— THE FLYTING OF MICHAELS —

Gosforth, England

2019

Hoo’doo, Olaf luv?” The shrill voice pitched up the stairs.

Churchwarden Michaels winced. It sounded so routine, a cheery greeting from a visitor, full of Christian virtue. Full of belonging. Perhaps that’s how all invasions began, he thought. Neighbours inviting themselves into your modestly appointed semi-detached and making themselves at home. He tried to roll over onto his side, seeking an alibi in feigned sleep, but the bedframe had other ideas. It sang like a rusty canary.

Marvellous, he thought, staring irritably at the mildewed flowers that flocked down his walls.

“Co-ee. It’s only me, boyo. Mrs. Jones,” came the voice from somewhere below. “Are you decent?”

Behind his right eye, something shifted: something terrible. His other “unexpected guest”. It always woke up just after he did, knocking against his skull. In his abject state, he could never be sure whether it was inside trying to bludgeon its way out, or outside, trying to stave a way in.

“Wakey, wakey. Rise and shine!”

Michaels didn’t answer, praying that Mrs. Jones wouldn’t have the temerity to come into his bedroom. Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly standard liturgy, and the Lord habitually failed to heed him. But he nonetheless spent most of her visits like that, eyes clenched, as still as stone, straining to hear the click of the front door, the tiny, barely audible sound that signalled the all-clear.

He hadn’t heard her coming this time, though, hadn’t braced for impact. There’d been no sudden squeal of a misapplied handbrake, no measured crunch of her boots on the gravel drive. He must have been dead to the world.

To hear her tell it—and there really wasn’t much choice in the matter—Mrs. Jones had purloined the spare key from the Vicarage the very moment she heard he was unwell. She’d been letting herself in ever since. She knew all about migraines, she said. Suffered them herself, for years. The first visit she kept simple, delivering storebrand ibuprofen and some back-handed compliments. For most of the congregation at St. Mary’s, the Bible was daily bread. For Mrs. Jones, it was more like an occasional cake. She moved quickly beyond common decency and was soon dispensing lashings of idle gossip and casual racism. She was irrepressible, like a narrow-minded Mary Poppins, offering a spoonful of saccharine to help his medicine go down.

Before Michaels knew it, she had stocked his fridge, put new batteries in his big brass kitchen clock, and even swept up the cat’s mess in the pantry, all while shouting questions up at him, somehow unmuffled by the burgundy loop pile carpet and floorboards between them.

“‘Olaf luv’ this, ‘Olaf luv’ that,” he mimicked, then gulped down some painkillers to dull the agony and excuse the lack of charity.

He reached to pull back the curtain. The Beast from the East had been causing the mercury to plummet of late and, consequently, the double glazing to fog. He balled up the sleeve of his cotton pajamas and wiped the condensation clear. Mid-afternoon and it was already getting dark, he grumbled. The driveway was empty, so either Mrs. Jones really did come by umbrella today or she’d walked round after Mothers & Toddlers. He wondered if anyone had put salt down by the Foodbank. Black ice could be a killer.

You could always go and check, he upbraided himself. Migraine or no migraine, your duty is to keep God’s house as your own.

The fact was, he hadn’t been to St. Mary’s in weeks. He was too ashamed.

He’d been quite the village celebrity for a while. Gosforth was on the map at last, Reverend Riley had said, marked by not just one but three crosses! Centuries-old Viking crosses, to be precise, carved in red sandstone at the turn of the first millennium.

It was an amusing little joke, and not surprisingly, it got trotted out in Riley’s sermons for weeks afterwards. Thankfully, the Reverend didn’t mention that two of the artifacts in question had appeared overnight, just in case it made the Churchwarden look careless with the annual inventory. Or, worse still, fraudulent with the insurance forms they had filled in together over Easter.

There had been a veritable flood of national—and international—attention. He’d enjoyed it immensely at the time. Reporters from NRK and the BBC grabbing soundbites. Academics up from London. The Times & Star did a big feature on him and his namesake, the church of St. Olaf at Wasdale Head—the smallest church near the deepest lake and the highest mountain in England. The little church set amidst yew trees in the Viking fields of Wasdale, with roof beams made from Viking ships. The church that inspired Olaf Michaels’s parents to name their son after a long-dead Northern king. Olaf Michaels, the man who seemed predestined to find two brand new Viking Age crosses, standing upright, as bold as the day they were carved, in the churchyard. The article made it all seem quite normal, no different from the Furness Hoard, a hidden Viking cache of coins and hack silver that a metal detectorist had found near Barrow a few years back.

The churchwarden didn’t try to explain where the crosses came from. He couldn’t even if he had wanted to—his mind went blank whenever he thought about them. Nerves, he’d imagined. A few American TV crews came by, from the Discovery Channel and whatnot. The Yanks really probed for answers, but Michaels felt uncomfortable sensationalising the mystery. Truth be told, he might have speculated if he’d been interviewed by the Time Team, but that show had been axed a few years back. Besides, there were plenty of other armchair archaeologists ready and willing to go on the record with outlandish theories. Instead, he took the Bishop’s advice and left the explanation to the Almighty.

The headaches had started few weeks later, after the fuss had died down. The Area Dean had coaxed half of the Benefice into the church hall on Christmas Eve. Not one to move with the times, it turned out he’d recorded all the clips and burnt them onto commemorative DVDs, intending them for sale with the postcards and pamphlets they kept near the south porch. Even so, Michaels had been quite excited at the prospect. He’d been too overwhelmed to watch any of the broadcasts go out live.

The very moment the ancient projector fired up, he felt the first pang of anguish. He’d heard that the camera adds ten pounds, and so he expected to look a bit portly. But the amount he sweated under the bright lights and glare of the camera was frankly embarrassing. He looked like he was melting. Sounded like it too—whenever he was asked about the Gosforth miracle, he slurred like he’d been at the communion wine. The Reverend said he blacked out, there and then. Fainted clean away. Of course, they checked him for contusions or concussion, and he’d been well enough to walk home.

Proverbs 16:18, he sighed. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. He should have known better. To add insult to injury, once the Central Gosforth Scouts Group heard his given name and its background, they started calling him Snowman. The Disney Generation really knew how to crucify a man. So, no, he wasn’t going out in the snow, duty or no duty. Still, for a single man of his age to be ministered to by Mrs. Jones… he dreaded to think what was being said behind closed doors. It was enough to make your blood run cold.

The Frozen movie soundtrack leapt out of his auditory cortex and seized subliminal centre stage. Michaels groaned in exasperation. He knew his mind was capable of playing tricks on him—the whole cross episode was proof enough of that—but he hadn’t realized it could play whole concertos too. The Magic Kingdom had joined forces with his migraine to irrevocably destroy any joy he ever found in winter. He hefted onto his back again, arranging his arms across his chest briefly while he waited for the throbbing to subside. After a moment, he dropped them to his waist. This way, at least, he avoided looking like an undertaker had just arranged him for the visit.

Mrs. Jones put her head round the door. She was a spritely woman, always bustling, even in what must have been her late sixties. He kept his eyes shut and prayed fervently for deliverance. His visitor exhaled slowly and purposefully, as if creating a barrier between herself and the singular odors of a single man’s bedroom.

“Oh dear, are you very badly?”

Hoo’doo. Badly. Mrs. Jones would speak perfectly proper SRP when she was with Reverend Riley, but with the laity she’d slip into conspiratorial Cumbrian speech patterns.

“I tell you what, I’ll make you nice cuppa scordy. Would you like that? How about some food? Some lovely spam and baked beans?”

She cackled at her own joke. Mrs. Jones never missed the opportunity for a Monty Python reference since the crosses appeared. Dutifully, a horde of prancing, horned Vikings marched into Michaels’s mind, bellowing “spa-a-a-a-a-am.” He hadn’t seen the show and had had to look it up on YouTube. Big mistake that was. He remembered reading that the most common method of torturing prisoners in Guantanamo was to play “I Love You” by Barney the Purple Dinosaur on repeat—then promptly wished he hadn’t. A T-Rex joined the conga of Norsemen carousing through his head. The pain reverberated in time with the incessant Disney medley, pounding, pounding, pounding. He wondered what God was saying to him through all the noise, his very own Tower of Babel.

Mrs. Jones clucked her tongue and clumped down carpeted stairs again, to clank around the kitchen, putting the din in dinner.

“Have you heard from the Vicarage?” she called up, oblivious to his suffering. She referred to the vicar’s house like it was the epicentre of the world, in the same way a reporter might talk about Number Ten or the Pentagon.

“Reverend Riley popped round a few times, yes.” The academics had lingered longer than the TV crews and needed shuttling around. But Michaels excused himself, and retreated to his living room and dressing gown, and then, when the migraines got worse, to his bed. Doctor Wilson’s orders. At least the Vicar had the decency not to intrude.

“What was that?” the old lady yelled.

He couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to repeat himself, let alone with the gusto required to be heard downstairs. Mrs. Jones harrumphed and then clattered on her way through the kitchen cupboards.

Stress, apparently, was the reason for his unexpected guest. Too much excitement by far and not anywhere near enough exercise for a man approaching forty. The headaches would go away with rest, and then the prescription was for some brisk walks. Doctor Wilson was a keen member of Active Cumbria and a fanatical rambler. What was the point of living in the Lake District if you didn’t perambulate on a regular basis? he’d said.

Michaels wasn’t ready for that yet, though. Frankly, if Mrs. Jones hadn’t been there, he would have crawled back into the bed and tried to escape into sleep. He propped his elbows on the windowsill and tried to breathe deeply. Count to three, he thought.

The fields stretched away, long and level, to the coast. A snow-white patchwork quilt, criss-crossed by drystone walls, the ancient fabric of England. Doctor Wilson was right, it was something of a balm for the soul. There was a red squirrel watching him from the top of the privet hedge. Sciurus vulgaris. He felt a certain kinship with the poor thing. The reds were anything but common now, having to deal with their own invaders: the dreaded greys. Not to mention that it was probably just out of hibernation. All ready for spring, and then he got a dump of snow.

Michaels reached for his phone to check the time. 3:39 p.m. He glanced at the home-screen, wondering whether he had the energy to check in on the world. It was all so bloody depressing: the blackened name of the White House, the Russian cyber attacks, the endless Brexit debate, where the Mother of All Parliaments was making the mother of all messes. The last time he looked, one newspaper reported that all the trees were dying.

A loose tile fell from the roof, snapping him from his introspection. His squirrel pal had taken refuge there, no doubt, getting into the attic at the base of the old Sky satellite dish on the roof. He should’ve had it taken down years ago. It wasn’t even connected.

“Knock yourself out, Squirrel Nutkins,” he muttered. Perhaps that was the problem. The world was smaller these days, but despite all the instant communication and video on demand, people had forgotten their roots. No one belonged anywhere anymore. Even the squirrels had migrated.

There was a knock on the bedroom door, so he plopped himself back into bed. Mrs. Jones had returned with what passed for his tea.

“Ah, you look a bit better Olaf luv,” she said, without looking at him, edging a tray of something microwaved and pink onto his bedside table. “Salmon. Your favourite.”

She finished fussing with the cutlery, then narrowed her eyes as she focused on the phone in his hand.

“Ah, yer divvy, put that away. Obsessed with screens, you are, what with a headache an’all.”

“I was just looking at the time.”

“What’s wrong with a watch?” she demanded, then turned and dropped a rolled-up newspaper she’d been carrying under her arm. “I brought you the papers.”

They both glanced at the headline as it unfurled on the duvet. WORKERS FIRED FOR BEING BRITISH.

“Whisht! Is this what my grandfather fought in two World Wars for? Immigrants from every corner. Mrs. Haythwaite says the Germans are building another army. Can you believe it?”

Michaels tried to avoid the subject. “Is it very cold outside? I was thinking of a walk this evening. If it’s warmed up a touch.”

“Proper Englishmen, the old fella. Had a bit of Viking in ’em, you know, bit like you,” she said proudly, obviously immune to questioning.

Michaels took a deep breath. Part of him wanted to correct her. You can’t have a bit of Viking in you, he wanted to say. Maybe a bit of Norwegian, if you are from around these parts. But I’m not Norwegian; my mother was from Plumstead. She just conceived me the same year they consecrated St. Olaf’s and got carried away with the whimsy of Norsemen in the Lake District.

But his head hurt, and an argument with Mrs. Jones wasn’t going to fix anything. He’d had enough arguing with old codgers to last a lifetime. He wondered what happened to the cantankerous vagrant who’d accosted him in the churchyard last November and made him completely miss Pies, Peas, and Puds night. Michaels wasn’t sure which of his recent visitors delivered the most torture, on a minute-for-minute basis, but the old man had seemed to linger for an eternity.

