Chapter 7
Francis spends the weekend with his mother at her house in the village. It rains most of the time, but on Sunday afternoon the sun comes out and Francis and his mother walk down to the local church. The Fullerton family are evident in brass plaques on the walls of the church and in the graveyard. In one corner of the graveyard, tucked away but there if you know where to look, are eight identifiable graves of members of Francis’ family, the Baker family, going back to the early 1800s. And around them a number of older graves, the inscriptions on the gravestones blurred by time. Some gravestones have fallen over, some have been moved, stacked against a wall at the side of the churchyard as newer graves have replaced older ones. Francis knows that somewhere in the church is a record, painstakingly prepared some years ago by a curate, listing all of the identified graves. Tracing was done over the unreadable ones. None of the others were Bakers, but of course if the relationship to Francis was through a female line the name would be different, so they could be relatives. No one has traced the family tree back before 1800.
They around the graveyard and back towards the church. One grave catches Francis’ eye. It is edged with stone and the gravestone at the head is unreadable. But carved around the stone he can make out a pattern of links of a chain – as if round the chest of the headstone. It’s a coincidence, but it reminds him of the neck chain found at the dig.
A few days later Francis and Simon return to the castle. A package from Canterbury is waiting to be opened and they join Felicity who is waiting in the room with the skeleton. Simon holds up his phone to film the unmasking.
Carefully Francis unpacks the plaster cast, removing the packaging. Inside is a cast of the skull that has been transformed into the head of a man, with clay flesh and brown hair. Felicity gasps as the face is revealed.
‘It’s the chaplain, the one in the portrait.’ And she looks up at Francis. ‘And it looks just like you.’
Francis is staring at the head. He doesn’t say anything for a moment. He has has clenched his fists digging his fingernails into his hands, and then he smiles a pale smile. ‘Yes, I guess there is a resemblance.’
Simon has been filming, but now he puts down his phone. ‘No, it’s not just a resemblance. It is you.’
Francis is about to speak, but is gazing at the head in front of them and the words stick in his mouth. His head starts to spin and he closes his eyes for a second to regain control. He coughs and looks away. ‘Strange coincidence.’
‘More than strange,’ says Felicity. ‘Spooky. You’re from round here. How far back does your family go? Must be something in the genes.’
‘I guess it’s possible.’ Francis can see in his mind the gravestone with the carving of a necklace around it. He is speaking slowly, his eyes all the time on the man in front of him, ‘My family have lived in this area for as long as we can trace. At least two hundred years. And there have been clergy in my family in the past.’
The three of them stand looking at the clay head.
There is a space on the table next to the skull and Francis carefully moves the head next to the now-complete skeleton. Although it is cold in the room as he stands over the skeleton he can feel warmth reaching up to him as if from the bones, as if it were a person radiating heat. He looks into the eyes of the skull, and has a strange sensation of being watched, it is as if the skull is looking up at him. There are no eyes in the sockets, but something in the depths of the sockets themselves seem to looking at him. He takes a step back but stumbles, as if his legs won’t follow his brain’s instructions. His right lower leg is throbbing painfully and without thinking he reaches down to rub his shin.
‘Francis?’ Felicity sounds concerned.
‘Yes, … sorry. Miles away.’
He is still looking down at the man on the table in front of him. He notices a shine, a lustre on the surface of the bones that he has not seen before. Perhaps a reflection of the light on them. And then he looks more closely. The bones are starting to glow, unmistakably they are giving off some sort of aura, and Francis is unable to look away.
His phone buzzes, and with some difficulty he manages to detach his gaze from the skull below him and he moves back from the table, taking his phone out of his pocket as he does. He can still feel the aura coming from the bones in front of him, more strongly now. He lifts the phone to his ear, and looks back at the skeleton. The aura grows stronger, colours pulsing from and around the bones, and he can feel its heat surging through him. A voice is talking into his ear.
