Stranger Things

Saving Hope - A Christmas tale

Hope shivers and wraps her woollen coat more tightly around her. Shuffling blindly forward her fingertips find the cold metal encasement of the light switch. At a click, the interior of St Agnes church flickers under the bright lights, a husk of water stained white walls, oak beamed ceilings and lead rimmed windows flood into view. She makes her way across the transept and turns on the artificial Christmas tree lights, rehanging some fallen tinsel that has seen so many Christmases come and go. She checks the crib, rubbing the figurines ancient porcelain faces with her cuff before running her hand lightly across a radiator to check if there is any heat. It is cold.

In the entrance she unbolts the wooden door and drags it open, it's lopsided base squealing plaintively against the stone flagged floor. Face flushed red with the sudden gush of freezing air she surveys the scene laid out by winters hand during the previous of night. Outside the snow lies thickly furrowed across the graveyard under a sky that simmers Lapis Lazuli blue. The sharp sun lifts a million tiny glistening ice crystals off the winter landscape.

As she turns her eye is caught by a heap of cloth piled up on the seat under the lynch gate at the entrance to the church. Screwing her eyes up she squints into the sunlight. Undecided she shakes her head, kicks off her slippers and pulls on a pair of rubber boots. The early morning silence is stifling, not a bird sings, not a rustle of wind shifts the trees, just the soft scrunching of the snow as she approaches the gateway. The pile of sacking shifts as she approaches making her step back in surprise. 'Hello?'

'An angel!' The face appearing from the cocoon of cloth is emaciated, a mask of white and grey skin eaten from within by lack of food.

Hope pulls back and stifles a cry of shock and says softly. 'I'm not an angel, I'm Hope the Reverend here. You must be freezing. Come, come in.'

The face grunts, the cloth bundle unfurls itself to reveal a man gaunt and bent, a piece of sacking pulled over his head to shroud it from the snow. She steels herself and reaches out and takes his hand. It's desperately cold and the skeletal fingers press awkwardly into her warm skin. 'What's your name?'

'I am Malchus the wanderer, one of the many names you may know me by are Matathias, Buttadeus or Joseph.'

Her heart tightens. She knows the names, all of them.

'I see you've heard of me.'

'Those names are myths, if they are in any way true your real name would be Cartaphilus?'

He stares quizzically at her, wipes his nose on his sleeve, 'You are well read. That is a name I've not heard for so long. It's one I care to forget.'

Inside the church she pushes the door to and helps him down the aisle and sets him gently on the front pew. 'I'll try to get the heat on so you will soon warm up, let me get you some food.'

'Food will not help me. But thank you.'

'Food you should have especially if you have a journey ahead of you.'

'I have journeyed far and have far to go,' he replies haltingly.

When she returns with a bowl of soup and bread she find he has picked up the crib and is staring at the figure of Jesus with tears rolling down his face. 'Here,' she says, 'take this and eat. I'll hold this.'

He turns and places the food untouched on the pew beside him. 'Will you take my confession?'

She checks the church is empty, 'I cannot take confessions but if it will comfort you I will sit with you and we can talk.'

He sits hunched ignoring the food next to him, his waxen grey hair swept over his sallow eyes. 'You know of me, I saw it. But you cannot believe that I exist, for I am a myth, a legend.'