and finished the quick sentence with a broad sickly smile. A smug gesture. A smile that I wanted to punch. A fist magnet face.
I quickly analysed how long it would have taken to get a drink, observe the tavern, play with the jukebox, read the leaflet. Two hours? Severance could see me confused and began to gesture in silent laughter, like a mimic, his head rocking from side to side with that same sickly smile that swept across his face.
“Shall I show you your room then?” he offered.
I mumbled some affirmatives, grabbed my rucksack and wondered if the scotch was laced with Rohypnol or Diazepam or some other voodoo time altering puffer fish substance.
Severance walked before me as if he were leading a marching band, his hands behind his back and sharply turned at the gent’s toilet corridor then sharply again into a small door up some stairs. The decor here was neglected, old woodchip paper peeling and torn. The smell of cats piss or some other rank mildew odour. As we reached the top of the stairs Severance did another sharp turn and walked along a claustrophobic corridor with four doors, two on each side. The corridor shifted this way and that like the wonky house at Southend Funfair.
“And this is your room sir” he said pointing to the first door on the left. He then spun around to the opposite door, stood motionless, walked over door next to it and then kicked the opposing door open with a backwards kick, spun around and entered.
It was like a choreographed dance, some spectacle to impress rather than actually alarm me.
The room was basic. One bed, one chair, one side table and an ensuite toilet/bathroom.
The duvet looked like flock wallpaper crafted from the observations of an Indian restaurant.
“Now sir,” spoke the loon, “I shall leave you to…” he circled his finger pointing upwards to find a word, “acclimatise and we shall engage in conversation later?”
Really, I thought, do I really want to speak to you…… “Yes”, I replied.
With that he walked out and shut the door, I could however see his shadow standing still behind it. I looked for the keyhole to see if he was looking.
A tap on the window and I span around, nothing, I turned back.
Shadow gone.
Striding forward I flung the door open, no-one there, the corridor, empty. Scooby-fucking-Doo.
Alone now I walked back over to the dormer window that poked through the raggedy thatched roof. Below me an herb garden sprawled and amidst this strutting around, a black cockerel, a beautiful creature but one creature I instantly hated. This damn thing would wake me at the crack of dawn.
I scanned the room looking for hidden cameras having the paranoia of feeling unseen eyes, perhaps this a result following an unsavoury incident in a Brighton bed and breakfast.
As I always do I cursed myself for suspicious thoughts and then collapsed upon the bed which enveloped me as an ocean to a floating body.
I must have slept in an instant.

Church bells woke me, a strange song too, like the Buddhist prayer ‘Aum Mane Padme Aum’. Deep sorrowful chimes.
It was half past six and I vowed there and then not to bother myself with the lost time syndrome that occurred.
“It’s Dead Clock Lane”, I said aloud to myself sarcastically, mimicking the way that Severance had repeated those words to me earlier. Accentuating every syllable. Dead. Clock. Lane.

I was hungry, in fact I was famished. In faraway places, in the middle of nowhere being hungry frightens the life out of me. I was unaware what they’d sell here. I thought of Severance and hesitated to go back downstairs, then thought of Lillian De Court and my weary carcass was in the bar area double quick.
The lookalikes were gone but the old man still sat in the corner, his playing cards shifted but he still wore that inquisitive look as he stared back at them. Three burly farmer types stood at the other end of the bar leering over Lillian. There she was in a deep scarlet dress, her hair now plaited in inch thick strands. She looked like a prostitute in a biblical epic. Wonderful.
“Take your seat, sir” she spoke pointing to the table by the fireplace.
I don’t know why she called me sir, and the three burly farmers had a chuckle about it, I was the subject of mockery.
I wanted to order some food or some beer, but on her command I walked submissively to the table and sat there like a baying dog feeling quite vulnerable at the mercy of some cruel but equally mesmerising dominatrix.
I stretched my neck to catch a fuller sight of Lillian but from behind the three farmers a dwarf came scurrying towards me. Goblin like, with piercing eyes and a hooked broken nose. Grimacing he flew upon me, I still sitting, he standing, yet our eyes were level. “Be wanting food then, now, then why don’t you” he mumbled and pushed a menu my way, “and drink then, so be wanting you, will you?”
The creature before me bit it’s lip in agitation, “Yes”, I replied,” I’m starving”.
I laughed, trying to diffuse the obvious tension but the goblin ignored my comment and continued to bite at his lip waiting for me to order. The menu – Venison Pie. Steak. Lamb Casserole. That’s how it was worded. No frills or flair. Nothing vegetarian let alone vegan. It does what it says on the tin. The dwarf, tapped his foot, tapped his fingers on crossed arms and gouged ferociously at his lip.
“Steak” I said, if only to rid me of the beast.
“Bleeding, burnt, what?” he asked.
“Medium I…….”
And off he went, snapping the menu from my fingers and stomping back past the three farmers at the other end of the bar muttering and moaning as he went.
“Jesus” I hissed.
“What drink would you like darling?” called Lillian from the bar.
I asked for some local Ale which caused a bit of a conversation about being herbal or golden or porter or dark. They liked their ales here. I went for a Golden Ale, Priory Deeping Battus Ale. As I stood waiting, watching Lillian pull on that pump, I noticed behind her a shelf full of curios. I felt like I was 7 or 8 again looking at all the things I’d always wanted. A coffin shaped money box that no doubt produced a bony hand to snatch away a nervously placed coin. A set of 8mm projector films next to a projector, “The Planet of the Apes” collection. A row of latex masks, Frankenstein, Dracula, Werewolf. X ray glasses. Latex hands. I’d seen these things in old marvel and DC comics and always wished I could have them. Lifelike dog turds and snappy chewing gum. Fake blood. Bizarre.
Lillian handed me the Ale and she smelt wonderful, an aroma of peach and blossom with added notes of liquorice and honey. Well, that’s how the artisan parfumiers would describe it, those boffins who have nothing better to do than sniff things all day.
I had only just sat back down at my table, when, HE appeared. Springing from the stairway entrance as if he were on stage. He saw me, snapped out his arms and shouted “Ta-Da !” His smile reminded me of the Joker from Batman. Severance came towards me in forced long strides. He knocked the juke box which started playing a random verse from Bob Dylan, ‘The Times They Are A Changing,’ though the song was quite predictable.
He grabbed the chair opposite to me, span it around so that it began to spin on one leg and stopped it facing the wrong way but fell upon it anyway.
I felt dejected. It was like the times after a hard day’s work and I went home, all I wanted to do was crash out on my own with a bottle or two of wine and there’d be a knock at the door. It would be my ‘crackhead’ mate, and all night he’d relay to me the same couple of stories, all night, repeating them, I’d feel my soul wither and die and I just wanted to be swallowed up.
That’s how I felt when Severance sat there opposite me. “Thought I would join you” he spoke.
‘Fuck off ’, I thought but said “Good Evening” instead.
I took a large, large swig of the ale and Severance’s eyes widened as the golden ale poured down my gullet. My vain attempt to numb my senses from the reality before me. I crashed the pint down rudely; Severance’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ then he giggled putting his hand over his mouth like a silly schoolgirl.
It was then I pitied him and what’s worse? To hate someone for the way they are or pity them?
“Severance”, I resigned myself to conversation, “ that’s an unusual name isn’t it.”
“My parents”, he replied excited that we were now talking, “they were hippies, well, no, not hippies,” he pointed his bony finger back up towards the roof, circled it and continued “they were, they were counter, contra against those things, River? Free? That sort of name? No, so they called me Severance. Severance!”
I began to think of some of the idiot hippy types from the bookshop lectures. Maybe they had sent him here, to annoy me.
“Is that your mum?” I asked pointing to Lillian.
He looked at Lillian, then back to me, then back to Lillian, me, Lillian, me, he leant forward and whispered. “No. Good Goddess. No.”
I was about to ask him about his parents but Severance, agitated, shifted about his chair, looked about the tavern, every nook and cranny and asked me a question as if he didn’t want anyone to hear, though he spoke so loudly anyone in ear shot, or beyond, would have heard every word, “Are you on the path?”
“The path?” I asked.
He nodded. Placed both thumbs to the temples of his head, splayed out his fingers and said, “Yes, The path!”
“Am I a mystic or something?” I asked.
“Yes!” he replied thrilled at the ambiguity of the answer and shook my hand again, “absolutely!” he bellowed now standing up.
He then waved his hands about the tavern and continued, “We get them all here, all sorts, all manner of sorts.”
I grabbed my pint quickly so that he wouldn’t wrench my hand again. “Ask me a question?” he said sitting back down and as he said those words he shut his eyes waiting for my query.
After a short pregnant pause he opened one eye.
“Anything” he persisted, “ think of me, here, as if I were a guide or a ……. well I dont know another word, guide”
What do I ask him, quantum physics, the structure of a black hole, the location of the g-spot?
“Who’s the guy who takes the dinner orders then, that small chap?”
“Oberon” he sighed.
“Isn’t that the chap from Midsummer Night’s Dream?” I laughed.
“Oh” he dismissed, “probably…strange folk that lot.”
“Severance,” called Lillian, “you’re not annoying our guest, are you?”
At last, I thought, a saviour, yes he fucking was, tell him to go. Severance looked at me, I looked at Lillian, she looked at Severance, and then she looked at me. I smiled, one of those false smiles, one of those obvious false smiles that said I’m uncomfortable. I was willing with all my mind for her to understand my thoughts- tell him to piss off.
“No!” said Severance, “Mr. Wenborn invited me.”
She stared back at me. Please please read my thoughts…
Once upon a time I dabbled in hypnosis and read and followed some exercises on remote hypnosis, the objective being that you could influence somebody from afar. It was a tricky exercise. You had to pretend you were them. Empathy and pure sympathy, objectively placing yourself in their shoes as if you were looking through their eyes, feeling their thoughts, acting in their manner and looking at you with the thoughts you so wish. So… I’m being Lillian, looking at me and thinking, Mr. Wenborn is not happy, tell Severance to go…………. At last she spoke, “OK then,” she said,” but you leave when his dinner is served.”
My soul deflated, my training in tatters. I looked back at Severance who now beamed at me with wild eyes awaiting another question.
“How long have you lived here?” I resigned myself to asking.
Severance sat upright and spoke, “Yes, years, years in Deeping. Used to live at Deeping on sea until, the day it fell in.”
“The sea?” I interrupted, “we’re miles from the sea?”
“Yes!” he said, “miles”.
An awkward silence fell as my frown grew deeper. Severance sighed, mixed his fingers together nervously and then spoke again, “before they came, the invaders, we lived in a town called Deeping upon Sea, then the invaders came and we all moved here….soon, after Deeping fell into the sea.”
He spoke with exaggerated movements, his hands speaking the words also, like a politician trying to convince you he was telling the truth.
“ Invaders ? Where by the sea?” I pressed.
“By the causeway!” he answered. I looked with squinted eyes, my questioned not answered.
“Wales! Ala Cymru !” he bellowed, a fog horn cry that was meant entirely to make me understand what he thought everybody knew.
I thought, Wales? We’re nowhere near Wales. I reasoned that interrogation would just lead to more jabberwocky, more folly…and yet I found myself hooked in, like a gullible purchaser of Street Market counterfeits…,
“I’m sorry,” I apologised, “I don’t know the history of this area, what more can you tell me.” Severance leant forward adopting the posture of someone about to relay some murder mystery story around a campfire, “they called Old Deeping, ‘Deeping defiled’ all that went on after the new lot arrived.”
“Like Sodom?” I laughed.
Severance looked to the ceiling to remember but the lights in his minds house were off.
“Please”, I persisted, “I’d like to hear more so that I can write it down.”
This caused Severance to jump as if receiving an electric shock then snapped that bony finger to the air and said, “Ah! Mother said keep the written wrote and the spoken spoke, write not what should only be spoken” and with that he folded his arms and stared straight back at me.
I shifted in my seat ready for the counter attack. “Please?” I asked.
He placed his finger upon his lips. The silence of Harpocrates or a chastised child in infant school made to be silent. Then he sniffed, a long drawn out sniff.
“You have a cold?” I asked changing the subject.
Severance informed me that he had, and that he hated colds, and didn’t like hots either but preferred perfect porridge. This required a hefty swig and glug of my ale, to subdue the lunacy. Again changing subject, I spoke, “I saw on the sign by the crossroads, the Ironic Pass, can you tell me about that?”
“Ah Pilgrims folly, The Ironic Pass” he announced, “Yes! No, I have no idea why they called it that, it was built by the Romans don’t you know, and it’s all twisty and turny and the most un-straight road ever built according to everyone who walked it. Including me”
The answer was evident, despite the fact he didn’t claim to know the answer. I asked him about Bernard Crème and whether he remembered him and his fascination for broken clocks. “Yes absolutely!” he screamed, then looked about the pub to make sure no-one was listening and continued so that again everyone heard anyway, “He smelled!”
Severance pinched his nose and swayed as if about to faint. I frowned at him, I wondered if he were an act, a fool jester type character paid for by the brewery, some sort of feature like the old hermits paid to wander around a forest or a moor- a folly fool from Pilgrims Folly.
The large barn door swung open and a short but well-built man hobbled in, dressed in tatty woollen jumpers and combat trousers way too big that as he moved with each step would tug at the waist, pulling in it inwards and upwards.
“Mole man Miller” said Severance to me before leaning back in his chair folding his arms and observing the new patron wander around to the bar. Severance leant forward to me and spoke, “HE!” he shouted pointing his finger directly at Miller, “builds tunnels, bloody labyrinths of things, all over the place, then one day, it all collapsed.”
I looked over at the man who glared back at us and hid himself in a blind spot in the corner. Severance continued, “they call that part of Deeping, Deeping by the hill that Jack fucked up”
I laughed a little and took, as anyone would, another swig of ale. Severance continued with his nonsense. “Old Deeping was beautiful. New Deeping isn’t half as good as Old Deeping. It isn’t as quarter good, it isn’t one eighth as good or one sixteenth or one thirty second or sixty fourth or …”
The dwarf Oberon tumbled through the tavern with my food. Just on time to end Severance’s numbers song. A huge steak, with mushrooms and chips and gravy. As perfect as I could have requested. “Ere y’are” he grumbled and span the plate across the table with knife and fork soon after. The dwarf turned and marched back, grumbling, moaning and huffing.
Severance looked at Lillian and without a good-bye he leapt to his feet and was gone. I was only a few mouthfuls in when Severance jumped from the side corridor holding aloft a timepiece and looked at the great oak rafter. His other fingers began to count down and CRACK! The beam let out an almighty fracture that caused all the glasses in the tavern to shudder, I’m sure from the corner of my eye the fireplace roared in unison. Severance didn’t acknowledge me at all but smiled to himself and was gone.

What’s that all about? A beam of oak that cracks on cue at…I looked at the time…five past seven. I thought of Old Faithfull in Yellowstone Park, would this happen on cue again tomorrow… something like that.
I ate the rest of my meal with one eye on the beam, wondering if the damn thing and the whole tavern was about to fall on my head.
A man I hadn’t noticed before was staring, I don’t remember when he came in but there he was. Smartly dressed like a civil servant reading a newspaper that looked crisp and new. It reminded me of Bernard Crème. Bernard would have the newspapers delivered early; he ironed the thing, folded it and then put it into the fridge to read at ten o’ clock. I tried it myself once to see the attraction, a cold newspaper across a table top he said was a stoic’s pleasure. It made no sense, barking mad. I liked Bernard but he said some weird stuff, maybe that’s why I like him… like… Severance ?
I snapped out of a wandering analytical mind…I felt suspicious about the smartly dressed man, in London he would be just another. Here, he looked out of place. I realised with my shaved head and boots, he was probably thinking the same, two different identities, the same parallel thoughts. Who’s weird, who’s out of place. Bernard or Severance? or me? what if they’re acting normal, their quirks were how humans should be, and i’m….
A large Neanderthal type came into the tavern his forehead pronounced, his height was just right for that ridge of head to clash with the low beam…CRACK! Which it did. The caveman shouted something like “Bog me darn danny, fritts everytime, every dog bind time!” …I wondered if it was the same Gaelic-fusion as employed by café owners with fragile crockery.
I stayed for a while there, slowly eating my food and drinking ale, observing the locals with crafty sideways looks and listening with Doberman pincer ears. The old man who resided all day in the corner at one point turned over a card, hammered his fist down and cursed obscenities the like of which I have never heard before, storming out of the tavern as he did so, “Bugger me Jesus!” he spat in a broad Irish-sounding dialect, “Christ fucking Mary what a pile of hibernash!” and up Dead Clock Lane he stamped cursing all the way, all manner of heretical slander, punctuated with strange words… they’re all speaking the same mash-up… Or, maybe blasphemous Tourette’s.
Now, that’s as much as I can remember that night. Honestly. I’m not trying to cut corners, although to write a book I suppose it’s not necessary to include ever minute detail, but the thing is. I can’t remember anything else. I doubt I became unconscious; it must be that when I awoke my memory of the evening was erased. I don’t know. It wasn’t even a blur. Nothing. It’s not like I am one of those amateur fanzine writers who, devoid of ideas leaves a blank page in their homemade magazine saying, Insert your own news here, or something… I just don’t know what happened until….. ___

DAY TWO
Chapter Two
The Ironic Pass (Pilgrims Folly)

I awoke from an erotic fantasy which memory dispersed with immediately as I observed myself lying there naked. A huge erection and bed covers strewn across the floor. I remember half waking in the night, throwing the covers off with feint images of succubus devouring me. I instantly discarded these wonderful images when I realised my room door was wide open and anyone walking past could see me, sprawled out. Panic ensued. It was the stuff of urban legend with the omission of a freshly brewed cup of tea left by the shocked chambermaid on the bedside table. Within seconds I had slammed the door shut and flew back upon the bed, my heart racing, my mind a collection of thousands of possibilities and scenes. Why hadn’t that beastly bird awoken me?
At that moment, and with that thought the devilish creature cried out a shrill bugle chorus, cock-a-doodle-wake-the-fuck-up-doo!!! An awful cry, it tailed off like a broken toy whose batteries had suddenly failed, as if the wretched creature had been silenced by the Deeping strangler.
I imagined myself to be a passer-by, looking in at my room and seeing me there. It must have been an arrestable offence. Panic set in, then denial. Outside the window the moon hung in the morning sky, beautiful, caressing my anxiety.
My dread gave way to stoic ease and then laughter. “Fuck them”, I said to no-one in particular. I’d paid for my room, not my fault the damn door opens of its own free will, fuck ‘em. I’m from London, fuck ‘em.
—– Breakfast at the Fallen Angel.
The breakfast room was a different affair from the rest of the tavern, an annexe to the back of the place, all flowery, ‘poncey’ as we say in our weird gaelic-urbanese dialect, and chintzy. Breads and cereals and pastries all set out. No English Fry up? I hadn’t thought to ask, I just accepted bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere meant a full plate of fried farm animals.
I could hear Lillian somewhere singing a sweet melody, with precision timing and believing myself to be a stealthy thief of exquisite goods my rucksack began to fill with pastries and meat slices for my days trek along Pilgrims Folly. Then, HE, appeared, just as another sticky bun was wedged into the swag bag.
“Aah!” he exclaimed flicking a finger to the cosmos, “I have finished what I began.”
I wasn’t sure at first if he was talking to me, or even acknowledged I was there until after a brief pause asked if I wanted to see the fruits of his labour staring directly at me with agitated eyes that moved quickly over my head and shoulders as if he were probing the actions ….of a thief.
What could I say? ‘No, I want you to fuck off so I can nick some more pastries’? Of course I said, “ I’d be interested to see what he had completed?”
He jumped a little and did a perfect pirouette and then, skipped, skipped! Out of the breakfast room. I felt my hand reach for my forehead in a display of dramatic concern to an invisible audience, “woe is me”, I found myself saying,and I had no idea why I was suddenly acting this little drama, perhaps as Severance would, perhaps I was mimmicking in some sort of empathy..mockery…. tragedy… before adding some chocolate croissants and apricot pastries to my haul.
He returned. “I bought two of those model kits at a boot fair the other week”, he announced, “but there were pieces missing from each, so I concocted my own creation”
He placed upon my table a model to gaze over and inspect, like I was an antiques dealer at one of those TV shows. There it sat in front of me. The ‘Airfix’ kit of a sailing ship. A sailing ship with two wings from a Lancaster bomber attached. Where, presumably the mast head should be, a cockpit with a soldier sat firing a big gun. He would have fired directly into the ships keel and sunk the thing.
Severance arched his back with his hands behind, proud of his achievement waiting for my response to this hybrid inbred mix-up. “I call it”, said Severance now standing to attention, “The Spitflower, after the mighty Spitfire and the beautiful Mayflower”
The model before me was a bastard fusion of an Avro Lancaster bomber and HMS Victory. “It’s surreal” I offered.
“Surreal!” he yelled, grabbed the mutant model and skipped off.
I was out of there. Out of that place before he could return.

