The Chalice

When they were back in the car, because he was J.M. Powys, who dismissed nothing, she told him about the lightballs. About the Tor. And about the Third Nanny.

'You saw her?'

'I didn't exactly see her. I was… aware of her. Sitting on the edge of the bed.'

'And, um, what made you think this was Dion Fortune?'

'You're not going to put this in your book, are you?'

'Not if you don't want me to.'

And he wouldn't. Of course he wouldn't. He liked to think he'd gone way past the stage where books mattered more than people.

All the same, she proved difficult to pin down on this one. At first, she told him, she used to think she was a reincarnation of DF. But the basis for this seemed to be little more than a teenage crush on the novels and those initials.

(Powys didn't imagine Dan Frayne had any illusions about his initials.)

She wasn't quite sure when she'd first made a connection between DF and the Third Nanny, who, to Powys, sounded suspiciously like a fantasy figure to help her cope with life under the authority of the real ones.

'What happened to your mother?'

'She died when I was born. That is, I was born in rather a hurry after she fell down the stairs at Bowermead.'

'I'm sorry.'

'My father's rather held it against me ever since. I don't think he's ever been able to look at me without feeling a certain resentment.'

Powys thought this, and being brought up by starchy nannies, was enough to disarrange any kid's psychology.

Several miles further on, somewhere down the M5, she said, 'It isn't a coincidence.'

'No?'

'We were called back. You for John Cowper Powys, me for Dion Fortune'

'Dion Fortune didn't have much time for JCP,' Powys pointed out. 'She even misspelt his name.'

'That was deliberate A sort of smokescreen. If she didn't know him well enough to spell his name right, she could hardly be involved with him in a secret operation.'

'What secret operation was this exactly?'

'I don't know. But I think we have to find out. Why else have we been brought back?'

'I haven't exactly been brought back. I've never been here before. Also…'

'You're a Powys.'

'I've been commissioned to write a book, Diane. That's all.

But it isn't all, is it? Is her Third Nanny on the edge of the bed any more crazy than having your living room repeatedly rearranged by a kinetic copy of A Glastonbury Romance?

Diane said, 'Do you believe in evil?'

'Probably. I mean, yes.'

'In Glastonbury?'

'Good as anywhere. Or as bad.'

'Colonel Pixhill believed in it very strongly at the end.'

'That's one very depressing book,' said Powys.

'People hate it in Glastonbury.'

'I can imagine they would. Doesn't fit the ethos.'

Diane said, 'There's an American called Dr Pelham Grainger, who lives locally and apparently maintains that we don't let enough darkness into our lives. I've taken over thirty orders for his book in the past fortnight.'

'I think somebody mentioned him a week or two ago. Sounds like a very sick man.'

She nodded and stroked Arnold and didn't say anything else until they were well past the Isle of Avalon sign.

'I've seen the Dark Chalice.'

Her voice seemed to reverberate, which didn't happen in Minis. Powys slowed down drastically, the lights of Glastonbury all around them now. There was a sort of shelter in the centre of the car park, under which Diane had left the van.

Powys turned the Mini so that the headlights lit up the side of the van.

He was waiting. This could mean almost anything; the Dark Chalice seemed to be Pixhill's all purpose metaphor for bad shit.

'Oh no,' said Diane.

Although it wasn't yet nine p.m., the car park seemed completely deserted It was another bright, sharp night, the moon not long past full, the tower of St John's sticking up like a candlestick on the edge of a table.

Diane said. 'Oh, please…'

He followed her eyes.

'Oh.' He got out.

The back window of Diane's van had been smashed, so had the driver's side window; glass all over the seat. Across the side panels, where Diane had painted friendly pink spots there was uneven, black, spray paint lettering, six inches high.

Diane stared at the van in numbed silence. Powys squeezed her right hand with both of his. He saw the black paint was glistening, still damp.

'It was in the fire,' Diane said tonelessly. 'When Jim died. That was the second time, the first time was over the Tor. Like shadow hands holding up a shadow cup. That was when I felt the evil. I've never felt anything like it.'

'I'll call the police,' Powys said.

'No.'

'You can't just let them…'

'The police are never going to catch them. 'There's a garage I used to go to. I'll get them to take it away first thing tomorrow.'

'Bastards.' Powys said. 'Have you any idea who might…?'

'It doesn't matter,' Diane cried. She turned away from the van. 'It doesn't matter,' she whispered.

FOUR Horrid Brown Fountain

Woolly said, 'Mind if I move some of this stuff, Diane.' I need to spread the maps out.'

She put on all the shop lights; it was a dark morning. 'Gosh, how many have you got?'

'Three. I need to put 'em all together. Think we're gonner have to use the floor. This is heavy shit, Diane, man. This is, like, end-of-the-world-scenario.'

Woolly squatted on the carpet and began to unfold an Ordnance Survey map, sliding one edge under two legs of the display table for current bestsellers. He'd phoned just after seven, to check if he could come round before the shop opened. He needed to lay something on her. Couldn't believe what he was seeing.

For once, Diane hadn't wanted to get up, not even for Woolly. She'd been out long after midnight. Yes, OK, she'd lied to J. M. Powys. It did matter about the van. It mattered terribly.

'I got the proof here, look, no hype,' Woolly said.

'Proof?'

'About the road. You all right, Diane?'

'Yes. Fine. Sorry. Go ahead.'

The maps were covered with little circles and ruler marks. All Woolly's Ordnance maps were customised into ley-line plans, with prehistoric sites – stones and burial mounds – and ancient churches, moats, beacon hills and things neatly encircled in red ink. People like Woolly could prove all kinds of wonderful things with maps and rulers and set-squares.

What you did was to find how many of the old sites fell into straight lines and then draw them in. It never failed; you'd finish up with a whole network of lines, some with four or five points, sometimes a whole star-formation of lines radiating out from a single point, indicating a very powerful ancient centre.

Glastonbury Tor, of course, was the classic example, perhaps the most important power centre in the whole of Western Europe. Sure enough, there it was on the second of Woolly's maps, with lines of force spraying out in all directions.

'Spent all night on this, Diane. Couldn't believe it myself at first, where the road goes. Bit of a mind-blower, girl. Don't know how we missed it, here of all places.'

Woolly was a very intelligent chap, but he'd done so many exotic drugs in his time that he tended to approach life obliquely, from strange directions. So that rather mundane things seemed, to him, quite astonishing.

Of course, there was the possibility that what Woolly saw was the truth and everyone else was blinded by the familiarity of things. Diane liked to think that, most of the time.

She made some tea. When she came back he had the three maps pushed together, taking up more than half the shop. He was thumbing through one of the paperback Dion Fortunes.