Sabrina & The Secret of The Severn Sea Read online

  The regular fishermen would think he was out here on the water to poach the baby eels that were about to hitch a ride on the bore.

  Except it was much too late in the season for elvers now.

  He dropped his boat’s sail and took up the oars. A firm aft skeg provided lateral stability as he corrected course with each dip of the blades.

  That cry had aroused his interest.

  Next minute lamps were placed on the shore to designate a circle, even as people stepped forward and opened their arms to the river.

  ‘Definitely not elvermen,’ thought Luke.

  He made his boat doubly secure among the tall bulrushes and crept closer to the crowd.

  Someone rang a ship’s bell.

  Already, a dozen people were walking the circle. The ones dressed in creamy white hoods and habits could be mistaken for monks.

  From this Luke immediately felt totally alienated, as though from this moment the circle already had sufficient magic to exclude all outside interference.

  Flaming torches fuelled a bonfire as a monk-priest cried out:

  ‘O goddess, whose spirit lives in the river, please be here with us tonight for our offering.’

  ‘No, absolutely bloody not! It can’t be. Can it?’ thought Luke.

  But already he made out with some certainty the square jaw and little blond ponytail of his sister’s future husband, Jeremy. To the sound of ceremonial singing, the naked young man was then led to the water. A garland of bladderwrack and seashells hung round his neck.

  Other people’s features showed in shadow and flame when, with a gesture from the priest, they turned and gazed at the stars.

  One such person was Barbara Jennings. Another was Ros Grey whose voice reached his ears loud and clear the instant she broke into a chant:

  ‘Sabrina fair.

  Listen where thou art sitting

  Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,

  In twisted braids of lilies knitting

  The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;

  Listen for dear honour’s sake,

  Goddess of the silver lake,

  Listen and save.’

  Her recital from Milton’s masque ‘Comus’ was impeccable, her posture confident and elegant. It filled Luke with an uneasiness which he was inclined to call fear.

  Ros’s chant was taken up by Mary Brenner. Luke could distinguish more faces but not yet name them all, having passed them in the hamlet of Hill or been served by them in shops in Berkeley. Others he recalled from Sunday services in St. Mary’s.

  Last to read was the vicarage’s very own gardener, Sam Rooke.

  Next minute, the monk-priest calmed the gathering with a chant of his own:

  ‘O River Goddess!

  We praise you:

  For currents that flow

  From the far side of the world. We praise you,

  For all things, O Water Spirit,

  Who bringeth life!’

  The shaman certainly believed in the power of his own plainchant as he relaxed his posture rather as a yoga teacher might centre himself on his mat.

  ‘Remember, brothers and sisters, we are here to coordinate all our inner energy for a common cause. We are here to call on Sabrina’s help in our time of need. Ground yourself to the mud and sand of the foreshore. Bridge the gap between you and the water.’

  With that, Jeremy had his head pushed down into the current, he was held underwater in a way that left him choking and spluttering. He was being baptised to be reborn.

  So it was that their leader calmly encouraged everyone with his hypnotic words: ‘Remember all those lost to the dark water and feel yourselves take strength from its ancient currents. Let its psychic forces flow through your veins…’

  Each devotee appeared for a moment to be swimming as they opened their arms.

  Then, at the very last moment, Jeremy was lifted from the river, gasping and coughing. He was dragged on shore at the very point of expiring – he had been compelled to peer deep into the underworld, to see through a crack in its secret door to the abode where only the dead resided.

  Luke felt obliged to admit that it was powerfully enacted, yet still a pang of repugnance returned.

  After the ‘sacrifice’ came a chant:

  ‘We invoke you, Sabrina,

  Spirit of the river.

  So shall you sail to us,

  So shall you advise us,

  To reveal our future

  From the deepest currents.’

  A young woman appeared at the edge of the river and held aloft a banner: ‘You are the spirit now in our midst. Water god, inspire us. O spring of love, O source of life, please, Nodens, send us Sabrina!’

  The voice was familiar but scarcely imaginable in this context. It had to belong to the same Sandy who served him coffee in Berkeley’s tearooms.

  With a growing acknowledgement that he might be succumbing to the spell of the ceremony, Luke felt compelled to spy further on her ardent incantation before the makeshift water altar.

  Thus, a golden cup of liquid taken from the Severn passed from person to person. Each turned a full circle. They lifted their arms slowly up and down in synchronised slow motion.

  Three times the water from the Severn passed from mouth to mouth while Luke did his best to record it all with the camera on his phone, when suddenly he heard the bleating of a sheep.

  That the poor animal’s presence boded ill was obvious as soon as the monk-priest made his appeal, ‘Now let us pay tribute to our lady of the river.’

  Everyone at once began to dance in a circle at the sacred edge of land and water as Ros recited from ‘Comus’:

  ‘Sabrina fair,

  Listen where thou art sitting

  Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,

  In twisted braids of lilies knitting

  The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;

  Listen for dear honour’s sake,

  Goddess of the silver lake,

  Listen, and save.

