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The Archive of Stanley MessengerThe IntraterrestrialsA Foretaste of the New World |
Epilogue
The light was fading at about six on an autumn afternoon when a young man in his late twenties was making his way down the hill from the direction of Garway Church. He had a leaflet in his hand which he had picked up in the village hall.
He had actually come to Garway to visit the Templar church, as part of a tour round Templar sites all over England. He was quite a shy and rather lonely young man. He was not really at all sure that it was the Templar movement that held the meanings he was looking for. But he had once had a dream in which knights with red crosses on their breastplates were escaping from horrific persecutions and burnings, and this dream had become the yardstick for the kind of researches he had been making for several years now into the secret sources of spiritual meaning. Much of his sadness and loneliness sprang from the fact that the actual goal of the search seemed continually to recede before him, ending in the cold emptiness of old churches and tombs, stone circles and empty hill tops. Like the rest, Garway Church had seemed empty and dead. The gaunt tower had smelt musty, and the prayer books and hassocks in the church smelt as stale as those anywhere else.
He was about to get into his car and drive back to Hereford when a leaflet fluttering from the notice-board outside the village hall caught his eye, and he walked across to look. A chilly wind had sprung up, and a flurry of rain blew in his face and blurred his vision. So he saw the colours and the pillar and the line of upturned faces through a mist. Something struck him which linked directly with the dream-life which alone these days motivated his increasingly arid quest. He pushed open the door of the hall and peered in. There was a women’s meeting of some sort going on. He apologised and was about to withdraw, but a woman called out:- "Can I help you?"
"Oh I was wondering about the leaflet on the notice-board. Have you any more of them?"
"On the table".
He stared stupidly round. The woman crossed the room and thrust something into his hand. He muttered his thanks and went out. He was clutching several notices. Fortunately one of them was the right one, and once more he found himself in a half dreamy state as he looked into the misty background of the picture. He began to read; something about a school. As he read he felt as if voices were calling him from some place half way between sleeping and waking. There was an invitation to visit a house in the village which sounded very welcoming. For some reason he felt tears behind his eyes and the sense of a journey coming to an end. There was a little map; you went back down past the church. He turned the car round, switched the lights on and went slowly down the hill. Middle Town. There it was on the left. He turned into the drive and parked. It was quite a long way up the drive. He decided to walk.
As he approached the house he could see into the hallway through a side window. An inner door opened, and he saw a group of people moving out. There were flickering candle flames in the inner room. He raised his hand to the knocker.
Footsteps came rapidly across the hall, and the door opened. A strikingly pretty woman stood in front of him, and a number of other faces turned to look at him.
"Excuse me. Is this the I.T. School?"
Conversation suddenly stopped. Then somebody laughed happily, and suddenly everybody was talking at once. Several hands clutched him, and he was drawn into the kitchen and sat down at a table.
A cup of tea and some cake was pushed in front of him, and everybody was asking questions at once.
The pretty woman said:- "I’m Lucia. What’s your name?"
It suddenly all became too much, and great tears spilled from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
"I’m sorry. I don’t know. I forget. I seem to have found my way home".
"There you are", said someone, "It’s started. I had an idea it would. We’re through the gap into a New World. They’ll start to come in droves now. Welcome, my dear friend. Never mind about your name. We’ll give you a new one. Melanie, give this nice young man a name."
A dark woman came across and sat by him. Everybody suddenly seemed to him taller and straighter, and very attentive. The woman looked into his eyes. "May we call you Michael?" she said.
"I remember now", said the young man, "That is my name". He laughed. "My name is Michael".
Fiona rose mightily out of the house and above the roof, and into the darkening sky above Garway. As she turned upwards the last thing she heard was the sound of laughter.
END
The Archive of Stanley MessengerThe IntraterrestrialsA Foretaste of the New World |
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