I stood now upon the crossroads. The sign pointing the way read “Pilgrims Folly (The Ironic Pass)”.
A beautiful valley before me, the air chilled my lungs with exhilarating stimuli. I took in a deep deep breathe, lovely and moist.
The morning moon ahead of me shone as a beacon towards the pot of gold. The road before me twisted and turned and I took my first steps along the rickety path. The road snaked. It climbed upwards, veered upon itself and drove itself back down to the valley floor for no apparent reason. It curved around invisible objects, and then shot across to the opposite hillside and back down it drove again. No wonder Severance walked the way he did, strutting across the floor as a tightrope walker. Walking through Pilgrims Folly made you walk that way, not only did the path twist and turn, it was also unlevel, so my ankles buckled and curtailed to the paths progress. I was following a maddened path. It would be easier I concluded to cut across the moors and walk as the crows fly, I felt like an object in snake and ladders, up, down, across, around, ridiculous. Was this really built by the Romans? Pilgrims Folly, the answer lies within the name, just as Severance had unwittingly explained, this assault course on the moors was just a folly. My calf muscles ached and strained, the London pollution loosened in my lungs, but I reasoned it was the fresh country air that caused me to cough and retch. I could taste the blood as I endured the walk, rising through lungs and pounding with my heart. A taste of Iron and Soot.
There was conflict in the senses between the beauty and the struggle. Half my mind relished in the scenery, the other half cursing the labour require to receive it. Enough! I stepped off the path to walk as the crows fly and stepped upon a clump of heather, this gave way to a moist bed, and this gave way to a boggy pit which my leg was sucked into, right up to the knee. Despite this danger I found my ego looking around for spectators, travellers laughing at my plight. There were none. I pulled my leg out, the earth sucking at it, fighting to reclaim it and I dived back towards the path like a goalie saving a penalty kick.

I now walked with a prominent squelch. Gunk bubbling out of my boot with every step.
The thatched roof of The Fallen Angel was in view far away as I climbed higher but it was just a small grain of stone now.
The views in front awe inspiring, really, you hear someone say those words and that’s just what it was like before me.
“Breath taking” I muttered to myself.
Indeed it was. I could hardly breathe as I wheezed and felt psychosomatic pneumatics in my lungs expel shit, and mucus, and smog.
The hills were filled with flecks of orange and yellows, embedded in emerald canvas, the fresh winds curtsey at my lips, kissing me with each step.
Ahead I could see the path veering left, a grand arch and as I turned this procession, I saw another sight in front of me. Thick rolling clouds. Big bulbous black bastards they were, looming down on me, heading my way. It was like a scene from a Black Sabbath album cover. The dawn moon, she had abandoned me, her comforting peculiar light hidden by the approaching cavalry of hell. I felt hopeless, I imagined myself to be a traveller in the desert for a while gasping for water hoping that nature would pity me and reveal an oasis, but no-one listened, no-one was watching, no-one cared. It was me versus the legion of doom.
A not so distant rumble followed, drum beats from a Zulu army, and I was exposed. Another deep breath and the air had changed, charged. I could taste electricity in the air. I did what British people in times of crisis do. I lit a cigarette and walked on whistling a futile song. My own staccato lament. In surrender to the inevitable, nature suddenly did take pity, fate spoke and up ahead I saw a large boulder with an overhang nestled into the hillside, shelter! I took a puff of rancid cigarette and walked on at my own deliberate unflinching command towards it.
An incredible clap of thunder and a fork of lightning that flashed upon the horizon quickened my pace a little. Should I run? No, I reasoned, why panic.
Light mist gave way to fine rain. I was nearly there and reached the boulder just as the fine rain turned into explosive blobs of cold vehemence.
Standing just behind the boulder, obscured from the traveller… a corrugated iron shack!
My wonder turned to smugness, and arrogance. I knew I’d be all right I thought as I squeezed through a gap in the huts shell, I knew Nature would ptiy me and give me this sanctuary. I mentally thanked mother Earth.
I was sat now upon a damp floor, the smell of mildew increased with the ferocity of the rain. Shafts of light teased me as they poked through the ill-fitting corrugated iron shack. The rain increased more, first tapping upon the roof and then an army of shamanic drums. Deafening. The iron hut amplified the chorus. I hummed bass notes along with the rain, perfect drum and bass.
I wished I had bought my handheld field recorder to record my composition.
It was excellent, but like all ideas, you get a spark of genius, put the plan into action and… It seems like nature picks up your thoughts and some other bastard downloads them into their brain.
I sat there amongst the rain and thought, how my brain was a transmitter and my thoughts were being received by someone at the same frequency, the same empathy. Quantam entaglement…..
Then I reasoned as I was surrounded by metal it would shield the signals. I even pulled out my mobile phone to check, to see if it had a signal. It didn’t. Of course, quickly I reasoned my mind was digressing into absurdity.
I returned to my improvised drum and bass for a while. A huge flash of lightning lit up the interior of the hut, for an instant I could see a dead child laying in the corner which as my sight restored morphed into the actual clump of smooth rocks that were there.
Down came the rain, finding avenues of weakness in the hut. These drops turned into steady trickles. I looked at my boot, caked with boggy mud and moorland shit. As I looked a stringy beast with hundreds of legs wriggled its way out!
Repulsive.
Like a horror movie, a centipede crawling from a decaying eye socket in a skull or something. The little fucker must have been in there since my boot sunk into that boggy cleft. I watched the wriggly bastard head towards the door, maybe it saw the storm, the downpour, I don’t know; it just seemed to stop and then turned back saying, “fuck that I’ll take my chances here.”
It scurried to the corner and rolled itself into a dip of shingle and curled up. That vile little slippery bastard and me were in the same boat. My revulsion turned to pity and inexplicably I felt that me and that beast were one, the austerity of our situation, we were together.
My mate and me.
There we sat, inside this drumbox, me and Johnny thousand legs.
Maybe it’s a Jenny I wondered. Why haven’t we evolved like that I thought.
I constructed scenarios of women with a hundred pairs of legs and presumably a hundred inviting vaginas between each pair. Would she be a virgin until every vagina was breached I wondered. What about menstruation x 100. Of course, I realised, eventually, that no matter how many legs Jenny or Johnny has, it would only has one set of genatalia… but that’s how your mind works when you’re stuck in a drum box with nothing else to do but wait for nature to allow you out again.
Because, nature knows. Nature selects. The strong survive.
My brain felt alive, the walk had promoted blood flow to far forgotten avenues in my mind. Awash with weird ideas of drum and bass fusion to the sound of rain and the evolutionary prospects of human centipedes. I felt free of worries about traffic and tube trains. I inhaled deeply. The lighting struck again, Jenny shuddered. I wondered if I should pick it up, to reassure it.
Imagine that. One minute you’re happily content in your home when a giant smashes your city with his boot, you are sucked inside that vortex creating boot and for the next quarter of an hour you get crushed with each footstep, eventually he stops and you wriggle out, only to find the world is a raging inferno of thunder and lightning, and just as you feel safe, the bastard giant picks you up with tube train sized fingers and fidgets with you.
I left my mate in the corner.
The downpour subsided, broken sunlight probed through the cracks in the hut. My spine creaked as I stumbled to my feet and outside I was greeted with a postcard vision.
A rainbow curved its way across the two hillsides in the distant. It was an arch over a natural temple. I was in a dream, elevated. I knew I’d never see Johnny Jenny thousand legs again, but we had endured the offensive. The flak flak of a thousand Vickers heavy machine guns and protected our post. We had stayed with our position, saved it from attack by unseen warriors and their lightning plasma guns crafted by evil geniuses. No-one was here to witness our moment of triumph or to credit us with medals and shower us with rose petals. But, me and Johnny Jenny mate…we knew, we knew what we had endured, what we had overcome, that’s all that mattered.
I jumped back upon the path and continued the progress along an ever-spiralling route. The rain had left the moors with rich deep saturated colours. Deep and vibrant. From rocky nooks and crannies streams began to flow and the air felt clean, washed. The path became slippery, particularly as it was uneven and sloped, up ahead it veered more sharply leftwards around the hills.
Marching on, my squelching boots began to dry, going shippity-shoop-shippity-shoop with every step, then shloop shloop then shap (pause) shap.
I stopped to observe a goat right on top of the hill beside me. It had long dreadlocks and its beady eye watched me. Its jaw masticating from side to side. I quickly snapped out my arms and roared at it. Why do that? I don’t know, the thing just stopped chewing, looked at me like I was some sort of cunt then carried on oblivious at my attempts at displaying power of this dominion.
I laughed. It was a laugh of dented pride. I convinced myself I didn’t really want to scare the thing away, but deep down I knew I did. Feeling alone and vulnerable I wanted to display some control over my situation. My ego suffering, I was nature’s toy here, the puppet on the path.
As I rounded the corner and walked farther I came across a large white building nested between an enclave in the hillsides. To the side of it a derelict barn with a rusty old tractor and loads of piled wood. The sign read “The Crippled Crow”. A pub here! In the middle of nowhere, inaccessible to cars.
‘British mate,’ that’s what I thought and my pace quickened as I stormed towards the pub door.

The smell of the barn was beautiful, moistened by the rain. I had read in some astrology book that barns were very favourable to the Libran. I have Libra in my ascendancy too. Doubly powerful. The Crippled Crow I thought, that’s apt on this crazy landscape and equally lunatic path, you can’t walk as the crow flies, and you’re crippled. Someone around here has a very good sense of humour.
As I pushed open a door a retched smell of neglect attacked me. In front of me, the bar, and there behind it stood a creepy man. His arms were outstretched and his face was bony, like latex skin painted over his skull. He stared at me and broke into a false smile, the sort of smile that said, ‘go away’. His thinning hair stuck greasily to his head amid kidney spots and flaking scabs. As his mouth widened he displayed tombstone teeth, chipped and broken, they all slanted to the left. A friend of mine would describe such teeth as being like a witchdoctors necklace.
“How do!” he spoke.
I nodded in return and huffed and puffed to let him know how tired I was, how many millions of miles I had walked, and therefore how he should serve my every need and qualm with haste and duty. I quickly scanned the interior as I walked towards him. Empty. Not even a contented dog by the fireplace that flickered with a few pathetic flames.
The decor was stagnant from a time in the 1950’s. Old green leather look seats, ripped and torn with dirty foam poking from snapped stitching. Highly polished dark wood round tables sat on cast iron plinths depicting creeping vines and foliage.
But, I am a traveller on the moors, and what do us seasoned travellers demand when we rest? I didn’t know, but I thought of those big dogs with barrels of brandy on their necks and asked for, “a brandy please, and, make it a double”, I smiled as I said double, hoping to engage the barman in some sympathy. Nothing.

He picked up a misty looking glass and plunged it upwards into a sticky looking optic. The sun bleached liquid bubbled and poured downwards, wax like, teasing the lip of the glass with slow ‘Sunday driving’ frustration.
The Brandy in the bottle must have sat there so long I could have sworn it had separated into different forms like a test tube in a centrifuge.
I took off my rucksack and jacket and handed him a five-pound note, His eyes widened and he asked, “not from round here then?” I had forgotten I was displaying my T-shirt, a nun with an AK47 and the words ‘Religious as Fuck’ strewn across it.
“No,” I answered apologetically, “I’m staying at the Fallen Angel for a while”
He passed me the filthy concoction, deep in thought, grabbed another sickly vessel and began to polish it, or should I say rub a filthy cloth around the filthy glass, merging the two objects of filth into a filthier concoction of filth.
“I can’t say as we find them folk agreeable if it pleases me to say so, and,” he stared at me, hypnotizing me with his opinion, “we speak as we finds up here, speaks as we find.”
I replied with a gentle nod, and with a vacant look before walking off. I found a stool to sit on besides which a large crucifixion piece hung.
One of the strange things that happen when you walk for ages is that when you finally get to rest, your legs still feel as though you are moving. Close your eyes and it feels as though the world is still rushing by. Add this to someone with London mentality and my head was filled with mind stuff and confusion as I tried to rest. I could feel the creepy barman’s eyes on me, looking at my every move. He probably knew I wasn’t a hard-core hiker or traveller, I could feel him sneer and mock. I felt like I was being spied on and then remembered my old next-door neighbour whom I had spied upon, or the lady in Deeping trying to do her pottering. The tables were turned. I was the hunted.
I sipped the brandy and felt the floor buckle beneath me, the world slowly spinning. The table seemed to rotate as if it really was turning. The figure of Christ before me, hung upon the wall. An awful piece, the figure was arching his back in excruciating agony, looking skywards and screaming. It was grotesque, hardly an image of reverence. Chisel sized nails affixed him. His loincloth was draped so loosely it merely covered his modesty to the point where the onlooker was being teased. The crown of thorns was as a mesh of barbed wire. Sharp barbs showed fibres of cleaning cloth. Perhaps it was the brandy or me coming to rest, but I became mesmerized by the piece and in my dreamlike state it changed before me. The figure’s screams became hysterical laughter, the crown of thorns a crown of holly, the crucifix became a tree. Before my eyes the image transformed itself into the figure of The Green Man that I had seen in churches of pagan origin. And upon the cracking rafter of the Fallen Angel. I thought of comparative religions, how they all stole ideas from each other, how stories changed, Chinese whispers, how festivals were hijacked, renamed and retold. Old temples demolished, and churches erected in their place.
The sound of a slamming door bought me back to reality. From somewhere a short stocky woman was busying herself around the lounge area with a cleaning cloth. She had a face that looked as if, at any moment, it would explode. Puffed cheeks and piggy eyes disappearing into pillows of flesh.
The barman looked at her and then nodded in my direction saying, “traveller on the moors.” He smirked.
She looked at me, was about to smile before she saw my offensive T-shirt and then cast her eyes about the place for anything of value that she could hide. Agitated she swirled the cloth furiously around a table top that was already highly polished muttering something I couldn’t hear.
The barman called again, “he’s staying at them, there Fallen Angel.”
The frump stopped her polishing, thought for a moment and said, “Place ‘n’ half that is” then quickly walked out of the lounge area and disappeared behind a door repeating, “place and a half ”.
I had had enough, in fact I felt quite nauseous and swallowed the brandy, well I think it was brandy, quickly. I cast the barman a dirty stare, he stared back…. vacantly. As I exited the smell of the saw mill and barn enlivened me as did the moors and I snapped back into my walk, my mind instantly in gear with the march.
I knew I was still veering left, but it was difficult to judge on this bloody path, there were hairpins and curves and up it went, down it came, all over the bloody place.
Now and then I ventured off the path, thankfully no boggy clefts to claim me. One part was a hairpin that went up the hill and back, I cut straight across the stupidity and saved myself about 200 metres in the process.
Walking alone is very therapeutic, let me say that. Your mind becomes very receptive to the open world. You find yourself having full blown conversations with yourself. I conducted conversations that would happen with friends, what I would say, what they’d say and so on. I found answers to arguments and problems. Truly, I’m going mad.
After a few hours of this madness and not knowing where this path was going the first doubt and idea popped into my head that, I should head back. The road ahead was drifting outwards but seemed to come back upon itself. A short distance farther and there was a high peak, I decided I’d climb this summit, assess where the fuck I was and turn back or continue.
‘Filly Falls Peak’ said the post beneath the summit. The climb upwards was gradual, then a short walk on flat land then a sharp incline, then a ridge and then another steep climb and there I stood. From this vantage point I could see the whole of Pilgrims Folly. A spectacular view. I could make out The Crippled Crow that now looked smaller than the little green houses from Monopoly. I eyed the path, around it went, around and around, it was! going …. Around ! I thought as I climbed a little higher to see over the peak.

Before me now I faced the other side of the moors. I saw Pilgrims folly arch its way, all the way around and around, yet, before me, at the bottom of this peak, such that I must have walked a large hairpin on a larger circle, about 400 metres away beneath me was, The Fallen Angel.

The Fucking Tavern!

I had walked a huge circle and doubled back on myself, if I had continued I would have walked a few more pointless miles in a larger circle to Dead Clock Lane. I could see nothing of interest here, no rhyme or reason for this path, no mines or villages, no industry, no church, fuck all. A circle of nothingness. One desolate pub in the middle of a pointless roundabout. The name “Pilgrims Folly” laughed back at me. I remember speaking to myself again, you are joking.
I saw in my mind’s eye the little jokes behind the tavern bar, the snappy gum, the plastic dogs turd, this is all one big joke, one sick symbolic dream.
All those hippies and travellers who recommended this place were probably laughing at me, I could visualize them, all talking about me. Vivienne with a huge doobie unable to speak as he laughed his way through the story of how he convinced ‘David Wenborn’ to go to The Fallen Angel, I visualised Bernard equally agreeing, spitting out the cigarette in its entirety at the hilarity of also recommending this. This Folly.
I felt my legs buckle. I collapsed upon the summit, exhausted mentally and physically. I crashed down upon a clump of twisted flora matter. A lump of twisted flora matter that uprooted, slid, and down I went.
A bobsleigh of heather and bracken now picking up speed. I tried to use my foot as a brake but it hit a dent in the earth and a sharp pain erupted as I continued careering downwards, again I tried in vain to halt my progress, this merely span me around so that I was becoming disorientated at my decline. Then, I found myself in mid-air as a ridge catapulted me upwards, I panicked and landed, flaying my arms, my rucksack detached itself and I sensed the descent becoming steeper and steeper.
My foot hit an obstacle which somersaulted my whole body and straight after, again, I found myself in mid-air, what was I thinking, I flapped my arms. Was I Icarus? Crash, down I went, backwards, I pulled myself around and managed to jump into the running position. Hopeless, my jelly legs didn’t talk to each other and down I went again in an unpredictable bloody mess.
Down, down, down I slid, there was no gift of a rolling cheese to chase, just my own stupidity. For a split second I imagined the next ridge would throw me upwards and I’d come down upon a heap of granite, smashed like a cup at Deeping’s Cafe. This caused more panic, more legs kicking and the hands grabbing at fragile bracken as if it would stop a 15 stone man.
I can’t say my life flashed by me, but in the descent one thing bothered me, not the face of despair of my daughter at my graveside, or the wailing of my girlfriend or mother as my pathetic carcass enters the crematorium. As I plummeted downwards I realised the barman of the Crippled Crow hadn’t gave me change from my five-pound note. This alone gave me impetus. The bastard. With the wind whistling past and the rollercoaster vision of the landscape rolling around my eyes I shouted, “The fucking bastard”.
I punched at the earth and kicked and all to no avail. In spite of the imminent danger, the imminent end, the body seems to give up, and relax itself, the mind still races at a hundred miles an hour but for an instant I accepted death. I had a fleeting vision of a soldier in the trenches, the whistle blowing, knowing he was going to die, and accepting that inevitability, and then I stopped, thud!

I came to a halt in the back garden of the Fallen Angel tavern.
I uprighted myself and was hit in the back by the rucksack. Like a bomb from dambusters, it sent me flying head first back into the earth. At last it was over, bruised and battered and caked in moorland shit, I grabbed my rucksack and walked towards the backdoor of the tavern. That was when the bastard cockerel alarmed at all the commotion appeared. He came, flying upon me. A kamikaze guard. Pecking at my sore ankles. I tried to run but, in my panic, almost trod on the thing, this merely made me fall over my own steps which immediately had the cockerel pecking at my head, intensifying its attack.
I tumbled over the garden.
Bollocks to the flowers, bollocks to the herbs.
My rucksack flew open and all my stolen pastries flew out. The cockerel froze and dived onto the bounty. I escaped as best I could with busted knees and twisted ankles, snapped tendons and dented pride. Falling into a heap I crashed through the door of The Fallen Angel, staggered through the breakfast room and found myself in the middle of the bar area. Silence fell as the small crowd scrutinized the wild man of Borneo before them. Then I saw and heard him, Severance. He let out a long piercing girly cackle, a high-pitched squeal of delight, one hand over his mouth, the other wagging his bony finger up and down at me. He turned to each patron in the bar and repeated the gesture and the cackle for all of them.
I turned and fled up the stairs and to my room. In seconds the warm spray from the shower was massaging me. Filth and debris, moorland heath, blood, all of it, flowing down the drain, and with it, all my anxiety, all my troubles. With the dispersing filth and anxiety, laughter grew. Laughter! __________________________________

Chapter Three
The Evening….