  Listen, and appear to us,

  In name of great Oceanus.’

  The chant began softly, then grew in volume and speed. The beat of a drum did the same.

  ‘Goddess Sabrina, do you accept the sacrifice?’

  As if on cue, there rose a snake-like whisper, more hiss than intelligible sound, whose voice travelled fast upstream between sky and river.

  There came with it a wall of water. Luke went to shout a warning, conscious of the worshippers’ unnatural stillness. But they were watching the shock wave, too. Something like a collective paralysis gripped them all. Then, with one utterance they proclaimed their grief, fear, pain and joy with perfect timing.

  As surf climbed the bank at ten miles per hour the monk-priest stepped up to name the Omen:

  ‘Sabrina. Help us.

  Help us to prevail.

  Lady, help us save our river

  From Reverend Lyons and all things nuclear.’

  The spectral stampede of the bore swept past everyone with its cloak of surf bedecked with slivers of moonlight. Air filled with brine like some heady perfume.

  Common sense dictated the need to get back in his boat in a hurry.

  Some might have expected to see a keel split the waves, anyone else might have sought to explain the dark shape that rose up from the deep in such a resurgent rush as a wreck or fish, or something.

  Into Luke’s head came everything his grandmother had ever told him. The hoary old sea-god Nodens rode by in his great scallop shell, drawn by four seahorses, all galloping along on the crest of the sea surge.

  His adopted daughter stood at his side.

  She alone cracked the whip to steer their chariot.

  Streaming red and gold currents were hair-like and human.

  Boiling river broke apart with shards of water, fused again like liquid glass. It could have been Sabrina ap Loegres, but not as he knew her. Living serpents of water yielded to some uncanny pressure to coalesce and form the visi
on. This was someone who could command sea monsters?

  Then, just as molten glass could be shaped by air alone, the translucent goddess ‘blew’ upriver across Saniger Sands.

  He had been drawn to the riverside rites by sheer chance, but now Luke considered it his Christian duty to investigate such an act of dangerous observance.

  On the beach the sheep bled its river of red.

  *

  The seeing of the Omen brought everyone to their knees in a state of receptivity, they wished to absorb the divine power which had just come to them by way of the bore.

  Each person rushed to scoop surf from swirls left behind by Sabrina’s glittering deluge as it bridged the void between the living and the dead.

  They spilt glassy streams through their fingers in a hazardous gesture of humility and subservience.

  One wrong step or lean too far and the bore could still sweep them off their feet. They could be carried upstream or simply drowned as the river went on swelling.

  One old man whom Luke had last seen seated in the dayroom of Severnside House had clearly made his way here with relatives to cure his arthritis. Other people were simply filled with what amounted to a holy joy at communing with a deity they could actually see and feel. Thus did they continue to have visions peculiar to themselves or hoped to heal their particular ailments.

  The monk-priest threw back his hood. Began a celebratory chant. That man was Andy Bridgeman. He used his divinely enhanced power in talismans and gestures.

  ‘Lady Sabrina has blessed us. Every time we invoke her she becomes stronger and more aware of the needs of her people. With her strength we will prevail against the likes of all false prophets and their obscene ambitions.’

  When Bridgeman spoke it signalled the closure of a gateway.

  People slowly began to move and think more as individuals in so far as the collective spirit waned.

  Any water that remained in the ceremonial gold cup was returned to the river in a gesture that was full of respect and gratitude, even love.

  The bonfire on the riverbank, so nearly flooded, was now extinguished as the ship’s bell rang again to deconsecrate the holy circle.

  Its slow, uniform strokes were ordinary enough as bells went, but in no way did its beat recall anything Christian. Rather, there echoed faintly to the measured sound some far-off but unseen answering knell from the bottom of the nearest ocean.

  A ship’s bell would always ring underwater like that when part of a wreck, thought Luke and turned back to his boat even as it was about to break its moorings.

  Tonight Jeremy had gone over to the side of those who opposed the building of the new nuclear power station. That put him at loggerheads with him and Ellie when it came to selling Chapel Cottage.

  He questioned what Ellie would make of the initiation tonight? What else did it signify and what would she do, should he decide to tell her about her fiancé’s cruel betrayal? He could think of nothing worse than having to justify the hideous pursuit of someone else’s ignorant ritual.

  Suddenly Exodus, 20, came into his head: ‘Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth .’

  38

  ‘Hallo, is that the journalist Eva Greene?’

  ‘Sorry, reverend, the line’s pretty poor. You’re breaking up.’

  Luke threw open the double doors to the vicarage’s stone terrace that overlooked the garden – ever since his unwelcome visit he had done his best to fix their damaged handles without much success.

  In so doing he set Sasha free to dig for moles in the lawn.

  ‘Can you hear me now?’

  ‘That’s better.’

  ‘Fact is, Ms Greene, some time ago you gave me a newspaper article about a severed foot found in the River Severn. Why? You had no cause.’

  ‘Oh, but I did, reverend. So do you.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Really? Must I spell it out? That boot and its bones could belong to your grandfather Sean Lyons. More of him might yet show up in the mud any day now.’

