'That the beast is part of her. And that if she doesn't get it back she'll be, er… '
'No longer a nice person,' Powys said. 'It's a left-hand path situation. If she doesn't get it back, she'll be on the Satanic slippery slope.'
'But she does get it back, doesn't she?'
'Not easily. But, yeh, in the end it all worked out because she helped Roger with his problem and she put the Dark Chalice on hold. With a little help from George Pixhill and the man I hesitate to call Uncle Jack.'
'This is leading somewhere, isn't it?'
Powys poured the rest of the tea, 'According to Sam, on at least two occasions recently, Diane's felt her rage at Archer – which probably goes back even farther than she knows – becoming almost… detached from her, fermenting into patches of mist. Feral smells in the room.'
'Oh my God.'
'How much has she studied Dion Fortune? Would she know that story?'
'Oh dear. What you have to understand about Diane is that she doesn't have the magician mentality. Even if you believe in reincarnation the idea of her being the next life of Dion Fortune is slightly preposterous. Diane's a romantic, a mystic, very probably more than a bit psychic…'
'Someone who, if DF is still around in some form, she might want to protect?'
'The Third Nanny,' Juanita said. 'Sits on the bed and doesn't leave a dent in the mattress. Or something. The more you think about it, the more you realise that if anyone needs a third nanny, it's Diane.'
'But, look – this is important – you don't think Diane's capable of conjuring an elemental force?'
'Are you kidding?'
'In that case, someone's sending it to her. Someone who's been working over a long period to corrupt her.'
Juanita closed her eyes.
'Someone,' Powys said, 'who wanted her back in Glastonbury at this particular time. Who was disturbing her making her restless, sending her images of the Tor. A very practised magician – or group of magicians – who can conjure elementals, like the wolf-thing. Like a black bus in fact.'
'Why would Moulder have a bus delivered? Jesus, Powys, none of this is making sense. I'm not up to making sense of it. Let's just call the police.'
'The police wouldn't be able to find her. And even if they did, they wouldn't know how to handle any of this. It's down to us. Or you.'
Juanita shrank back against the oak headboard. She looked very small and frail in the four-poster.
'You've got to rediscover the Goddess,' Powys said. 'In yourself. You've got to go back to the heart.'
THIRTEEN
In the Meadwell kitchen. Woolly and Sam were playing three-card brag by torchlight.
'Where'd you learn to play like this?' Sam said. 'Old hippies, taking people's money is not what they're about.'
Every time he lost, it was down to Sam to go and check they were alone, which meant an ominous trek through that bloody eerie dining room.
'You're just not concentrating,' Woolly said. 'I can understand that. But you got to keep playing, man. You let go of your mind in this house, it… You just don't, OK.'
'Something happen to you?'
'I don't know,' Woolly growled. 'That's the other thing, you never quite know.'
'Some things you know,' Sam said, not thinking of the house.
Woolly picked up on it. He grinned. 'She's a wonderful girl, Sammy. Surprised me, though, I got to say. You coming round to it. After that Charlotte.'
'Mmm, well,' Sam said. 'Something happened.'
'Like?'
'Like why a confirmed atheist and non-believer in anything you can't either spend or save from predatory upperclass gits with hunting horns is suddenly scared to go in that room next door.'
'Oh,' said Woolly. 'Like that.'
'I've seen… bloody Pixhill,' Sam said. 'I've seen Pixhill, OK? Old bloke in a deerstalker hat. Though I like to think he wouldn't ever have stalked a deer. And don't ask me – don't anybody ever ask me – about his eyes.'
'Sheesh,' Woolly said. 'When was this?'
And so Sam told him. And because it was cards-on the-table night, he told Woolly about the devastation of the trees. The road.
Woolly threw his newly dealt hand on the table.
'You're not winding me up?'
'Tonight I'm not winding anybody up, Woolly. Tonight, winding up is on hold.'
'I don't know what to do.' Woolly said.
'Don't do anything. Juanita said to hang on.'
'Until when?'
'I don't know. Until we got Diane back.'
'You know what I think?' Woolly said.
'I don't even like to ask.'
'I think we got a battle on two levels here. On the material level, the Glastonbury First bit, the road, Bowkett's Bill. And all the side effects that lot's having on the invisible layers. Or maybe it's the other way around, and G-1 and the bypass, the whole thing's a manifestation of something going down on the Inner Planes.'
'Oh shit,' said Sam. 'I'm not that much of a sodding convert.'
'So what I think… I just think it's time we threw everything we got at this situation.'
'You're just saying that 'cause you reckon you've got nothing to lose.'
'Maybe,' Woolly said. 'Does it matter? Where's Verity keep the phone?'
'Never was any good at keeping my trap shut.' Sam stared at his cards. 'Aw, for fuck's sake, Woolly, you dealt me a bloody king-flush and threw your cards in.'
'Yeah, well,' Woolly said, 'it was about time I took a stroll. After I use the phone.'
They entered the cradle.
Henry VIII could steal the gold, pull down the walls, Powys thought, but the fat bastard couldn't take away the atmosphere.
Sometimes, when I am alone in the Abbey grounds, Colonel Pixhill had written, I become afraid of my own reverie, afraid that my soul will rise before its time.
Even at night it was not eerie. Merely awesome.
Juanita knew how to get in. She said most locals did. You just had to be quiet as you climbed over a certain garden wall in a backstreet. In the old days, Juanita said, many a bottle of Mateus Rose had been consumed under a full moon on the holyest erthe in all England.
They'd gone back to the main entrance. Near the dying Thorn. This was the way to approach it, Juanita said.
Beyond the wooden cross, uneven stone walls had evolved into a kind of organic life, could almost have been close-cut, layered hedges. Other walls, other buildings, heaps of hallowed rubble, were all features in what, even without the lawns and the manicuring, was a garden.
Powys laid down the suitcase on the dark grass. It was cold and wet, but the snow had gone.
This, in the beginning and at the end, was the heart. This was where it all came together. Thirty six secret, walled acres in what was still the centre of the town. Glastonbury's streets guarding their Abbey like…
Like the Holy Grail.
His gaze was raised to the focal point, the summit of the ruins. He'd seen pictures of it many times: the light flowing like a river between twin towers.
Except they weren't towers. And your second concept – an arch with the top part missing – they weren't that either. They were the ends of two high, buttressed walls, a flawed mirror image of each other, but they rose like forearms from elbows resting on the green turf. Ending in compliant, cupped hands… hands which could almost be supporting an invisible bowl.
Powys felt Juanita's tentative arm against his and realised he'd been standing here staring, for several minutes, at the moon through the space between the stone hands.