These days, Vikings had become a symbol, representing at best adventure, risk, individual spirit, and daring and at worst xenophobia, white pride, and male violence. It struck Michaels as the greatest of ironies that Vikings, once demonised as the scourge of Europe, were now a talisman for those who were mortally afraid of how the world was changing around them.

He sighed and sidled up to the windowpane, trying to stare upwards.

“You’ve scared away my squirrel chum,” he said, a touch reproachfully. He wondered if it might be coaxed down with some salmon.

Mrs. Jones paid him no attention. “Speaking of Vikings, the Reverend asked me remind you. The Parish Council is gabbing on about the Viking Way tonight. Seven thirty. You can’t keep hiding out here, like a feckless jam eater.”

Was it Wednesday already? He’d circled the date on the kitchen calendar a while back, but he’d forgotten it in all the recent hullabaloo. It was easy to lose track of time.

The Viking Way. A planning application has been submitted to Cumbria County Council for a new bridle path that would open the fells for cyclists and walkers arriving at Seascale by rail. The name was a nod to the area’s Norse heritage, filed in the days when one cross had been plenty. What with Moorforge, the new centre for Viking discovery up past Cockermouth, Cumbria would soon be competing with Denmark. The new route would run alongside the road and provide a safer crossing point over the A595. It didn’t sound like much, but it would clear up a renowned accident blackspot, known locally as “Coffin Corner.”

There was a lot of death in that direction. After all, this was where, in the early 1950s, the Windscale facility produced the plutonium-239 that would be used in the UK’s first nuclear bomb, where Queen Elizabeth had opened Calder Hall, the world’s first commercial nuclear power station. Most of his friends had gone to school at St. Bees, just a few miles away from the iconic cooling towers. They’d huffed and puffed past it on cross-country runs, danced in its shadow at Calder girls’ school, kissing the daughters of the scientists. He remembered his dad saying the nuclear men thought they were “little gods” and being embarrassed when his mum demanded that his medical records include the fact that he was schooled so close to the reactors. He’d been too young to understand the nature of the evil. How the management, profligate with money, had been criminally careless with safety and ecology, thinking nothing of trying to block Wastwater lake to get more water or trying to mine the national park for a waste dump. The plant’s sheer physical isolation contributed to the local’s fears. It was like a latter-day Transylvanian castle, a radioactive leper colony.

Thankfully, the long-overdue decommissioning was underway, and the government hadn’t seen fit to hold up planning permission this time around. Perhaps the Viking Way would help some of the ministry men with their commute.

“Do you believe in fate, Mrs. Jones?” he asked her.

“I’m fond of a good tombola,” she said, still engrossed in the newspaper.

Fate! Not fête! he almost said, exasperated, then realised he was talking to entirely the wrong person. Mrs. Jones was a paid-up member of the Conservative Party who was happiest when raising money for the RNLI or selling homemade scones at the Agricultural Show. Determinism simply wasn’t something that came up in conversation in her circles.

“Well, good then. Excellent, in fact. That is welcome news. I ought to prepare some notes.”

He brightened at the prospect and went so far as to attempt to corral Mrs. Jones into an awkward hug.

“Give awer yer divvy,” she protested, obviously pleased despite herself. Straightening her headscarf in his mirror, she caught his eye in the reflection and winked. “Any road, I just popped in before bingo to see how you were gan. I’ll be sure to tell the Vicar you are on the mend.”

“Thanks for tea, Mrs. Jones. God bless you.”

But Mrs. Jones was already gone.

His tea, piping hot, beckoned on the bedside table. The tablets had taken the edge off. Either that or what passed for TLC from Mrs. Jones was working its magic. He wrestled a jumper over his head and pulled on some socks, hopping back to the window to scan the horizon for chimney sweeps or flying umbrellas.

“Can’t put me finger

on what lies in store

But I feel what’s to happen

All happened before.”

He chuckled, chuffed with his imitation of Dick Van Dyke cockney.

Nothing. Just her old white Ford Fiesta reversing erratically out of the driveway. He waved, although Mrs. Jones was already busy arguing back to the Smooth Drivetime show on the radio, disturbing the whole cul-de-sac in the process. His own Vauxhall Astra VXR was carpeted in snow. It had won the Best Sporting Car from the Scottish Car of the Year in 2012. He hadn’t driven it since a week last Thursday. He bit absent-mindedly into his salmon and wondered if the battery might have gone dead in the cold. He’d have to call Frank Nesbit to come and help him jump start it.

Hang on, he thought, the cars were in the driveway. Disney and déjà vu be damned! He hadn’t seen them in the snow. The question was, had Mrs. Jones?

There was a dull thud outside, followed by a longer, more sustained screech of metal on hot-formed boron steel. He raced back to the window, only to find himself face to face with the squirrel.

“Let It Go, Snowman. It’s not the end of the world,” it said.

Somewhere between 5% and 28% of the general population “heard voices” that other people didn’t. Michaels had read that little factoid in a Mental Health Foundation leaflet. The voices came in many and varied forms: the quiet male persona, constantly whispering death and destruction; the disconcerting screams of a woman that no one else seemed to hear; a child clapping and cheering every hour of every day. One composer claimed he’d been visited by the ghost of Schubert. Regrettably, the pamphlet had omitted mention of talking squirrels.

Something else to mention in his next check-up, he thought, trying not to succumb to the vicious circle of anxiety. Doctor Wilson had told him that he had to learn to “gradually confront feared situations.” His furry friend was probably another symptom. And if it wasn’t part of his condition, well, then he’d be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats—Mrs. Jones always said he belonged in the funny farm. It was rarer than in cases of schizophrenia, but auditory hallucinations occasionally cropped up in medical literature around migraines too. Full-scale delirium was apparently like a huge theatre, with the capacity to stage world class productions.

It took him a moment to work out where on God’s green earth he was. The corner of the garage. He lay spread-eagled by the potting shed, like one of the spring crocuses struggling out the unexpected snows. Oh, good grief, he exclaimed, remembering his car. He felt dizzy, like he was falling, or rather—rotating. Vertigo. He brushed his hand against the wall to keep his balance, and when that failed to work, sat down heavily on the flower bed and closed his eyes.

A specialist had visited him last week connected to the dizziness, after Doctor Wilson had called the Cumbria Neuroscience service in Penrith.

“Diagnostically,” she’d said, “headache is the easy part of a migraine. It is the surrounds of migraine—the aura, prodrome, and postdrome—that can be most challenging, and confused with other all sorts of other stuff. The borderlands are much more blurred. We must try a process of elimination. For instance, have you heard of migralepsy?”

He hadn’t and didn’t want to, so she put what looked like a virtual reality headset over his eyes and had him count aloud the red lights that flashed across his field of vision. Warm air blasted first into one ear and then the other. They’d been an uncomfortable pressure in his ear canal that made him feel as if he was a spinning top. He had a strong waft of her perfume. Overpowering. He’d grown nauseous, almost lost count, but the specialist had insisted that he carry on.

Suddenly, he could see himself in the kaleidoscope of colour, a young boy, running down the narrow country lanes to the village school just across the church. It was these memories that had grounded him.

“Yan, Tan, Tethera,” he’d said. A sheep-counting rhyme. He used to sing-song count his way along the hedgerows and fields every day back then. He wasn’t sure what prompted him to say it out loud, but playing it back in his head now, it occurred to him that his reply wasn’t just childish, it was downright abnormal.

“Mr. Michaels, if you please…” she’d complained, and so he’d explained himself; it was a tradition, common in the dales of the Lake District. Yan, Tan, Tethera, Methera, Pimp. Until the Industrial Revolution, anyway. For centuries, nothing much had changed in the Lake District. That’s why people visited. It was like stepping back into the past.

“Fascinating,” the specialist had said, making an adjustment to her device.

“Ein, tveir, þrír,” he’d said. “That’s Old Norse.” Perhaps he was schizophrenic? Sometimes, only lesions on the brain explained his utterances. Still, on balance, it was more likely he was showing off. The specialist was quite an attractive lady.

“I’ve seen you on the telly. You’ve got Vikings on the brain,” she said, not unkindly, he thought.

Perhaps that was it. The crosses, all the attention, had overwhelmed him. He used to relish being the local expert on the Vikings. Pub quizzes at the Wheatsheaf were a doddle. But now that the crosses had multiplied, there’d been a non-stop barrage from the bloody heathens. Asatru UK would send him invitations to speak at their moot. Worse still were the ones who thought three red crosses were a badge of honour and emblazoned them on their profile. What were they thinking? The senior lay official of Gosforth parish, the longest serving local representative of the Anglican Communion in North-East Cumbria, headlining at a pagan festival? Following a fascist Facebook page?

“Did you know many Lake District names come from Norse settlers way back in the tenth century? For example, beck for stream, dale for valley, and thwaite for clearing, to name just three?” he’d asked the specialist, as she packed up.

She hadn’t known, she’d said, politely, and without a glimmer of further interest. He wondered if she ever visited any local beauty spots? Five minutes later, she had gone, all retreating high heels and flushed excuses.

Personal boundaries. Spheres of expertise. No-go areas. He had no idea who made the rules anymore. No wonder he had headaches. It was like he was shadowbanned from social media, but without the slightest idea what he had done to deserve it. Plucked from his perfectly pleasant routine, without so much as a by-your-leave.

At least the land was constant. This was a special corner of England, dotted with limewashed cottages and long stretches of walls separating the fields full of hardy Herdwick sheep, reputedly brought in by the Norse to graze on the fells. Examination of the walls had revealed that each valley had a “ring garth” built by early Norse settlers in the tenth or eleventh centuries. Huge, cyclopean, rounded boulders taken from the stream bed, following the break in the slope of the valley, separating the fertile bottom land from coarse grazing on the fellside.

Not far north, the story was older and clearer still: Hadrian’s Wall stretched seventy-three miles across the neck of England, dividing the civilization of Rome from the savage, painted Picts. There were no indistinct borderlands here, no fuzzy logic or shades of grey, just simple, straightforward order.

Something thudded out in the street, startling the churchwarden from his recuperation. It was immediately followed by clanging sound, the rich singing of striking metal on metal. Michaels leapt out of his skin. Hell’s bells! Not again, his lizard brain screamed.

Seconds later, a great giant loomed out of the darkness muttering oaths, broad shoulders to the sky, smoke wreathed in his coal-grey beard. The new LED streetlights bathed the visitor in an operatic spotlight, rippling along the chains of his armour. Michaels’s amygdala elided his thoughts into one fluid action. He scrabbled in the snow, his feet finding purchase on a plant pot, before flinging himself over the garage wall. The mass of hair and steel watched him go, hands held high in apology. Under the streetlight, it had the disconcerting effect of making the figure seem ready to ascend to Valhalla.

“Sorry, Olaf. I didn’t mean to scare you. The Vicar sent me. I’m to collect you for the council meeting?”

“Barry,” Michaels sighed. Barry Thurston-Hicks. Also known as Barry the Science Viking, an ex-high school teacher, now licensed to wield his spear in the service of STEM education. Barry organised the medieval re-enactment at Heysham Viking Festival, and often toured schools dressed as a Viking might, although he wasn’t above setting up as a monk or an alchemist if the exhibitions at Muncaster Castle needed him. The kids loved him—but even so, there hadn’t been much call for his unique choice of profession, so he was often away down south—or driving the local taxi.

The churchwarden stepped out from behind the wall, a little sheepishly.

“You’re all dressed up, Barry,” Michaels said, stating the obvious.

“Business is booming, thanks to your crosses. Funny how things come in threes. Like buses, eh?” Barry rubbed his hands together conspiratorially. He was from London originally, a place where they actually had more than two buses. It was his wife who was local. She sat on the Seascale council, the next village over.

“You are going to the meeting? Jane’s poorly, so I am representing the Clan Thurston-Hicks.”

“No thanks, it’s not far,” Michaels said, brushing himself down. He really wasn’t in the mood for company right now.

“Don’t be silly. I’ve got the van. You could arrive in style.”

Michaels shrugged.

“Oooo, I see you’ve had a prang,” Barry said, sucking in his breath as he surveyed the damage to the Astra.

The churchwarden didn’t want to look. Just thinking about the insurance made him feel light-headed. There was an awkward silence for a moment or two, while both men searched for something else to say, before the churchwarden decided that the only way to stop further investigation by the local neighborhood Viking was to accept his offer.

“Where are you parked?”

“Just over the street. I had to do an emergency stop to avoid a squashing a bloody red squirrel. Don’t need that on my conscience. They’re on the endangered list.”

“Are they? I had no idea,” said Michaels, preferring to feign ignorance than think any more about his hallucinations.