  ‘You can say.’

  ‘I’ve already had a look for myself.’

  ‘Same.’

  ‘So are we fellow mudlarks, or what?’

  There followed a long pause during which he considered his options.

  ‘I have in my possession my grandfather’s gold pocket watch. There’s a photograph inside its cover that reads: To Sean with love from O. Its gilded seahorse fob also splits apart like a brooch. Inside that is a lock of hair which I’m pretty sure belongs to someone called Olivia Lyons.’

  ‘Lyons?’

  ‘It seems that Sean was married to a woman about whom I know nothing.’

  ‘Then you should let me have it.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘How can I put this? Allow me to use my influence with the police. I know someone in Forensics.’

  ‘Who do you think you are, Columbo? These days, it’s all DNA testing.’

  ‘True, but new techniques can determine a lot. It’s all to do with calculating the ratios of isotopes in keratin, the protein that gives a single strand of hair its structure. It should be possible to find out what Olivia ate, drank, smoked, where she lived and how old she was when she handed over her keepsake.’

  ‘Honestly? You’d do that for me?’

  ‘It’s why you’ve rung me, isn’t it, reverend? You need my contacts?’

  Luke could not deny her good will.

  ‘I need to find the name Olivia Lyons on a census right away.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Eva. ‘Once you know where she lived, you can discover the parish where she got married to your grandfather. Anything else you have that might be a clue? If so, tell me now.’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Trust me, reverend. We have more in common than you might imagine.’

  ‘Still not sure.’

  ‘Be that as it may, we ought to talk.’

  ‘It’s against my nature.’

  ‘Yet here we are, talking.’

  ‘Okay. Stop by St. Mary’s Church at your earliest convenience.’

  ‘And if I have better things to do than go on a wild goose chase?’

  ‘You’d like another story for your newspaper, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘So that’s why you rang me? It’s a trade-off?’

  ‘How would you like to expose a pagan practice on your very own doorstep?’

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  He rang off and didn’t mention his grandfather’s mysterious correspondence that had arrived through his door.

  Eva’s spontaneous interest in his private affairs struck him as obviously more than a little coincidental, but he dismissed his slight misgiving. After all, family history was her speciality.

  Was she not forever demanding that she write his story?

  She still looked to him for her next big scoop and he was going to give her one.

  39

  ‘Please confirm your name?’

  ‘Reverend Luke Lyons.’

  ‘Your address?’

  ‘Hill House vicarage in Hill near Berkeley in Gloucestershire.’

  ‘Very good, reverend. Now please lie down on the couch and place your head on the rest. If your shoulders feel at all uncomfortable, then wriggle down a bit further.’

  The radiographer had an exceptionally spare frame, a haggard face, a mop of grey hair and eyes that were wild-looking as a result of fatigue or something. The fact that he was dressed in ordinary clothes and not in some scary white coat rendered him impressively amiable as well as a little disconcerting.

  It was as if he were about to be experimented on by his best friend, thought Luke.

  Today was the day he was due to have a CT scan done on his skull in Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.

  As he lay on his back he heard the radiographer rattle off many functions of Computed Tomography, but the machine was too noisy a
nd it was hard to hold a proper conversation.

  He was both alarmed and reassured, not by what he was told, but by the circumstances which prevented him from hearing it. An automated voice in the room sounded a warning. Obviously, X-rays carried some risk with their ionising radiation? He did not expect the warning to be repeated in Walloon, however.

  ‘It’s fine the first time you hear it, reverend, but after a while it grates.’

  ‘I assume the scanner was made in Belgium?’ said Luke.

  ‘You got it. Today I’ll be taking diagnostic images of your brain. Do you need any eye or ear plugs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  Next moment Luke felt himself sliding into the scanner, then back again, as the radiographer made some slightly jerky adjustments to the angle of his chin.

  A contrast could be established between anything anomalous and the surrounding blood vessels inside his head, thanks to the dye that had just been injected into his bloodstream via the cannula in his left arm.

  He felt a hot flush which made him want to pee.

  ‘Don’t move!’ warned the radiologist, repositioning his chin at the correct angle.

  ‘Do I keep my eyes open or shut?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  He was inside the doughnut-shaped gantry from which a narrow fan-shaped beam of X-rays would rotate in a complete circle around him.

  ‘It’s like being in a submarine.’

  ‘Please keep absolutely still, reverend. I will be in the control room next door, but you will be able to talk to me via the intercom at any time. As the X-ray produces an image of a cross-section or ‘slice’ of your head, the information will pass to my computer which then produces a picture. I’ll be able to see inside you on my TV screen.’

  ‘Nice.’

  By now the noise was almost deafening.

  Purple lights gathered speed around the circular glass ‘wheel’ directly above him.

  It took less than a second to produce each slice of his brain which could vary in thickness from one millimetre to a centimetre. One thousand images could be generated in less than a minute. But that was little consolation when you were trapped in a machine. Lying on his back he felt curiously weightless, but it was less like being in space than Atlantis.