….It began listening to a slow crescendo of people talking, chattering, laughing, at times I felt myself merge into their space trying to listen in. The accents were still a little unclear, the trivial nature of some of the conversation that I did manage to pick out was contrary to the ambience of the Fallen Angel. Amidst the discussions from new and familiar faces was an abundance of gossip, back-stabbing, swipes.
No Severance, good start.
The old Irishman shuffled to his table, his chair, and spread out his cards before ordering a muddy coloured stout. The lookalikes were in their same position below the stained glass window, I sat in my spot, by the roaring scented fire as an observer, listening.
A peace grew within me from the still clinging nature of city life and all its drawbacks, I felt as if, perhaps I belonged here, or is that the nature of familiarity. The mind assessed the permutations and reasoned all is well.
I saw over by the door two hikers frantically pulling at an ordnance survey map. For a moment I wondered whether I should warn them of the folly that is Pilgrim’s Folly and then in a moment of schadenfreude decided I would delight in the ridiculous quest they perhaps would embark upon.
The man, a chemistry teacher looking ex hippy pointed at the map, the woman refuted his examination and pointed in another place, and they bickered and frowned. I pricked up my ears and overheard them, he lifted his, ahem, John Lennon glasses and commanded, “Here, this is the path and here….no, that can’t be”
She interrupted, “here! That’s the peak there, so over here is where….”
She tailed off, frowned and in their confusion they retraced their fingers and continued in vain looking for something or other. This cheered me up. They had expensive hiking gear, all the ‘top notch clobber’, the alpine walking sticks the lot, and a map, and yet they were hopelessly lost.
Lillian was flirting with some burly farmer types who each had fuzzy sideburns and talked like they had a mouthful of food in their mouths. All drinking the ‘potent’ cider/scrumpy.
She walked now and then into the lounge area, I never realised how tall she was, graceful, and her every move was exact. I thought wicked dreams about nymphomaniacs in finishing schools.
To distract myself I attempted to confound the magic jukebox, no luck, I reasoned it was connected in some way to the internet and could stream anything you wanted. It was great listening to some old punk classics, I chose songs to remind me of who I was, where I came from and where I was now, Brickfield Nights by The Boys, Take me back to Babylon by The Lurkers, I’m Stranded by The Saints.
The other patrons would change the mood and put on stuff that sounded like Steeleye Span or Fairport Convention. Touché.
Five Past Seven! Would I hear the old oak beam crack! On cue I heard the sound of running footsteps and Severance flew into the tavern holding aloft his timepiece staring at the rafter overhead. Ten past Seven- nothing, eleven nothing, twelve-nothing. Severance stooped his shoulders and punched the air in defeat, and then he saw me. “Mr. Wenborn!” he announced and did, well, it was a hop, skip and jump towards my table.
“How do you do you do” he asked shaking my hand again whilst simultaneously pulling out a chair, sitting on it, manoeuvring himself before finally letting go of my hand.
There was a short pause before I found myself saying, “ That Pilgrims Folly, what’s that all about? A road over the moors, and a pub, nothing else.”
“What pub?” he said.
“The Crippled Crow?” I answered wondering if I had imagined everything, and the way my mind was unravelling I wouldn’t have been surprised if I woke up ‘back in Kansas……….’
He thought, poking out his tongue as artists do, or craftsman who glue together two Airfix kits, “Aah, them!” He shook his head and said again “them”.
“I walked for hours”, I explained, “I walked for hours and found the path actually doubled back upon its self to a ridge above the back garden”
Severance jumped up “Filly Falls Peak” he sung and then walked about the Tavern like on the edge of a cliff, “saves all that higgledy piggeldy nonsense.”
“Then,” I interrupted, “It seems to go onwards, like a big circle up to Dead Clock Lane?”
Severance sat back down, “It does, it so does, past Witch Peak Moor and back down again.”
“Witch Peak Moor?” I asked.
“Yes, you did go to Witch peak? Mmm? Please tell me you went to Witch peak?”
“No” I answered.
Severance immediately dismissed me as having missed the jewel in the crown. I vowed that I would go tomorrow, but that I would go up via Dead Clock Lane this time- Anti-clockwise as it were. I asked Severance about the tours of the crypt, whether it was worth seeing and whether he was involved, because if he was involved as a tour guide… I wouldn’t be going. Though I wouldn’t tell him that bit. “Me, no, not me, it’s that blithering idiot, that, that, that… Thomas Tompkins Thomlinson fellow, not me.”
The next tour of the crypts was the day after tomorrow, I mentally registered it in my calendar mind. I looked at Severance with psychoanalytical eyes. Was he autistic, mad or genius, was he forty something or twenty something. His whole being was as confusing as him. I looked across at the hikers who now looked very agitated and asked Severance if we should assist them.
Severance looked back at me and said in pure cockney mimicry, “Nah, Fuck ‘em”
I laughed aloud, I’m sure the travellers heard. At this point I found myself enjoying Severance’s company and it was just at that exact point Severance, got up, and left. My mind still analysing him, childlike, mischievous?
Lillian stood before me. As I glanced up at her, for a moment she appeared completely naked.
How that vision happened I don’t know. Sometimes sitting on the train, us leechy men leer over women, scanning every curve and contour and thereby picturing the female naked. Not just on trains, sometimes as they potter about in gardens.
It wasn’t like that in this case, for a split second she was stark naked. I was sure of it. She sat opposite, smiled and spoke softly, “Are you OK with Severance?”
“Yes fine he…”
“…because he seems quite taken with you, don’t let him down?”
With these words her eyes pulled me in, into a deep place, a scene of bliss, of still cool waters where animals speak to men and gardens bloomed. I heard myself reply as if from a distant corridor to Lillian that I wouldn’t let him down, or never would, or something, I can just remember dreaming and smelling her, her floral scent. All the sounds merged, repeating as if my hearing were attached to an analogue delay machine and then routed through a reverb module. I snapped back into reality and she was talking to me about cocktails and karaoke, I really don’t know how I came to miss her conversation and began to worry about my memory losses, drifting in and out of reality.
I asked her about the fascinating collection of books and was told they were left by a former trustee of the tavern, himself an occultist and traveller.
“Lillian?” I asked, “Severance began to tell me something about Deeping?”
A golden glow emanated from her, a soft Gaussian blur draped upon her marble skin, “they are old tales” she said, “It’s not that they are not true, what is not?”
I leaned back. Focusing on reality as again I began to drift but heard her next words, a sentence of pure…. gobbledegook,…. “I mean, what is a knot? Even a tangled ball of wool will produce something that fits.”
She reached for my hand and at once I felt a pang of love, not for her, not sensual or anything like that, just a warm deep sensation, contentment and ecstasy. She left my hand and my fingers wriggled to reach back, she walked away and again I saw her nakedness which immediately merged back into reality. I visualized the crucifix piece from The Crippled Crow, and the times my mind drifted between this world and never-never land. I reasoned the fresh air was causing disturbances. Withdrawal from the filth of London traffic. I thought of Scrooge in bed blaming the poltergeist on an underdone potato and agreed. These images were just products of London withdrawal. And years of toxic ingestions.
I drank some more ale, leaned back dreaming, then ADHD set in, bored, unable to relax. I shuffled over to the bookshelfs.
“The sigils of shadows”, “The diary of Gilles De Rais”, “The lost books of the Arthavya Veda”, “Claypole and Heap-a synopsis-Dickens” I took out the small leather-bound volume and opened the first page. Claypole and Heap ‘An Essay on the psychologies of characters. London 18— Charles Dickens …A limited print of 60. This volume, number……. I ran my finger along the page….number one!
For a moment I panicked, this book must be worth a fortune. Sat here, for anyone to thieve. In that moment a cloud of sadness overcame me. Why would I think like that. Holding this book, my immediate thought was to steal it, it’s probably been on this shelf for God knows how long, looked at by thousands of patrons, and I, with my London mentality can only think of stealing it. I felt instantly guilty and put the book back….with the spine facing backwards, see if it is regularly checked, just in case, you never know. I quickly pulled out a random book and began to read a volume on ‘Classical Myths’.
Over the course of the evening between reading I observed the comings and goings of the Tavern. A wild looking creature who came in from the pouring rain flirted gratuitously with Lillian, nothing wrong there until I saw his dog collar. The twins whispered throughout the evening occasionally looking in my direction. Severance popped back briefly and began to mimic a conductor with baton as Ode To Joy played on the jukebox, this caused the travellers, still arguing, to grab their things and storm out of the tavern leaving behind their map. Which I retrieved. As they stormed out of the tavern the man cussed the woman, “hopeless, hopeless….never again!” .Charming.
Lillian called out to them,”there’s a dense mist tonight make sure you…..”
Too late.
Gone.
A dense mist? Isn’t that a fog. Don’t walk across the moors, I found myself thinking, old werewolf movies. I scanned the bar to make sure the mask of the werewolf was still there. As I looked at the map I could however see the travellers confusion. I could see Priory Deeping and the path which presumably was Lameds Way, but… no crossroads, no tavern, nothing marked ‘public house’ the contours of the surrounding areas didn’t match either, no Pilgrims folly path. Again I checked Priory Deeping, followed the path down, the way I had come. Confusion. I remembered Severance’s tales of two Deepings, I regarded them as tall stories and now found myself remembering what he had said. By the sea? There was no sea on this map, just a large lake at the bottom right of the map. The map folded , into my pocket and after three pints of different ales, avoiding the scrumpy I retired and contented myself with laying on my bed reading about old Greek Gods and Goddesses. Wonderful.
In between reading I witnessed the rising, or is it falling of the fog from the window. It completely enveloped the moors. I found myself saying for dramatic effect, “that poor couple, I hope they’re alright.”
Then smiled, I was in a gothic paradise in the middle of a dense ghostly mist.

A shrill scream awoke me. Was I dreaming. I tried to think, what was I dreaming? Couldn’t remember. I sat upright then walked stealthily to the door to listen. Nothing. No movements, no sound, nothing, but the scream? I remembered it vividly. It must have been that damn cockerel, I hope a fox has got it.

DAY THREE
Chapter Four
Witch Peak Moor

Turning right as I exited the Tavern, I walked along Dead Clock Lane. I said it aloud, “Dead Clock Lane” as Severance had said it, in that orchestrated way, accentuating every syllable with my lips.
“Dead Clock Lane” I said again, and again.
In the distance I could see Witch Peak Moor, it reminded me of an old film, Return from Witch Mountain.
Was it synchronicity again? It was one of the first films I ever saw. Why is it we view things with such nostalgia?
When we see them again we think, actually it was a load of shit, destroy another fond
memory of our childhood.
Peculiarity. Familiarity. What’s the difference I thought.
I came to a small row of cottages, fitted with very small windows, not ideal for spying. Grimy and covered with smeared grease and filth too. Old curtains hanging and stitched together with dust. A door opened and catching me staring through one window, the old card reader from the tavern. “Grmmmph Hey,ye ummmph” he gestured saluting somewhat.
“Morning” I said,” beautiful little houses.”
He looked at the window, at me, raised an eyebrow and walked on past me.
“See you at the Tavern later?” I called after him. He raised a hand and marched on.
I looked at my phone, ten past seven.
Dead Clock Lane.
Dead Clock Lane!
As I walked on I had the same feelings that I had along the Pilgrims Folly. You begin to question things. You begin talking to yourself.
“I wonder” I said to myself, “If all my memories were tangible objects, what would the whole piece be like?”
Now I’m not sure I actually thought that up.
What is the process by which an idea arises.
I wasn’t particularly thinking about my past, and I wasn’t thinking about sculpture, it just popped in there. If all your personality and experiences were symbolized by a sculpture, however abstract, what would mine be like? What length of chain would burden my ankles?
I became aware again of my loneliness, and tried to suppress the myriad thoughts
bombarding my mind, way out stuff.
I read somewhere that all the great prophets were enlightened in solitude. Escaping from mental diversions with only their mind to consider they tapped into that great consciousness that people called God. In the desert, or mountains where there is little flora and certainly no fauna, spirit can not attach to life, thus it hangs freely to be tapped by the wandering soul…. Where is that voice coming from, what is imagination that arises spontaneously? Is it madness……
Is that true?
Again I was talking aloud, to myself. Then the Londoner in me spoke.
“Fuck all that fucking shit!” I said gobbing at the floor and kicking at a drystone wall causing it to buckle, I immediately checked I wasn’t being watched by the unseen, hills have eyes.

I walked on.

Out here, in this wilderness, no pressures or worries the mind wanders free and joins with natures company. At first there is paranoia, then loneliness. Then with mutual respect between you and nature there is a coming together of minds, natures and mine. A joining of consciousness. The same stuff we are all composed of. The same consciousness.
Nature knew everything about me, all that I have been, because inherently we are the same.
This thought caused me to panic a little, but I’d remember it, and include it somehow in my mystical travel guide. ….but then, thinking about it….
“What a load of bollocks” I said aloud to my wandering hippy mind and kicked at a lush green mound which sent the top flying, a quick look around…. I walked on.

Nobody has ever really understood me. Nobody has ever seen beyond that veil we all raise.
Everybody is like that. A hidden shadow called the soul that no-one is ever lit by.
People experiment with who they are, they’ll indulge in wild extreme forms or perversions in an attempt to fathom the parameters of their being, but no-one ever gets to reach that untamed and innocent soul.
I’d go to places full of hippy types, then hooligan types… all trying to find the….me. I never found much in common with anyone, whatever political part of spectrum, and certainly religion. I liked too much different music to be associated as punk, or rocker, or any other label.
I never fit in exactly, like a jigsaw piece from another picture, or an Airfix kit that had missing parts…….bits and pieces bolted on, not fitting the design…. Not following the instructions.

“What total, total bollocks” I said again in defiance to my philosophical mind.

Nature, still being the same swept me along her path, and I with careless abandon walked the path to Witch peak Moor. I viewed my own madness.

I saw how my actions affected others, simple things, flippant statements that hurt, simple gestures and pointing of fingers that caused harm. Most of the time, these actions were never meant to be hurtful, just flippant statements, how am I supposed to know what hook baits the fish.

Then I thought of Severance. What harm does he do? Why do I so ‘despise’ him? Doesn’t he bring innocence to the world, keeping alive that childlike quality we all lost, we all remember with nostalgia. What right have I, Mr. Perfect, to call him a buffoon, a retard, a cretin?

The distant sound of a police siren halted my mindly transgressions. I thought of the
nocturnal scream I had heard. I had just been thinking about Severance, coincidence? Maybe he’s hurt. I stopped and was about to hurry back when I saw how far I had walked, in the far far distance I could just make out the tavern. The sirens echoed between the moors, making them sound like a convoy. I saw the police car speed past the crossroads and towards Pilgrims Folly.
My walking meditations were shattered by the familiarity of a scene from London, police, blues and twos, on a shout. “Bastards” I said.
Not to the police or the culprits but just that my mental daydreaming was halted by the scene.
“A.C.A.B!” I shouted. This time it was for the benefit of the police. Just somehow in this wilderness and loneliness to feel I have something to say, something to kick against.

I walked on and it took a while for me to come to a meditative state again.

I saw a skull on the roadside, some small goat. Beautiful it was, almost bleached, no sticky flesh or Jenny Johnny thousand legs scurrying from the eye socket.

Witch Peak Moor climbed before me. I craned my neck to see the walk. Arching trees lined the progress upwards, blistered by wind burn, crippled and contorted, the trees were the sentinels of the moor.

At the foot of the moor a huge granite boulder sat, but it was chiselled and fashioned like a chair. Upon it were carved names, all girls names, chronologically listed. At the base upon a plinth were carved the words, “Priory Deeping May Queens”
I sat upon the throne and felt like a trespasser and then stroked my fingers along the dates and names. 1982, Lillian Decort!
I stroked at the chiselled indentation bearing her name.
I vowed to ask Lillian about this, if only to worm my way into her affections. I sat back upon the throne and saw before me a well trodden flat heath.
I viewed the scene on May Day, and all the villagers would be facing this throne standing on the heath. I could hear the merriment, I could see the regalia, the visualisation was that good.
It was so good I became paranoid and convinced myself that I was being watched. I was sat there on the May Queens throne, where I shouldn’t be.
“Aah fuck it!” I said aloud.
There’s no-one watching.
“Fuck‘em”.
The vile Londoner inside me was exorcised again and I began the steep climb up the moor.
Each twisted tree along the avenue became a friend who held my hand with its gnarled boney arm to rest upon.
”Have a look” I said aloud, repeating Severance’s words.
I spoke this to every tree I walked past. “I’ve come from Dead Clock Lane” I mimicked. “I’m going to have a look!”.
The walk progressed upwards upon natural stairs carved into the moorland, the air biting and yet refreshing. It felt like walking along the seashore, that saltiness and warmth cooled by the sea breeze.
Deep, deep lungfuls. Natures therapy.
As I climbed higher the surrounding landscape opened, as a telescopic lens turned the wrong way around. A full panoramic view. I wanted to shout and wondered if the whole world would hear me, I imagined below filled with the entire world’s population.
“You’re all cunts!” I wanted to shout to the multitude.

I reached a plateau, there on the top was a large stone cross. Celtic weave patterns were carved upon it. Nothing else, no writing, no indication as to what it served. I looked upon the weaves carved throughout, ribbons that intertwined and crawled around the back, over the top and back again, a maze of tangled paths, no beginning, no end. A folly where you’d end up where you started.

It was then that I heard the sounds of waves crashing. I walked to the edge of the summit and saw the other side. A huge swathe of water, so large it stretched into the horizon. The map!
I pulled out the map and quickly found the blue mark denoting water, there it was. I turned the map around and as the map turned I visualised a superimposed image of a table turning and everything came into focus. It meant that North was South, the map was upside down?
Or …what was it…
There was a certain symmetry in the landscape, easily fooling the eyes. South east looked a bit like north west. I stopped for a moment. In shock. Like a window to the world this map, a mirror, a window, two lookalikes, twins, window?
Again my mind fuelled by nothing more than fresh air found synchronisation in a conspiracy that probably wasn’t there.
I moved my finger the opposite way to priory Deeping now, and came to the crossroads past a symbol for a church, there she was, the Tavern. I followed the path to the hills, a barely visible path denoted Pilgrims folly. I found a small black square- The Crippled Crow. I looked back at the huge expanse of water below me, and upon the map, White Horse Water. I couldn’t believe it, how can you print an ordnance survey map… upside down…or is it that parts were
missing, or merged into a different part… I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. It was just as if the map in my hand was a jigsaw that was put together incorrectly.
“Fucking ridiculous” I laughed, and when answers are given, they are taken.
A gust of wind snapped the map from my hands and up it went. I watched as the map was recreated in mid flight by nature’s invisible fingers performing origami. The map twisted, abutterfly, a plane, a rabbit, into a twisted branch, the wind subsided and down it spiralled, down into the water, way down below.
“Bollocks”.

I looked all around at my view. I could see why mountain climbers so enjoyed the trek.
What else was there to do now?
ADHD.
It was beautiful all around but I started to feel the onset of boredom. Agitation.
I thought about people who carry an ironing board with them to indulge in extreme ironing, or those that carry a picnic table to inhospitable summits and on gingham cover tables brew some fine tea and drink from bone china cups.
What else to do?
Again I felt alone and wished that I had company.
I sat by the cross and thought for a moment.
Perhaps I should indulge in a spot of meditation.
My London cynicism reared its ugly head for a moment before I drifted into time worn memories.

I recalled seeing a family, all cross-legged sat around the alleged tomb of King Arthur at Glastonbury Abbey. What for? I had questioned. I looked at them for a while, silently laughing at their futile efforts. Taking the ‘piss out’ of their beliefs.
I could understand meditating by a tree I reasoned, it’s an organic/living thing, something that grows with the seasons, full of natural energy. What’s the point of meditating upon a vinyl mat in a sterile environment? No point.
My mind began to conflict with the idea of meditation, yet I found myself cross-legged and sat beneath the cross. My mind would not quieten. My ego refused to let go. I started to smirk, at me, ME, sat there like that.
I heard the roar of the wind burn upon my ears and I found myself hearing the roar of unseen traffic.
I daydreamed. My ego longed for London and noise, and somewhere to hide, here I was exposed.
Roar went the wind, my dreaming mind replaced the wind with sounds of roads and busy trains stations, I dreamed on,

The roar of the traffic, speeding along a motorway in a hire van.
I was there, it was about twenty years ago.
A van packed with us ‘delinquents’ on a beano. Up ahead we saw three pheasants just on the slip road, cars dodging them. We sped across three lanes and hit them all. They were catapulted into the air, a mass of blood and feathers. At once I felt an enormous wave of grief as this occurred but found myself laughing, because everyone else in the van was laughing.
“Posh totty strut around the countryside all day blowing the heads of them things.” Said one passenger.
“Yeah dressed in that shitty stuff they wear” replied another.
“Fuck that!” said the driver “If it’s good enough for those posh cunts its good for us, one transit van, obliteration.”
We all laughed, then we noticed cars overtaking us, beeping.
The drivers and passengers furiously waving fists at us, swearing, witnesses to the senseless carnage.
We stuck our middle fingers up at them, happy that we had shocked them, happy that we had been acknowledged.
One car went past, the driver cursing at us, the passenger, a young mother leaning into the backseat trying to placate two small children who were hysterical with grief having seen the beautiful birds killed, for no reason.

I snapped back to the present, sat upon the peak, overhead a rook was circling me. I thought of the pheasants and wanted to say sorry to the bird overhead, I saw a reflection of the evils of the past. I didn’t have to say sorry, the guilt was punishment enough.

So peaceful, no people.

