The Prayer of the Night Shepherd by Rickman Phil

Author:Rickman, Phil [Rickman, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780857890214
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 2011-12-24T16:00:00+00:00

Merrily wrinkled her nose. The idea of a society combining committed spiritualists and Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts sounded slightly unlikely, if you considered that Holmes was the creation of Conan Doyle’s rational, scientific side.

But, then, wasn’t spiritualism considered to be rational and scientific? Wasn’t that the whole point – that they were proving the fact of life after death without the excess baggage?

Meaning religion. Merrily fingered her small pectoral cross on its chain.

It was easy to say that the Church was just jealous because these guys were offering direct experience. There were many people no longer scared of death because their departed loved ones were saying, We’re here for you. And even if it was faked, was that all bad? The main spiritualist wave had come after the First World War – all those grieving families who didn’t know how their sons and husbands had died, had no bodies to bury. A means of bringing closure.

The doorbell rang. Merrily groaned. The thought of an hour with Dexter Harris was not enticing.

She stood up, pulling on one of Jane’s old fleeces over her cowl-neck sweater. Half her wardrobe these days consisted of the kid’s cast-offs. No fire in the sitting room, so she’d have to keep Alice and Dexter in the kitchen, and it wasn’t too warm in there either, despite the Aga. She went through to the hall, meeting the eyes of the jaded Jesus hanging on to his lantern of hope in Holman Hunt’s Light of the World, Uncle Ted’s house-warming present.

To prove that the spirit world is an incontestable fact.

Slipping the catch, tugging the front door out of its frozen frame, she thought what a disappointment it must be to Conan Doyle, if he was still watching, that the great spiritual revolution had crumbled so quickly into the ruins of Crank City. The front door shuddered and the white night came in from the open porch in tingling crystals of cold.

For a moment, it was surreal. The front garden of the vicarage was like some kind of fairy-tale bedchamber, the lawn a lumpy white mattress, bushes squashed into piles of pillows, a night light glimmering from the village square through the bare trees.

Very much a part of this tableau, he unwound his scarf and a frieze of snow.

‘Um, I wondered if I might sing a carol.’

‘God!’ She laughed in delight, looking down the drive towards the snowbound square. ‘How did you—? Where’s your car?’

‘How would you feel about “Ding Dong M—?’

‘You’re insane!’

‘And there are medical records to prove it,’ Lol said.

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