Eloise insisted on carrying her own bags. The large one was a backpack, but even though she lumbered awkwardly under its weight, she refused his assistance.
They entered through the South Gate, but Will put on his dark glasses and stayed on the busiest of the roads, partly for her sense of safety, partly to avoid passing the Whole Earth again.
When she saw that he was wearing the sunglasses, she said mockingly, “Nice! You do know it’s the middle of the night. You look like a complete …”
“I have an eye condition. The light troubles me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, temporarily forgetting her anger and fear. As if reminding herself that she had nothing to apologize for, she asked tetchily, “Where are we going anyway? To your squat, I suppose?”
“There is no squat. We’re going to church.”
She stopped suddenly, so fast that he’d walked a couple of paces before realizing she was no longer with him. He turned and walked back to her and she said with a hint of alarm in her voice, “You’re not a born-again Christian, are you?”
He didn’t know what a born-again Christian was, but he said, “No, I don’t think so. I was born a Christian, but I …” He tried to think of words that would sum up his fall from grace, but instead, he became puzzled by the tone of her question and asked, “Is a born-again Christian more disturbing to you than what we’ve just seen?”
Eloise clearly thought it was a rhetorical question because she said, “Point taken,” and started walking again. “It’s not like I’m anti-Christian or anything. I even go at Christmas. It’s just the born-again variety—I find them a bit freaky.”
He couldn’t help but smile to himself. He still didn’t have the first notion of what a born-again Christian was and didn’t want to ask, but he doubted that it could be any more freakish than him. And in turn, that thought dragged the smile from his face because it reminded him that he had disturbing things to tell her. Nor was he entirely certain of how he could make this end well.
The floodlit spire was looming ahead of them in the night sky, and as he took a left turn, Eloise realized precisely where they were heading and asked as casually as she could manage, “When you say we’re going to church, do you mean we’re going to the cathedral?”
“Yes,” he said. “I still think of it as a church, but you’re right, it’s always been a cathedral.”
“But it’ll be closed,” she protested, still apparently struggling to see that none of the rules of her world applied any more. She had just seen him fight off a demon, using powers that few humans could call upon, yet she still thought a closed sign would be a barrier to him.
“I have a key.”
“Of course you do,” she replied sarcastically. “Because what, you do a lot of voluntary work in your spare time?”
He smiled at her, an attempt at reassurance as he said, “Because it’s where I live.”
Eloise didn’t respond, but carried on walking with him, which was promising in itself. He led her around the far side of the church to the small side door. He couldn’t see anyone about, but he walked casually and pulled her into the porch at the last possible second.
He opened the door, ushered her inside, then locked it behind them and removed his glasses. As with the previous night, the church was filled with the filtered light from the windows, but there was nothing unusual in the air now, reassuring him that for the time being, nothing awaited him there.
Eloise stopped and looked around and was briefly so overcome with the church’s late-night beauty that she forgot where she was and what had happened, saying simply, “Wow, this is so beautiful. They should open it to the public at this time of night.”
Will looked around, as if with her eyes, seeing the faint shafts of light with the dust dancing within them, the illusion of mist clinging to the pillars, and the distant vaulted roof of the nave. He’d seen it so many times, he’d almost lost the ability to appreciate its beauty.
Yet it was beautiful, and for him it was also home and certainty, a steady rock of the past to which he was forever fastened. No matter what the changes, this church remained, tying him and the city and the country beyond to the long history they all shared.
“This way.”
He took her to the top of the steps that led down to the crypt, but she hesitated there and said, “Where are we going?”
“To the crypt. There’s something I have to show you.”
Still she hesitated, and as she looked down the steps, she said, “I don’t know about that. It’s pretty dark down there.”
“Of course, I’m sorry. Please, wait here.” He’d forgotten that her eyes were no more accustomed to the dark than his ever were to the light. He went away and came back with a large candle and matches, but waited until he’d started down the steps before lighting it.
She followed uncertainly and said, “I’d still be happier if we could turn on a light.”
“We will, but we’ll need the candle, too.”
Before opening the gate into the crypt, he found the switch and turned on the lights, which were bright enough that he had to struggle not to put his glasses back on. He resisted though, and blew out the candle before opening the gate.
Eloise was more relaxed with the light on, but she still had the air about her of someone who wanted to get on with whatever it was they were doing and leave immediately afterwards. He would have to be careful how he revealed the truths he had to tell her.
He beckoned her on through the crypt and then said, “Here we are. You should take off your backpack.”
She looked around, as if trying to work out what they had come to see, but took off the backpack as he’d suggested and propped it against one of the tombs.
“That tomb,” he said, “the one that you’ve rested your bag against.”
She turned. “What of it?”
“It belongs to the third Earl of Mercia, born in 1218, died in 1263. He inherited the Earldom from his grandfather, his own father having died in a riding accident.”
“That’s … fascinating.”
“The tomb on your right belongs to the fourth Earl, Edward, born in 1246 to the third Earl’s second wife. He lived a long life and died in 1320.”