That’s the problem I began saying to myself, “there’s too many people, nothing to do with greenhouse gases or waste, just too many using too much.”

I stood up and strutted around with my hands behind my back. I was Nero addressing Rome from a high pulpit. “One child for you all!” I said, “No child benefit either….family planning, if you can’t afford it, don’t have it.”
I became smug and arrogant and continued my speech, I realised I must look quite absurd to the rook, and also that I was frankly, again, going mad.

I thought of my next excursion, probably to Mary Magdalene church. The thought caused a momentary panic within. This would have delighted my old physics teacher, a devout Christian. “I’d fear God more than the devil” I once told him.
“Fear of God a good Christian maketh” he replied with a big beaming smile.
I sat back down and asked myself all sorts of questions. The art of questioning in itself is the tool. Most revolutions were caused by the question “Why” and most philosophies by the question, “If ”, or is it the other way round.
At times sat high upon the peak I wanted to cry, I don’t know why.
I thought of my childhood, the austerity of my upbringing.
We always had less than nearly every other kid on the street, but this seemed to fuel my imagination. Not being distracted by material pleasures I sought refuge in dreams and thoughts.
I was always happy, with less. I was happier looking through shops catalogues at things my mum and dad could not afford, than if I had the real thing. In my imagination the toys weren’t cheap plastic crap, nor did they break, as they did in real life.
I wanted to be that kid again in the warmth of the family refuge. My mind still worked the same, what is age? But bodily wear and tear, wisdom just the effects of memory and experience.
Another conflict arose in my thoughts, can a man only be enlightened by wisdom, having read much and seen much rather than someone who has read little and done less? Is the pursuit of wisdom only achievable by those with means?

What was there to know as I looked out across the land and below to the lake and high to the sky where a rook encircled me? I felt like an outsider. Yet everything else I viewed seemed to fit.

The whole world before me was perfect, yet as I sat there I became confused at my position.
The sound of the waves below seemed to carry the answers that I couldn’t grasp, because I wouldn’t appreciate it. The map became a sacrifice, though it showed the area around here, it meant nothing, just a picture, an effigy and not the actual beauty.
The map represented mankind’s interpretation on everything. Or, in the case of the map I had just held, man’s false assumption on everything.
So, there I sat, the questions and turmoil in my mind trying to create a sense of the familiar, so that it would quieten. The hustle and bustle of London. Even though peace held out her hand to me on that peak, my mind refused, and filled itself with commotion.
I listened to the sound of the waves below, gently caressing the shoreline, imagining each tide took away the filth within my mind, and I listened. I tried to hear things far away and with that my mind opened, receptive. The waves gently stroked my consciousness now, and cleansed it.
Would other people experience this? Is this unique? Is this what that loathsome family felt as they meditated at King Arthur’s grave in Glastonbury?
I remembered the disdain I felt towards that family and the clutch on my mind disengaged,
the gears kicked in and BANG !
Back to logic, back to negativity.
What have I experienced? Nothing!

Amidst the threshold of peace I suddenly rebelled at… THIS.

The tavern? Anyone can open an old tavern and fill it with occult regalia and books and proclaim this mystic ….shit.
Shit.
That’s what I thought.
The barwoman, Lillian, who does she think she is? Queen Guinevere?
And Severance, yeah, that’s a strange name but couple it with any autistic attention seeking deficiency and what you got? Nothing!
The twisty turney path? Bollocks, of course it would veer all over the place, it’s fucking bogland.
No mystery.
The throne below the peak? They’re all over the country.
Below me, that strange ocean? An effect brought about by moorland crosswinds.
No fucking Narnia there, no fucking Oz.
In fact, as I pondered in my accusation, I could call any place, ….. I don’t know say, Hell’s gateway and everyone would flock to it. In fact, if I sat anywhere, in solitude, with peace and quiet, all the things I’d experienced would happen. The questions, the guilt, reliving the past and a sense of unity.

I looked at my phone- 12.30.

For one moment I frowned, for a split second my belief in the magical returned. There is a place over that sodding rainbow in front of me that I hadn’t noticed before. There probably was some bloke who Father Christmas was based upon.
I stared at the rainbow, viewed each spectrum and over its summit I saw the noon risen moon smiling back at me, laughing with the carrion winged thing overhead which also refused to go.
I stood up, mimicked the new age folk who wear tie dye crusty clothes and spread out my arms, I took a deep breath in, through my nostrils, arched my back in self-sacrifice to nature,
and closed my eyes.
Petals opened, fragrant, the colours luminescent, I could even hear the flower spread.
Opening my eyes I stared directly at the moon above the rainbow and said, “How beautiful thou art, walk with me always, be my bride!”
I don’t know why I said it, I don’t know why I did it, but that’s what I did and as I walked back down Witch Peak Moor I wrestled with the thoughts, I began to chastise myself for the ridiculous ritual I had just taken part in, even though at the time it was wonderful, even though as I enacted the meditation, everything felt great.
But I dismissed it, I tried to negate that little experience from my head and replace it it with the natural cynicism and pessimism of my… nature.

Along Dead Clock Lane I thought of things I hadn’t achieved. Despite a good education and good trade qualifications I never had the desire to climb the corporate ladder. Content. Why then was I so miserable and cynical?
How can I be at peace and full of angst at the same time?

These were the struggling thoughts I had as I journeyed back to where I had come from.

Upon my bed, exhausted I sat and read, Greek heroes, Greek God’s and Goddesses.

Priory Deeping? Mystical? It was time to challenge. Time to stop being British and to
complain. Time to point at the king wearing no clothes.

Chapter Five
Evening tide

“Severance” I asked as I sat there eating homecooked venison pie, “I don’t get it.”
He looked at me with glazed eyes, his head buried within both hands.
“I mean,” I continued, “as you know I am here to write an article on this area, but, and excuse me for sounding rude, I don’t see anything that qualifies as mystical, save for this tavern which is … quite frankly mate, a facade.”
I ate my pie as I spoke this, oblivious to any emotional disturbance this would cause Severance. Severance sat upright and sighed, as if the game was up, as if I were onto him.
“You know,” he asked reluctantly, “ If you’re right you’re right, people say its mystical, magical even, why, have you not even glimpsed something out of the ordinary?”
For a moment I thought, if I answered no, that would be a lie, I had experienced things, thoughts, insights, questions, peace, revelations. Instead I found myself saying, “What is it you think I am looking for?”
Severance placed his finger to his lip and looked skyward for an answer, “ I think” he spoke, “you are looking for something that no-one has seen before.”
I ate away, “well, maybe?”
“But!” he interrupted, “no-one will ever see the scene you see now, your view, your perspective, every moment is unique, every glimpse has only ever been seen by you.”
I stopped eating. The buffoon had silenced me, the ‘idiot’ had pointed his finger at the naked king and declared he wore no clothes.
Severance spoke, ”it’s a bit like the story of the king who had clothes made out of special silk that only fortunate people could see, and yet, there was no silk.”
“I was just thinking that!” I admitted.
I eyed Severance with suspicion, had he just read my mind, or was this the ‘thinking of someone the moment they ring’ syndrome.
“Aaah, that’s like when you think of someone and they ring you!” Severance barked.
I glared back at him, “but”, he continued “it’s strange that when you don’t think of someone, they don’t ring either eh?”
At last he returned to jabberwocky and I ate my meal in the comfort that he was still mad, or was he?
We talked for a while after dinner and I mentioned the May queens , he spoke of an old lady called The May Merry Widow, who scandalously had won the May Queen crown, fit only, of course, for virgins, whilst with unborn child. The May Merry Widow he said could answer my questions, she ran a shop down Lamed Way, the one with blacked out windows.
I was to visit her after the church recce tomorrow, but Severance reminded me that the crypt tours were on, which I’d forgot about, with that damned ‘Thomas Tompkins Tomlinson whatever his name is’ fellow.
As I retired to bed I began in earnest outlining notes and essays about Priory Deeping and the Fallen Angel. I wondered whether I could liken The Ironic Pass to a mystical serpent, that swallowed its tail; “The Ouroboros”. This would be artistic license and my book was supposed to be an objective account of mystical Britain. I had a stone cross on top of a peak called Witches peak, Why? No-one knows, and it hardly warrants a paragraph that would have visitors flocking to see a sight that is common all over Britain, many old pagan stones and markers were ‘Christianised’.
A Tavern filled with curios collected by occultists and new agers and basically, that was it so far….and so I began to write in diary form, in case I missed anything. As I wrote and reached the part where I first walked along Lamed way, I could smell the avenue of meadows either side of me, that hypnotised me, that had sent me into a timeslip reverie, and wearily I drifted to sleep.

DAY FOUR
Chapter Six
The Tales of the Crypts

At last some, perhaps warranted, information that may, or may not be, relevant to a book about mystical Britain.
The tour of the crypts were due to begin at noon, I found myself contentedly reading my big book of classical Greek myths by the fireplace whilst indulging in some local Heather Ale. A perfect perfumed brew, worth the visit alone, and at last some optimism.
Outside a small bus parked and a crowd of some 15-20 people began to wander into the Tavern, presumably for the tour that was to start in an hour’s time.
In the midst of them a small round chubby chap with a pencil thin moustache waved the throng to the bar area clutching a clipboard.
“We shall wait here, order refreshments and I’ll begin in one hour….”
The crowd began to wander around lost and I felt a strange distaste for them, somehow, I felt they were invading my privacy in what after all is a public bar.
They looked at the interior with the same wonderment that I had a few days ago. Some looked distinctly bewildered, like Homo Sapiens venturing from Extra Terrestrial craft in the closing stages of Spielberg’s~ Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The Jukebox was playing an old sixties classic, I couldn’t remember the title, “There’s something going on here, what it is ain’t exactly clear….”
It fitted the scenario perfectly. Anticipation. Hope. Excitement. Synchronicity.
And then Severance turned up!
He hustled his way through the collective, his hands behind his back, he bowed to the people as he pushed past them, half smiled to some, he could have been playing that smarmy Mr. Collins from Pride and Prejudice. He saw me and, quick as…, was at my table, he asked, if he could, if he may, if I please could he join me.
No I thought, though I actually said, “Yes, take a seat.”
Severance looked either side of him to make sure no-one was there and leaned forward, “Lillian” he spoke making eye contact now with everyone in the Tavern, “had me sweeping the crypts for all these…” He waved his hands at the crowd, pointed to some, painted an outline over them “these…..” he said again.
“Tourists?” I offered.
“Parasites !” he bellowed, dead on cue when the music had stopped, when everyone was hanging onto his conclusion.
He didn’t bat an eyelid at the gasps and the voice from someone who whispered “Well I never”
“But….” he continued leaning forward again, “ down there, I found a most remarkable find that you’d be interested in?”
Would I like to see it? A creature the like of which he nor I has never seen.
“A creature?” I asked, “Of course, I’d love to see it.”
Severance broke into a broad mischievous smile and jumped over the collapsing chair he sprang from, then ran thorough the crowd dodging everyone with exaggerated movements.
“Sir”, spoke the chubby fellow with clipboard to me, “are you with the tour.”
“Yes I’d like to join” I replied.
“One hour over there” he said pointing to the notice board that clearly stated Crypts This way.
I swigged at my Ale and ignored him. Severance appeared by the front door, I don’t know how he managed to run around the Tavern and reappear here, he came hurtling towards me, tripped over a raised skirting and collided with the jukebox, It began to play Fleetwood Macs “Go Your Own Way”. Embarrassed at his entrance he then pointed to the jukebox and declared, “She snorted coke from boys bottoms!”
I almost spat out my Ale. The crowd hissed and cursed again as Severance kicked up the chair and sat flat upon it.
“Who?” I asked, “mmm?” “Who snorted Coke from boys bottoms.” I laughed.
“That Stevie girls name, boys name from this band, Stevie Girl” he blundered.
“Stevie Nicks!” I replied.
Severance didn’t answer instead producing from his pocket a large toad.
A very large toad that sat upon our table agog at its predicament.
“That’s a Cane toad!” I exclaimed, “native to ……Australia….”
Severance licked his fingers, stroked the beast and then licked his fingers again.
His eyes began to widen, his breath began to work harder.
“You shouldn’t do that!” I spoke, “because…”
Too late, Severance had the large toad in his hand and drove his tongue all along the back of it. The toad stared at me with dismissive toad eyes, “because!…..” I insisted, “cane toads release stimulants, like adrenaline and….”
“I feel sick” said Severance dropping the toad upon the table and running towards the stairs with his hand fixed firmly to his mouth, retching as he blundered through the crowd, bumping once again into the jukebox. If I told you the jukebox began to play Dizzy by Michael Roe you’d think I was lying, but it did, that’s exactly what happened.
The toad sat before me stunned for a moment and then did a Zebedee… the three or four feet off the table and hopped in the direction of Severance past patrons part screaming and part cooing at the strange fat creature hopping around them.
I was aghast, my beer glass fixed …..halfway …..between my mouth….. and the table.
The map….turned upside down? I’m not sure how that question popped into my head. A toad from the opposite end of Earth? Upside down?
What next a cake that says, eat me?
Severance never returned, I waited, but nothing.
“All here ! All here!” called the chubby fellow. I joined the scene.
“Now before we start, my name is,” he began to smirk, “Tom-To-T-Thomas Tompkins Tomlinson…so….that ice broken I need to run through some details of the….”
My mind switched off at the health and safety lesso. What a name. No wonder he stuttered it, probably the consequence of years of bullying because of his tongue twistery name.
I noticed an old lady staring at me intensely, she wore those ice white cardigans that old folk do when they go on outings or prize bingo nights. She stood with the aid of a walking stick, but stooped sideways so that she always seemed to be looking around corners. I was to learn later that she was a post office clerk. Her window to the customers was obscured somewhat, which meant she was always leaning to one side, this caused, after 40 years in the job, problems with fused vertebrae, I digress.
She glared at me as I tried to pretend I was not staring back, but towards me she marched holding aloft her walking stick which prodded me squarely in the chest. “That boy!” she announced, “or man or whatever he is, is not all there…”
“No!” I most definitely agreed, but she stopped my words with another gentle prod from her stick, “He isn’t telling the truth.”
I listened, she rested back upon her stick, sighed and continued, “Stevie Nicks didn’t snort Coke from boys bottoms, she had it blown up her bottom so as not to damage her vocal cords.”
She struck the floor with the stick, said what was needed to be said and walked back to her position in the line.
Had I just heard this conversation? I looked back at her shuffling her way between two middle-aged women and then snapping at them, “two world wars didn’t give the Germans the right to push in.”
The middle aged women muttered something, in German.
It was then I became aware Mr. Tomkins, Thomas ……whatever was looking at me and saying dismissively, “I do hope you’ve all understood what I’ve said.”
Well he knew I hadn’t listened to a word. I did catch something about low ceilings and wondered if I would exit the tour like Ms.IceWhiteCardigan all hunched and contorted.
The door to the crypts was like a door to a cupboard, very unobtrusive and wouldn’t have cast a second glance when walking past it, of course it creaked on opening and into a passageway we walked.
The crowd peered forwards along a gentle slope that seemed to creep towards an atmosphere of dread. The fresh painted yellow walls gave way to old cream flaked paint, which as we walked on gave way to bare brick. The passageway was illuminated by those yellow cabled low voltage lighting seen on building sites, yet as we progressed these seemed to dim.
A ferret faced woman walked next to me and I caught her glance. “Exciting?” she said.
As she spoke her shoulders hunched and she screwed her face like a ferret greedily munching kernels. “Let’s hope it is,” I offered.
She laughed back at me, her ferret nose screwed up and curling her hands like a ferret trying to peer over a cage.
Thompkins, Thomas, Timmy Tom whatever… stopped and shone his mock Victorian lantern upon a huge cask.
“Gather round” he commanded. We all stood facing a huge block sarcophagus. Behind it a faded painting of a saint stared almost smugly at the resting place.
The coffin itself was carved with modest knot work with the words ‘Dwynwyn’ and some Latin inscription etched upon the lid.
‘Tomsk’ began the sermon. “This is the final resting places of Alice Dwynwyn…”
He then spelt out every letter of her surname, even though the etched name was staring at us. “However, we pronounce this Downing,” he continued.
He paused for a moment and then made sure we were all listening, his voice lowered for dramatic effect and he spoke on, “she was interred here in 1680…cursed and …..”
Tomsk then lowered his glasses so that he peered over them at us and added with Vincent Price effect, “they say she was a witch.”
Another pause as the crowd shuffled and some whispered whilst I muttered and sighed the words, “here we go.”
“The landowner of this county,” Tomsk bellowed alarming the thought provoked crowd, “had a dashing young son, whilst Alice, but a chambermaid fell in love with him and it is said cast a spell upon the squire such that he fell in love with her, a love that was taboo and could not, would not be allowed by the lord.”
Still checking we were all interested he continued, “the squire and the lord argued and fought bitterly, the squire threatening to elope. Alice was sent away and as soon as she had left… the squire went insane. Now, when I say insane, he actually went mad, confining himself to his room he would shout and scream and curse. Eventually the lord gave in, Alice was bought back to the manor house where the Squire, immediately! recovered.” As he bellowed this out he slapped at the lid of the casket.
We began to shuffle nervously to avoid the dust he had disturbed that seemed to float around us like a spectre enquiring as to our trespass.
He continued, “The lord suspected foul play. Witchcraft! In those days this was a very serious accusation. The magistrate and cardinals and charlatan witchfinders were all gathered and pronounced Alice a witch.”
Having studied the witch trials I immediately doubted the story, 1680? Yes there was still the odd encounter and injustice but nowhere near the hysteria and certainly not what would be considered a serious accusation as Tomsk would have us believe.
He continued, “To protect the squire, nothing was said of the trial or judgement to the squire but Alice was interred. ALIVE!
They believed under the guidance of witchfinders and priests, the squire would be maddened no more for, as they explained, as she slowly starved and grew weak the spell would be broken.
The squire was of course was told that she had fled afraid of the tales of his madness.”
I began to look about the ceiling, moss and mildew and cobwebs. Tomsk coughed and then finished the story, “now, some months after, the squire too disappeared. A meeting was called and it was decided to exhume, if you like, Alice’s body from the coffin and burn it, in the hope of releasing the squires renewed heightened maddened state. The coffin lid was opened. This coffin lid.”
He gently stroked the coffin lid and began to look at each and every one of us, probing us to see what we were all guessing.
“There indeed,” he spoke, “lay the body of Alice. Also….. the body of the squire!”
And now Tomsk seemed to drop the lantern below his face such that ghastly macabre shadows flickered upon his face, for full dramatic effect.
His voice lowered,”The Lord, present at the opening of the casket cried aloud and dropped dead of heart failure. Did Alice somehow lift the coffin lid on her own and take the squire with her? Impossible it would take 8 men to lift this lid. What happened? We do not know, but here lies Alice and the Squire~ Robert Harlow.”

The crowd moved closer to the coffin with each sentence, some touched the lid, some ran their finger along the seams.
It was an interesting story, even I must admit and I began to write notes on my notepad which was made difficult by the damp atmosphere in the passageway.
Ferret faced woman looked horrified and stepped away, curling up her ferret fingers to her ferret bucktoothed mouth.
I, however wasn’t convinced. What a load of bollocks. Instantly I knew this whole tour was a fraud, I could tell by the body language of Tompkins. He looked shifty when our eyes met, he looked away when I gazed purposefully into his tall tales. Once again I felt I had been lured into another fallacy, fraud. Contrived supernatural tourist grabbing exploitation.
As the silence and unease permeated the gathering I spoke “What does that Latin mean?” I asked
“Ah” spoke Tomsk, “In thy desire, shall they come!.”
He waited for me to respond, I nodded and wrote this down on paper which was rapidly becoming more fragile, shaking my head, whilst Tompkins squinted.

We walked on. Past some more coffins, obviously insignificant do-gooders who never bothered anybody, therefore were forgotten about, having had nothing at all interesting in their lives to remember them by. In many respects seeing these insignificant coffins was more interesting. Coffins in the basement of a tavern. A row of coffins! A burial chamber. It definitely was odd and I would have to research this more.

The guide stopped and we all stood before three upright coffins which were joined together by a huge wooden frame.
“Here!” he spoke, “are the three coffins of ……John, Doe and Seen. And yes, the name of the third is ‘Seen’ Nobody knows the story of those names, they are the subject of the rhyme that you see in the Tavern just by the dartboard, also being an old folk song from these parts.”

I hadn’t read the poem so felt slightly cheated, nor heard about the folk song.

Tomsk tapped his mouth with his clipboard as if remembering the story and then continued. “They all lived with their frail mother in the cottage we visited this morning…”

What cottage? What visit?

“…..these boys were huge strapping lads as you can see by the size of these caskets, they were all unmarried. The mother used to beat them and curse them for not having married. A very cruel old lady. Now, around the time these sons were alive, this area was witness to numerous acts of foul play. Murder.”

Oh for the love of bonfire stories.