They ducked into the nettles and briars to avoid a passing car, then, when it was clear, stepped into the narrow lane. The van was parked, badly, on the corner of his road. It was all gussied up with decals, a moving billboard for Barry’s Viking services. There was a life-size 2D replica on the back doors, holding a longsword, hair streaming dramatically in some unseen wind.

“I’ve given up the taxi lark,” Barry said, as if that explained why he had a van that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the A-Team. “The Viking Way should be good for business too. I’m hoping they book me for the Grand Opening.” He thumped his chain mailed chest in emphasis. “I’ve got Deathsinger in the back, in case you want to have a heft later. Eleventh century Varangian.”

Michaels glanced around at all the paraphernalia Barry kept in the back of the van, worried that it wasn’t properly secured. There was enough steel to outfit half a dozen re-enactors. The churchwarden had only fought alongside Barry once, during a Trivia Night at the Wheatsheaf. Ironically, for a history nut, Barry was terrible with dates. You could name any battle, even ones his beloved Vikings fought in, like Stamford Bridge or Maldon, and he’d be out by a century or more. It might have been endearing if they hadn’t crashed out in the semifinal. Still, you couldn’t help but admire the man’s passion, even if he did play a little fast and loose with reality.

Barry turned the key and the radio blared into action… Smooth Drivetime. Michaels reflexively put his hands over his ears.

“Mind if we turn that off? I have something of a headache,” he asked, raising his voice over the racket. He had no idea what made the Top 40 these days, and on the evidence presented, he didn’t want to find out.

“Oh yes. I heard you’d been unwell. Well, you know what they say, music soothes the savage beast,” Barry said, looking over his shoulder and reversing into the darkness.

“Breast. He wasn’t a snake charmer,” Michaels said, acidly.

“Pardon?” Barry spun the wheel back and accelerated.

“Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast. That’s the correct quotation.” He didn’t like being a passenger, especially one sat so close to sharp pointed weaponry.

“Old Will Shakespeare, eh?” Barry grinned, clearly delighted to have Michaels along for the ride. The churchwarden paused before correcting him, feeling momentarily churlish.

“Congreve. Still, top marks for William.”

“Anyway, we can’t turn that off. This song is a classic.” Barry started to sing. “If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do…”

“I didn’t know Mongolian Throat Singing was in your repertoire, Barry,” Michaels said, laughing, only so he wouldn’t cry.

“Jim Croce… you’re the one I want to go through time with… He wrote the song for his pregnant wife, then died when his plane hit a tree at the end of the runway. The pilot didn’t even try to avoid it, even though it was the only tree in the area. Eerie shit. Number one song, though.”

“Oh, that is sad,” Michaels acknowledged.

“It gets worse. The wife had a son, who went blind after being beaten by a stepfather—who wouldn’t have existed if his dad hadn’t crashed. How does that happen, eh?” Barry said, enjoying being conspiratorial.

“Some people are just born unlucky, I guess.” As a member of the Church, Michaels always suspected people were somehow holding him responsible for the world’s ills, the callousness of the universe. “What was this song called again?”

“‘Time in a Bottle,’” Barry said. “Growing on you, is it?”

“Your radio is a bit crackly.” Michaels peered more closely at the dial. The clock display was telling the wrong time also.

“Atmospherics.” Barry tapped the clock. “Big electrical storms can mess up the satellites. Probably the MSF signal too.”

“What’s that? The MS—?”

“Eff. It’s a dedicated time broadcast that provides the source of UK civil time. Transmits from Anthorn over by Carlisle. Radio clocks pick it up.”

Physics was Barry’s forte. Michaels often forgot the big man’s STEM credentials, but, in fairness, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics seemed incongruous when dressed snugly in chainmail.

“Like the Speaking Clock,” Barry added, trying to make things as simple as possible. “With all last week’s strong solar activity, maybe it’s time to wear tin foil on our heads. Makes everything cuckoo.”

If you only knew the half of it. Michaels smiled wryly.

They set off round Meadowview at a steady 30 mph, past the modest stucco bungalows and the ostentatious wood-cladding on the new builds, then turned onto Whitecroft. Beautifully refurbished homes in a very desirable postcode, Michaels thought mechanically. He much preferred his side of the village, where the houses had a modicum of distance from the road. Still, the new houses kept the village viable, and he was sure the Parish Council would insist on keeping a suitable green fringe around the village.

There was an unopened can of Coke between the two seats, and he was suddenly craving sugar. Or, rather, the migraine was.

“May I?” he asked.

“Knock yourself out,” Barry said, graciously, his eyes still on the road ahead. Michaels took one swig, then another, and drained the rest on the third go. He was feeling as frail as glass, but the pop would help. He swilled Coke around his mouth. His teeth felt furry; they’d need a good firm brush later.

“I wonder when the special guest star is arriving?” Barry asked. “Of course, if I still had the taxi, I might have picked her up myself.”

Michaels decided to be more charitable, and as chatty as his headache would allow. “What guest star is that?”

Barry snorted derisively. “What rock have you been hiding under? The Vicar said he’s been emailing you. Seriously, you’ve not been online?”

“Not much, no. Just sleeping lots. Besides, the internet is an infuriating place, populated by morons who can’t even agree what they are arguing about.”

“There is that. They call it Loki’s Wager.”

“What now?” Michaels asked. It wasn’t a term he’d seen in any of the Mindfulness & Mediation brochures.

“Loki, the trickster god. He’s the bound figure carved on your Viking cross. His freeing would be a signal for the start of Ragnarok, when he would show his treachery by fighting against the gods on the side of the giants.” Barry stopped briefly at a pedestrian crossing and tooted a friendly horn at some people he obviously recognised.

“Thank you, Barry, for the lesson in things I already know. I might as well be on Reddit.”

“Well, smart arse, as legend has it, Loki made a bet with some dwarfs. It was agreed that the prize, should Loki lose the wager, would be his head. Loki lost the bet, and in due time the dwarfs came to collect the head which had become rightfully theirs. And Loki was beheaded, and the dwarfs were happy and there were no more problems ever in the Norse world. The end.”

“That can’t be right,” Michaels said, suspecting something was amiss. Barry gave a big belly laugh. “Just seeing if you were paying attention. Anyway, Loki had no problem with giving up his head, but he insisted the dwarfs had absolutely no right to take any part of his neck. Everyone concerned discussed the matter; certain parts were obviously head, and certain parts were obviously neck, but neither side could agree exactly where the one ended and the other began. As a result, Loki kept his noggin on his shoulders. Loki’s Wager has become the term used for an argument that can never be decided because no-one can agree on how to define the terms.”

“So, the whole internet then?” Michaels groaned. Democrats and Republicans, Brexiteers and Remoaners—the world was certainly becoming more polarised, with the only common ground being smokescreens, diversions, and stalling tactics.

“Speaking of trickster gods…” Taking one hand off the wheel, Barry rummaged in the glovebox. He triumphantly flourished a half scrunched up newspaper. “The local rag. If by local you mean sold to a U.S. media giant and printed in Glasgow, of course,” he sneered, unexpectedly. There’d been a lot of bad blood when the Yanks bought the Times & Star after four generations of being family-owned.

Michaels took the paper and squinted at the headline. THEY DIED IN THE EAST, IN TARTARY.

“I can’t really read it in this light. So, what, standards slipping?” he asked. He had no idea why an English paper would write Tartary in the twenty-first century. It was an obsolete term, for Mongolia or Siberia, the kind of thing Marco Polo would have called Central Asia.

“Here’s the thing. The Ingvar Runestones is the name of a whole bunch of Swedish memorials. Hundred of men sailed east with a Viking called Ingvar the Far-Travelled. It was a fateful expedition that took place in the tenth century. Or maybe the eleventh… anyway, none of them returned. It was like the Viking version of the Titanic.”

“Topical news then?”

“Wait till you hear the good bit. The runestones have changed. The article, it has pictures. More than twenty runestones, hundreds of kilometres apart—all of them talk about the men dying on the Mongolian Plateau.”

“So?”

“Well, Vikings went nowhere near that far. And the historical record proves it. Plus, and this is the kicker, the runestones themselves changed overnight. Look at the page, side by side photos see? Old and new inscriptions. Weird, eh?”

Michaels couldn’t focus clearly enough to make out much more than a page full of shadows. He shook his head slowly. “Vandals, most likely,” he said, dismissively.

“Fair enough. ‘The determined prankster with a chisel’ theory.” Barry laughed. “And this from the same august personage who had two new Viking crosses pop up in his backyard. You can’t just edit a runestone. It’s not a bloody word processor. Anyway, it doesn’t stop there. The famous Jelling stone has also changed, and that’s kept behind protective glass.”

Michaels nodded. Barry had a good point.

“What does that say now?” Michaels asked, curious now. The Jelling stone, the so-called birth certificate of Denmark, had UNESCO heritage status. It was inscribed by Denmark’s first Christian king, Harald Bluetooth, and featured the triumph of the Lion of Judah over the Midgard serpent.

“Don’t know. Didn’t get that far,” Barry said, unabashed.

“Trolls then. Fake news. And since when has the Times & Star been printing news from Scandinavia?”

“Since you put us on the map. X marks the spot. Something’s going on, mark my words. Stone stores story.”

“So, who’s the guest star?” Michaels asked, genuinely perplexed, although he wasn’t sure whether that was because of the runestone story or the notion that a Parish Council meeting warranted a visitor from out of town.

“A professor. Danish, I think. Told you, Gosforth is all the rage these past couple of months. You should see what they dug up out by Seascale in preparing the bridle path. Honestly, ‘mind blown.’ Makes the Cumwhitton dig look like child’s play. Wanna go and have a look? See it with your own eyes if you don’t believe me. It’s not far.”

They’d almost reached their destination but, instead of turning into the Village Hall, Barry suddenly sped up and headed towards the A595.

Michaels’s head started pounding.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got over an hour yet,” Barry said. “I can stop at the garage and grab myself a bite. We’ll be done in a jiffy. But, seriously, what with all that’s been happening, you can’t go into a meeting about the Viking Way without seeing this for yourself.”

“If you say so,” Michaels said, humouring him, much more concerned about the icy road.

Michaels resigned himself to the journey and stared off into the fields, quietly contemplative. He’d like to believe England was dreaming, under its hills, of the turn of the world and the dance of the stars, but the reality was morning papers full of EU rules and Trumpian economics. They passed the Rugby Club.

“Watch out, Barry. Construction ahead.” Barry might not have been going very quickly, but Michaels didn’t want Coffin Corner to live up to its name. He could see workmen up ahead, their high-visibility vests dancing in the headlights. The snowbanks by the side of the road only made the glare worse.

“Where?” Barry replied, clearly confused. “It’s the middle of winter!”

“Good heavens…” Michaels said. There was something else there, by the road. Something immense, big enough to be the road. The night rose up, hissing, full of rippling muscles and sloughing scales. His head felt like bursting.

“Turn around! Stop the car!” he screamed, reaching over and grabbing the wheel. He twisted it violently towards him, so that the van bumped onto the kerb. The Viking gear in the back slid around freely, clattering on the panelling, as if a whole troop of re-enactors was going at it hammer and tongs.

“Bloody hell. Keep your hair on,” Barry shouted, trying to get control by yanking on the handbrake.

Michaels unbuckled himself, jumped out of the van and ran back to safety of the village.

“And where are we now with that, exactly?” the official drawled.

The churchwarden looked up, into the fog of faces, a maze of silvery squiggles and zigzags. He recognised the voice, even if the face was an indistinct blur. Councillor David Cornwall was speaking, the sort of man who could make time stand still with his pitch-perfect drone.

It was always the faces that vanished first. They broke and scattered, like blown dandelions. A blind spot formed in the room, a small eclipse that grew as he watched, following his gaze. The creature in his skull slithered behind his eyes, skewering each person, gulping them down, swallowing first the eyes, and then the whole head.

An aura, the doctors called it.

Michaels watched with glum fascination as the Gosforth Council shrank and floated away right before his eyes. The hallucinations were getting more vivid, if the thing by the A595 was anything to go by. He should really insist on an MRI , he thought. After all, hypochondria didn’t normally wriggle…

How long had he been here? He had no recollection of taking his seat. That would be the second blackout in as many hours. The churchwarden tried to focus on sounds, rather than his ailment. Cornwall was hemming and hawing through his own stack of papers, his mouth clicking as if it were dry. Through the optical haze, Michaels imagined mandibles clicking.

“I have been monitoring car park usage since we last met. As well all know, there were forty-five places in the car park; of those, five are designated restricted waiting for the bins and a further four allocated for wheelchair users.”

