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facing one another, as the sun streamed into the room in elongated, dusty
shafts.
    ‘I don’t understand what
happened, Mr Sharman,’ she said, puncturing the silence.
    ‘Thom, please.’
    ‘I’m seventy-two, Thom, but
I’m in good health and I have no history of heart trouble and ... ’ Her head
dropped forwards and she clasped her hands tightly together. ‘ I died . I was pronounced
clinically dead . They tell me I’m something of an enigma.’
    ‘So I understand.’
    ‘Death had taken me. But now I’ve seen what
happens after one departs this life I’m not afraid of it anymore, in fact I
welcome it. Everything seemed so clear.’
    ‘Where did you go?’
    ‘I walked out of the
darkness into a beautiful flower garden, with cherry trees in full blossom and
small stone bridges crossing turquoise streams.’
    He smiled.
    ‘I was no longer wearing my
habit and I was younger — much younger. I passed under the shade of a
tree, looked up and saw my mother, my father and two sisters sitting on the
daisy-covered grass. They were all much younger than they’d been when they died
too. We embraced, we cried. But this wasn’t imaginary, it was real , it was happening , I
could feel the warmth of their bodies, the sun on my skin, the gentle breeze in
my hair.
    ‘But just as I’d almost
accepted this new existence ... I saw your face .
    ‘My father, especially,
begged me to stay but I knew that my work in my earthly body wasn’t complete and
that I had to return, and so I told him that although I loved him dearly and
longed to join him he’d have to wait a little longer. And then I woke up
— in that metal box.’
    She stalled, dabbing her
eyes with a tissue. ‘I know that just before I collapsed, outside your home, I
was aware of something unimaginably evil close by and ... ’ The blood left her
face. ‘ ... I
am aware of it now .’
    A door opened. Kristin
walked into the room and glared at the mother superior. She shivered wildly and
her face discoloured, deforming with repulsion.
    The nun reeled, and
stumbled to the floor, paralyzed. She grasped the small cross that dangled from
a thin silver chain around her neck, squeezing it until her knuckles turned
white and pushed herself backwards through the open door, flooding the carpet
with urine. ‘My dear God!’ she gasped, tripping to the stairs. ‘ It ’ s inside her ...
inside her !’
    At their foot she turned to
face him. ‘This monstrosity ,this ... thing you’re sharing your life with,’ she whispered, clutching his shoulder. ‘Its
soul is damned beyond all redemption. I’ve seen the evil of man at work first
hand, but never have I felt anything so vile, so sinister as the presence
inside that room. I fear for you, for me, for all of us, but now at least I
understand why I had to return — to pray for its victims. It will create
hell on Earth — nothing can prevent that now. The church has dreaded its
coming for time immemorium and now it’s upon us ... and we only have ourselves
to blame.’
    As fast as her habit would
allow she rushed from the building. ‘Promise you won’t ever go back in there?
Leave here at once! Never return!’

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Eight

 
    A second sleepless night plagued him. Why had
the mother superior been so terrified? Why had she run? What had the she meant,
that Kristin’s soulwas beyond redemption? Kristin was irascible, enigmatic, plain
weird, maybe, but evil? That was absurd. He was too good a judge of character
to have let someone who was essentially bad in to his life. He placed trust in
the intrinsic goodness of the human spirit. He trusted Kristin. He loved
Kristin; he loved Kristin like he would never love another woman.
    The crucifix, the
claw-marks, the fingernail, the nun — they'd made his flesh creep, toyed
with his sanity, but he'd satisfied himself they were anomalous aberrations,
incomprehensible occurrences that