“Suspicion fell upon the Charter brothers as the murders were of people who were about to be married. People suspected jealousy driven by an anger fuelled from constant beatings by their mother. They were brought to justice to attest to the crimes but each of them declared their innocence. Some locals protested they had seen the brothers in various vicinities of various murders, and eventually they were all declared guilty. Did they murder the betrothed of Priory Deeping? No-one can actually say but, the magistrate condemned them to 100 years each imprisonment. Each of the brothers protested and each of them died within 3 months of the verdict. Whilst in jail and thereafter all the murders ceased.”

Mr. Thomas Thomkins Tomlinson stopped for us to gauge the correct and obvious conclusion. He looked at me, I looked back with a feint smile, he looked down.
“Now then”, he continued, “After the verdict and 100 years after they were first imprisoned, two murders occurred in the Deeping area. Victoria Maple and Daniel Devonshire, horrifically butchered. Soon after another engaged couple were murdered. The locals aware of the story of John, Doe and Seen demanded they be exhumed and placed in a protected and consecrated area, their coffins exercised and damned to……,”
I interrupted, “Are these crypts full of such stories?”
In a way I was attempting to call out this tour as a charade, hopefully my sarcasm would create a swelling rebellion. I was alone and Tomsk looked me squarely in the eye,
“Sir,” Tomsk replied, “These crypts are sacred ground, the locals believed so, this crypt runs from The Fallen Angel Tavern and comes out at the Mary Magdalene Church. No, not all these resting places are of criminals or witches or the like. But! Along this passageway lay some strange and disquieting voices from the past.”
How very gothic I thought, and yet, as I looked at the coffins, they did seem to emanate some feeling of evil, but isn’t that subjective. We are told that evil is inherent in them, we believe it.
I looked back along the passageway to Alice’s grave, it was then, I suppose like the other guests on this guided tour, I felt very uneasy. I viewed these tales with suspicion but there was some eerie macabre atmosphere in the place, and that with much reasoning was objective.
I remembered the police car I had seen as I went towards Witch Peak, maybe the brothers still wander the moors hellbent on a murderous rampage. Maybe they’ve done a deal with Alice and hunt like a nest of vampires. My wandering mind ceased, snapped back.
These were real tales of consternation, my sarcasm out of place here.
This isn’t funny. This is real?
I looked over at ferret face. She was ashen. Behind me a younger couple clutched each other, holding hands tightly, he suggested they were to die, they chuckled about being engaged. I looked at the brothers’ coffins, and then the couple as prey, they giggled more and I visualized the brothers bursting from the coffins hacking them into pieces.

We walked on.
The passageways became damper, the ceilings lower. Each voice echoed through the chambers, as if, all sounds were played back via…….via….analogue delay with added reverb to boot.
I looked back, the giggling couple were dawdling behind us, until as we turned a short corner they were out of sight. I listened for their footsteps but heard some giggling followed by whispered amorous fumbling, a little squeal of consternation.
I walked on and caught up with the rest of the party. More coffins, some ornate, some very basic, blocks of marble, hunks of wood, a mound of rubble.
“Now!” called the guide who ushered us around a precipice that overlooked a very dark corner chiselled through what looked like a coal mine seam.
“I am going to shine my torch into an area that was first discovered or at least reopened in the 14th century, bear in mind what you see has been there for hundreds of years before that”
We all craned our necks for a better view, the Germans and Americans pushing forward. Tomsk lifted his torch and ordered, “No flash photography!”
He leaned over towards the hollow and gently lowered his lantern illuminating the area. Then it came into view.
“Ladies and Gentlemen” said Tompkinson, “I give you, ……The Fallen Angel.”
His torch shone upon a beautiful face that almost screamed at being blinded by the light. At first it was hard to see if it was a carving or a painting. In fact it was both, carved into a hollow cave and then painted elaborately. It was the face of a youngish boy, stunning, with red cheeks and mischievous smile. Impish. Innocent. I was transfixed by the image. The Fallen Angel? There were no wings to depict him as such nor angelic scenes, just this boy, holding some torch or broken spear in his hand.
“Who in God’s carnation is that?” Asked the fat American who had pushed his way now to the front and was about to use his camera when the guide admonished him and declared, “this is the Fallen Angel, this is the face of ….Lucifer.”
I think most people repeated the name.
“But it’s a boy?” asked one lady.
“Yes only a boy, no horns or wings.” Said another.
“Not ugly, just a young boy?” protested another.
Tomsk waved down the protests and spoke, “This area was in a sealed up vault that was dismantled in the 14th century. There was this sculpture come painting, an altar and some parchments. This area, chiselled and hewn from this rock was a temple to this boy, and the parchments declared this boy was the vision of Lucifer, The Fallen Angel.”
I stood there truly amazed at the picture, I wanted to draw it, photo it but we weren’t allowed. I would beg Severance to allow me to do so later I reasoned. I had to have this picture. ADHD has now been replaced by possessive compulsion.
People asked the guide, in fact they became quite adamant in their need to take pictures, he was having none of it. He stood between the crowd and the sculpture and waved us all past him. It was like being ushered past the crown jewels in London. One brief look and out. I peered over his shoulder and photographed the image with my memory.
I was the last? The kissing couple weren’t behind me, nor in front. Where had they gone? For a moment I thought I’d better inform Tomsk, but indignant at his behaviour I thought, fuck him, and fuck them an’ all.
I closed my eyes and I could see the young boys face as I had remembered it, clear. People began to say they had seen the face before, but couldn’t remember where. Some old painting maybe? By one of those renaissance doodlers? Couldn’t be sure. I wanted to join in the conversation and say, yes I felt like that, I had seen it too, but where, but, I was an outsider and anyway, when I bribed Severance I’d be coming back.
We continued.
I turned around to find the young couple running back after the pack, each looking flustered and embarrassed. Neither having seen the Fallen Angel.
We walked past some older coffins, some deteriorated, some of them made of heavy wood that had rotted. The weirdoes and creepy ones amongst us, looked at the decaying bones upon the floor. I wondered if we were to walk all the way to The Church of Mary Magdalene, when suddenly our progress forward was barred by a huge Iron gate. “It is here,” said the Tomsk, “our tour takes a different direction.”
He shone his torch to the right and immediately lit up a second passage way that ran at right angles to our path, yet seem to curve back and then run parallel to the way we had come. In effect, a second passage way alongside the way we had come. If you’ve been on The Dartford Tunnel, that would be easier to describe.
“Why?” said Ferret, “Is the path ahead blocked.”
“Ah,” replied Tomsk, “this passageway was a means of escape for Catholics and Pagans before them and was a means to escape from one church to another, or as we now know it, from the Tavern and into the church. This gate was erected in Oliver Cromwell’s time. It is possible to squeeze through the side of the gate but the path is dangerous, the walls leaking and unstable and as you can imagine in today’s compensation culture it is deemed too dangerous to reopen.”
On he walked. I peered down the corridor. One American called down, “Hello!” there was an echo and another and we both turned to each other when, in the far distance we heard a door shut. We quickly caught up with the rest of the pack who were now admiring six coffins adorned with the statues of knights in full regalia and locked in prayer.
“ …. The Knight Bartholemew the wise and lastly Sir Herald, which is most probably a misspelling of Harold the defender.”
He continued his lecture, but I became aware of a presence behind me and looked backwards into the dimly lit passageway. I listened for footsteps, I could hear them in my mind, but when I relaxed, objectively, there was nothing there.
My legs began to ache in the damp atmosphere. Rheumatic pains. I looked for the old lady, she prodded at one coffin with her stick, her cardigan illuminating the passageway like a high visibility vest worn on building sites.
We reached some more coffins of priests, one of whom was related to Gilles De Rais, one time companion to Jean De Arc, but later became obsessed with slitting open young boys stomachs and sitting on the warm intestines.
Such a graphic description given by Tomsk had many of the tourists complain, many had had enough. Ice White Cardi’ however… she revelled in the details, positively drumming on the floor with her stick as the gory details were revealed, her eyes lighting up as each sordid and perverse tale was relayed.
Again I felt a presence from behind, I moved forward and passed some tourists, I’d had enough of being at the back, I noticed soon after, whoever was last soon increased their pace and overtook the people ahead. It was some playground school game. Your turn to go last.
Walking on we began slowly to climb and the walls became more illuminated with better lighting. The guide stopped, faced everyone and said, “now the good bit.”
He then walked on and touched a large door which swung outwards, into the tavern.
It was the bookcase.
We emerged from behind the bookcase as the guide tapped the statue of Asmodeus on the head and declared him to be the guardian of secrets, likewise this was a secret passage. It explained how Severance managed to teleport here there and everywhere. One of the first things I noticed as I re-entered the tavern was the stained-glass window of the depiction of St Michael. It was like a revelation after walking in doom and gloom, hearing unfeasibly detestable tales and gothic horrors to be welcomed by this salvation, it was a moment of ecstatic bliss.
I watched to see if everyone felt the same. One by one the travellers emerged from the passageway, caught site of the window, the sun bursting through and they too, took part in this natural rebirth. Arising from the grave as if they were passing up from third degree Masonic ritual into resurrection.

“Mr. Wenborn?” said the policeman walking towards me. “Yes?” I hesitated and noticed another policeman following, Lillian nodding to them in my direction. Severance sat upon the table looking at me with wide eyes. The policeman stood before and puffed out his chest, “we’d like to ask you some questions, we can do it here or…”
“We can go to my room” I suggested.
I didn’t look at anybody in the tavern as I lead them through and upstairs. Surely not stolen pastries.

Chapter Seven
The Inquisition

I sat upon the edge of the bed, one policeman sat on the chair and took out a notepad, the other began to pace around the room.
“So, then, what’s this all about?” I began.
“Mr. Wenborn can you detail your whereabouts of the last three days?”
I could. I grabbed my notebook, filled with notes about my visit and began to describe where and when I had travelled. For the most part, the majority of my time was spent in my own company, I couldn’t account why it took so long to walk from Priory Deeping where I was seen by miss prim and proper in the cafe and ms.green.fingers.
The next time I met someone, hours later, was Lillian. I began to perspire, gaps in ,my alibi, alibi?
I detailed my excursion around the Folly path and then I insisted, “look, can you tell me what this is about?”
“You said you walked along Pilgrims Folly?” continued the policeman sitting, “did you see or go near an old corrugated hut, that is on the right side of the moor before The Crippled Crow Public house?”
What should I do? Lie? Instinct says lie. Why?
“Yes” I replied and relayed the story of the storm.
“You did not return to that area later on in the day?” asked the policeman.
“No… I had dinner here and went to bed. I’m sure everyone in the tavern can vouch for that?”
They said nothing, viewed my body language. My nose itched. I wanted to itch my nose but thought, doesn’t that mean I’m lying? Well I wasn’t lying but my nose still itched.
“Mr.Wenborn, do you remember a middle aged woman, about 5ft 4, wearing a green waterproof coat and dark blue waterproof trousers who…”
“Yes!, she was in here with, I guess her partner, they were travellers? I think they were lost?”
“A Gentleman called , Severance, states that you retrieved from them a map?”
Severance. Snitch.
“They left it here.”
The other policeman immediately interjected, “didn’t think to give it back, wanted them to get lost eh?”
I looked at them both in turn. Instantly I retaliated, “Are you taking the piss!”
The policeman stood up from his chair, the other moved closer,
“What did you do with the map?”
“To be honest…. I kept it for myself and…”
“Where is it now”, said the other policeman.
“I lost it, it blew away at Witch peak Moor….”
“ why did you take the map, was there anything wrote or clues as to the intentions of the travellers…”
“No!” I said in earnest, “where are they? Is this about a lost map?”
They both stepped back.
A momentary silence before the policeman with the notepad looked over his notes and said,
“So, you were familiar with Pilgrims Folly having travelled it on the day that we are interested in, you also saw and went to the corrugated hut, again, a detail we are most interested in ,you also knew of the travellers and also had their map which may or may not have had some clues as to their intended progress?”
“Look,” I protested, “take my DNA, do whatever, I haven’t a clue what happened, I don’t knowwhat you’re on about. Yes I walked round Pilgrims Folly, yes I had their map.”
The two policeman looked at each other, then back at me. “That will be all for now Mr.Wenborn, I understand you’re here for the next few days?”
“Well, that was the intention,” I replied and then added in a murmured blur, “but fuck this for a game of soldiers.”
They looked at me, up and down, and off they went. I followed the sound of their footsteps, the tavern below strangely silent. I walked to my door, shut it and lay on the bed.
What is this about?
I remembered the police car yesterday morning, and the previous evening, the walkers and
…then I remembered, The scream!
I remembered the scream. I was about to leap up and tell the policemen but what was I thinking. I heard a scream, in the Fallen Angel Tavern a mile or two presumably from the old corrugated hut. It was a dream, surely. But I had heard it.
Immediately I began to remember all the patrons, My suspicions fell upon everybody.
Severance, The Goblin, The drunken vicar, the burly farmers, The old Irishmen who spat obscenities. The smartly dressed man, definitely out of place.
Then I had a thought, a thought that caused me to wretch and well up inside. What if I had sleepwalked? What if it had been me? What if I had heard the scream…. because it happened in front of me? I thought on, the missing times, how I seemed to drift in and out of reality here, putting it all down to detoxifying from London. My little maddened episodes. I’m a psychopath. With a split personality, how will I convince the jury I’m not of a sane mind?
What the hell am I thinking!
I jotted down my thoughts, if nothing else there would be a good story here. A story of a jukebox that seems to play a tune that coincides with the reality of the room. A stranger who slips in and out of consciousness and kills people. I thought of the barman in the Crippled Crow. The crypts, John Doe and Seen, the besotted maid Alice and the squire….
Tap Tap Tap!
I opened the door and Severance the snitch stared back at me. His hair was dishevelled.
“Mr. Wenborn, what has happened?”
I didn’t invite him in, but in he walked, passed me and onto the chair.
“Severance, I have no idea, lost travellers or something?”
“Yes!” spoke Severance flicking that digit to the skies, “disappeared…. pooof!!” he said
exploding his hands for added effect.
“I’m sorry Severance, it’s mad mate.”
I don’t think I ever said mate to him with real meaning, as I said it he looked at me with surprise then buried his head into his hands and replied, “yes, I know Mr. Wenborn… mate”
“Do you know anything? What happened?” I asked.
Severance stood up, licked his lips and grovelled towards me, pulling at my arm and drawing me close. “Murder. Mate. A blunt instrument Mr. Wenborn, several blows I understand, smashed her skull right in, done her good and proper!”
I snatched my arm away from him. “Jesus!” I said walking away to the window and looking over at the moors, the scene of the ghastly crime. Murder? Murder ! ?
Severance shuffled towards me, “partially naked they said, been, been …….” he looked about the room to make sure no-one could hear and whispered, “Into…. feared with.”
“You what?” I turned, “Interfered….what the fuck….?”
Severance followed me like a leech and whispered more, “they say her face was frozen into a scream and they say her hands were clawing at the Earth, they say she…”
I held up my hand, Severance stop! I gestured. He did and stood upright then widened his eyes and spoke again in a deep whisper, “there’s been a murder Mr. Wenborn. A murder.”

I opened the door and Severance shuffled out with the stealth and posture of a kung fu warrior practicing silent manoeuvres on rice paper.
I sat back upon the bed contemplating this scenario. If this murder had taken place in
London, a mile away I’d still be concerned but there would be thousands of people between myself and the scene, hundreds of thousands of suspects. Here I could count the number of people I’d been in contact with on fingers and toes.

I began to think.
Thinking is dangerous, I remember my Nan once said, “don’t listen to your thoughts, you won’t like what you hear.”
This scared the shit out of me, but I didn’t know at the time she was schizophrenic. I wouldn’t have understood what that meant anyway.
She WAS schizophrenic! It’s genetic!
I’m schizophrenic?
Once, I asked my mum where those voices in my head came from, she went white. I didn’t mean that I heard voices that were independent, but when we think, we hear our own voice, like when we read, where does that ‘voice’ come from? When we dream, where are those images projected from, and where to? When we dream we see other people, I couldn’t remember or decide whether they spoke in their voice or mine.
What on Earth was I digressing for.
There had been a murder, of that traveller.
Where was her partner?
I should have told the travellers about Pilgrims Folly, I could have stopped it.

I had to face downstairs and all the probing eyes in the tavern.

I approached Lillian for a large shot of whisky, would this be seen as an admission of guilt, to drown ones sorrows. She smiled, “don’t worry, we’ve all been questioned…all of us.”
My anxiety ceased as I smelled her aroma, a deep pungent Lavender with hints of
Rosemary and Thyme. Peculiar.
“I’m making some herbal brew,” she said, “perhaps you could use some?”
I nodded completely unable to decide or contemplate the options. She handed me, in a copper tankard, a brew of tea. “Drink this, “she explained, “it is the tonic we all need.” I sat upon the table by the fireplace and quickly glanced around.
The tourists and Mr. Tomkins Tomlinson whatever his name was were all gone save for a couple of faces that seemed familiar from the crypt tours and the giggling pair of romantics who sat snuggled together in the far corner.
The ‘twins sat there beneath the window and nodded in my direction, as did the old Irishman.
We, in this predicament had a solidarity. It’s amazing how people come together under a common bond, usually as a result of some disaster.
We despise and curse each other, paranoid, ignore and cuss, then we all get shat on and suddenly we’re brethren.

The brew was lovely, warming. Lavender and Thyme and Rosemary but very sweet, honey. I heard Lillian call over, I think to me, or it may be she was just singing some strange rhyme,
“Bayberry Bark and Rosemary
while for memories sake
lavender seeds and blackberry bile,
oh Soma seeds with honey’s feed
turned widdershins in copper vials.”

The maddened vicar or reverend came into the tavern, looking dishevelled.
“The cursed Deeping” He said to no-one in particular and approached Lillian, “ Ah! My gorgeous darling, mead. One pint of finest Priory Mead my lovely.”
He turned to the small congregation in the tavern and nodded to each of us.
I finished my brew and went to the bar to speak to him, but he had collected his pint of orangey liquid and disappeared to the other side of the bar.
“That was lovely” I said to Lillian, “homemade?”
“Absolutely,” she replied, “the harvest isn’t looking that good now, spring wasn’t kind to our crop.”
The harvest isn’t looking good now?
It’s the Wickerman all over again.
They’re all in on it!
It’s the Orient express.

I shook my head to rid my wandering suspicions and said, “Yeah the weathers barmy.”
“Barmy!” shouted Oberon, who appeared at my waist, “Not barmy, nature fighting back!”
“Oberon,” cussed Lillian, “Not now, not here, there’s been a….”
“Murder!” cried Oberon with hands held aloft as an Orangutan in some vulgar display of superiority.”
“No not a …”
“Let me tell you about murder,” Oberon interrupted. The tavern fell silent as Oberon began walking about the tavern, a few strangers entered just as Oberon began to lecture.
“Nature is being murdered. Nature! Nature is a slave now to the greed, the masters have whipped her too long.”
He made eye contact with all of us as he spoke, wandering around like a doom monger, anapocalyptic visionary.
“Slaves were once loved, service in love, no longer, the masters are cruel now.”
Outside the winds were picking up and light rain began to dance with the breeze.
Oberon pointed with a rigid finger to the changing weather.
“Nature preparing! Nature just waiting!”
He strutted around the tavern, insistent on being heard, and everyone obliged, putting down their drinks, the Irishman however continued placing cards on top of each other.
“LISTEN!” yelled Oberon, “nature not dying, just conserving energy, just storing all that potential!” he roared waving his arms about.
He stopped rigid as though he were about to jump over a stream. The tavern still hanging upon every word and again he bellowed, “then nature! Will….whooosh! come the floods, whooosh! come the storms and tornadoes, UNRELENTING !!!.”
On this he leapt over to the old Irishman’s table and cried again, “BOOM!”
The Irishman dropped his card which was immediately picked up by a draught and out it went, like a cueball to a snooker table’s pocket it went straight through a gap in the window.
The Irishman stood upright and glared at the dwarf, ready to clobber him, then
out of the tavern he scuttled in pursuit of the card.
“Run they will to find their glory, lost forever,” called Oberon after the Irishman.
“BOOOM!” he yelled jumping in the air, I heard the cockerel outside squeal in alarm.
“Nature spitting back in the masters face,” he said to all of us, “everything thrown and strewn across the bed of nature like a pack of cards.”
He pointed to the table where the cards were neatly stacked in various sorted piles, and roughed his hands over all of them, messing them up completely.
On cue the Irishman returned holding aloft the lost card with a smile, until he caught sight of Oberon whose hands were tossing and turning his pack of cards, he responded .
“WHOOOSH!” yelled Oberon, “waves become the oceans, breezes become bulldozers.”
The Irishman surrendered his anger and with stooped shoulders began to collect up his cards as Oberon walked about the tavern, eyed each of us for a reaction, snapped his fingers and continued.
“Man! Will look to nature, yes he will, crying ! Please stop, Please…No more.”
He took centre stage and mixed his fingers and then said in a childlike way, as if seeking
sympathy, “please stop, please no more.”
It was Oscar winning.
“Please stop.”
He flipped out his arms, calling for a finale, looked about the Tavern and said…..
“and nature…. will……do…………………………”
We all waited for the apocalyptic end, the final crescendo, the sword into the stone.
“………NOTHING!” he said.
With that he smiled, a long protracted smile, a smile that showed he was sworn to nature’s side.
Everyone looked at each other and then to Oberon. He shook his head from side to side and then performed a merry jig, a dance of delight, grotesque, that lasted but 5 seconds before he sauntered off, as if he had not said a word all evening.
I didn’t know whether to clap or cry.
Amidst the silence the jukebox sprang to life, it was a strange song.
“We’ve got a farm, a barn of a farm, right in the middle of the swamp…..”
I got up to inspect the jukebox.
“There aint any charm, in our little farm, right in the middle of the swamp….”
I read the VDU, it was an obscure band called Current 93 that I knew of and the chorus gave away the song title…
“We’re miserable, so miserable, down on Misery farm.”
It was mad, but as the song continued, the next chorus saw the vicar/priest/parson/curate whatever he was joining in.
“We’re miserable, so miserable, down on Misery farm.” The song continued and Severance came, pirouetting into the tavern from upstairs, dancing with an invisible partner to the song,
“The Old grey mare, she looks at it there, stuck in the middle of the swamp”
Severance ran to the end of the tavern and grabbed at his heart,
“We’ll be digging it out next May, patching it up for derby day.”
And then, together the whole tavern, myself included sang, we sang and clapped and stamped our feet, even the old Irishman tapped his finger upon his beer glass.
“We’re miserable, so miserable, down on Misery farm. All the animals and all the vegetables, down on misery farm”
Severance paraded about, one minute strutting across the floor like he was Mick Jagger, the next pretending he was in the Bolshoi ballet, then he’d mime to every word performing actions for each and then he’d clap and stamp in unison with the rest of us.
“We’re miserable, so miserable, down on Misery farm.”
The Jukebox, repeated the song, and then again, each time the tavern and all its inhabitants became more passionate. The canoodling couple were stood upon their chairs screaming the chorus. Lillian was waving a tankard full of beer that spilled all over the bar. It was chaos, mad.
I literally climbed up the stairs that night, the weird song repeating in my head.