Both the Seascale and Gosforth Parish Councils had gathered. Davids Cornwall and Quinn; Graham Hudson; Ken Mawson; Michael McKinsey; the Chair, Tyrone Reed; his deputy Christopher Baxter; and the newly installed Clerk, Jacqueline Westerman. They were already like an extended family, and the Viking Way would only strengthen the bond.

Parish Council meetings were held in the Supper Room, on the second floor of Gosforth Public Hall. The building was one ramshackle extension after another, mildew-white walls and rust-red trim on the doors and windows so that it looked damp on even the brightest of days. Even the SLOW sign painted on the cracked tarmac outside had faded and worn, as if in condemnation of council proceedings. The Supper Room itself was, if anything, even more dingy, held together by low black beams that constantly threatened to crack heads. They been recently painted, and now contrasted badly with the lemon and lime pastels on the walls and the stacks of grey office chairs that adorned them.

Ken Mawson chimed in. “One contractor in particular was seen using the car park as a Park and Ride, but other than that, there did not seem to be a huuuuuge number of spaces being used.” He made his words as expansive and exaggerated as possible.

“Under the terms of our agreement, no buses or commercial vehicles were supposed to use the car park. At all. We were quite clear on the subject.”

“Can I just say that the British Parking Association could offer advice here?”

Michaels reached for his phone to check the time, but the display was impossible to make out. They must have been talking for over an hour already. Worse, they didn’t seem to be following any kind of agenda. The Parish Council meetings could drag on for hours, unlike the Parochial Church Council (local government was just as parochial, it was just called something different). Reverend Riley kept the quarterly PCC meetings brief and to the point, focused on refreshments for Morning Praise or the price of the laminated information sheets at the back of the church. PASEO—purpose, agenda, start on time, end on time, outcomes. It was all very clear if you stuck to the formula, Michaels thought, growing irritable.

“Excellent. Top notch idea. Will you take ownership of that, Ken? Also, Jackie, if you’d also be so kind to mention that the light on the car park was defective.” The Clerk nodded that she would, indeed, report this.

The churchwarden yawned, uncontrollably. He wasn’t particularly tired, but sustained yawning was another symptom of his unwelcome visitor. Combined with ineffable boredom, he didn’t stand a chance. He stretched and yowled like a lonely wolf.

After a few moments, he noticed the room had gone quiet. Everyone was looking at him, clearly insulted by his gasping for oxygen.

“Sorry,” he said, wincing, “perhaps a quick cup of coffee is in order?”

“Very good,” someone brayed, peremptorily. Michaels stepped into the corner and reached amongst the paper cups, pouring himself some tepid coffee. He debated adding milk, in case it made it so lukewarm as to be undrinkable, but ultimately, the simple smell put him off. The meeting rolled on around him. Councillor Quinn put forward an offer from the Rotary to continue pruning work on the car park, which was gratefully accepted.

He went downstairs in search of fresh air, and stood in the doorway, looking across the tiny car park to the HSBC.

“You made it then.” Barry, the Science Viking, called out from the front seat of his van. It was more of a statement than a question. Michaels heard the hesitation in his voice—Barry clearly thought the churchwarden was off his rocker. He’d chosen to sit in his van until the last minute, rather than risk further conversation upstairs.

“They ready for us yet?” Barry asked. Shorn of his usual gregariousness, he seemed small and sullen.

“Still talking about parking, as far as I know. Listen…”

Michaels started to explain himself, but confessing I’m worried I have a brain tumour in a car park seemed ludicrous. Thankfully, just at that moment another guest appeared at his shoulder, as if from nowhere. The aura had obviously demolished his peripheral vision too.

“Ah, Michaels. Good to see you up and about. How are the headaches?”

Hugh Bracegirdle ran the University of the Third Age. It was a small close-knit village, less than 2,000 people at the last census, but a good quarter of them were retired, and so Hugh had a solid membership list. He was a bit of a know-it-all, Michaels’s bête-noire when it came to Trivia Night at the Wheatsheaf, especially in the Military History Buzzer Round.

“Migraines. I think I have one coming on now,” the churchwarden said. “It starts with vision distortion.”

“Oh dear, what’s that like?” asked Hugh, with misplaced enthusiasm.

Michaels thought for a moment, then said, “It feels for all the world like when an IT technician remotely accesses your computer and, without you putting a finger on the mouse, moves the cursor from folder to inbox.”

Hugh didn’t respond to that. Michaels could only imagine the puzzled look. The old man had retired from his job at British Energy around the time of Windows 98, and probably practised for the pub quiz with a CD-ROM of Encarta.

“There are none so blind as those who cannot see,” Barry chimed in, seeing fit to jump out of his van at last, given the safety of numbers.

“Will not see,” Michaels corrected. “Otherwise it’s a truism, Barry.”

“Suit yourself. You know your Bible, I suppose,” the big Viking huffed. His chainmail swished and swirled, a shoal of electric minnows. Hugh was wearing his hooded anorak, a coat that he wore constantly and without the slightest sense of irony, come rain or shine. At the end of the day, Michaels supposed, everyone wore a suit of armour.

“You here for the karate then, Barry?” Hugh enquired, sizing up the costume. The big man had brought his prize possession with him this time—the huge, two-handed replica axe he called Deathsinger.

It was Barry’s turn to look bemused. “The Viking Way, Hugh. I’m not a bleedin’ samurai.”

“There’s a new Qi-Yoga class starting up next month, Barry. Might be your sort of thing.” The unsolicited advice came from Samantha Bunting, who’d just pulled up in a red blur. She ran the local Spin Studio, which, Michael realised, was a much better analogy for a migraine. Pounding music, emetic neon, and every movement a punishment.

“See?” said Michaels, seeing the opportunity to tighten the screw. “Sounds very kamikaze. Right up your alley.”

“I’ll put my boot right up your alley in a minute, Churchwarden, headache or no headache,” Barry snapped. It was Michaels’s turn to hold up his hands in apology. Barry was ordinarily a gentle giant, used to taking a tease. You couldn’t really work as a Viking re-enactor without developing a thick skin. The churchwarden resolved to take him aside later and apologise properly. Hopefully, it was nothing that a free pint and a ploughman’s wouldn’t smooth out.

Sam Bunting leaned her head out of the driver’s window. The car smelled of teenage boys, damp camping equipment and discarded gym wear. “Hello, Olaf. Should you be out and about? Not tucked up in bed?”

“I’m on the mend, thank you, Sam,” he lied, backing away from the smell. He was in no state for the piquant aromas of the Scout troop.

“He has a point,” said Hugh, ignoring the exchange of pleasantries. “The kamikaze literally means ‘divine wind’—they were storms that are said to have saved Japan from Mongol fleets under Kublai Khan. Vikings and Mongols are two very different things.”

“I know that, Hugh, thank you,” said Michaels, thinking very unchristian thoughts.

“One in thirty-three Britons can claim direct descent from Vikings,” the old man continued. “Whereas one in two hundred men globally are directly descended from Genghis Khan himself.”

“Put it about a bit, did he?” Barry said, laughing.

“Penrith was revealed to have the highest concentration of Scandinavian DNA in England,” Hugh Bracegirdle said. “For more than a quarter of us, it seems, our—times 40—male ancestor was from Norway.”

Michaels smiled thinly, wondering whether the University of the Third Age ran courses in Unlikely Statistics and Senility.

“And half the known universe has taken some form of ancestry DNA test. It’s all bogus,” Michaels sniped, resentful that anyone was giving more credibility to a cotton swab Y-chromosome test than his own Norse expertise.

“Perhaps migraines are genetic?” Hugh asked, brightening at the sudden epiphany.

Sam Bunting laughed and turned off her ignition. “Triggered by stress, apparently. Last thing you should do is to turn up to a planning meeting, Olaf! Still, I hear Mrs. Jones has been doing the Lord’s work? Keeping you calm?” She was either feeling neighbourly or had time to kill. It was disconcerting, Michaels realized, how much people relied on facial expressions to understand their fellow man. Eyes really were the windows of the soul.

“Oh yes,” Michaels said, keeping information to a minimum just in case it led to further questions and discomfort.

“My old mam used to get them migraines,” said yet another voice. Jackie the new Clerk, if the menthol stench of Marlboro Ice was anything to go by. Michaels wondered who was left upstairs in the Supper Room. The car park was like Piccadilly Circus. “She tried all sorts. Anti-inflammatories, steroids, muscle relaxants, beta blockers.”

“Sounds like one of them Russian athletes,” Hugh said. “Can’t trust the Rooskies.”

“Magic mushrooms before the school run,” said Sam. “That’s my secret weapon. No need to look at me like that. You take a tiny dose. You ought to try it. You don’t feel high, just… better.”

“Here for the meeting, Sam?” Jackie asked, somewhat icily.

“No fear. Picking up from karate.”

On cue, little David Bunting ducked past the group, a flash of ginger and freckles. As he jumped into the car, Sam chirped, “Ah, here’s my chubby little chipmunk!”

“Bye, Snowman!” David clucked, waving at Michaels.

Be prepared, he’d taught them. Do Your Best. Now the little buggers ambushed him with Olaf jokes every time he went near the All Saints Centre. The headlights searched their faces as the car reversed, dazzling Michaels further. The fresh air hadn’t done him any good at all—his unwelcome guest really had his fangs into him tonight. On the bright side, he reflected, he had escaped without being offered a free spin class.

“Silly old witch,” sneered Jackie, hidden under plumes of menthol smoke. There was obviously no love lost between the two women. Mrs. Jones had said something about an affair, but he’d done his best to ignore the more lurid details of her tittle-tattle. Village life could be very unforgiving.

“That’s not very Christian,” Hugh admonished, unzipping his hood slightly. “Whatever next?”

“Qi-Yoga, it would appear.” Jackie laughed, sourly. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got to admit, Sam Bunting is a one-woman Wiccan Wave. Peddling Class A drugs from her kitchen table. Someone ought to call the police.”

She looked expectantly at the group, tottering slightly on her high heels. Michaels knew better than to get involved. Even in the age of #MeToo, people liked to burn witches. Sam Bunting’s feel-good hobbies, the natural convergence of self-care, green living, and new age spirituality annoyed the more conservative villagers—it just wasn’t very Church of England. Besides, the Devil offered up many temptations, and Michaels had his work cut out pretending that the idea of Sam Bunting in a billowy white skirt and flip-flops, sitting cross-legged around a circle of flowers, wasn’t one of them.

“What’s that all about?” mouthed Hugh Bracegirdle, conspiratorially.

“Long story,” moaned Michaels. “Shall we go back in?”

It took him a moment to realise that Hugh wasn’t talking to him. All of them—Jackie, Hugh, Barry—were instead peering past him, up at the night sky above the bank. Sam Bunting had slammed on the brakes too and was cooing out of her window.

“What is it, Mum?” David piped up.

“The Northern Lights, Davey boy,” she replied, in rapt attention. “Come quite a way south…”

Michaels almost swore under his breath. It wasn’t uncommon for a burst of solar energy to send the aurora dancing across the Lake District. He’d seen them himself over the River Derwent a couple of years ago on a Scouts manoeuvre. The skies slowly cleared of clouds after sunset, the moon rose to light up the landscape, mists began to swirl around Borrowdale and just before midnight, the burst of activity in the northern sky had been… sensational. It was frustrating to be missing out this time.

“Bloody hell!” breathed Barry, snapping away with his camera-phone in one hand, and Deathsinger in the other.

“Never seen them that close before,” Jackie whispered, clearly awestruck.

Michaels tilted his head and scrunched up his eyes, trying to focus. All at once, the horizon became a brilliant shade of red, clouds swept together like dust rising above a distant troop of riders. True enough, in the cloud were shapes of men and horses, each of the spectral riders carried banners, lances, spears or swords, pointed high and radiant into the sky.

And underneath it all, the scales of armour glistened like a silver gauze.

The Aurora Borealis. A geomagnetic storm. Barry had mentioned an atmospheric disturbance earlier, messing with his radio. That must have been what he’d seen, out by Coffin Corner. Not a giant, world-circling snake at all…

Vikings on the Brain, he sighed. Bloody crosses.

“I think I need to sit down,” Michaels said. “I’m going inside.”

“All in favour? Right, good, that’s everyone. Let the record state it was agreed that Sellafield Ltd. be contacted in respect of amended leaflets,” Councillor Michael McKinsley concluded. Then with an air of smug satisfaction, he added, “Now, I’d like to move proceedings on to the subject of the Viking Way bridle path.”

There was a ragged cheer. Michaels clapped enthusiastically from the stairwell. The migraine had lifted, and as the pain subsided, so had his spirits soared. Tumours, he scoffed silently, nudging the bemused Barry to join in the applause.