“Seventy-four,” said Eloise, playing along. “I suppose that wasn’t bad for those days.”
“Seventy-three, but you’re correct, it was a good span in such a trying age, and in truth, he should never have been the Earl at all. His half-brother, William, was born in March 1240, but fell sick in 1256, at the age of sixteen. They believed him dead, and so he never inherited the Earldom that was rightly his. But his sickness did not kill him.”
All at once, Eloise understood the nature of his story, but also looked totally disbelieving. She shook her head as she said, “Now, just hold on a minute. I’ll be the first to admit that something very weird happened down by the river, weird like stuff you see on television, and I’d really like an explanation. But if you’re trying to tell me that you’re descended from this William who was sick but didn’t die, well, just forget about it because I don’t believe it.”
“I’m not telling you I’m descended from him.”
She breathed out heavily and said, “That’s a relief.”
“I’m telling you I am him.”
She laughed uncontrollably, a laugh that had no humor in it, and said a little too loudly, “Just! Stop! I’ve had the strangest evening of my life and I just need you to tell me the truth.”
“But I am telling you the truth. It happened in 1256.” He tried to think of how he might convince her and thought suddenly of the Whole Earth and said, “How do you think I knew that café used to be a tavern? And the burning of the witches was the night I fell sick. And how would I know so much about my father and brother?”
“I know a lot about Hitler and Stalin, but it doesn’t mean I’m related to them.” She reached down and picked up her bag. “I’m leaving, and if you try to stop me, I’ll scream. I banged my head earlier, I must have concussion, and you …” She suddenly looked suspicious and said, “Did you put anything in that tea?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You put something in the tea! That’s why you didn’t drink it—what did you put in it?”
Eloise was already backing away from him as he said, “I didn’t put anything in your tea.” She heaved her backpack up on to her shoulder and slipped her arm through the strap. “Wait. I’ll give you two pieces of proof, and if that doesn’t satisfy you, then fine, you can go.”
“I can go if I want to anyway,” she said defiantly.
“Of course, but two things first.” He gestured with his hand and she reluctantly took the backpack from her shoulder again, resting it this time against the tomb of the fifth Earl, a half-nephew he’d never known. “I told you I live here, that I’ve lived here for nearly eight hundred years. How about if I show you where?”
Without giving her time to answer, Will knelt down and reached between the two tombs. In the dark recesses against the back wall he slipped his fingers into the small gaps and pulled the slab up. Then, once it was standing clear of the hole, he lifted it out and placed it upright on the floor of the crypt.
The slab was several centimeters thick, and he could see what was in her mind. She was thinking about the ease with which he’d lifted it, and wondering perhaps if it was even real stone. He ignored that question for now and pointed at the hole that he’d just exposed between the tombs of his father and brother.
Eloise stepped forwards cautiously. He could tell that she was nervous of getting between him and the hole, no doubt worrying that he would push her into it. He stepped back accordingly and she peered down into the dark without ever getting too close to the edge.
“That could be a priest-hole or anything,” she said, though he was certain she could see the top of the steps, and that she therefore knew it was a more ambitious construction.
“True, but in fact it leads deep underground. My chambers are beneath the city walls.”
Her eyes blanked him out once more and he realized that she was swayed by the things she could see, but that every time he gave her more information, she became disbelieving all over again. He decided to move on quickly.
“Second piece of proof. Why don’t you see if you can lift that slab?”
Eloise looked at it and made a half-hearted effort to move it before saying, “Yeah, it’s heavy, fair enough. Just like you pulled that scaffolding apart. For all I know, you could be on that drug. What is it? PCP or something.”
Will picked up the stone and raised it above his head, lowered his arms so that he held the stone in front of him, raised it above his head again, and then put it back on the floor.
She looked irritated somehow and said scathingly, “So you’re strong, like I’d be impressed by that.”
“That isn’t the proof.” He grabbed her hand, and even though she looked terrified and tried to pull it away, he pressed her fingers against the side of his neck.
“Stop it! You’re hurting me!”
He stared back at her and said quietly, “No pulse. I just lifted a block of stone above my head. Can you feel a pulse?”
He felt her hand relax and took his own hand away. Eloise kept her fingers pressed against the side of his neck then, confused, moved them around, prodding the flesh, searching for the pulse that he knew she would not find there.
Finally, her hand dropped to her side and she took a small step backwards. She tried to say something, but the words were lost somewhere between her thoughts and her lips. She looked down at the stone, the black hole that he’d revealed in the floor, then back at him.
And without any more warning than that, she fainted. Will leapt forwards quickly and caught her before she hit the stone floor, which was just as well because he didn’t want her banging her head for a second time in one night. He lowered her gently to the floor before looking around and thinking through the logistics of moving her.
He’d been concerned about how he would persuade her to follow him underground, but now at least that problem had been solved—he’d carry her. He only hoped that when she awoke, she’d remember why she’d fainted in the first place, and that the memory of it would prepare her for the equally extraordinary things he still had to tell her.