“He did, in fact. And he asked some questions about the wall painting in the bell tower.”
I frowned, trying to think what he meant.
“The one of St. Gomonda slaying the demon,” he continued. “It was a good opportunity for a lesson about the stories of the saints, and how those stories have been preserved, in part, to remind us that righteousness and true devotion to God are the best armor that we can wear.”
I recalled the painting now. Da had pointed it out to Jack and me once when we were children, though what was left of it was too high for us to see very well. I had no memory of anything he’d said about it. Most of my time in church was spent wishing to be anywherebutchurch. Though I did remember that Jack had gone up on Da’sshoulders for a better look. A battle with a demon was just the kind of story he loved.
“Would you show me the painting, Father?”
“Of course,” he replied, pleased.
Feeling guilty for deceiving a priest—because my interest in the painting had nothing to do with saints and everything to do with whyJackwas interested—I followed him back across the graveyard and through the tower’s arched doorway. Inside, the tower was empty but for a rough stone stairway that curved up toward the bell.
There wasn’t enough light to see by, and Father Kelly bade me wait while he fetched a candle from the nave. When he returned, he raised the flame close to the only section of the painting that remained, above the doorway we’d entered through.
“That is St. Gomonda in the center,” he said, pointing out a robed figure. “He is something of a mystery and not heard of outside Cornwall. We know next to nothing about his life. One ancient document—lost now, but described in church records—indicated he was an apothecary. Beyond that, all we know is what we see in this single section of a much larger painting, which likely survived the slow destruction of time simply because it’s high enough on the wall to avoid being touched by every ...”
I lost the thread of what the priest was saying as my gaze stuck on a different figure, opposite the saint. My breath caught, and for a moment I thought the flickering candlelight had played a trick on my eyes.
The figure hadtree branchesfanning out from its head.
“What isthat?” I asked, heart thumping as I pointed at the figure. The creature was willowy and tall, but its face had been mostly worn away. All I could make out was a long jaw studded with pointed teeth—like a dog,or a wolf.
The priest cleared his throat—I had probably interrupted him. “I would guess a nature spirit of some kind.”
“But didn’t you say this was a painting of the saint slaying a demon?”
He nodded. “As far as the early church was concerned, there wasn’t much difference. The ancient Romans went to war against thereligion of the Britons, which was a kind of nature worship, and that war never really ended. Over the centuries, those old ways were all but stamped out.”
It seemed to me that “nature spirit” might be another way of saying “fairy,” and if so, the priest’s explanation made it clear why my mother had told me never to talk about fairies in church. But what struck me most was the bit of the creature’s face I could see. Could this be the Wolf of Roche Rock? With its branch-antlers, I thought it must be the same creature—or at least the same kind of creature—that I’d seen on the heath.
Continuing to study the painting, I saw that the figure of St. Gomonda held a bow nocked with a strange kind of arrow; it seemed to be sproutingflowers. Another flower arrow hung in the air above the scene, and a third stuck out from the creature’s chest. Besides the two main figures, there was another robed man holding a large cross before him like a shield. People who had been slain were strewn over the ground. My breath caught again as I noticed a woman with a line of red running from her neck into a small pool of the same color.
In the backdrop of all this, high on the wall, was a steep, black outcrop.
“That’s Roche Rock!” I said.
I realized the priest was watching me closely now. “So it is.”
Rising on my toes to see better, I said, “There’s no chapel, though.”
He raised the candle higher, casting light farther up the wall. “The story of St. Gomonda is much older than both the chapel and this tower. They were both constructed in the fifteenth century, and the original church of St. Gomonda—elements of which can be found in the current structure—is centuries older than both.”
Stomach knotting, I pointed out the bleeding woman. “And what do you make of that, Father?”
“Mina.” His earnest tone drew my gaze. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told your brother. This story has nothing to do with the killings in the parish. Or with your attacker. I think what we can take from it is thatthough we may face danger and even death, God is the shepherd who protects his faithful flock from ...”
Again his voice faded as my thoughts grew loud. I wished for a chair or stool so I could go up and see everything closer, but Father Kelly clearly wanted to discourage both Jack and me from dwelling on any possible connection between Roche Rock and the murders. And that was just as well.
The priest had finished speaking, and I smiled and nodded as if I’d heard all he’d said. “Thank you very much for showing me, Father. I won’t take up any more of your time.”
His gaze, keen and searching before, began to soften. “Of course, Mina. Now you go on home and stay there until the constabulary sorts this out, all right? You’ve been through quite enough.”
“Yes, Father. I will.”
I glanced at the wall one last time—and noticed something I hadn’t before. Along one side of the doorway arch, someone had used something sharp to scratch a word below the painting. The letters were small and crooked, but I could make them out: “Goosevar.” The word meant nothing to me and might simply have been someone’s name. But I repeated it to myself several times so that I would remember it.
I felt Father Kelly’s eyes on my back as I walked around the front of the church to the road, turning toward home—though I was not going there. Nor was I going to The Magpie. There was no time for what I had planned this morning. To explain myself to Mrs. Moyle, or for her to find Mr. Carew.
