Page 56 of The Bedlam Stacks

‘No, he’s the priest,’ she said, as if that meant he was chained to an anchor caught between the stacks. She stepped back to see more clearly into the trees, whose white trunks looked amber in the glowing pollen. There was no sign of anyone inside. ‘God, they’ve taken him again. It could be years.’

‘Or he can’t feel the cold and he’s collapsed somewhere,’ I said. ‘If he can’t be anywhere else, we need to look for him. Can we find some people to help?’

‘Yes,’ she said. She brushed past me to the ropes that stretched up into the dark of the church tower, above the loft space where Raphael slept, and rang the bells. They sang out and it must have been possible to hear them for miles through the trees, but still nothing moved there.

NINETEEN

Stars of lamplight began to come over the bridge to the mainland. When Francesca explained what was going on, there was a weird stir, more interested than worried, as if none of them believed at all in the chance of hypothermia or falling over a tree root, or bears. Even though she said we would have to look for him, they all ignored her and went automatically to the markayuq. The statues looked alive in the lamplight and they moved their hands to take things, almost constantly – salt vials and shells and knotted prayer strings – because whatever pressure pads were in the ground were being bumped on and off by everyone around them. Maria had propped herself against St Thomas, her fingers closed over his sleeve, watching the crowd with unhappy eyes.

Inti took charge when she arrived and organised a long line down the border. Maria hung back. Her mother was nowhere I could see. I fetched her out from behind the markayuq and took her with me. She held my hand too tightly at first, and I gave her our lamp so that I could hold onto her and my cane at the same time.

The pollen was just thick enough in the air to leave strange, half-visible illusion trails behind us. Further into the forest, beyond the border, the trees stopped the wind and it was possible to see where the bats were swooping, invisible themselves but leaving tangles of gold light behind them.

The trees skittered. Sometimes a stream of pine needles fell down when something passed overhead in the canopy, and every now and then stingingly heavy drops of water fell and splashed on to us. Everyone was walking slowly down the border, calling and moving their lamps, or throwing pine cones to make light arcs in the dark. Maria slowed right down after a little while. We were at the back. She had a cord tied around one of her coat buttons and she was putting new knots into it, upside down if the way Raphael did it was normal.

‘Do you want to leave a prayer with one of the markayuq?’ I said.

She shook her head. ‘My knots aren’t very good. And my hands are cold.’ I liked talking to her. Her Spanish was exactly at my level, about a middle-sized child’s. ‘I’ve spelled it wrongly.’

‘I’m sure you could just tell it to him.’

She twisted her nose and then shook her head. ‘Nobody can talk to markayuq any more. They don’t understand.’

‘Why don’t they?’

‘They’re old. They spoke another language in those days.’ She was watching a big pollen trail in the forest, the wrong shape for a person.

‘Maria, Raphael is strong. And he can fight. I don’t think anyone has taken him anywhere. He’s here somewhere, we’ll find him.’

‘He wouldn’t have had a choice,’ she said, sounding suddenly far more adult.

We still hadn’t found him after half an hour. If he had gone back to town, he couldn’t have missed the lights; if he was anywhere nearby and conscious, he certainly couldn’t have missed them. After barely half a mile, the front of the line reached a place where there was only a narrow path between the border and cliff, blocked with snow. Inti turned everyone back the other way and still there was nothing.

Clem came to walk with us.

‘Where do you think he’s gone?’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t buy that he’s been snatched. We would have seen something in the pollen, or you would have.’

‘I think he went out without a coat and it’s minus God knows. He can’t feel heat or cold. There’s something wrong with him.’

‘Christ.’ He looked out through the trees. ‘We should be looking over the border.’

‘We can’t go over the border.’

He made a face at me. ‘Gone native, have you?’

‘A bit,’ I sighed.

‘Well, let’s put it to Inti.’

But when we did, she shook her head. ‘No. You’ll be killed.’

‘But if he is out there, he isn’t very far in,’ I said. ‘I saw him go. He’ll be only just out of sight. It’s bitter out here, it’s a miracle nothing’s ever happened to him before. He was just in his waistcoat and shirt. I saw.’

She was shaking her head again. ‘No. If that’s what happened then – then it’s what they wanted.’

‘Who, the people in the woods? Why is what they want so important?’

Clem caught my arm. ‘They don’t see them like people, old man,’ he said quietly. ‘Listen to her. I told you, it’s religious. The salt line isn’t just about crippled and not crippled; it’s about unclean and holy, humans and angels. Flesh and stone.’ He nodded to the markayuq. ‘You and I are thinking of a town in there with gutters and markets and weavers, but that’s not what it means here. They’re looking at it like heaven, or Eden, and Raphael is a kind of Nephilim with one foot in either world. You’re running up against God’s will, almost. Am I right?’ he added to Inti. He had said it in Spanish.