The chapel stood on a rocky promontory close by the seashore. Scattered around it were the weathered graves of those clergymen who had come here down the centuries, and had breathed their last against the sound of the waves crashing. The Reverend Rhodes was buried close by the western wall of the church, a small granite cross marking his final resting place. A path led from the rear of the chapel to the rectory itself, a modest two-story residence built from local stone. From my bedroom window, I could see the ghosts of the waves descending upon the dark shore, white on black. When they broke, it was as if the very sands had devoured them.
The village itself was little more than a huddle of small houses spread over five or six narrow streets. There was a shop devoted to the sale of whatever the residents might require, from a cap to a cartwheel. Beside it stood a small inn. I gave my custom to each in that first week, and found that I was treated with a respectful caution, but made to feel neither welcome nor unwelcome. Both premises were owned by the unofficial mayor of Black Sands, a Mr. Webster. He was a tall, cadaverous man with the manner of an undertaker measuring up a particularly impoverished client for a cheap casket. He politely declined my request to post times of services in both the inn and the shop.
“As I said to your predecessor, we have no need of your presence here,” he informed me, with a half-smile, as he walked with me along the main street of the village. He was greeted warmly as we made our way. I, on the other hand, received only cursory nods. On occasion, when I glanced over my shoulder, I caught those who had passed us watching me and exchanging words.
“I disagree,” I said. “Those who exist without God in their lives are always in need, even if they are unaware of it themselves.”
“I am no theologian,” said Webster, “but it seems to me that there are many religions, and many gods.”
I stopped short. This, after all, was heresy.
“Yes, there are many gods, Mr. Webster, but only one true God. All else is superstition and the misheld beliefs of ignorant men.”
“Really?” said Webster. “Am I an ignorant man, Mr. Benson?”
“I, I cannot say,” I stammered. “In most things, you seem to me to be a most cultured man, yet in matters of religion you exhibit an almost willful blindness. The people of this village look up to you. Were you only to use your influence to-”
“To do what?” he interrupted, and for the first time I saw real anger in his eyes, although his voice remained frighteningly calm. “To encourage them to follow a god that they cannot see, who promises nothing but pain in this life in exchange for the hope of some idyll in the next? As I have said, perhaps there are other gods than yours, Mr. Benson. Older gods.”
I swallowed.
“Are you telling me that the people of this village are engaged in pagan worship?” I asked.
The anger left his eyes, to be replaced by his customary calm.
“I am telling you no such thing. All I am trying to say is that you have your beliefs, and others have theirs. Each has a place in the order of things, that I do not doubt. Unfortunately, the place for yours is not here.”
“I choose to stay,” I replied.
He shrugged. “Then we may yet find a use for you.”
“That is my fervent hope,” I concluded.
Webster’s smile widened, but he said no more.
I held my service that Sunday in an empty church, as was my duty, and I sang “The Lord Is My Shepherd” accompanied only by the cries of seagulls. That night I sat by the window of the study, staring down on the strange black sand that gave the village its name, surrounded by my predecessor’s meager possessions, now coated in many years of dust. Unwilling yet to retire to my bed, I spent an unproductive hour rummaging through old seafaring histories, topographical studies, and anthologies of supposedly factual supernatural encounters more suited to the archives of penny dreadfuls than the library of a clergyman.
It was only when I began to search the writing desk that I discovered the notebook. It had been placed flat at the end of one of the drawers, among the corpses of dead insects. No more than twenty of its pages contained writing, but the neat script clearly matched that of the Reverend Rhodes contained in the various church documents bequeathed to me.
The notebook was an account of Rhodes ’s investigations into the history of the area. Most of it was of only passing interest: tales of foundation, of feuds, of myths. Rhodes had learned that Black Sands was far older than a casual perusal of its history might have suggested. True, the village itself had only been in existence since the early seventeenth century, but the lands had been in use for long before that. Rhodes believed that he had ascertained the location of a stone circle that had once stood close by the shore, its position now marked by a raised slab that might once have served as an altar. But what purpose had the altar served? It seemed that to this question Rhodes was willing to offer an answer.
What Rhodes had discovered was this: once every twenty years, within one week either side of the anniversary of the community’s official founding on November 9, 1603, somebody drowned in the waters off Black Sands. The records were incomplete, and there were years for which Rhodes had been unable to provide entries, but the pattern was clear. Every two decades, a stranger, somebody from outside the community, died at Black Sands. True, there were other drownings in the intervening years, other accidents-although, once again, it should be stressed that none involved the citizens of Black Sands-but there was a strange consistency to the November deaths. The final entry in the notebook was for one Edith Adams, on November 2, 1899, but hers was not the last such death at Black Sands. That distinction would fall to Rhodes himself.
That night I did not sleep, but found myself listening to the sound of the sea. At other times, it might have lulled me to rest, but not at this time, and not in this place.
The whispering began on the night of November 1, the day of the saints. At first, it sounded like the wind in the grass, but when I went to my window the branches of the trees appeared unmoving. Still it came, sometimes soft, sometimes keening, speaking words I could not understand. I returned to bed and clasped my pillow to my ears, but the noise did not begin to fade until first light.
And each night thereafter, as the anniversary of the foundation of the community approached, I heard those voices, and it seemed to me that they grew louder and more insistent. I found myself awake in the dead of night, my blanket wrapped around me as I stood at my window and stared out at the black shore. And though the air was still, I thought I saw trails of sand rise up from the shore, twisting sinuously in the air like wraiths.
I tried to make up for my lost rest during the day, but the resources of my body and mind were not to be so easily replenished. I was troubled by headaches, and strange waking dreams in which I stood on the black sands and felt a presence behind me, only to turn and see the empty strand stretching toward the sea. One of these dreams was so disturbing that I awoke, thrashing at my sheets, and was unable to resume my rest. I rose and went to my little kitchen, in the hope that some warm milk might restore my composure. As I sat at my table, I glimpsed a light moving on the promontory to the north, where the old stones lay. Leaving my milk, I dressed hastily and, wrapped in my dark coat, made my way through the fields toward the path that led to the ancient site. I was almost within sight of the track when some instinct made me fall to the ground. Two shadows fell across me, the forms of men marching silently in the direction of the stones. I followed them, staying away from the path, until I came within sight of the altar. There Webster stood waiting, a lantern resting upon the stone. He was dressed in his usual tweeds, the tails of his overcoat flapping in the breeze.