The Midnight Man by Paul Doherty Page A

clustered like flies. I became insane with grief. Satan, like a huge raven, constantly floated above me. I fled into deep forest. I met shapes, shadows, spectres, wraiths – all the undead. I entered that misty underworld between life and the kingdom of the hereafter. I visited the dungeons of the dead and confronted the furies which scourge, the key-dangling janitors of hell. I had visions of the black lake, the rivers of flame, the fearsome battlements of Hades.’ Anselm breathed out. ‘Others would dismiss it all as nonsense. Nevertheless, I have seen the storm hags ride the winds and heard their calls from the deep, wet greenness of the woods. The dead danced around me. After a time the visions faded but the ghosts remained: those souls who do not wish to pass on.’ Anselm rubbed his face. ‘Eventually I came out of my grief. I bathed, I fasted, and I found my vocation as a Carmelite priest. I also realized,’ he added tartly, ‘that the dead will not leave me alone. Accordingly my superiors, so-called astute men, decided to use my unwanted gift. Yet,’ he added wistfully, ‘I still commit treason against my own vocation. I sometimes wonder what might have been: sitting in an orchard perfumed with apple blossom, hand in hand with my beloved wife, watching our children play . . . but, of course, these, too, are ghosts.’ Anselm put his face in his hands. For a brief while he sobbed quietly, then fell silent.
    Beauchamp glanced at Stephen, who put a finger to his lips and shook his head.
    â€˜If you want to know what I believe . . .’ Anselm dried the tears from his seamed cheeks. ‘If you want to repeat the question that people always ask me about death, we human beings suffer two deaths. The body dies, it corrupts. The soul, the spirit, goes forth. However, once it does, a challenge is mounted by those forces hostile to God and man. Each adult soul is confronted. Some are reluctant to face the challenge. They pause, they wait. They don’t want to give up their lives on Earth. They cower, dragged down by sin, by unresolved acts and hopes. They are reluctant to go into the blinding light which burns all clear so they can make their decision for all eternity. Their world is my world. I try to reassure such souls. I try to release them from the traps. I urge, I pray for them to move on.’ Anselm rose and moved across to the shuttered window. He opened this and stared out. A bell began to clang, a solemn salutation to the gathering dark.
    â€˜It’s time, isn’t it? You brought us here, Beauchamp. Let us see what the twilight brings.’
    They left the guest house and entered the monks’ cemetery, a stretch of wild grass, flowers and shrubs bending slowly under an impetuous breeze. Above them the gathering clouds promised rain: the sky was grey and lowering, shrouding the cemetery in a more sinister aspect. They re-entered the gardens of the dead, row after row of battered crosses and crumbling headstones, hummocks and mounds long overgrown. All this was being disturbed as Beauchamp had described. Graves were being opened, rotting shrouds ripped, mouldy coffins and caskets shattered. The skulls and bones of long-dead monks were being piled into carts, tumbrils and wheelbarrows all intended for the charnel house. The workers had stopped for the day but the mounds of white glistening bones and heaps of skulls with gaping jaws were unnerving. A huge crow perched on a skull, claws slipping as if that bird of ill omen wished to grasp and carry it away. Stephen fingered his Ave beads even as Anselm took out his own from the pouch on his waist cord. The dead truly hung close. Faint voices carried on the wind. Whispered conversation, softly murmured prayers and traces of plain chanting. Shapes and shadows assumed a life of their own. Wisps of mist hovered then moved swiftly out of sight. The undergrowth became alive with strange scuttlings. Twigs snapped as if