The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick Page B

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    Father Escrove asked to be introduced to Jack Smith’s wife.
    They found her in the kitchen and Jack was stupid enough not to be able to stop himself looking at the jars of herbs on the shelf. But the minister didn’t seem to notice.
    He was smiling easily at Elizabeth Smith.
    There were three brats in the room. A lumbering boy and two pallid girls who looked just like each other.
    â€œPerhaps our conversation is not for innocent ears…?” said Father Escrove, and Elizabeth shooed the children outside. They ran out, and then all three crept back and sat under the open kitchen window, a rare truce agreed in an unspoken moment.
    The tall man of God was speaking to their mother.
    â€œAnd what do you know of her?”
    â€œAnna?” asked Elizabeth.
    â€œAnna. Just so.”
    â€œNot so much. They live up there by the tentergrounds…”
    â€œAnd your view of her?”
    â€œWhy, I … I don’t know.”
    â€œShe is an evil woman, is she not?”
    â€œAnna? Evil? No, that’s…”
    â€œThat’s curious,” said the man in black, cutting into her words with his own.
    â€œC-curious, Father?”
    â€œCurious, when your own husband here says that she is.”
    There was a long silence then, during which the children ached to peep over the windowsill, but dared not. There was something in that room that stopped them, and though they couldn’t have named it, they felt it.
    Fear.
    Into the silence, Father Escrove said, “have you had an accident, Elizabeth?”
    â€œAccident?”
    â€œHow come you by that bruise on your neck, Elizabeth?”
    â€œOh, that. An accident, yes. I stumbled and fell and hit on the table.”
    â€œIt must have been a strange fall that placed your neck on the table,” said Father Escrove, and then there was more silence, which the minister ended.
    â€œSo, your husband says the girl is practicing wicked matters. What do you say to that?”
    Then there was the longest silence of all, after which Elizabeth spoke, quietly.
    And she said, “He is right. She is a wicked girl.”
    Then Father left, striding out of the smithy, but not before he said one last thing.
    â€œBe careful how you stumble, Elizabeth.”
    The children watched his black dress switching away through the trees by Gaining Water, and then he was gone.
    They understood nothing.

 
    19 FULLER’S MILL
    Father Escrove walked along Golden Beck, taking the tiny path by the river bank, stepping over the hefty tree roots that crossed it from time to time, shaded from the heat of the day by the oaks and the steep valley sides.
    He was satisfied with his morning’s work, but in order to bring things to a head, there was one more testament he wished to obtain.
    It took him a quarter of an hour to come to Fuller’s Mill.
    The sound of the hammers pounding the wool in the baths of piss came from inside, and something of the smell, too.
    There was no one in sight.
    Maybe she was here. This was the place she worked. But there was no sign of her, nor anyone else. The place seemed deserted, free of people, as if the mill itself was alive and running things ably.
    Father Escrove approached and peered in a window. There was a man and a woman tending the fulling. But not her.
    He walked around the side of the mill to the house and rapped his peeling knuckles on the door.
    Nothing.
    He rapped again, and now the door opened and the wife, Helen Fuller, was there.
    â€œFather Escrove,” he announced. “I am Rural Dean. You may have heard of my presence.”
    Helen nodded dumbly.
    â€œIs your husband here? I wish to speak to him.”
    The woman seemed confused.
    â€œYour husband, madam? He is the tenant of the mill?”
    â€œYes—yes,” she stammered. She turned back into the house. “John!”
    *   *   *
    It didn’t take much.
    It didn’t take long.
    Within half an hour,