I had a disturbing thought.

We had all heard about a murder and within minutes, the whole pub was partying. Partying?
That weren’t no party, that was a celebration!
The room span, uneven like the maddened path -pilgrims folly.
My mind was a mass of confusion, but I was so tired.
In an instant, as I collapsed upon the bed I was asleep. My last thought was the face of the fallen angel, and that was the last thing I saw until my dream began, my nightmare.

Chapter Eight
Nightmares

I was in the crypts running,
I had just ran past the three coffins of the brothers, from inside I could hear banging, each of them trying to get out. I had already ran past Alice’s resting place, that coffin was open!
Empty.
In my hysterical state and with a loss of coordination by the dim lights I bumped into walls, covering myself with slime that attached itself to me like goo, like spiders webs, and it clung to me, impeding my progress.
I stopped. Took some deep breathes and listened, I heard a clanking sound again…….again,
then heavy footsteps, slow heavy footsteps.
Footsteps that quickened, becoming nearer.
Footsteps that turned into running steps, and with that I ran too.
Ahead of me I heard the sound of digging, the wall ahead oozed debris and a hole appeared.
It was mole man Miller, poking his head from the tunnel, “quick !” He yelled, “ climb
…follow me.”
As I reached him the hole collapsed, he let out a small squeal as he became crushed, the blood bubbling forth.
I turned and could see shadows getting nearer with the sounds of heavy footsteps. I ran!
I came to the Iron gate. I could squeeze through up to the sanctuary I hoped of Mary
Magdalene church or turn right and exit through the bookshelf.
I looked to my right and there she was! The murdered traveller, crawling towards me with broken legs, her fingers clawing at the air, her jaw horrifically broken, spittle oozing from her bottom lip.
She groaned and reached out for me.
“Why!” she moaned and then turned, looked to the hallways where I had come from and hearing the footsteps she flipped around and dragged herself back towards the Tavern crying,
“they’re coming, they’re coming!”.
I squeezed through the Iron gate those heavy footsteps behind me, my heart pounding, my arms becoming numb, tingling that ached across my back, shooting pains in my chest, I ran.
The corridor stank, I ran through stagnant water and could smell bad eggs each time I stepped into something sludgy, something slimey.
The walls getting narrow and narrower. From behind I heard the Iron gate being rattled, louder and louder, more ferocious and yet other footsteps seemed also to run away from the gate.
It wasn’t just one person.
The other footsteps must have ran down the other corridor where the murdered traveller had crawled.
I heard the traveller scream.
I heard her bones break and her innards ripped.

There was someone still at the Iron gate, struggling ferociously with its fixture.
Exhausted I stopped. Enough! My whole left side became numb, my hands shaking.
In front of me I saw something move, something small. It was Severance’s cane toad. I picked it up and found myself licking it, sucking at its belly, immediately adrenaline burst into me.
I put the toad back down as I heard the iron gate behind me crash upon the crypt walls and heard the beasts clamber over it running after me.
My mind raced now, renewed vigour and all my chest and bodily pains departed. I ran faster than ever through a twisting narrow corridor and could hear myself distance from the beasts behind.
Ahead now I saw a door, It looked exactly like the one that adorned the entrance to The Fallen Angel.
‘ Please be open’, I thought as I reached and turned the looped handle.
Nothing.
No Keyhole?
No hidden latch.
I saw one bolt and tugged at its rusted housing, it shifted and moved and slid backwards.
Still the door was shut.
The footsteps coming closer.
I threw myself upon the floor and saw another bolt, it wouldn’t budge. So close to the damp floor it had almost fused itself together, rusted into one form, it stopped me from exiting, IT was the cause of my impending death.
Upon my back I flipped and with a full boot kicked at the bolt with all my strength. Instantly it shattered.
Upon my feet, I grabbed the looped handle and turned the door, open!
Out!
Out I collapsed and turned and scanned the other side of the door. Two bolts. Thank God they were open but not for long as my hands fuelled by adrenaline slid them both across.
I heard the steps running towards me, closer, closer, I stepped backwards. The door almost bent as the force of the beasts hit it at full speed.
Banging, kicking.
I turned and ran from the small vestibule and stopped.
Candlelit.
Into the aisle I ran with my face fixed upon the door being pounded.
Then it stopped.
Silence.
I stood there for some time but nothing else was heard.
Stillness, a strange overwhelming stillness that inherently held unseen eyes.
I span around to check there were no other beasts or demons until I stood facing the altar.
There was no crucifix, no angelic stained glass window.
She stood there some 16ft tall, a marble statue of Mary Magdalene. Naked, her hair plaited…..
in inch thick strands.
A prostitute in a biblical epic.
I fell upon my knees, and slowly crawled towards her, if I am to die it will be at her feet.
I reached the image and reached for her, my hand feeling the cold stone but instantly they were warm.
I saw the area illuminated by a strange light, and I was no longer in the church but some bedroom, the feet still there, my hands stroked upwards and I saw above me Lillian, smiling at me. She leant down and touched my head. “Bad dream Mr. Wenborn” she said.
She wore a deep red nightdress, the light of the room shone through and again I could see her naked.
I could feel her, warm, real.
My eyes adjusted, I was waking up. I wasn’t in my room,
but someone else’s, but I was waking up, it was real.
She stood there in front of me, I on all fours crawling upwards, she standing naked except for a see through dress.
She stroked my head. I crawled up her with my hands and then upon my knees.
She lifted her dress and draped it over me, my face now staring at her auburn pubic hair.
I felt her hand push my head forward and I could feel the moisture and heat from her as she jolted her body towards me, opening her legs she manoeuvred herself until she buried my face into warm and wet flesh and began to squirm pushing my head into her, pushing, forcing me to pleasure her with my kisses, sucking at her, licking her.
My ecstasy rose and my heart raced.
She began to recite a poem, moaning as I pleasured her,
“once upon a morning dreary…..” she whispered…. and then she screamed, choking as ifsomeone had grabbed her by the throat.
I jumped and saw myself back in my bedroom.

I was in the bedroom.

The scream of the cockerel outside.

A dream ! A Dream !!!

In my hand something moist and warm, licked and kissed and my heart still racing. I
looked into my hand and saw the cane toad stare back at me with distressed eyes.
The whole thing a nightmare, a dream, my heart still racing from the poisonous amphibian.
The toad flew through the dormer window jettisoned by my hand, the cockerel chasing the intruder through the herb garden.

I lay upon the bed.

Chaos.

DAY FIVE

Chapter Nine

The Raven.

I asked Lillian if it were possible to have my breakfast in the tavern area, it was much more pleasant than the annexe area. She agreed and I sat there by the window.
The paparazzi were outside already. Maybe I’d get on the news. I could imagine Bernard and Vivienne. I’d be on TV having visited this area for the first time and they’d see me, suddenly there’s a murder?
Ha Ha.
It wasn’t funny really.
My dream kept coming back.
Facing Lillian in the morning was embarrassing to say the least.
She seemed embarrassed too.
I wondered if she’d had a dream about me too?
The photographers outside seemed to be pointing their lenses up Lamed Way as opposed to Pilgrims Folly. I curtain twitched during breakfast humming and muttering the song from last night. “We’re miserable….”
Severance entered, he walked as though he were on soldiers parade, marching.
“Mr. Wenborn!”, he said sitting next to me by the window, “there were no murders last night.”
“Good, that’s good to hear,” I answered whilst trying to forget the horror of the event “look at those photographers, leaches aren’t they.”
Severance looked over at them, then on his knees upon the window seat faced them and mumbled, “that lot, they’re idiots, they’ll never find it.”

I didn’t exactly understand this but moved on, ”with everything that’s been going on I didn’t know what to do but, today Severance I’m going to visit that Merry widow lady you told me about, she must be quite old now?”
Severance span around, “Good Goddess the lord she is ! Old as the stone cross on witch peak, older than the tombs in the crypts.”
I laughed, “yeah, a fossil eh?”
Severance looked for my meaning so I asked again, “seriously, how old is she?”
“Old!” he insisted, then he clicked his fingers and relayed to me the following story, well I say relayed to me the following but in the conversation, the more he talked about time, the more detached I felt from things, I can only relate the story as best as I think it was said…. like recalling a dream when you wake and as you try to recall it, the events slip through your fingers like fine sand;
“Every year upon her birthday she would walk across Old Deeping, past the hill that Jack was to break up, and onto Deeping-pon-sea. There at the causeway she would take in her hand a palm full of sand. Then she walked all the way back to the cottage. Sometimes, if she were ill, by the time she reached her cottage there would only be a pinch left, but anyway.
She would then fill a glass vessel with the remains. This vessel was a sand timer and on the hour she was born she would flip it over and see how much she had lived. Now then, one year there was so much sand in the vessel she had to get Tom Stilts, the glass blower, to make her this huge apparatus, a huge thing, a huge glass timer.”
He nodded and folded his arms.
“So how old is she?” I said.
“We don’t know,” Severance replied, “She turns the timer over on her birthday and by the time the vessel empties, it’s her birthday again.”
I sighed, “ah, that’s ridiculous, come on. Severance, it’s a wonderful tale, but no glass timer could hold a year’s worth of sand.”
Severance wagged his finger, “Ah! But Tom Stilts can, Tom Stilts the great artificer of glass and sand, he could make sand fall, one grain at a time.”

I felt deflated, and couldn’t argue, though in my head I saw the pressure of a heap of sand, and how could one grain fall and why am I even contemplating this tale……
Ridiculous.
Yet, I persisted, “so she got this sand from old Deeping by sea you say?”
“Yes, by the causeway.”
“The causeway in ….Wales?”
“Yes that went to the Isle of the Druids, or the Isle of the Trees as it was known then”
I thought for a moment, “it’s known now as The Isle of the Druids?”
“No!” said Severance, “it’s known now as Anglesey.”
“Severance?” I moaned, “there is no causeway between Wales and Anglesey.”
“No!” said Severance, “All the sand had been removed, disappeared.”
Again he smiled, and folded his arms, the tale was told, and should not be questioned.
I felt in a daze. A dream, I was half awake with memory of a murder, and here I am discussing lunacy. I felt like a pawn in a strange game beneath a rabbit hole.

Lillian came over and leant forward between us, peering out of the window at the
photographers, “that damned lot,” she spoke.
I could smell her again, her breasts were inches from my face.

She stood upright and I asked, “Do you know about The May Merry Widow?”
Lillian looked at me casting me a homely motherly smile. “The May Merry widow? You mean Mary May Eddowes?”
That buffoon Severance, through a mixture of Chinese whispers and oral history had came with the story of The May Merry Widow, instead of Mary May Eddowes.
I half smiled.
Lillian collected my plate and walked off, saying as she did so, “yes, she was known as the Merry Widow, crowned the May Queen with an unborn child….”
Severance leant back and nodded smugly.

“Is that true?” I called after Lillian.
She looked at me peering from under her fringe, a mystic curtain above her eyes, “It is!”
Then turned and walked on, “but…” she said, “the story that she caused the causeway to disappear because she kept stealing sand from it isn’t true.”

I looked at Severance who mimed the words “I never said she removed the causeway.”

Then she called one last time before she disappeared, “No! The last druid did that.”

They’re all mad. I’m going mad.

Severance could see me doubting but distracted immediately became the child within, flying at the window, bouncing on his knees looking outside at the crowd of photographers, “oooh he said, “they’re coming in here.”

In they came about a dozen of them, red faces blistered by moorland winds, putting
expensive cameras back into cases and ordering drinks and tea from the bar. Some of them ogled Lillian, surveying her with greedy eyes as though she were a Victoria sponge in the Widdecombe fayre homemade cake competition, they were the greedy judges pouring over every curve and flaw. I wasn’t having this, why I got jealous I don’t know but next thing, I was jostling my way to the front and just as I got there Oberon appeared behind the bar to serve me.
“What be you want?” he growled.
I looked up at the selection, there on a shelf in the corner, the highest shelf, a sickly yellow liquid sat.
Oberon would have to get a ladder to reach that, the normal three step ladder he used wouldn’t reach it. This will get him agitated.
“I’ll try that” I said pointing to the bottle just hidden in the recess of the ceiling.
Oberon looked at me with contempt, fixed his eyes squarely at me whilst his hand reached down below the bar and produced a bottle of the self same stuff.
Oberon’s eyes twinkled as he poured the liquid into a shot glass, it crept out. A horrid
luminescent yellow. This was a bottle of banned E numbers. I didn’t even know what it was as I trundled back to my seat, Severance pointed at my drink to acknowledge that I had chosen well.
I sat down and sniffed the concoction, it smelled like Rum, yet as it first touched my lips it was bitter. As bitter as a celibate vicar. Tasted like old sour sweets. I was just adjusting myself to the new sensation when a young portly man burst through the door, “It’s there! It’s There!” he shouted holding his heart trying to regain his breath.
“Tamblins Wood!” he gasped again.
At once, everybody who moments ago came in, scrambled out, leaving a mess behind them.

“What’s there!” I asked Severance, “ A murder? What!”
“No “ said Severance, “ they’re bird watchers, they’re here to see the rare giant white raven!”
For a moment I went white too. The poem that Lillian had recited in my dream, it was Edgar Allen Poe’s, The Raven. Even more bizarrely I had been reading about Ravens in that book of Greek myths.

Oberon came scuttling around the bar cursing louder, “Look at all this mess! Waste, all waste !”
I turned to Severance, “what is it? An albino raven or something?”
Severance shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

“Bloody waste!” called Oberon, “Crisps and crisps, all plastic, all oil, Liquefied death!” he cursed, “The trees giving up her dead for this, this greed.”
He turned to me with hands on hips and declared, “I mean how many televisions do people want?”

Severance looked out the window at the commotion and Oberon continued his tirade,
“Hunters, gatherers and crisps! The planet has cancer, and the cancer is them!” he yelled pointing at the twitchers running across to Tamblins Wood.

I couldn’t take anymore. My mind still drifting between the waking world and dreamtime, my mind focused on murder and yet, distracted by nonsense and, birdwatchers.

Many of the crowd unhitched their bags, some taking out binoculars, some clamouring for the expensive cameras they had only moments ago carefully retired to the safety of extra padded casing, they now withdrew them with little or no regard.
As they approached Tamblins wood one of the twitchers called for calm, ordered the crowd to stop running. They stopped and fiddled around with gadgets and apparatus, tripods and lenses. I caught up with them, my hands in my pockets without a care in the world.
One lady was against a tree, wheezing, she must have smoked 40 a day. She wheezed like one of those toys friction motors. The ones that you dragged backwards and backwards and backwards, then let go and….
whhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze off it went.
That’s what her lungs sounded like.
I approached one man. He obviously liked fortified wine and port and rich stuff, his nose like a marshmallow, a big red marshmallow. He had a ruddy complexion and capillaries bursting through his face.
“White raven?” I asked.
He scanned me with his beady eyes and looked over me to see what camera I had, or binoculars.
He fumbled trying to affix a lens to his camera, the thread wouldn’t connect, the more agitated he became, the more the lens wouldn’t screw.
As I studied this enthusiast frantically twisting and turning the resisting lens I thought of Severance and his Airfix model, his own creation.
Still the man fidgeted, his capillaries bursting more so through his face, a striking resemblance to the Delta of the river Nile, all over his agitated face.
“White Raven!” I asked again just as the lens thread connected, this was enough for him to lose his grip, the thread to miss, and him to rage.
“What!” he fumed, “What society are you from…what do you want?”
He said this still fiddling with the puzzle in his hands. “Did you know,” I said, “All ravens were white until one of them told Apollo of his wife’s infidelity.”
The lens flicked from the man’s hand as I spoke this, the lens fell upon the earth.
(He was really mad now.)
“What do you….what are…..what….” he stuttered as he scrabbled again with the hastily retrieved lens.
“Yes!” I continued aggravating his annoyance on purpose, “A White raven told Apollo his wife, Coronis was playing away, so he shot an arrow into her bosom and, then became so distraught he cursed the gossiping raven and turned them all black!”
At last the distressed man stopped, he screwed up his face and looked at me then with deliberate command slowly insisted , “Go…….Away………please.”
So go away I did, but not before I heard his lens fall once again to the floor.

The crowd stealthily entered Tamblins wood, most of them making a lot of noise telling each other to ‘ssshhh!’ And be quiet.
They made more noise trying to be quiet, just like Severance trying to tell me something private and confidential but letting the whole world know.
Away I turned and walked back to the tavern alongside a small stream. This was adjacent to Lamed Way, Gabrielle Running, according to the map.
I came to a large single stone that was in view of the tavern and sat down to rest. The photographers had all disappeared now, deep in the woods, I could hear them faintly, discreetly and stealthily annoying the tranquillity.

I felt myself tire, still half asleep I thought and a quarter awake I supposed and then wondered where the eighth bit was and the sixteenth……
Confused.
That damned yellow concoction I reasoned.
My eyes became heavy but I was awake long enough to see from the treetops, a large white carrion bird swoop overhead. It sat upon the stone above me.
“Go on then,” I thought, “shit on me,it’s lucky, there’s diazepam in
that drink ……..”

Chapter Ten

The May Merry Widow

I awoke in the belief I had probably slept there for hours, as I was in a parallel universe and the fibres of reality were unwinding, maybe there had been another murder in my unconscious psychopathic Mr.Hyde. A fumbling photographer with a camera lens forced into his face….
in fact only fifteen minutes had passed.
I had experienced another dream, but as soon as I awoke all memory of it had gone.
Weird stuff.
I thought for a moment, perhaps the mind hears and smells whilst asleep and formulates pictures as to what it thinks is happening in reality.
It occurred to me in a spark of revelation that this is probably what happens in reality anyway, everything we see and feel and hear and smell is formulated inside the mind, is it a reflection of the true nature of reality?
Maybe everything is black and white and nothing smells at all. Maybe everything is just
a different waveform, or frequency and our brains, the transducer, creates a picture, an
archetype we all share.

I frowned at my mind, it laughed back. I began to miss London. Where a murder was commonplace and instantly forgotten.

The slow running water of Gabriella Running was meditative. Something cleansing about watching a clear river ooze its way into the ocean.
Unlike the canals and rivers in London it wasn’t filled with shopping trolleys, with old traffic cones, dead kittens tied in a bin bag.

The twitchers were nowhere to be seen and The Fallen Angel looked silent. I looked up Lamed Way, in a strange way I was off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz, though in reality, I was off to see the ‘May Merry Widow.’

It’s odd how when first visiting somewhere it seems to take ages, and then when you return it’s not so long at all. It’s the familiar path. Once travelled less far.