‘Hi Rebecca. …..Yes all good thanks. You?……Yes, safely here, we are looking at it now.’ He laughs. ‘In fact it looks a bit like me…..What?…..Why did you…..Oh, yeah. I … sorry.’ He looks back at the table and he feels a sudden surge of energy flowing out from the man there. For a moment he feels a strange sense of connection, his head clears, and he can see himself lying on the table, looking up, looking at himself, inviting. He is drawn to the power source, and moves towards it. Suddenly the light is blinding and he steps away, misses his footing, and crashes backwards to the floor, dropping his mobile. THere is a sharp pain across the back of his head as he hits the ground. For a few seconds all he can feel is a crushing pain, enveloping him, washing like a wave through his head, knocking out all other sensations. He tries to push up into a sitting position, resting on his hands, panting, sweat running down his face. After a few seconds the pain starts to subside, the wave, spent now, slips back, leaving the dull ache of a heavy hangover. For a minute or two he doesn’t move, just sits, as the cold of the floor through his hands starts to steady him. Someone is speaking but he can’t make out the words. He looks up and can see that the heavy candlestick is lying on the tiles a metre or so away. It must have fallen from the table when he fell. He pushes himself up, and rubs his hand over the back of his head. He can feel blood on the back of his head and he looks up towards the man on the table. All he can see is a bright glow all around the skeleton. Carefully he shakes his head to clear his sight, and without warning the wave of pain hits him again, stronger this time, all-engulfing, and he slumps to the floor, losing consciousness.
Felicity reaches him in two steps. He is lying face down on the stone floor, his breathing short and ragged. ‘Francis, Francis, are you OK?’ But clearly he isn’t OK. She stoops, wary about touching him, but his back is moving with his breath and his arm is twitching. She shares her head, turning to Simon.
‘He doesn’t look good. And his head’s bleeding. Must have hit it on the floor,.’
‘Yeah, he just went over, I wasn’t really watching,’ said Simon. He picks up the candlestick. ‘There’s blood on here as well. Didn’t see that. Did it hit him somehow?’
‘I don’t know. I’m calling an ambulance. His breathing doesn’t sound good.’
‘Better not move him.’
She takes out her mobile and starts to press the screen. The call is answered almost immediately. ‘Yes, ambulance please.’
Simon picks up Francis’s phone from the floor where it has fallen and realises that Rebecca is still on the call.
‘Sorry… yes it’s Simon here. Francis isn’t well, he fell and dropped his phone.…’ He turns to look at Francis. ‘I don’t know, he sort of fainted. He doesn’t look good, I didn’t really see but he has hit his head somehow. We’re calling an ambulance……No no, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Can I call you back? …. Oh, OK, sure, what were you telling him?….. Yes, I remember.… But how?…. No, I didn’t know….But that’s not possible. You’re sure?….What are the chances? No. don’t answer that. Impossible to one.….Oh, OK, I think I’d better go…. Yeah, look, thanks Rebecca for all your work, I’ll get Francis to give you a proper call when he comes round….Yes, bye.’
Simon puts down the phone. His hand is trembling, and he half drops it onto the table. He looks at Francis, collapsed on the floor, blood clearly running out of a gash on the back of his head. Felicity ends her call and looks back at Simon. ‘They are on their way. I’ll alert the gatehouse.’
She notices Simon ’s expression. ‘What is it?’
He looks at the reconstructed head on the table and walks up to it, hovering his hand over the clay cheek before stepping back again, and then covering it with some of the wrapping. He turns back to her, and then looks at Francis down at the floor near his feet. Then, shaking his head, he looks up.
‘It’s impossible.’
‘What’s impossible?’
‘That was Rebecca. She ran a DNA test on the bones. Just for interest, to try to get an idea of what part of the country the man was from, what his ethnicity might have been. Anyway, she also ran it through the police database to see if he was at all related to anyone they have on the system alive today.’ He pauses. ‘Not sure why – there will have been a dozen generations since this guy was alive. But it turns out he is. Not just related, a perfect match.’ He stops again, breathes in sharply, then carries on in a rush to get the words out. ‘They still have Francis’s DNA on file because of some investigation he was involved with some years ago. Francis doesn’t just look like him. Their DNA is identical. They are the same person.’
Simon and Felicity turn to where Francis is lying on the floor. His breathing is slowing, and while they watch his body shudders slightly and the breath stops. Felicity gasps and leans down to check him, but his pulse is not beating, his body is already starting to feel cold.
THE END
© Anthony Judge 2024