The Northern Lights were so majestic, the Council had killed the harsh fluorescents and were content to sit in the darkness, caressed by meandering ethereal curtains of light. The dingy old Supper Room suddenly seemed a sanctuary, the thick walls, bulky filing cabinets and small windows creating a sense of security in the midst of a wild world. The strangest thing about the Northern Lights was the noise they sometimes made, like someone rustling a bag of popcorn. It was less a Council meeting than a group outing to the Gaiety Cinema in Whitehaven.

He peered in, hoping to find a spare seat, but the room was crammed, the lure of the aurora and the exodus from karate swelling the room to capacity. Reverend Riley was cheerfully topping up anyone who asked for more tea. Michaels gave him a friendly wave and sidled over, with the Science Viking barrelling after him like an enthusiastic bodyguard.

Meanwhile, McKinsley warbled on, without waiting for the excitement to die down. He was a thin, reedy man but possessed the boundless energy of the impatient. “We are thrilled to have with us a very special guest, all the way from Sweden. The heavens themselves have seen fit to welcome her. You must have put in good word, Reverend?”

“The Heavens Declare the Glory of God; and the Firmament Sheweth His Handywork,” Riley intoned, obligingly.

Michaels smiled. His friend had done well since moving here—they’d rearranged the whole Benefice of Seatallen around him. He was now the priest-in-charge for Gosforth, Seascale, the Wasdales, and Beckermet. His wife often joked about the charmed “Life of Riley” he led. The diocese had long been associated with climbers, what with Scafell Pike being within its borders, she teased, affectionately.

“Psalms?” the churchwarden asked, and the priest gave him a big thumbs-up. Like the best of all teachers, he seemingly had a quote for every occasion. The two men often tried to catch each other out, just for fun.

“Is there any chance of a cup of tea? Or a seat maybe? I’ve had quite the turn,” Michaels whispered, taking advantage of the lull. He’d meant the question for Riley, but the Chairman, Tyrone Reed, overheard him and scowled. He used to be a gravedigger, and despite now running a local machinery business, he’d retained something of the sepulchre about him.

“Oh, get up, McKinsley, and let the churchwarden have a spot at the table. Let’s hope he’ll stop yowling and complaining.”

McKinsley reluctantly stretched, shooting the churchwarden an annoyed glance as Riley passed him one of the bone china cups of tea. Michaels accepted with a smile, but before he took a sip, he raised his cup in a toast: “Blessings upon all the Council! Glad I can join this Christian fellowship today!” He was feeling unusually full of himself. Cocksure, like an inmate unexpectedly reprieved from Death Row.

“Well, if you are quite finished…” McKinsley muttered, before addressing the room at large. “May I present Professor von Linné from the University of Lund?”

Michaels’s eyes turned to the special guest, tucked away in the corner. It was a relief to be able to see clearly again, even if the lighting was more atmospheric than practical. How long she had been there, he didn’t know, but he didn’t think that the Council would be so cruel as to subject her to their whole agenda. She must have snuck in through the back door.

“Thank you for having me,” the woman said, calmly looking around the table, making solid—and, Michaels thought, slightly intimidating—eye contact with those around the table. Her accent was almost neutral, although he wasn’t surprised by that—the Swedes were often named as the best speakers of English as a second language in the world. Not just because of their schools, or business savvy—at root, the languages were very similar.

The professor wore a sombre polo neck jumper, in a poorly disguised attempt to hide some extensive inkwork on her neck. She was youthful, although somewhat haggard—the Lord knew it wasn’t an easy journey from Stockholm; the person who designed Manchester Airport had allegedly had a hand in devising the Labyrinth at Knossos—but there was something hard-bitten about her. She wouldn’t have been out of place as a lead in a Nordic noir show—one of the bleak crime procedurals that dominated TV these days. Not so long ago, the BBC was content to give its viewers recycled period dramas headlined by Victorian—or Belgian—detectives, but now the schedule teemed with gruesome murders, sordid local government conspiracies, and ominous shots of fjords bathed in the midnight sun. They’d proven Sweden’s biggest export since Abba or Volvo.

When she turned her attention to his side of the room, the professor nodded, curtly, and Michaels was overcome with a nervous urge to snigger. Perhaps McKinsley had laced his tea with booze and given him the wrong cup? Sneaky bastard. Barry Thurston-Hicks stood at the back of his chair, grinning down at him like the cat that got the cream. He was far too excited for a meeting about mere planning permission.

“This is going to be good,” he said, stroking his beard in anticipation.

Meanwhile, Councillor McKinsley, never one to stand on ceremonies, wasted no time launching into the debate. “Let me start by saying, while I respect the desire of the two communities to forge closer links…” he began, beginning to pace as best he could in the confined space.

“And cut down my commute,” interjected Hugh Bracegirdle almost immediately, felling the councillor in mid-sentence.

“And cut down Mr. Bracegirdle’s commute.” McKinsley feigned amusement before ploughing on. “I think now is the perfect time to apply for an archeological grant from the Department of Portable Antiquities & Treasure. The dig is just too important…”

“Told you!” whispered Barry, emphatically in Michaels’s ear, distracting him completely.

“You haven’t told me a thing yet!” Michaels hissed back, aware that the councillors wouldn’t be keen on yet another disruption to proceedings. He felt for all the world like one of his more errant Scouts, all attention deficit disorder and pent-up energy. It was an oddly childlike position for a supposed pillar of the community.

“I was trying to show you!” Barry said, rolling his eyes. Michaels racked his brain, tried to guess what all the fuss was about. The Victorians had once found a ninth century silver-gilt relic in the area, called the Ormside Bowl. That was part of a touring collection now. The Furness Hoard had been ninety or so silver coins, some of them Arabic. Nothing that would stop planning permission, though. The British Museum was obviously getting involved, so it must be something big—perhaps another Viking Age cemetery like the graves at Cumwhitton?

“Excuse me, Mister…?” the Swedish professor inquired politely.

To add to the embarrassment, Reverend Riley was staring at him with raised eyebrows. Michaels shrugged apologetically. Of course, they were making a racket, but Michaels couldn’t help wondering if Barry’s medieval garb drew extra unnecessary attention. The great pole-axe tucked under the table was doubtless a Council first.

“That’s Olaf Michaels. The churchwarden at St. Mary’s,” clicked David Cornwall.

“AKA, the Runestone Cowboy,” some wag added. Michaels suspected it was Deputy Baxter, but he was too busy blushing shades of beetroot to search out the culprit.

“Who!?” Reed asked, before spotting the joke. “Ah, Glen Campbell is it? That’s a good one.” He laughed like a drain as he mentally rode out into a star-spangled rodeo.

The professor smiled at the churchwarden, ignoring the commentary from the peanut gallery. Michaels was warming to her already. What with the sounds of chomping popcorn from the aurora, Michaels was finding it almost impossible to concentrate, but she was the epitome of cool and calm, keeping her head when all around were losing theirs. He was impressed with her resolve.

“Boundary stones,” von Linné said, matter-of-factly. “We found boundary stones.”

“A boundary for what?” Michaels asked.

“For whom, rather. An early burial custom, characteristically Scandinavian but also found across Europe. Graves were often surrounded by stones in the outline of a ship,” she said. “I have sketches. If you’d like to see?”

For a moment, Michaels wondered if she was joking. Then he realized: Of course you do. Very Scandi-noir. What was it with these Scandinavians, he thought, using pictures books and doodles when there were perfectly good camera-phones? Hadn’t the University of Lund invented Bluetooth technology?

She reached into her case.

“Of course, I’d be delighted to look,” Michaels said, genuinely intrigued. “But what makes you think they are Norse? There are plenty of stone circles in the Faerie Hills of Cumbria. Castlerigg, Long Meg, Elva Plain. They were here thousands of years before the Vikings landed.”

It was true. Over the centuries, Cumbria had been a fertile ground for myths and legends, with its remote landscape of mountains, forests and woods. Stories had been passed down by the generations for a thousand years. There were a dozen spooky spots where he’d take the Scouts camping—the coastal village of Ravenglass, just five minutes away in the Astra, claimed to be home of King Eveling, faerie ruler of the Rath, cursed by Merlin to haunt the Fellside. His Rath—or stronghold—was actually Mediobogdum, the ruins of a Roman fort located on the hair-raising Hardknott Pass between Eskdale and the central Lake District, but locals hadn’t let actual facts get in the way of a good yarn. The conjunction of fairy stories and Arthurian myths remained compelling even now, combining magic and mystery with a promise of redemption and restoration. The Once and Future King would return from Faery to assist the Britons in their greatest struggle. In some far distant future, Mrs. Jones’s descendants would probably tell stories of how King Arthur defeated an evil giant named Brexit in this very spot.

“Scarce images of life, one here, one there, Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque, Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor,” Riley quoted, moving round to peer over his shoulder.

“Keats?” Michaels ventured, earning his second thumbs-up of the evening.

“You’re like one of those calendars. A Poem-A-Day,” Barry guffawed in his ear.

The professor placed a sketchbook on the table in front of Michaels, spinning it round to face him. There were twenty stones, maybe more, all of varying sizes. The illusion of a ship had been reinforced by larger stones at either end.

Michaels scanned the image, then flicked over a page to where there was a pencil rubbing, designed to show the imprint in the rock beneath. The characters certainly looked like they were part of a runic alphabet rather than any Roman graffiti. It read:

“Can you translate the runes?” the professor said, her eyes tunneling into him.

Michaels reached for a pencil and scratched for meaning, cycling through letters in his head. “He doesn’t know? What rock has he been under?” Graham Hudson asked the room, his pitch rising with his incredulity, hoping to get cheap laughs. Perhaps they’d all been drinking—Hudson was almost swaying with intoxicated abandon, his face blotched, lined with the broken blood vessels of the almost-alcoholic. The whole room was watching the exchange intently, egging them on, the local expert pitted against international renown. Somehow, Michaels didn’t feel he had home turf advantage.

“E=mc²?”

“See!” squealed Barry. “E equals MC squared. It’s the world’s most famous equation. And the Norse worked it out before Einstein!”

Michaels looked round the room, incredulous. “Oh. Dear. Me. Okay—where is the hidden camera? Joke’s on me.”

He was surprised to see every face was deadly serious. As sombre as stone, you might say. Perhaps he was the only one not in on the joke. Either that, or this was a practice run for the World’s Biggest Liar competition. Every November at Santon Bridge, competitors had five minutes to tell the biggest and most convincing lie they could without any script or props. Last year, the winning story claimed that many Cumbrians were four per cent badger. This runic-whopper would be right up there.

“Come off it. Reverend?” he implored his friend.

“Exciting, isn’t it, Olaf? Even bigger than the crosses! I knew you’d want to see for yourself.”

Michaels wasn’t excited. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, he thought. The Gosforth cross was one thing—the original depicted various characters and incidents from the Norse tale of the end of the world. It was a simple, primeval story, good versus evil, showing how the old Norse beliefs passed away, superseded by Christian truth. But this—he didn’t even know what it meant. E=mc². Something to do with relativity and the speed of light?

Barry must have read his mind. “Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. On the most basic level, the equation says that energy and mass are interchangeable; they are different forms of the same thing. Now, we don’t see them that way—how can that aurora and a walnut, say, be different forms of the same thing?—but Nature does.”

Barry was breathless with excitement, and paused to stir and slurp his tea, hastily gathering his thoughts. He grabbed his spoon and wielded it with renewed inspiration.

“Say you could turn every one of the atoms in this teaspoon into pure energy—leaving no mass whatsoever—the spoon would yield twenty kilotons of TNT. That’s roughly the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1955!”

Someone at the back of the room saluted Barry with a wolf-whistle. The big man gave a little bow of appreciation.

“And this is related to the changes in the other runestones, is it? The ones in Sweden and whatnot?” Chairman Reed asked.

“That’s what I am here to find out,” the professor said.

Michaels was dumbfounded. He couldn’t be accused of being a natural skeptic: not so long ago, he’d been on the other side of the fence, trying to defend the sudden appearance of two medieval crosses to TV journalists. But there was a clear difference—the ornate patterns on the crosses, the interwoven carvings were fashioned by craftsmen. There was even a name for the style they used: Jellinge. Antiquarians could attest that they had existed in the past—Michaels couldn’t explain how they appeared or who put them there, but it was as if someone had simply stood them up again. He was fairly sure that the main body of maths came to the West from medieval Islamic scholars and knew for a fact that the equals sign was devised by a Welshman. You didn’t forget that kind of trophy-winning trivia.

“Look, I’m sorry. This is ludicrous. Something doesn’t add up. I mean, that’s modern maths alongside, what? Fifth century runes? By the time the Vikings settled in Cumbria, they used a wholly different script, the Younger Futhark. I’m more inclined to go with—what did you call it, Barry?—the determined prankster with a chisel theory.”