The Magdalene church stood there ominously behind the gnarled and bent trees. A strange construction. Small, yet looks as if it should be ten times its size, like Dr Who’s Tardis in reverse.
My itchy feet wanted to venture, to see before me the statue of the Magdalene as I had dreamed, I wondered if it were true, if it were there. It would be proof that I was slipping in and out of consciousness.

For once, I ignored my temptation and walked the short distance towards the four
small shops. The first of which, with blacked out windows was the shop belonging to the mysterious old crone, Mary May Eddowes. It said so on the notice.
The door opened, an old bell rang.
It looked derelict inside, a few shelves were filled with dried herbs, an empty counter stood there and in the middle, a round table covered with a black cloth upon which sat a large crystal ball.

“Oh God” I muttered pessimistically to myself.

No regalia though, no pagan symbols or astronomical pamph’, no incense burning to sway the mind from its logical thought, from its accusatory nature, though I declare it’s not pessimism but instinct of survival.
I don’t damn things I observe the probable course of events.
I was thinking/speaking to myself again.

I don’t criticize, I objectively reason, it’s not my fault the world’s so broken. Twisted. Disentangled.

She emerged from a roughly hung curtain drape across a doorway.
She was scary. A real shiver cascaded down to my spine taken with it any colour I had left on my hair… if I had hair .
Hunched and slow, her eyes peering from under the hooded robe, themselves hidden by rough furrows of heavy aged worn skin.
My immediate thought as she came crumbling towards me was the emperor from Star Wars.
She unnerved me and I became as a statue.
She stood there rigid, about to be knoiwn as a harbinger of doom? or the standard bearer of hope?

“I am,” she said holding out a clawed and twisted hand, “Mary May Eddowes.”
I touched it lightly and she was cold.
The walking dead.
I’d seen Countess Dracula starring the gorgeous Ingrid Pitt and heard the tales about Elizabeth Ezebert~ The Countess Bathory. Bathing in blood to regain youth. This old woman before me would need a reservoir full of fresh virginal blood.
The stories Severance told me, about her being so old came back to haunt me.
The tales of the huge glass timer.

As I stood there I actually, really, truly began to believe them.

“And you” she croaked, “are David, David from the City. London, Lud’s Dominium no less.”

She cast her hand offering me to sit.

Her hand parted an imaginary river and forward I went.

The chair nearly gave way, it was an old bugger held together with splinters and woodworm.
She shuffled around to the other side and sat opposite, the now uncovered crystal ball making odd shapes with her face. A hall of mirrors. One minute she appeared appeared to be like an old hag with a huge expanding balloon face, the next a pin head reflected through the crystal ball.
She moved the ball to one side and now I could clearly see her. The witch from Snow White. It was an archetypal nightmare without an apple.
She threw back her hood and silver hair fell upon her shoulders to expose her craggy face,
believe it or not, a beautiful woman stared back at me.

Her eyes were haunting, it was as if I couldn’t concentrate upon them, or looking directly at her.
I broke the mind drift and had to ask, “How much is….”

She held high her crooked hand to stop the question. “What I tell and what you part with are like bees and blossom. Give and take what is equal.”

I sat back slowly so the chair didn’t fall into thousands of flat pack furniture parts and thought about her comment.

The Countess spoke, “it’s all a joke to you isn’t it, all you see are objects of sarcasm.”

I have read much on body language, perhaps I had unwittingly sneered, perhaps my
mannerisms gave this away.

“And,” she berated, “you question everything, is that your ego, or your soul that does so.”

Inner conflict rattled in my mind, the saint and sinner on each shoulder fell silent. The poet inside laughed a little, the optimist and the pessimist but whispers.
I saw a faint smile rise from one corner of her mouth. I had to gain the upper hand here, and it was my time I was paying for, “may I ask, even though it is not correct to ask a woman so, and if you would be so kind……”
(now that’s how I spoke to her, like I had been reading Jane Austin books, like all of a sudden I had to speak all Mr.Collins, snidey, smarmy style, all formal….all…like…like..Severance!)…

“…..to explain firstly how old you are? and how long have you lived here, I am researching
this….”

Again the crusty hand was raised stopping the traffic of communication.

“Firstly,” she began, “would it matter if you knew my age, would it prejudge what I know, If all
I know are memories revealed by experience, not by history or written in ledgers?”

“I am very interested in what you know, what you can tell me of this area.”

“David, people go to the oasis to drink, people go to hospital to be healed, people do not come here to follow in the footsteps of tradition.”

I’m sat there and it’s obvious to me my book about mystical Britain is falling apart, especiallythe section regarding Priory Deeping.

I can see in my mind’s eye, reams of notes floating away like the map, cast downwards.

She continued, “People, come here to find themselves, can you write a book about that? And who would be interested?”

Well no-one I explained, 60/70 million people in Britain all with equally interesting lives, yet most of whom prefer to watch other lives on soaps and reality shows etc. No-one would be interested in me, I wanted to write a traveller’s guide to mystical Britain.

“What is it people cannot find out about themselves?” she asked me.

Wasn’t I paying for this session, shouldn’t I be asking the questions?

“Meaning?” I answered, “and perhaps they need purpose?” I questioned.

Mary May Eddowes sat back and mixed her hands together just as Severance had done. Just as Oberon had done. “I am as old as the oak, yet older, as are you.” She gabbled.
“I’m a little over 40 years old, but how can you be old as the oak” I answered.
“ Does not the oak die in winter,” came her response.
She leaned back laughing, a genuine laugh, then reached out for my hands and gently squeezed them.
At that moment I looked into her eyes and recognized her.
That’s all I can say, I actually recognized her ?
Something connected us, something old, very old. At that moment she could have told me anything and I would have believed her.

She spoke about age, about how all things last forever, every piece of us is a fragment that exists somewhere else after it leaves us in other forms.
Now, it wasn’t so much psycho babble or new age twaddle but fact. Like, our bones are but made up of say, calcium that was calcium somewhere else, maybe the teachers chalk as an analogy. Water of course goes everywhere.
I told her I understood this, but that doesn’t answer the question of our eternal being. Itdid answer how she could justify saying she was older than the oak, and I understood howSeverance would assume she is as old as even roman times if she had told him this story too.
I questioned myself, why was I being roped into a philosophical debate. I just want to knowabout Priory Deepings history, and about her….really.

“Let me say this then” she began, “a man searches for Gold, when he finds it he becomes rich
and then seeks more pleasure, when that pleasure comes he becomes content? Maybe? Maybe not? Could he not find contentment without digging for gold?”
I told her about the thoughts I had on my trek up to Witch peak, about how happy I was when I had very little and how my imagination was fuelled without material distractions. She agreed.
I took out my notebook and pen, a move to insist I was here for research purposes. I looked away from her eyes that snared me and asked, “so what is this shop, and what do you do?”

Reluctantly almost she relaxed and sat back, resigned that I perhaps was not interested in her wisdom or rhetoric.
She told me how the shop came with a flat upstairs, and that it was church property, which meant the rent was cheap and by having a shop, even cheaper, she sold but a few items so no-one could say it could not be deemed a shop? At least, I think that’s what she said. I got the impression the shop was a façade so that she could live there, cheap.
I questioned this, maybe the church will say she’s abusing her position,

“that you’re taking advantage and because you don’t sell anything really then you shouldn’t be allowed to live here?”
She asked me how many items were for sale in an art gallery shop which would be about a dozen paintings and a couple of sculptures, they didn’t sell many goods, just because they were expensive does it mean that it’s OK to have a shop that sells little for much rather than little for less?

I was getting nowhere. It was the ramblings of fools, or locals from Priory Deeping.

“So apart from selling a few items, what else do you do, what service do you provide?”

Then she said something which during the week I had thought but was completely off kilter from my questioning , ”must we be seen to be perfect only when we have much? Can only those with means afford enlightenment?”

Mary May Eddowes told me about wise women, about sooth sayers, about old traditions and herbal remedies and old persecutions. She told me these stories as anecdotes of history, and yet she spoke as if she were there, as if it had only happened yesterday. It was like listening to Bernard’s tales of the beatnik, never sure if he was actually there or not.

“So you’re the local fortune teller?, the local witch?” I asked deliberately avoiding her gaze and doodling on my notebook, about to write down her reply.
“People know their future,” she answered, “they create it, why would I tell them what they craft?”
“Some people,” I replied, “believe their fate is determined, fatalism is it? You believe that’s not true, so perhaps, I think you’re a determinist, or whatever they call it?”

I looked at her, her eyes seemed to uncover hidden depths in me, it was unsettling. Somepeople look right through you, she looked right into me. I couldn’t tell whether she was focusing on my eyes or not, maybe she was trying to hypnotize me, or unsettle me.

“I believe we control our destiny, that is, we who follow our own path,” she said.

I laughed a little, I’d met the oldest anarchist, I liked it.

“What do you think my path should be?” I asked.
 

“Well now,” she said leaning back and mixing her fingers together again, “an artist who is commissioned to produce something isn’t actually an artist, but a slave to someone who can’t be bothered to gain the skills themselves.”

I thought for a moment, my wonderful book on mystical Britain floating away, again.
That damned map….that upside down map….that upside down map that was of no use topeople who saw things as they should be. It was a signI was part of a quest, all things connected, symbols, patterns, dances…

Why should I write a book about mystical Britain, it had been done before, with beautiful pictures and photos professionally taken.

What have I been doing?

But wasting my time and the little money I have travelling up and down the British Isles.
It wasn’t in vain.

I enjoyed my trips out, but it was for someone else’s purpose, not mine. To gratify someone else’s desire, why don’t they get off their arse and travel around instead of hiding in books.
I then reasoned people like travel books, people can’t afford exotic travels, I understood that, I’ve always wanted to go to Tibet, I don’t know why and have only ever visited it in books and imagination.

“David” she said softly, “ if you want a path created for you, speak to Mr. Crawley.”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“He sits on his own in The Fallen Angel with his deck of cards.”

I didn’t answer her. Would I really want someone to map out my future?

Life is after all a mess of permutations and you can shoehorn any ambiguity into reality.

“Yes”, said Mary May Eddowes, “life is like that, it is chaos, anything can happen.”

She knew what I was thinking, I tried to backtrack my conversation, and analyse how this worked, it was like check mate where she backed me into a corner so the only thing that I would think, would be that life is permutations, chaos. No. No, I was confused. Chaos. The mind seeking order to make sense of the peculiar, constantly looking for the familiar.

“Let me say this,” she continued, “imagine if nothing existed, imagine however that conscious
thought is eternal, imagine if that thought desired to know itself, what can one thing
do?”
“I’m sorry?” I muttered.
“It can turn at its reflection, but there is nothing, so it divides itself. Is there now nothing?”
“I don’t follow?” I answered even though I did understand her point.
“One divided into nothing creates infinity, eternal possibilities, God for want of a very peculiar word wasn’t perhaps a mathematician but what happens happens. That which is, that which shall be,” she finished.
She now held out her hands somewhat to emphasize that the session was over. In place of the warmth and empathy and wisdom, she sat there as an automaton, the time stopped, the arcade machine gifting fortunes awaiting the next customer.

I sat there confused. Had I just listened to wisdom, or rhetorical nonsense?

At last she rose and took from an old jar a small object, it was made of amber and jet dovetailed together to form an equal armed cross, she explained it was the blood and the body of old trees, this she said was my purchase and on the decaying box by the door I should pay whatever I thought it was worth. The trees she explained were the guardians, amber and Jet she insisted again was the body and the blood of nature.

The true body and blood of God.

I can’t remember how much I paid, I was in a daze, I know I put notes in there.
As I stepped outside the door slammed behind me, but the bell didn’t ring.
I heard her call after me, “Blessed be…..”

The sun welcomed me back onto Lamed way and I felt alive, I felt amazing. The cross I held was only about an inch square, orange and deep black. I carefully put it into my pocket andfelt like Mr. Ben, the old children’s cartoon character, who’d find things on his travels and put it on his mantelpiece….to remind him of the day when……

Chapter Eleven

Falling from the Tree.

…….the photographers were milling about the edge of the woods. Amongst them two policecars and an ambulance, sirens whirring but no bells.

I quickened my pace towards the mob.

The photographers were clicking away, new faces too. I saw the two policemen who had interviewed me and they caught my glance, one acknowledged me with a sign of ‘it’s over’.
Upon a stretcher lay the male traveller from the Fallen Angel whose map I had stolen and whose partner was…. murdered!
He let out a ghastly cry which merged with the sounds of the peacocks. A shiver raged through through my spine as I saw the bandage over his eyes covered with blood. I found the beady eyed man who thankfully was alive and not butchered by me in a somnambulistic murderous rage.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
There was no agitation in him, no aggression towards me this time, “terrible,” he commenced,
“we were deep in the woods and we found him.”
He steadied himself and continued, “been there since t’other night, since his wife….”
“Him!” I said, “he killed her?”
“Killed? No she fell at Filly Falls” he tongue twisted back to me.
I looked at the fellow before me, frowned, “but she was murdered?” I pressed.
“You said she was murdered sir, not us” spoke the policeman now joining in the
conversation, ”seems they got lost, in the fog, she climbed the Filly Falls Peak, hoping to catch bearings and fell. If fog weren’t so thick they’d seen the Angel below”
“But he?…”
“Tried to get help, walked straight passed the crippled crow, found the corrugated hut where we found his rucksack, then walked straight past the Angel and ended up here.”
We all fell silent as the traveller was loaded into the ambulance.
“What happened to his eyes?”
The policeman and the twitcher jostled to answer, ”lost in fog, in woods, bashed against wrong tree, disturbed raven…”
The twitcher finished without a care or alarm in his words, “pecked eyes! n’ been flying around ever since.”

I walked back towards the Tavern.
My mind was in a trance, one minute elevated into a spiritual enlightenment and the next bombarded by atrocities.

I could see them in the distance.

Lillian with folded arms, Severance hopping around, pointing, then waving at me.
A stupid wave, hand held high like he was seeing off a flotilla of ships, he’d stop to register my acknowledgment and then frantically wave again.
Oberon stomping.
All looking up towards Lamed Way and this ghastly scene.

I needed a drink. This can’t be happening.

Severance came running towards me excited.

“Mr. Wenborn, did you, can! What, have you heard….”
At first I didn’t answer him, I wanted a drink.
“Was it so terrible Mr. Wenborn, we heard the murderer has struck again, I heard he was…”

I stopped him, “Severance, there was no murder everything was connected, the appearance of the raven, him, her, that’s all, it’s over now, it’s finished and I need a drink.”
“So you do” said Lillian pulling me in to the Tavern with Severance creeping behind waiting for more titbits of information.

As I entered the Tavern I saw the Irishman sat in the same corner, Mr. Crawley and his cards.
I walked over to him, Severance in tow and saw upon the table his cards, Tarot cards. He looked up at me and spoke, ”should’ve seen all this happening, cards said so t’other day.”
He spent all day comparing readings, different permutations, different possibilities, why? I hesitated, should I have my future told? Or would it just be a possible path revealed. Isn’t part of life’s pleasure the unexpected? I nodded to him, offered him a drink, he declined and I went to the bar for a tankard of a particularly strong Ale.

“Mr. Wenborn,” said Severance as we both sat down, “it’s an awful affair, never happened before, well…it has but not while you were here.”
I looked at him, his eyes tried to seduce me with his knowledge of previous atrocities.
“Severance, why did you tell me there had been a murder? Her face frozen into a scream and clawing hands and all that drama?”
Severance, looked to the floor, “I had a dream the morning after Mr. Wenborn,” he confessed,
“it was so real I woke myself up screaming.”

The scream! It was Severance.

I laughed, Severance laughed too, though I don’t think we were laughing at the same thing.

I changed the subject…
“Severance, is it possible to get access to the crypts I’d like to see that face again, that fallen
angel?”

I needed distraction and I needed to see that face again. Severance became nervous and looked about the tavern, “Well I’m not sure it would be possible.”

I replied, “but you have access there, it’s where you found that toad?”
“But” and then he stopped.
His mouth dropped and then he confessed that in fact he hadn’t been told to sweep the crypts but had wandered in there, via the bookshelf.

I looked over at the secret door and then back to Severance. In my mind I knew tonight I’d take a midnight recce down the crypts, alone.

“Did you speak to the May Merry widow?” Severance asked.
I told him that I had and began to talk about consciousness imploding on itself and dividing itself to create infinity. As I spoke about this Severance became unstable, he put his hands to his head as if he were trying to fathom it out.
“It’s not a new theory,” I explained, “ for instance …”
I then spoke to him about the Golden Mean, a mathematical number that occurs in the formation of all things, and how Pi itself is an infinite number therefore it represents infinity in reality.

“Mr. Wenborn!” called Severance standing to attention, “Enough!” he yelled and ran from me clutching his head as though he contracted the worst migraine.
It was almost as if I tried to outfox him with a myriad of wayward thoughts, before giving him the chance to do the same to me. I had wone. He had gone.

I looked over at the front door, waiting for the twitchers and the paparazzi to enter, but no one came, instead I begun staring at myself, reflected by the arched mirror that was attached to the door, I saw my loneliness.

I only had two nights to go and then home, back to the distractions of London. Something inside me stirred, some misplaced identity.

I realised I felt attached to this place, I realised I had fell in love with all the regalia, however contrived and perhaps, well certain I was, Priory Deeping is not supernatural at all, and all the tales are fabricated to get tourists, but, in a way, that’s what I fell in love with. The peacock God.

The drama, the acting. I had been acting all my life, mimicking others to fit in, following others, easily led, yet still…. within, despite my outpourings of angst I was content, I was sure of that, I was content.
I thought this as I looked at my reflection in the door mirror. Reflecting upon myself. Turning inwards… one thing knowing itself by its own reflection.

Tonight I would stare at the picture of Lucifer, as I stare now at myself.

DAY SIX

Chapter Twelve

The Evening Reveals.

I tried to stay awake in my room, watched the clock pass midnight, heard the few patrons go home, heard Lillian lock. ‘Hurry up!’ I kept cursing.
I must have dosed off and awoke at three o’ clock. My heart raced as I became excited by my challenge. I felt like a cat burglar, and like cat burglars do, on a job, I went for a long shit.
I couldn’t flush the toilet.
All noise to a minimum, so covered the nocturnal turd with toilet paper to mask the productive exhaust slag of ales and rich game pies and luminous toxic something or other.

I crept to the door and slowly revolved the handle. In the dead of night.
Every nuance and every twitch sounded like a blacksmith from hell to my ears but I managed to keep the noise, to a church-mouse minimum.
I had already tested the floorboards of the upper storey in preparation for my exploration and steered clear of certain floorboards. At that moment I noticed I was walking like Severance, almost tiptoeing, looking about the place for anyone, paranoid and excited. I wanted to laugh and found myself putting my hand over my mouth like a schoolgirl, like Severance.
The stairs were trickier to negotiate. The 3rd and 5th and 8th from the top squeaked, I strode beyond them, placed my toes gently upon each other step feeling for any hint of submission, any sign that the wood would give.
At the bottom I stood now between a door and the bar area. I stood there for a minute or so, constantly looking upstairs, and listening.
I was sure I heard movementAs I reached the toilet area I had another urge to go. But the toilet doors squeaked like an abandoned playground set of swings.
I had to get in the bar area and concocted there and then a plan to pretend I was sleepwalking, bought on by the distress at the day’s events. The more I thought of this plan the more I convinced myself of its authenticity, I began to believe it myself. Nocturnal somnambulism.
The door inched open and I don’t know why, I crouched down, I crouched down in case anybody was there, they’d assume the door just opened. My head nearly at ground level I poked my head out and looked about the bar, just, like, Severance did.
The fire was still glowing and lit the room with millions of shadows dancing. I crawled out a bit more and then fell upon my belly so that I was swimming.
They didn’t see me!
They never heard me come!
Lillian was laying on her back and Oberon was upon her grimacing. She, her legs apart moaned, “Come my husband….”
I felt my heart drum upon the floorboards and caught sight of my reflection in the mirrorupon the door, and looking into the mirror also, I’m sure directly at me, Lillian!
I am not sure how I managed to retrace my steps, how I managed to aright myself and fly back up the stairs, but, in an instant, I lay upon the bed, memorizing all that I had just seen, the whole scene, two maybe three seconds of pure voyeurism, and she saw me, she saw me!
I listened for her steps. Nothing.
I listened for Oberon furiously stomping up towards me.
Nothing.
He was her husband! She and the dwarf?
Beauty and the beast.
Would she tell him, maybe she’d be too embarrassed.
Would she scorn me?
I wanted to use the toilet downstairs!
Yes that’s what I’d say, my cat burgling turd still filling the pan in my room, I’d say it was blocked, which it would be when I emptied the whole roll of toilet paper into it as well, so I went downstairs to use the toilet I mentally rehearsed, heard a noise and crept out, still traumatized by the days events I peered into the tavern and accidentally caught them. Yes. It all seemed plausible.
My alibi hatched, my heart eased. I drifted back to sleep.

In shock, excited, aroused, not guilty…. I just went downstairs to use the toilet…. mine was blocked……not my fault…………….Stick to the story.

