MRS. JONES PULLED ALONGSIDE THE grass verge. She’d parked too close to his car, as usual, but he wasn’t about to complain. He was expecting a whole bevy of scholars up from Cambridge that afternoon, and she’d agreed to run down to Oxenholme and pick them up in the minivan.
She waved at the churchwarden and walked up the path to Sunday Service.
“Hello, Olaf luv, how is old Granddad Michaels this morning?” she trilled.
Michaels waved back, gritting his teeth. Reverend Riley clapped a hand on his shoulder and peered at him over the top of his glasses.
“Why does she do that?” Riley asked sympathetically.
“What? Persist in calling me Olaf, luv? She is a bit right-of-centre you know.”
“Not much fun being named after the Eternal King of Norway?”
“If your predecessor had dedicated the old church to a normal saint the same year I was born, I wouldn’t have this problem. The Scouts think it is a hoot too.”
“I see your point. But no, I mean, why does she call you Granddad? You’re not even forty.”
“That’s what Olaf means: grandfather. She looked it up on Wikipedia. You should see what she came up with for my surname.”
The two men laughed, then looked back at the trio of crosses in their charge. The silence was amiable, each man content in the warm morning sun.
“I hope you haven’t been staring at the blessed things all morning,” Riley said.
Michaels shook his head. “You know the village stocks used to be here. The last rascal to be put in them was punished because he climbed that cross.”
Riley exhaled slowly. “It really is a miracle. The Bishop of Carlisle will be joining us, by the way.”
“Wonderful,” said Michaels. Then…
“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.”
The vicar laughed. “I prefer Wordsworth. Talking of storms, more trouble in the papers, I see. Protests, marches.”
“Well, if life is a brief moment in the light between the eternal void before birth and after death, I can understand why people get angry when theirs goes to shit,” said the churchwarden.
Michaels was glad to see PASE was working again, but until the experts looked at the new columns, it wasn’t much use in deciphering the legends entwined across the sandstone.
“Are you reading anything? I just finished Chandler’s last novel, Playback, if you want to borrow it for the drive to Oxenholme.”
“No thanks. I have a whole new chapter here to work through. I think there are two stories on the new arrivals, one Christian, one Norse.”
He looked at the new interlaced carvings on the nearest cross. Yggdrasil was there, her branches spiralling up the column, with the Allfather caged in her roots, ordering the universe once more at the Well of the Urd. At various points, the tree was inscribed with candles, giving the impression of a Victorian Christmas tree. On the east side, the candles stopped abruptly before a man with a large round shield. On the north side, draped in shade, the candles continued higher, all the way to the crown, great wolves chasing them for all fourteen feet. The last image was Heimdallr facing Loki at the end of all things—or perhaps it was an archangel dueling Satan. From this angle, they even looked like they were dancing. It was impossible to tell. The only certainty was the sun circle at the top had toppled off, as if predestined to be used as the rectory sundial.
“Ah, I’ll admit, I was never comfortable with the duality. How can two histories sit side by side?” the vicar said, rubbing his beard thoughtfully.
“It’s called entanglement, I think,” Michael replied.
“Sounds complicated.”
“You know the solution to the Gordian knot? I think if I had a problem that complicated, I’d just cut the rope too. You know the greatest irony?”
“What’s that?”
“Ragnarok was all about renewal. It wasn’t ever meant to be the end of all things, not like the Christian End Times. It was about passing the torch. Giving the younger soldiers a go. I mean, the sun sets each night but still rises the next day, doesn’t it?”
“That’s what the sun circle seems to say,” the vicar said, breezily. “What goes around comes around. I’m still irked at the new classification. I’ve basically had to admit to Mrs. Jones that we have three swastikas on church property.”
“I wonder if we haven’t got this interpretation wrong. History isn’t a straight line. Christianity spread change quickly. You know what happens when you drop a pebble in the lake? Ripples go in all directions. It’s not a Mexican wave, with every working in sequence. That reminds me, did I mention the Vikings had a wall too, just like Trump? They called it the Danevirke, the Bulwark of the Danes.”
“Did it work?”
“Did it, hell. The Christians, when they came, just sailed round it. Before poor Thor knew it, his people were wearing bishop’s mitres and cutting down his sacred trees. Wouldn’t you be pissed off?”
“I know he still fills the skies with rage; he has hit the church steeple a few times over the years,” Riley chuckled.
The vicar clasped the churchwarden on the back and led him inside for the service.