He was tempted to reach for his phone and call forth the gods of Google, but there was a loud grumble from amongst the councillors. It was getting late, and even the aurora was losing its lustre. He stared hard at von Linné and pressed on. If it wasn’t an elaborate practical joke, perhaps it was wishful thinking. Or pure greed. The whole village was high on the hog.

“At the risk of being unpopular, let me tell you about the Heavener Runestone. In Oklahoma, of all places. Experts from all over the world examined it, even the Smithsonian. It took another Swedish professor to debunk the whole thing. It was a nineteenth century hoax, carved by a Scandinavian immigrant during the Viking revival. There are a lot of similar stories and they are all, I’m sorry to say, simply untrue, because the Vikings didn’t travel to Oklahoma. Same as they never dabbled in physics.”

“What did the runes say?” asked Hugh Bracegirdle.

“Gobbledygook. There were eight runes, some Elder Futhark, some Younger, some back-to-front. The stone’s most charitable translation is ‘Gnome Dale,’” he said, dismissively.

“But there is evidence for Viking colonization all over Vinland, isn’t there?” Hugh persisted. The old wolf clearly thought he had scented prey and was determined to make a meal of it.

Michaels brushed him aside. “There are plenty of tall tales and clever hoaxes—the Maine Penny, Beardmore Relics, the Kensington Runestone, even the lost city of Norumbega. It’s just wishful thinking that falls apart under analysis. Look, I get it. We’d have another fifteen minutes of fame. Tourist revenue would go up next summer. Barry would have another banner year. But it’s not real. I’m sure the Heavener Chamber of Commerce didn’t like their bubble being burst either, but you can’t hide from the truth.”

The professor smiled, still holding his gaze. “Very well observed, Churchwarden. Many valuable truths are hidden in plain sight.”

Michaels wasn’t sure what she meant. It almost sounded like a threat, or a warning. Bloody gnomic Swedes and their cliff-hangers, he thought. She carried on watching him through the kaleidoscope of lights, drumming her forefingers on her sketch paper, drawing his attention back to her drawing.

“My point is this,” she said. “The Norse believed the stone ship would equip the dead with everything he had in life. But the world is not so much made of stones as of fleeting sounds, or of waves moving through the sea. Trust me when I say this—I don’t think the passage is one way.”

“Oh, I think it rather has to be,” Michaels argued. “That’s pretty much the definition of death. ‘An undiscovered country whose bourne no travellers return.’ Hamlet. Perhaps you know it? He was a Dane, I suppose, but close enough. I’m sorry, what did you say you were a professor of?”

“I didn’t.” The professor laughed. Michaels had started the day thinking he was going mad. Now he was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t the only sane person in the room. Von Linné had clearly decided to dig in her hiking boots and continue to argue her point. “Let me take on the burden of proof.”

“I hope it’s better than your spurious faery circle,” Michaels said, groaning. “I’m afraid the church rather frowns on the testimony of leprechauns, boggles, and elves.”

Michaels wondered if she was baiting him or whether she was entirely deranged. Clearly, the Wiccan Wave had reached Scandinavia. Either that, or the Lutherans had become even more radical. That was the problem with Christianity—there were all kinds of splinters, needling into the skin of the Church. “I don’t understand. You’ve come all this way to tell us think you’ve found a gateway to the underworld? Is there anyone in this room, over the age of nine, and halfway sane, who believes in the existence of actual ghosts and goblins?” Michaels spluttered. He wondered if Riley, or Barry—or anyone—might intervene, but he didn’t dare break the professor’s gaze. Her stare had him riveted in his seat, locked into their debate.

“It doesn’t matter. The boundary is crossed,” she said, her eyes boring into his. “The equation proves that there is… intent… behind its creation.”

Well, doesn’t that just take the biscuit, Michaels thought. He tore his eyes away and looked at the stupefied room, all as silent as shadows in a magic lantern. Today was turning out to be entirely miserable. If the literal headaches weren’t enough, he was stuck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as directed by Ingmar Bergman. He should have stayed firmly in his bed.

“Well, there you have it, gentlemen,” he said, witheringly. “There is a fine dividing line between seeking the limelight and inviting a Doomsday Cult into Council chambers at the taxpayers’ expense, but you’ve managed to cross it. I hope you bought her return ticket.” He noticed he was sweating profusely, damp stains ringing his armpits, his hands cold and clammy.

“Why do we care what the snowflake thinks?” Baxter spat, suddenly roaring back into action.

“Snowman,” Michaels corrected, instinctively. That was it, he thought. Enough turning the other cheek. He decided he’d had altogether enough of the councillor’s snide remarks. He looked round for Reverend Riley, hoping to give him fair warning that he was about to blow his top. “Keep that up and I’ll knock your block off. Best you stick to cowering in your tedious parking rules and regulations.” Michaels surprised himself with how venomous he sounded. He heard Barry draw a long, slow breath. He was shaking with cold fury.

Baxter glowered, popping open the button on his right cuff, and rolling up the sleeve. The councillor had all manner of sigils and staves cut deep into his skin, a web of purple welts and electric ink. “You want to take it outside?”

Michaels hadn’t ever been challenged to a fist fight before, at least, not since he was a child. He laughed, despite himself. “Oho! Baxter the Benchwarmer has found his courage, has he? Come on then. Give it your best shot!”

Michaels stuck out his chin, tapping it with his finger in case Baxter needed lessons in accuracy. He was dimly aware that the whole room was charged, glowing like a grotesque Saturday morning cartoon, kernels of popcorn whistling and popping round their ears.

Jacqueline Westerman spoke up through the chaos. “Gentlemen, please calm down. Remember where you are. We have guests!” she pleaded, nervously gathering up the crockery as a precaution.

Michaels hissed, dripping with rage and perspiration. He felt fully in his element, finally free of his prim and proper skin. It was clear to him that the meek weren’t blessed in any way, shape or form.

“Oh, shut up, Jackie. How many of this lot have you spread your legs for? I wonder whether it was worth straddling Reed’s flaccid cock for those cheap trinkets?”

The secretary almost burst into tears. “Fuck off, Snowman!”

“Brrr, cold indeed,” he quipped, relishing the witticism. “You were a great deal warmer when you used to beckon me into your bed. Since we’re in the middle of baring everyone’s faults and misdeeds, we might as well mention that.”

McKinsley had spent most of the past few minutes quietly banging his forehead on the table. When he looked up, his glasses were comically askew. “Oh, come now. There’s no harm in ladies having a few lovers on the side,” he said.

Michaels’s dander was up. He wasn’t going to be lectured by a jumped-up security guard with ideas above his station. “Piss off, McKinsley. You might think you have our respect, but I’ve heard things about you too. The kinky stuff with Eileen Eastwood’s daughters. When those ladies have to pee, I hear there is no end to the water sports at your house.”

McKinsley growled back across the table. “Have a care and hold your tongue, mischief maker, or we’ll call the police. They’ll throw the book at you.”

The room strobed in silence. Finally, at long last, Reverend Riley stood up, pressing together his palms in a prayer for calm, a restoration of sanity. “Faþer vár es ert í himenríki, verði nafn þitt hæilagt.”

There was a high-pitched whine in Michaels’s ears, like a microwave overheating. Someone was screaming.

“Gef oss í dag brauð vort dagligt,” Riley chimed at almost the same frequency. And there was a third noise, the hum of reverberating metal. Barry had planted Deathsinger in Tyrone Reed’s skull and was standing triumphantly over the still-warm corpse of the Council Chair.

“All this glittering wealth, gold gleaming like fire… let true flames flicker over it all!” the big man yelled.

The professor tapped Michaels gently on the shoulder. She looked entirely unmoved by the bedlam unfurling around her. The whole room had descended into a brawl.

“Do you know why I am certain the boundary has been breached?” she said, with a gentle sigh. “Because I crossed over myself.”

Michaels vomited, a technicolour yawn to match the undulating skies.

It was still dark when the churchwarden woke up, but his surroundings were reassuringly familiar. Somehow, he had found his way to his church. It looked different at nighttime, the long rows of tombstones stretching like rows of blackened teeth, the grass corroded by patches of lamp light.

Across from him, the embers of a fire glowered at the base of a tombstone. He clutched at a handful of ivy to reveal the hand and heart motif of the “Grand United Order of Oddfellows,” still halfmasked by lichen. Something meaty… leathery… had been cooking in the fire, the smell so thick and rich that it was almost a taste. He retched, dry heaving on his knees onto the grave, strands of drool mixing with the half-frozen soil.

Blackouts, hallucinations, voices in his head. He wasn’t sure if any of it was real. He propped himself against the church wall, hoping to borrow from its sheer solidity. There was a sanctity to the old Norman church, a reverence that could quieten the mind. At least the aurora had disappeared, returning the night sky to the usual matte, mundane dreariness.

Pull yourself together. Think, god damnit.

“Sorry,” he added out loud, hoping that the man upstairs might overlook the sentiment. Given the circumstances, a bit of blaspheming seemed the least of his worries.

He remembered the last time there was a murder in Gosforth. The day had begun in sunshine. The streets were filling up with families enjoying half-term, and the village was bright with the promise of summer. Then the first shots rang out. A father of two, shot dead while working in the fields outside Gosforth, a random victim of a crazed man’s rampage. Village life came to a standstill, as Gosforth’s three pubs, bank, smattering of shops, and café had all closed as a mark of respect.

The killer had been a local taxi driver. By the time police recovered his body ten miles away in the Hardknott Pass, the death toll had reached a dozen. His victims included several pensioners out shopping, most of them shot at point-blank range with a shotgun. At the height of the manhunt the nuclear power station at Sellafield was locked down for the first time in its history, while Cumbria police deployed all their armed teams along with helicopters and dozens of vehicles to give chase.

It was a day that shocked them all to the core. How could it not? This wasn’t London. For years before that, the worst thing the Cumbria Constabulary had to contend with was a scuffle at closing time.

Around two hundred people had been here, in the chapel, with hundreds more spilling out into the church grounds, mourners listening to the service broadcast on a PA system. Michaels had joined in with a hymn popular in the countryside, “We Plough the Fields and Scatter.”

He crawled closer to the fire and dusted himself down. Somewhere over his shoulder, he could hear diners leaving the Gosforth Inn. He waited, holding his breath, straining to hear the slam of car doors. If he had his keys, he might have gone inside St. Mary’s, to seek comfort and offer up a prayer. He was mildly surprised there had been no sirens. At some point, once he had caught his breath, he’d go back into town and deal with the insanity. For now, since the Almighty had seen fit to deposit him here, he’d just enjoy the quiet. It might be the last peace he got for a while.

St. Mary’s was a keeper of ancient tales, a conduit to England’s green hills and forests and what lay beneath. There was something in the very fabric of the building, buried deep in the centuries-old stone. There had been churchwardens here since 1600, not long after the plague claimed a third of the souls in the parish. He wondered what plagued him now. There had been a church here since the eighth century, and Christianity was in the northwest of England long before that—Roman soldiers had spread the faith, and left traces when their armies were withdrawn. Wandering saints and preachers came up the Irish Sea from Rome, such as the man later venerated as St. Patrick or Bega of St. Bees, bringing their religion to the Anglo-Saxons who settled there.

The Celtic monastic culture of the area provided a network of patronage for craftsmen, who carved high crosses for the abbots. When the Vikings came, the influx of colonists were absorbed without any undue trouble. But the new Norse patrons wanted to record their traditions and styles of art, using novel themes and motifs. The crosses fixed in stone the very moment when Norse pagans and Anglo-Saxon Christianity fused together. The theology was a little unexpected, but it well illustrated the contemporary church policy of “taking over” and interpreting pagan beliefs, breathing Christian life into them.

The three crosses stared down at him.

He knew every inch of them, and familiarity bred contempt.

Especially the swastikas at the top—once a sacred symbol in pre-Christian religions, representing the sun, now they were weaponised, like a neo-Nazi North Star. Arduus ad solem—“striving towards the sun.” Ironically, it had been his university motto.

One of the sun circles had toppled off, and where in the past it had been frivolously recast as the rectory sundial, these days it was kept under lock and key in case troublemakers took advantage. The other two kept watch, focusing the rusted light from the Wasdale road into malevolent stares.

“What are you looking at?” he spat. “You’ve caused me enough trouble.”

“Oh, I think your troubles have barely begun, Warden,” came a voice from the ether.

Michaels looked wildly around the empty graveyard, scanning the path from the gabled porch to the lychgate. There was not a soul to be seen, except for a squirrel scampering across the tombstones. It was hard to be sure in the stuttering streetlight, but Michaels had the unnerving feeling that it was watching him. Intently. Behind the two, dark lustreless pools was a keen intelligence.