Chapter Thirteen

The Twins

My room stank, the turd had sat there all night, the toilet paper I wedged into the pan had soaked up all the water by the time I left to go downstairs and flies from some hidden bastard fly city had begun to migrate there, little fruit flies or storm flies. I gave the toilet three flushes before the trespasser dispersed and sprayed the room with copious amounts of expensive aftershave.

Lillian said nothing at first when I arrived for breakfast, this time in the main bar. She took my order as I sat beneath St Michael’s window, then handed me the Spartan meal, my appetite somewhat dishevelled from the stench of stale sewage still in my nostrils and more potent than the expensive aftershave.
Then…. she did it, she looked about the tavern and whispered, “don’t worry, we’ve both seen each other now, that makes us equal,” and smiled.

I didn’t actually understand at first, perhaps I did, but my conscious mind rejected the statement immediately, denial. She saw my contrived confusion and said again, “naked, we’re equal now,” she gave a playful wink and off she walked.
Dumbfounded I sat there for a moment like a village idiot trying to fathom the riddle when suddenly it dawned on me, the morning I awoke naked.
She had seen me.
I was confused, why had she left the door open?

I ate my breakfast, masticating like a mnoorland goat in contemplation of what I’d seen the night before, I couldn’t even swallow.
The next time Lillian entered the bar she looked over at me as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had been said.
I wanted a further explanation, some sort of banter.
Appeasement, to know, I felt myself turning inside out.
Nothing more was said.

Grabbing a book from the shelf I sat back below the window.

It was like some form of denial, some embarrassment that I refused to acknowledge.
It wasn’t my fault I saw them in the throes of passion, and I still had my excuse regarding the toilet and she was at fault for leaving my door open.
Thereupon I felt justified in my actions, and convinced myself, actually it was I, me!
I was the victim.
I’m innocent!

I read my book, I didn’t even know what book it was, just something that I grabbed randomly.
I turned the battered red cover and noticed handwriting, a quick flick through some pages, it was handwritten.
The author, a certain Dr, R B Hallen-Berry. Luckily enough the handwriting wasn’t typical of the maniacal drawl of most doctors whose hieroglyphics and Arabic scrolls are only understood by pharmacists and tea leaf readers.
It was a tale of a traveller who came to an enchanted place, and there, after doubts and denials found himself, found his raison d’être and his purpose.

I sat back and thought for a moment. It was almost as if I had wrote this book.

There in the book was the walk around Pilgrims Folly, the discovery of White Horse Water, The Crypts, The church and Tamblins Wood. Most disturbing was that whilst here he had born witness to a suicide.
He too had been present at someone’s tragedy whilst on his voyage of self discovery.
I kept repeating chapters I read, it was like reading my diary. There was no Lillian or Severance, but the Widow was mentioned.
The door to the Tavern opened and the ‘twins’ entered, they saw me at their place under the window, the boy glared, she looked nervous, she looked first at my usual and vacant chair by the fireplace, and then around the empty Tavern, then back to me, me, who dared to sit in their spot.
I’ve seen this mentality before. Old timers who’ve sat at the same bar stool for thirty years or miserable curmudgeons who sit in the same seat at a football ground and hate anyone singing or shouting or calling into question the referees illegitimacy.
They stood there for some moments and I gestured for them to come and join me. She began to walk towards me but the boy took her arm and held her back.
“Come on”, I called, “I don’t bite and I’ll buy you a drink”
The boy whispered something I couldn’t hear and slowly they came over and sat with me.
“My name’s David, should’ve said hello days ago,” I said forcibly shaking both their hands,
“and you are?” The girl bowed down blushing, “Miriam” she said shyly before the boy answered loudly over her, “Jonathon.”

I motioned to Lillian to get the couple whatever they usually drank and tried to be hospitable but there was something altogether out of place.

“What are you twins?” I asked.
The girl jumped as if someone had plugged her into the electric mains.
“No” said Jonathon, “We’re not twins, we are…”
“I’m sorry,” I butted in, “you really look alike, bet everyone says that.”
I did laugh, trying to break the ice, that I wasn’t mocking them or something but no response.
This was going to be hard work.
“Live round here?” I asked.
Jonathon took his drink from Lillian who smiled briefly at me and he answered, ”Yes, in one of the cottages up the lane.”
“Ah” I responded “where Mr. Crawley the Irish guy lives.”
“Yes he lives next door” replied Jonathon.
I found myself looking at them, inspecting their eyes and noses and how similar they were.
In my mind I heard the inbred anthem of duelling banjos from the film Deliverance.

I took out my small notepad and told them, “I’m trying to write some pieces for a book about, well mystical Britain really, this place was suggested but apart from the crypts I’m finding it difficult to write about, can you enlighten me on anything?”
Miriam suddenly leant forward and groaned, this caused Jonathon to glare at her, she blushed and took a large swig of her drink. I looked at her mentally asking what that little display of emotion was all about but she blushed even more and then giggled. Jonathon was not amused.
“What brings you to Deeping then?” I asked.
Jonathon sat upright, “we came here, ermm, two, three years ago on holiday and we, we saw one of the cottages for sale and sold our place and moved here.”
“How long have you been married then, you seem well suited.”
I was condescending I suppose, I hate small talk, but better talk about the weather than sit there as if we were at a quakers meeting.
Miriam smiled at me, a very cheeky smirk and Jonathon answered, “we don’t believe in marriage.”
Of course you don’t I thought, brothers and sisters can’t get married. I immediately disregarded that fault, that sarcasm, it wasn’t funny anymore, my mockery, it said more about me than it did about others.
Lillian joined us with a small glass of treacly looking spirit and sat opposite, “ah, getting to know each other?” she said.
We sat there drinking and talking.
The twins being defensive and shy.
Lillian chatting about trivia of the running a pub, which as far as I could see didn’t involve much at all.
As the morning became afternoon and the afternoon progressed it felt like I had lived there all my life. When Jonathon went to the toilet Miriam declared in a complete departure from her timid personae how she despised him.
When Miriam went to the toilet Jonathon declared how perfectly suited they were.
The Irishman Mr. Crawley came in, I had hoped he would sit by us, but he said little apart from a nod and sat in his usual place spilling his deck of cards upon the table.
We sat there as if we had known each other all our lives and then depression hit me.
If I were back home in London with my crowd of friends the conversation would be completely different.
Someone would be high on prescription drugs and strong lager reminiscing about friends or family who had committed suicide.
Another would be twitching, fiddling with fingers waiting for a text message to tell them where to pick up a gram of charlie or rock of crack.
Another would be bitching about her husband either beating her up last night or having an affair.
Here in the Tavern, the conversation was trivial, petty even and yet my whole soul felt relaxed.

I clutched the book like a fanatic holds his Bible, it became a source of diversion. A comfort blanket for the convert. Living in negativity breeds a negative spirit, infesting the soul as if a vampire had sucked the life force.
Parasites clinging on to whatever substance shone from within you and diffusing that light.
Surely there are places where everyone is in dire straits and yet, there is also hope, optimism, strength.
London seemed a million miles away with my dysfunctional friends and yet, I sat here amongst a crowd of odd folk, even difficult to engage with and yet felt at peace.
It was that peace that I felt on Witch Peak Moor, or even the walk along Pilgrims Folly, inner peace. It wasn’t that I craved my own loneliness because I desperately wanted to share and be with someone to share the experience but there was no conflict. No personalities clinging, wanting, no drama where I became an actor.
“Where’s Severance?” I asked Lillian.
She turned to me almost in accusation, “something you spoke to him about has caused a great fever?”
“Sorry?”, I answered, “what do you mean?”
“He complained that you had spoke about, I don’t know, chaos and the golden meaning or something and the constant spiral, he has a terrible migraine, came down earlier, did one of those Sudoku puzzles for a few minutes and has retired to bed. Says he can’t do anything until the problem is solved?”
I thought about this, Severance needed to grasp knowledge? Compulsive, obsessive. In all his deeds and actions he were but a child, suddenly Father Christmas is revealed as a lie and the whole world comes crashing down.
I picked up the broadsheet that Lillian had pointed out and saw the Sudoku puzzle, they were all filled in, correctly, easy, medium and difficult.
“Wow,” I said, “how long did this take him with a migraine?”
Lillian turned to me, “He was in here for about ten minutes I suppose.”
The fool I had accused became a genius, the child became transformed just like the butterfly that now flew past me from the open door as the mad vicar entered the Tavern.
He too sat with us.
I thought for one dread moment I was going to hear about God and faith, but he spoke of
Ales and best Ciders, gossip from the village. The more drunk he got, the more he swore, the more he drooled over Lillian who eventually returned to her post behind the bar.

With that, I decided to take a walk up Lamed Way and without prompting from the vicar I must add, visit the church.

Chapter Fourteen

The Church Of Mary Magdalene

The iron railings to the church resisted as I opened them. I busied myself for a while, scanning the broken tombstones and desecrated crypt covers. Many stones had skulls and crossbones, were they pirates or freemasons. I don’t know why but I seemed to delay the entrance into the church, the nightmare from the other night fresh in my mind, but it was time.
As I entered the church I couldn’t look ahead, instead I walked slowly up the aisle with my head bowed in reverence until I could sense to my right the vestibule, the place where in my dream I had ran to.
I looked up towards it, there was a door, the same door, the same door like the one on the Fallen Angel Tavern and both bolts were open.
My heart pounded with excitement, had I been sleepwalking?
Of course it was a dream but you get those feelings when something magical happens. I turned and looked straight up the aisle to see my dreamscape dashed with the sight of a crucifix.
There was Christ but he wasn’t nailed to a cross, he hang there, his arms intertwined with another. His legs wrapped around other legs, behind him, taking the place of the cross in the form of a crucifix, Mary Magdalene. His hands interlocked with hers. His crown of thorns dressed with her hair draped over, to the right of the statue a large stone sat ominously.

“T’was an ancient stone that!” said a croaky voice behind me.

I turned and saw it was Mary May Eddowes who hobbled towards me on a walking stick, she pointed towards the stone, “this church was built on old revered ground, that stone being central”
She leant back upon the stick and continued, “In the old days, they converted people to the new religion, our folk was having none of it, praying to torture and pain?
So they erected this, an altar of resurrection, they told everyone the stone was symbolic of the one Christ rolled away… it’s a nice piece.”

I looked back at the altar, why couldn’t all churches have this, a symbol of hope instead of suffering, a symbol of change instead of regret or sacrifice. In churches, made to feel guilt for sin. Told to suffer as Christ?
“You know,” I turned to Mary and said, ”these days there’s been many books wrote that say Jesus married the Magdalene, lots of conspiracies.”
“Does it matter?” said the widow, “If Jesus didn’t perform miracles, didn’t resurrect, would it matter, aren’t words of wisdom enough? People need to witness miracles before they listen to anyone, you could preach until the cows flew over the moon but unless you can feed five thousand with a fish, who will listen?”

I looked back at the scene and over to the door that I had seen in my dream.

“Is that the door that connects the church to the crypts and to the tavern?” I asked.
“It is” said Mary.
We both sat on a pew and I told her my dream, with the exception of the bit about Lillian.

“Dreams reveal our troubles and our joys” she said, “what were you really running from, what beast and demons chase you?”

Again I thought, I thought of the worries awaiting me in London and how, sitting with the small gathering at the Tavern I had been so peaceful.

“Probably running from the doom and gloom of when I go back the day after tomorrow?” I answered with a question.
Mary looked ahead at the statues and I could feel sadness. With great difficulty she stood up using her stick and said as she walked away, “you run along a path that lay in front, that condemns you to its route, but you can fly anywhere as the crows fly, what stops you is only the familiar, and the peculiar is but a land of fear……”
She spoke more but her voice became softer and distant and I felt as though I shouldn’t follow her, I wasn’t meant to seek her guidance, it was my issue, my problem.
I waited for a while in the sanctuary of the church and walked over to the large stone. I felt like one of those hippies again I so despised as I touched it, hoping for some revelation, some bolt of lightning to imbue me with second sight and miraculous powers of wisdom.
It was cold, It was a large hunk of stone.
It was just a stone, erected thousands of years ago like we erect bridges and crossroads or other markers to condemn people to the routes. I fixed my hands firmly upon the cold stone.
In all the new age books I had read, this was the point where something miraculous happened, where the character becomes enlightened, where some great flash of insight enters the mind and everything come sinto view, I could see in my mind’s eye my whole history, and then I could see old football hooligans laughing at me standing there like that, old bikers falling off benches drunk at the thought of me up an aisle clutching a sacred stone in the hope of realization.
What happened was my hands became cold, my bones chilled as they pressed heavier onto the rock.
That was all… nothing magical just predictable, just what skin does when it touches stone, but the pause, the moment, and the thoughts arising, they were magical.
I took out the strange cross that The Merry Widow had gave, or had she sold me. This was made of something alive thousands of years ago, maybe millions, do trees live? I didn’t care to know,perhaps rocks live but we don’t see it. A different frequeny as you will, a different timescope, like the spokes of a turning wheel that disaapear.
I was thinking ‘bollocks’ again.
I pushed the cross into a small hollow near the floor, so that no-one would retrieve it, I pushed it as far as I could, and with a pen pushed it further so that I couldn’t get it. I’d leave it there. I didn’t need a mementoe to rest my experience upon, it was something my mind needed. My memory.
As I left the church I looked over at the vestibule. I walked towards the door with the intention of opening it and walking back down those dank corridors to see the picture of Lucifer.
I didn’t.
The temptation wasn’t there.
I didn’t need to see the Fallen Angel.
The Fallen Angel is me, it’s always been me. I refuse to bow to man.

I had one thought in my mind walking back to the Tavern. I had tonight and tomorrow night left, but there was no mystery here, there isn’t anywhere, it’s all in how we pervade the universe.

It was time to go home, I would pack my bag and leave early, the board was paid, there was no more to be learnt.

Tamblins Wood beckoned me as I left the churchyard, inviting me to fathom its mystery, unseen eyes still willed me like the sailors to the Sirens rocks. Maybe there was an old oak tree, I’d hug it, or sit beneath it and wisdom and knowledge would pour into me, I’d be a conduit for the great consciousness that existed before the manifest, before the material universe was created, before desire and fear, when everything was known because nothing was at a difference, everything was equal because there was only one thing.
For a moment I paused, wondering, but the thought was there, did I need the assurance? The actual proof.
I looked farther down to Pilgrims folly and over to Witch Peak moor hidden now by low lying cloud.
There is no mystery, no pot of gold, but everything, from the dark reaches of Tamblins Wood to the ludicrous serpent jigs path of Pilgrims Folly was beautiful. Stunning. Everything before me was a work of art.

London was just graffiti, but it was my home.

Chapter Fifteen

Merry Meet, Merry Part, May Merry Meet Again

“Where’s Severance,” I asked Lillian, “I need to tell him I’m leaving a day early, I have to be back in London, got this call…”
I didn’t know what I was saying, what lies I was spinning, I wanted to click my fingers and be gone. Back to the familiar.
“He’s gone now,” said Lillian.
I didn’t actually hear at first.
“Gone?” I asked, “gone where?”
Lillian looked at me as if I knew.
“I didn’t really freak him out with all that chaos nonsense did I?”
“No” Lillian laughed, “I mean, yes he seemed a bit confused but, no, he checked out, he was only booked here for a fortnight, ended up staying for nearly three months now, give or take the odd days when he’d leave for somewhere”
“Pardon? I thought he lived here, I thought he worked here?”
“No” said Lillian nonchalantly, “a guest, like you.”
I persisted, “but he said he lived here, he showed me to my room, he…”
“He used to live in Deeping somewhere,” Lillian interrupted, “and , well yes he’s just one of those kind eccentrics I guess, but no, he doesn’t work here, probably thinks he does.”
Behind the bar I saw Severance’s model, the Sailing ship with a Lancaster bomber.
I couldn’t believe it.
He was a guest like me.

“It’s a shame you’re leaving today,” said Lillian, “it’s karaoke tonight.”
Although I heard what she said my mind was still fixed on Severance, and anyway karaoke?

As I checked out and passed the bookshelf I looked at the rare volume of the Charles Dickens novel I had mused over, it was still facing the way I left it, and there was no-one in the tavern,
I could easily slip it into my jacket and make a few bob in London, quite a bit of money actually.
I reached for it and inches from the book I felt a strange tingling sensation, eyes peering at me. I felt as though the benefactors ghost who had donated all these books was standing right behind me. I ignored the shadow on my shoulder and reached again for the volume, I felt sorrow, I felt shame.
I left empty handed and headed for Lamed Way back to Priory Deeping. I looked at the crossroads and the sign, one of the arrows was blank and pointed towards a path I had not walked.
For a moment, again, hesitation, if I walked in that uncharted direction I would find the pot of gold. My book on mysterious Britain would be complete, if only I stayed one more night, and a spot of karaoke.

Inside of me, I knew the answers, I knew the truth, I didn’t acknowledge it because part of the pleasure is the pursuit, the wild hunt. Why find gold if you don’t need gold to be content.

With bowed head I walked up Lamed Way.

There was once an old programme on TV, The Prisoner, where the inhabitants of the town could never escape and would be chased by a big bouncing ball thing. I imagined one of them careering from Tamblins Wood and chasing me back to the sanctuary of the tavern.
I couldn’t believe Severance had left.
The soul of the Tavern had lost a limb.
I realised how much I would miss this place.
I remember what Mary May Eddowes had said, walking a path, condemned to that route.
That’s what I was doing, being predictable.
I suppose the last chapter of this book should read epilogue? Because it should be explained what happened next. To called it an epilogue sounds like it’s all over and done with,

so with intent it is chapter 16.

Two Months Later

Chapter 16

Sort of Epilogue……………….

Raymond Hobbs is an amateur photographer. A passion for mystical landscapes he was recommended to visit Priory Deeping and in particular The Fallen Angel Tavern by various acquaintances, he was told, he would find all manner of strange objects and locations to photograph.
After walking a strangely time consuming trek along Lamed Way he came to the Tavern and once checked in, sat by the fireplace surveying the richly decorated interior.
It was a strange place for him, an upright and methodical man, who now found himself in a place of mystical and weird trappings. He ordered a swift drink and asked for informationon the Tavern whereupon the proprietor, Lillian De Cort handed him a leaflet entitled “The History of the Sword and the Stone Tavern nee The Fallen Angel.”
He became a little puzzled by the leaflet, doubting its credibility and questioning whether this whole history was a fabrication with the sole intent of enticing travellers to what would otherwise be a barren and desolate place.

Mr. Hobbs was distracted by a presence from the toilet area and saw upon inspection a shadow lurking there, hiding. He put down the leaflet and watched as the shadow slowly moved forward, and then seemed to crouch. At once the head of the strange presence peered around, they both looked at each other, both startled. The strange being leapt to his feet and cried, “Aww you’ve seen me, ah! You must be Mr. Hobbs!”
Raymond Hobbs frowned as the intruder came leaping forward, his hand outstretched to welcome him saying as he walked in a strange unbalanced way, “My name Mr. Hobbs, is David, David Wenborn, without an ‘e’, welcome indeed!”

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~FINIS~

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Appendix;-
Soundtrack of The Fallen Angel.
“Football hooligans for example….”
War on the terraces – The Cockney Rejects
“..crows in the Disney film, Dumbo…,”
See an elephant fly – Dumbo Soundtrack
“….whistled and hummed and sang quietly two old punk classics….”
Lie lie lie – 999
Lullabies Lie – The Crabs
“…Sandy Denny singing my thoughts”
Who knows where the time goes – Fairport Convention
“….enter artist the jukebox arrogantly requested”
The beginning of the end – The Cockney Rejects
“…church bells woke me, a strange song too.”
Aum Mani Padme Aum – Traditional Buddhist
“The jukebox played a random verse from,….”
The Times they are a changing-Bob Dylan
“…With two wings from a Lancaster bomber attached…,”
Theme from Dambusters
“…it was great listening to some old punk classics”
Brickfield Nights – The Boys
Take Me Back to Babylon – The Lurkers
I’m Stranded – The Saints
“…not so for the other patrons who would change the mood”
All around my hat – Steeleye Span
Meet on the Ledge – Fairport Convention
“..would wave a baton like conducting an orchestra”
Ode to Joy – soundtrack from a clockwork Orange
“ The jukebox was playing an old sixties classic”
Something’s happening here- Buffalo Springfield
“ tripped over raised skirting and the jukebox began to play.”
Go your own way – Fleetwood Mac
“ I asked my mum, where do those voices in my head come from”
Lunatic on the grass – Pink Floyd
“Amidst the silence the jukebox sprang to life, it was a strange song.”
Misery farm – Current 93
“I heard the inbred anthem of duelling banjos from the film Deliverance”
Duelling banjos – theme from Deliverance.
The Fallen Angel
By David Wenborn

This text WordPress ~ 28/03

The back cover to the book, I was told to keep it minimal, uncluttered, so I made it cluttered and messy;-