Spire (Part 2)

(SPIRE - PART TWO)

You move around the beautiful church, shafts of light pouring in through the intricate stained-glass with laser-beam intensity, taking Elaine around with you, pointing items of interest out to her, gesturing around.

“See,” you say, your voice cracking, “It’s a beautiful old piece of history. Just a lovely old church, nothing to worry about.”

She is looking at you, her mouth small and pinched. She points upwards.

“Up into the spire?” you enquire.

She nods. “That’s where the scary feeling is.”

You nod. You believe that she is feeling unhesitant about the truth of what she believes.

You know that you have to ascend that awful spiral staircase, right to the top. You know that you have to do this, because your niece is afraid the way that you used to be terribly afraid, and that you were never able to explain why, in the same way that she is unable to. You have to show her that you believe her fears, that they are somehow justified.

She won’t come up with you, she sits down obediently on one of the pews, her hands clasped in her lap, and she waits for you. You smile, but her mouth remains small.

You find the doorway that leads to the staircase, and you look up, seeing the small circle of light at the very top. It is such a long way up, and you remember that somehow. You start to climb, shoes clanking on cold stone, hands placed against cold walls. Minutes pass, and you continue to climb. You don’t feel that you are getting anywhere.

As you spiral ever upwards, treading the centuries-warn stone steps of this house of God that punctures the foreboding sky, you feel increasingly less like you are climbing a stairway to heaven, and more like you are willingly approaching the gates of hell. You don’t understand the feeling, but you accept it.

You know you have to reach the top of the spire, regardless, but the fear is strong… such a deeply felt terror. The stone, spiral steps are wound tightly, but there is still light from below.

I’ve come this far… keep going…

As you continue to climb, the light becomes dimmer, until the steps are in darkness. They seem to tighten now with every breath. Narrowing, steepening, the inside of the step taking just your toe now. It’s so dark. You feel for the handrail that ran out two flights ago.

Your breathing is shallow now, and you are struggling to catch your breath, trying to fight the panic that is rapidly setting in. You start to crawl on your hands and knees, unable to turn back. For thirty years your imagination was your nemesis, but now, with all the certainty in the world, you know what you will find at the top of that staircase.

You now know why you came up here so long ago, and why you could never come here again.

You know why your memory blanked everything out.

You reach the top of the old bell tower which no longer houses its original bell, and you gasp on all fours until you calm yourself, sitting, and looking around the room, which is fairly spacious, hearing birdsong through the narrow-arched windows. You are so high up, above the small village life below.

You don’t know what you are searching for until your eyes fall upon a chest, a battered, old chest, that you know has been there a really long time. As if in a dream, you move over to it, admiring the knobbed reddish wood that has aged over time, with gold-coloured clasps either side of the front. You kneel, and you move your hands over every inch of that curved wood, taking your time.

When you are ready, you bring your hands forward to open both of those clasps. As the chest clatters open, and you swing the lid up, you know with a terrible inevitability what you will see. How could you not know?

*

It seems that an age goes by as you sit on that stone floor, cradling an old brown cloth blanket in your arms. Over time you start to gently rock that blanket, murmuring what could well be lullabies. You are not consciously aware of what you are doing.

You are saying goodbye to yourself, nursing and soothing that seven-year-old child’s body.

That innocent child who was lured into such evil, coaxed up those stairs by a terrible monster that even in your memory lives mostly in the shadows, and can never fully be seen.

The tiny broken skeleton of your former self.

All you really remember is… horns.