“Hello,” the squirrel said. “Small world, isn’t it?”

Instinct propelled Michaels into action before he could register shock. He fled, as fast as his feet would carry him, slipping and sliding across the hard-crusted snow. Rounding the north side of the chancery, he lost his left shoe, but he continued headlong nonetheless, puffing and panting with the exertion. He pounced onto the wall by the old cork tree. Surely, if he could flag down a car at the Gosforth Inn, or perhaps use the phone behind the bar, someone could call Doctor Wilson. Or the Dane Garth Mental Health Unit. He was past caring.

He scrunched up his left sock, conscious that the gravel would hurt if he landed awkwardly, then, after gathering his somewhat precarious balance, he judged his hop to freedom…

And landed straight back into the graveyard. The three crosses, that by rights should have been behind him and retreating at pace, loomed above him again. The squirrel was right there, too, near the potting shed, warming itself by the fire. It had even gone so far as to retrieve his shoe.

“And getting smaller all the time,” the squirrel snickered. Michaels realized it wasn’t vocalizing; he wasn’t sure that would be anatomically possible for a squirrel. The voices were in his head, racing through his misfiring synapses.

“I’d stop running if I were you. It’s not worth the effort,” it “said,” more with quiet resignation than ill temper.

Michaels froze, eyeing the creature cautiously. There’d been a rabid squirrel in the Big Apple a couple of years ago that had made the nightly news. The year before that, a squirrel ravaged a retirement home in Florida, attacking the elderly patrons quietly playing chess, doing puzzles, and reading books. And it wasn’t just the overactive imaginations of Americans—he distinctly remembered the Flesheating squirrel stalks streets of Knutsford headline about the time he was at college. The School of Dentistry had kept its vicious little incisors on display. He was certain of it: quirky little stories like that made the world go around.

“Let me ask you this: if you were me, would you stop and talk to a squirrel?” he asked.

“Depends on whether you want answers, I suppose,” the rodent offered.

“What the merry fuck is going on?” Michaels was exhausted. He slumped down, almost exactly back where he had regained consciousness.

“I’m keeping you on a tight leash. You don’t want to go back to the village—I would have thought that much is obvious,” the squirrel seemed to say.

“Oh, yes. Obvious,” Michaels deadpanned. He reached tentatively for his size nine brogue and dragged it back onto his foot. “Where did you come from?”

The squirrel gestured, inasmuch as a squirrel could gesture, to the crosses. Viking art, to a large extent, consisted in turning the everyday and mundane into the fantastic and grotesque. Real and imaginary animals, taken to imaginative extremes. At the bottom was a rather rolled-up dragon, and above it a serpent that seemed to have plaited itself. Above that was a wolf and another writhing serpent, then came a gagged wolf, chasing another serpent, this time with ears. It was quite the menagerie.

But it was immediately apparent what the squirrel was focused on. The bases of all three were round, like tree trunks, carved to represent the evergreen ash tree, Yggdrasil, the Norse World Tree that embraced heaven and hell with its branches and roots. The original cross had told the tale of Ragnarok, depicting various characters and incidents from the Norse end of the world—but the other two carvings wove different stories. On the second, near the stone roots were unmoving fountains, from which the Norns, the sisters of past, present, and future, kept the tree watered. An eagle, four stags, and a squirrel inhabited its branches: Norse mythology named the squirrel as Ratatoskr, who ran up and down, trading insults between the eagle and Nidhogg, a huge, hideous serpent who lay deep below. The tree nourished all these creatures—the tree of life, of knowledge and time, bearing the trials and troubles of the world.

“Ratatoskr?” the churchwarden guessed, warily. “You’ve come to life from a stone carving!”

“Of course not,” the creature replied, reclining on its haunches. “Don’t be preposterous.”

Professor von Linné stepped into view as the squirrel dissipated into the smoke of the fire, her brow furrowed in a scowl.

“Christ on a bike!” Michaels exclaimed, sharply, driven by a mix of surprise and sheer bewilderment. It was very genteel as battle cries went, hardly likely to strike terror into the heart of his enemy, but it did help steel his nerves.

Okay. This is the job, he told himself, resisting the temptation to turn on his heels a second time. Defending sacred ground was what he had signed up for. The Canons of the Church of England made it clear that he was a guardian, his role to maintain order and decency in the church and churchyard.

The problem was, they didn’t make provision for dealing with a bona fide witch. He briefly regretted not paying attention when Sam Bunting had talked to him about the different types of incense she used.

He mulled over his options. In times past, the residents of Cumbria tied bunches of rowan onto their front doors to ward off the ne’er-dowells at Halloween. Michaels preferred the police-issued poster on his door: “No trick or treat,” but it didn’t matter because he had neither to hand. King James’ exhortation “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” seemed a bit over the top in this day and age, long since replaced by ecumenical dialogue and interfaith outreach. Even the label stuck in his craw: at a time when misogyny was rampant, and women’s rights were on shaky ground, “witch” didn’t seem an awfully PC term. Besides, he didn’t have the authority to rebuke demons—even Reverend Riley couldn’t perform an exorcism without permission from the Diocesan bishop. The churchwarden was left with reciting scripture or braving a hymn. The Psalms of David perhaps?

If in doubt, sing, he thought.

“Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered, let them also that hate him flee before him,” he ventured, trying his best to be rousing.

Von Linné snorted in derision and sat down, cross-legged next to the fire. “I’m intrigued, has that ever worked?” she said, obviously amused. “I think you are a little out of tune. Off key.” She looked taut, muscular, sinewy—much more like Disney’s Maleficent than the traditional old crone. Her hard, angular face possessed a mesmeric beauty. “No wonder your doors of perception remain firmly locked.” She smiled. Her eyes were deep wells; Michaels struggled lest he get drawn in.

“Stay back. I refuse to be seduced by the Devil and his legion of demons.”

“Has it occurred to you that perhaps you’re just afraid of women? A witch, after all, is just a woman with power and independence. I’m not sure I have either of those things anymore,” von Linné said ruefully.

Michaels sneezed, repeatedly, suddenly enveloped in smoke from the fire, missing half of what the woman said. He didn’t dare ask her to repeat it. “I should give you fair warning: in England, churchwardens have specific powers to keep the peace in churchyards.” His eyes were streaming.

He’d seen his fair share of drunks and would-be vandals. There was even the odd pagan, keen to cavort naked around the cross. Under the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act of 1860, he could apprehend offenders and take them before a magistrate. Of course, in practice, it meant affecting a citizen’s arrest and waiting for the police to arrive. Most of the time, the constable would just issue a warning and move people on, citing lack of evidence. CCTV was only used in the bigger towns, in Whitehaven and Barrow. It was all down to budget cuts. Austerity. The usual suspects.

“Sounds ominous. Should I be concerned?” von Linné said, staring into the fire.

“The law is quite clear. Molesting, disturbing, vexing, troubling, or by any other unlawful means disquieting or misusing any clergyman in holy orders is punishable with a two hundred pound fine. Causing the Reverend Riley to speak in Old Norse seems to qualify. Not to mention provoking Barry to murder the Council. You may as well throw in fire safety issues.”

“You realise that until your Church of England decided to stamp out an inconvenient rival, belief in the Otherworld was commonplace and universal,” von Linné said. “Huldufólk and Álfar. The Norse settlers had the álfar, the Irish slaves had the hill fairies or the Good People. Over time, they became two different beings, but they both stem from a deep reverence for the land. Time was that almost every cottage would have a Bible, and the histories of giants, fairies, witches, and apparitions, occupying the same shelf and, equally, sharing the belief and engaging the attention of their readers. Your clergy got going with primary schools in the nineteenth century, ripping out folklore root and stem, before it could take hold in young minds.”

Michaels was rapidly losing patience. “Quite right, too. I don’t know how you do it in Sweden, but functional skills of literacy, numeracy, and ICT are the bedrock of the British education system. If you were landing at Manchester airport, would you rather depend on what can be gleaned from the Brothers Grimm, or the science of aeronautics?”

“If your Church needed belief in faeries for governing the populace, motivating them to war, or any other such purpose useful to rulers, there would today be sacred groves, a High Urðr in Canterbury, and daily readings of the Konungsbók in schools. It’s how all religion works; it doesn’t matter how you decide to dress it up,” she said, with more than a hint of reproach.

He reached into his pocket, to fish out his phone. The device was his lifeline, his only connection to the outside world. Distressingly, there was still no signal, despite his having upgraded the router in the Church office over Christmas. He thumbed 999 for an emergency, but there were no signal bars. He had the distinct feeling of déjà vu.

“I plead not guilty by reason of electromagnetic disruption,” the woman said. She glanced up, registering Michaels’s confused expression.

“The pineal gland in our brains is affected by the electromagnetic activity. The aurora can desynchronize your sleep-wake cycle—your biological clock. The psychological effects are typically short-lived but chaotic or confused thinking—erratic behaviors—often result.”

“You are saying the Northern Lights drove people to murder?” Michaels asked, dumbfounded by the thought. Barry had mentioned that, with strong solar activity, it was time to wear tin foil on their heads. Michaels had never dreamed the effects could be this drastic.

The woman continued, somewhat reluctantly, “I admit, I might have miscalculated. I imagined the psilocybin would be subperceptual, but who knew you people drank so much tea?”

“For Heaven’s sake… You drugged us?!” Michaels’s mind was reeling under the onslaught. Psilocybin was the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. It sounded horrendously plausible. Not only was this “professor” clearly part of some kind of Wiccan witch-cult, she had literally made them drink the Kool-Aid.

“The hope was to reconnect you to what you have closed off,” von Linné explained. “To find out why I am here.”

“Because you come from the spirit realm?” he spluttered, his allergies making it hard for him to seem anything less than incredulous.

“Exactly. I’m glad you’ve been paying attention.” The woman stoked the embers of the fire with a long metal rod. She seemed to have conjured it from nowhere, a mistress of legerdemain. On closer inspection, she had changed her clothing too—the severe polo neck replaced by a tightly woven shawl and sleeveless tank top, her arms festooned with so many interlaced patterns, she seemed to be an extension of the ivy that crept over the tombstone behind her. Michaels shivered, realising that he’d left his own coat at home, when he’d been all but bundled into Barry’s van. He was too numb to think straight.

“Perhaps I should I call Ghostbusters?” he asked, witheringly. “Oh no, I can’t, can I? Because this fucking thing never fucking works when you need it to!”

Michaels wasn’t usually given to being potty mouthed, unless it was swearing by Almighty God. Parishioners had been shocked when Reverend Riley had driven around with sticker “WTFWJD” on the back of his Subaru, a play on the motto “What would Jesus do?” By Riley’s reckoning, it wasn’t a blasphemy but a vulgarity—an Old English word. He’d even told Mrs. Jones she should “get out a little more.” Christ came to save us, not put a stick up our backsides, he’d said—thankfully, in private.

It struck the churchwarden now as the perfect question. “What the fuck would Jesus do?” he screamed in desperation. He weighed the phone in his hand, momentarily considering hurling it into the darkness. It looked back at him, his face a flickering reflection on the darkened glass, the mirrored eyes pitiful and scared. It was little more use than a slim black brick, yet somehow Michaels felt sorry for it. Who would have thought that a heap of aluminium, iron, and copper could engender such devotion? He decided on a stay of execution. Besides, it was out of warranty with the Carphone Warehouse and he couldn’t abide cracked screens.

“Give me your tölva,” von Linné instructed, holding out her hand.

Michaels stared at her blankly.

“The prophetess of numbers? The farspeaker? The device you were going to throw?”

“You mean my phone?” he asked, flabbergasted.

“Yes. I must make sure of the correct words,” she explained.

“Really? Your English is flawless.”

“To a point. The explanation is complicated and there is a divergence around modern terminology and recent events,” she said, somehow summoning power and connectivity. Her face bathed in the glow of the screen, like the moon gliding between clouds. “Ah—tölva is computer. Different linguistic roots, you see. This ‘phone,’ for instance, we’d call a sími—which translates to thread in your tongue.”

Michaels was momentarily wowed. The word was both poetic and decidedly apt, and she clearly had more than a BTech in Computer Science. Perhaps the woman was a hacktivist, an eco-warrior prowling the Darknets—overlay networks that required specific software, configurations, or authorization to access, the territory of trolls and phishers, traders in pharma and extortion. She could have rigged all the news articles about runestones, baited most of the isolated villagers in one place, then killed everyone to harvest their organs. He’d seen less gruesome and convoluted plots on Nordic Noir thrillers. The Professor with the Dragon Tattoo.

“And how do you explain your bushy-tailed minion? Drone technology? Drugs?” Michaels guessed, trying to rationalise recent events.

