The Rose Demon

Matthias couldn’t control his sense of dread. He closed his eyes. When he looked again, there was only the mist curling its tendrils above the cemetery. Somewhere in a tree a bird began to chatter. Matthias ran to the door of the church. The porch was dank, dark and musty. He pushed with all his might and slammed the old door shut behind him.

    Matthias, trying to control his breathing, walked down the nave, gloomy as a grave, except for the faint rays of light pouring through the arrow slit windows. He paused and leant against a pillar. The church was greatly changed. Someone had burnt down the rood screen. The altar, too, had gone. The pulpit had been overthrown. Wood lay piled in one of the transepts as if someone had taken an axe and smashed the benches. All the statues were gone. No crucifix hung on the walls. It was like a long-disused barn from which both God and man had fled.

    Matthias collected bits of wood, took them into the sanctuary and built a small fire. He sat for a while warming himself then, taking an ember from the fire, walked back down the nave. He carefully studied the floor and pillars. There were cuts and marks, dark splashes on the pillars and walls. Matthias surmised these must be blood stains from the massacre. He stamped his feet and blew into his hands. The church was much colder than he had realised. He returned to the fire and remembered he had left his saddlebags in the house so he went back for these, crossing the cemetery at a run. He found them just within the doorway of the priest’s house, and hurried back.

    He could see nothing untoward except, when he returned to the church, some of the dark stains he had glimpsed before were now glistening. Matthias stared at the pools of blood trickling along the paved stone of the nave. He returned to the sanctuary, accepting he would not be allowed to escape unscathed from this ghost-ridden place. Nevertheless, he was determined he would not leave empty-handed. He ate some food and drank a little wine. He went back to his childhood days, to his father celebrating Mass here.

    ‘Yes,’ Matthias spoke into the darkness, ‘there was a place where he hid things. The little silver pyx he used to take the viaticum to the sick. The oils and chrism he needed for baptisms and marriages.’ Matthias drank more from the wineskin. ‘That’s it. Father always complained about how thieves would enter village churches and steal such valuable items.’

    Christina had laughed at this and asked why he didn’t keep it in the house. Parson Osbert had shaken his head. He claimed such sacred objects should always be kept in a holy place. Matthias got to his feet and walked slowly round the sanctuary. He examined the small lavarium built in the wall where his father used to wash his fingers during Mass before he touched the sacred species. There was nothing. Matthias scrutinised the bricks in the wall, searching vainly for one that might be loose. He knelt down and closed his eyes.

    ‘Please,’ he prayed. ‘Some sign!’

    Daylight was fading. The church was growing darker and he grew more desperate in his searches. On hands and knees, Matthias crawled across the paving stones but these held firm and secure. He recalled his father saying there was no crypt beneath the church. Matthias’ hands and knees became sore from crawling, his eyes hurt. He returned to the fire and bit into the cheese he had bought from the old manor steward, yet he’d lost his appetite and he wondered if his search were a wasteful, dangerous task. He stared down the church, trying to ignore the pools still glistening on the floor. Where else would his father hide anything? Taking a firebrand to light his way, he went down the nave, through a narrow door into the small bell tower. The steps were wet and mildewed; somewhere above there must be a crack in the walls or tiles through which the rain and snow had poured in over the years.

    Matthias climbed, moving carefully until he reached the small gallery where his father had stood to summon the parishioners to Mass. The bell rope had long rotted away. Matthias lifted the firebrand and stared at the wooden pegs around which the rope had once been wrapped. These were driven into a wedge of wood fixed into the wall. Matthias pulled and tugged at these; they held firm.

    He gave up in disgust and was about to go down the steps when he noticed a small grille built into the base of the wall. Matthias crouched down. He used his