“I suppose. Any sufficiently advanced galdrar is indistinguishable from technology. One of Arnþórr C. Klakkr’s laws. The creature is a fylgja. Think of it as the ‘mind-given-shape,’ an emissary, which may be sent forth to perform various tasks. I choose a form that is dear to me.”

A familiar. A totem spirit, a gateway to unseen worlds. Michaels knew enough about the Norse sagas to recognise the term. In the story of Hárvarðar the Halt, the hero had a dream about eighteen wolves running towards him with a vixen as their leader. As it turns out, the dream presaged an attack by an army with a sorcerer at the front.

“I thought black cats were de rigueur among the coven classes. What else do you have up your sleeves? A magic mirror? A crystal ball?”

Von Linné ignored him, clearly elsewhere. “Let me ask you this,” she said, still staring at the device. “When you were a boy, would you have believed anyone who told you that there would one day exist an object that would fit in your palm, able to hold the contents of all the world’s libraries, that would be able to compute the density of a star?”

“No, I suppose not,” Michaels admitted. He was still mildly aggrieved that his Scouts knew nothing of the experiences he’d found formative as a youth. Things like programming the VCR, or, heaven forfend, remembering an actual telephone number. Tasks that were essential when he was a boy were now just drudgery and inconvenience.

“And yet, you take all of its wonders for granted.” She handed back the phone. “This, my friend, is a slice of seiðr.”

The word was unfamiliar. “Say-the?” Michaels repeated.

“A way to see geographically or temporally distant events. Your device now resonates with the Evergreen.”

“The Evergreen? Is that what you call the 5G network in Sweden?” Michaels hazarded. He’d heard Telia and Ericsson were primed to spearhead the rollout of the latest technology across the Nordic region but didn’t want to sound clueless.

“I’m not sure whether to find it charmingly naïve or downright obtuse that you are still clinging to the belief that I am from Sweden after all you have seen. Your faith is a stubborn one. My home is in the Járnviðr—the Iron-wood. My name is Iðunn Lind. I am the head of a holy order known as the Verðandi, keepers of the greenways and guardians of the World Tree. I am what you might call a hægtesse, a peace-weaver, able to step across the divide. Or at least I was…”

“What divide? The North Sea?” Michaels swallowed the air in surprise. Despite himself, he found her softness quite disarming.

“We share a common ancestry. And I know these lands. Hvithafn, Vatnsá lake, Skalli Fjall, Borgardalr. My people didn’t just settle and farm. The Kings of the North fought and died in these hills and valleys and cut your faith from their realm. I do not know the reason why, but I have fallen from Yggdrasil and am now confined here in this Otherworld. I am, if you will, Aðaliz Through the Looking Glass.”

“Am I the Hatter or the March Hare?” Michaels wailed, noting that most of Lewis Carroll’s supporting characters were mad. He was starting to get the hang of von Linné’s odd turns of phrase, though. He wondered if he was in his right mind. Or if he was in someone else’s wrong mind.

“Look, you are searching for an understanding. So am I. Perhaps we can help each other. I need you to answer some questions for me.”

“Or what? You’ll turn me into a toad? What is going on?” The last remnants of his confidence were disintegrating. Migraines, hallucinations, unnatural lights in the sky, bizarre equations—it was all a bit much. “How do I know what’s real and what’s not?” he howled. He shuffled past her, sitting down by the fire and shutting his eyes. It would all be a lot clearer come morning, he thought. He’d just wait it out, let the drugs leave his system. He’d tried smoking some skunk in Amsterdam once. That hadn’t been fun either—it was like speaking in a tunnel of treacle. He’d had to lie down in Schiphol airport—missed his connecting flight, of course, but the fuzziness had passed.

“Olaf, I told you. I can help you, if you’ll let me,” she said, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.

Michaels kept his eyes firmly shut. Perhaps he was susceptible to feminine wiles, or simply starved of attention, but he felt a compelling need to hug her. Disgusting, he instantly reprimanded himself, you’re no better than a prepubescent schoolboy, all tumult and misplaced libido. He tried to concentrate on his breathing. Regulation, that was what he needed. Moderation in all things.

Alternate realities could wait for tomorrow.

“When was the last time you left the village?” she asked.

“What has that got to do with the price of tea in China?” the churchwarden scoffed, half sitting.

“Humour me,” von Linné said, casting her shadow directly over him. There was a sudden frost in her voice, an air of cold command that cracked Michaels’s reserve. He ransacked his memory, happy to be in sunnier climes, sifting through mental images of his recent trips round the Lake District. Of course, they were all neatly categorized into albums on his phone. He’d been up to St. Ives… no, that was last autumn. The scout camp at the Rath? The Derwent Pencil Museum maybe? On reflection, he hadn’t been anywhere recently, not since the crosses appeared.

“Before Christmas. I’ve been unwell.”

“Ah yes, your inconvenient headaches,” the woman said, with what he thought was a hint of skepticism. She returned to the crosses, her fingers lingering on the intricate carvings. She continued to speak, somewhere in the comforting darkness. “I know something of your faith. There are those who kneel before the rood cross among my order. But something has been lost from this place. It is as if consciousness has been dismissed, and magic banished. Your philosophers and scientists have stripped their crafts of anything that might seem mystical, forgetting that the universe is a living, breathing entity. What is left is inert, mechanistic. Unthinking. Unfeeling. The Norsemen who made these crosses were trying to keep that understanding alive. Did you never wonder how they appeared overnight? Or why there are three of them?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t decide to put them up,” Michaels answered, instinctively parroting the Bishop’s advice. “God moves in mysterious ways.”

“Does he indeed? People don’t normally leave an archaeological trail. Not unless they go out of their way to. Is there definitive physical or archaeological evidence of the existence of your Jesus?”

Michaels half opened a curious eye. The “professor” was milling in between the crosses, a shadow in the streetlight. He decided he preferred to think of her as von Linné, despite her revelations.

“I don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation give the past two thousand years in the Middle East,” he said. “Hardly a case of one careful owner.”

“Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods are made so easily, and the raw material costs so little. Where is the fylfot?” she probed.

“The sunwheel?” Fylfot was an old name, used mainly by antiquarians and experts in heraldry, but it had come into use again to allow people to carefully avoid the word swastika. “It’s never stayed on. The stone is cracked at the top. It’s beyond repair.”

“The everglow steps to her divine sanctuary with brightness; then descends the good light of grey-clad moon. The diurnal rotation of the skies. The universe seems to turn around us, wheeling above our heads. It took us centuries to realise that the heavens don’t revolve at all. It is we who turn. And the sagas carved here—how well do you know them?” the professor asked. “The Norse believe the end of all things is inevitable, the way of its coming fixed and inescapable…”

Michaels tutted, fervently wishing people would stop telling him what he already knew. He’d looked after the original cross for donkey’s years and written every permutation of information pamphlet possible on the subject.

“Good will be overwhelmed by evil, but at the same time, evil will be fought to a standstill in a final battle for heaven. Odin, chief of the gods, will perish, but others will rise in his stead, to herald the new world.” Michaels hastened through the description, with a supercilious air born of endless repetition.

“Interesting,” said the professor, without meaning it in the slightest. “Myths give us a blueprint for triumph or tragedy. You can build with it, carve whole civilizations from stone and wood. Or destroy with it. Demonise your enemy. Make whole cultures that much easier to disinfect. That which destroys the old becomes the new, like a snake devouring its tail. And so, the cycle repeats.”

Michaels was happy to let her monologue. It would help pass the time until morning, and he enjoyed people encountering the church for the first time. He shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable. Move along, nothing to see here.

St. Mary’s was a hodgepodge of history. It was recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. Even the tool shed, built of stones from the original church, was now a listed building. Most people knew about the Hogback tombs and the crosses, but there was plenty more to marvel at. There were cannon balls, forged in the Dardanelles, made for the Crimean war. The old Chinese bell—captured in 1841, during the First Opium War. When the bell came to Gosforth, a local blacksmith made a clapper for it and hung it in the bell tower. However, Chinese bells were designed to be struck from the outside so at the first ringing with the clapper, the bell cracked and had to be taken down. Typically English—no regard for anything foreign. But it was amazing—all these relics of Empire in such a far-removed place.

The thought was quite stirring. The empire on which the sun never sets. There was something clichéd in that, but also something bucolic, something bountiful. It was easy to see why, here in the North, amidst the refuse of the industrial system, people would vote Leave. They wanted to turn back the clock, to time before the dark, satanic mills blighted the landscape and imperilled the planet.

“What the fuck would Jesus do?” he chuckled to himself. He began to hum, contentedly. And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England’s mountains green. “Jerusalem” was an old patriotic song and a church favourite.

“The sculptor arrives at his end by taking away what is superfluous,” the professor said, gently, turning back to the third cross and caressing its side.

Michaels was half-minded to argue but decided to turn the other cheek. There was nothing like a good hymn to restore your faith. He’d been right after all—if in doubt, sing!

And was the holy Lamb of God, On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

“You might be right. I wonder,” she said, suddenly inspired, “if we aren’t being watched. Someone following our every move, from the very beginning…”

Michaels looked around, wondering what she meant. There weren’t any good vantage points to spy on them, at least not without being seen.

Perversely, the professor seemed to have taken up the verse as well. For a brief moment, Michaels wondered if he’d made a convert. She was suddenly squawking a bizarre parody of the tune, almost in a falsetto, her eyes rolling back into their deep-sunken sockets. Her mouth opened wider and wider, like her jaw was unhinged. The sound was at once ghastly and eerie—it was as if she was harmonising with the stone spindles.

Michaels tried to scrabble away, but she lunged for him, grabbing his ankle. He kicked at her arm with his free leg, trying to dislodge her, but her grip was freakishly strong. Under the shadows of the tombstones, all he could see was the whites of her eyes, as blank as the snowfall. So much for his inadvertent proselyting and boyish infatuation, he scolded—the lion and the lamb may sometimes lie down together; but if you pay attention, when the lion gets up, the lamb is generally missing.

“A hall I see standing remote from the sun, on the Corpse Shore,” she hissed. Michaels tried to extricate himself again, but she started to clamber up his legs, placing her knees firmly on his shoulders, her voice booming out a hideous bedtime story, a nightmare from the recesses of his memory. As a boy he’d seen the West End farce No Sex Please, We’re British. A young couple innocently sent an order off for some Scandinavian glassware, but what came back was pure Scandinavian smut, engulfing everyone involved in veritable floods of pornography, photographs, books, films—and eventually, nubile, scantily clad girls. That had been another formative experience. Come to think of it, it was probably the reason he’d learned to programme the VCR.

“There fell drops of venom, in through the roof vent. The hall is woven of serpents’ spines. I there see wading, onerous streams, men perjured and wolfish murderers and workers of ill with the wives of men.”

“Really madam, I must insist you unhand me!” Michaels shouted, trying to dislodge his arms. He felt giddy and drowsy and completely turned on, struggling on the brink of an embarrassment that he’d never live down. RIP Olaf Michaels—died of erotic asphyxiation defending church property.

“There Malice Striker sucks the marrow of the dead, the wolf tears men. Do you still seek to know more?” She leaned in, suffocating him in her odour. Her face luminous, invigorated—Michaels couldn’t help picturing a cigarette dangling from her lips, imagining a post-coital glow, and felt wretched for doing so.

Michaels wanted to point out that he hadn’t sought to know anything in the first place, and that, if it was all the same to her, he’d pass on the extra information. But before he could, he saw something writhing in her hands, something sinuous, coiling around her arms and neck in a deadly embrace.

He recognised it at once: his unwelcome visitor. The viper in his mind, jaundiced yellow and netted with purple veins. The churchwarden let out a slow, undulating moan. In a flash, it all came back to him. The old pagan, reeking of piss and vinegar. He’d mistaken him for an actor at first, perhaps one of Barry’s cohorts. It was an easy mistake to make—there were plenty of re-enactors out there—Regia Anglorum, the Norse Film and Pageant Society, the Society for Creative Anachronism—and they were all drawn to the cross like proverbial flies.

The raised spear. The hideous, shrieking ravens. The glimpse of other worlds. He had squashed down the whole traumatic, terrible incident into someplace dark and tiny and the woman had dived in and retrieved it. His memory felt jagged, like a shattered mirror—the most horrific images leapt unbidden into mind. Not whole sequences, just impressions—of velocity, of ancient fury. An emptiness, too, a void swirling with the gnawing urge to end it all.

He ripped the serpent from the witch’s hands, dashing it on the ivy and granite, over and over, his hands slick with blood, his face dissolved into snot and spittle.

And when it was over, he slumped down in the snow and fluids and wept.