The Oxenaforda Set
The Reverend Elias Blackwood grimaced at the gaping hole in his dais.
“You’re not going to disturb his remains too much, are you?” He said, peering into the earthy abyss. “I’m not too keen on any grave being desecrated in this way, let alone one as sacred as this.”
Alice Jones, the archaeologist excavating the grave of legendary playwright Thomas Cranmer, glanced at the vicar and smiled.
“Relax, Reverend, I’m not moving anything,” Alice said, grinning. “It’s not the skeleton I’m interested in; it’s what’s potentially buried with the skeleton.”
“Very well,” Elias said. “Just be careful, please.”
Sally Darcy, the church’s Youth Pastor and Alice’s identical twin, albeit unrelated, waltzed into the main building, clutching a tray of refreshments.
“How are you getting on?” She said, delicately placing the tray in a pew. “Has old Cranmer started to emerge?”
“Yeah, I’ve uncovered some bone,” Alice said, grinning. “No sign of any ancient manuscripts, though.”
Sally crouched down close to the grave and frowned at the facsimile of Francis’ gravestone.
“How can you be so calm with the threat of that curse hanging over you?” She said, placing a hand on her sternum.
“It’s just words, Sally, nothing more,” Alice said, fixating on her work. “Simply one last poem to leave the world with.”
“But how do you know?” Sally said, scrutinising the inscription. “It’s certainly put off other people from digging him up for over four hundred years.”
Alice rolled her eyes and sighed. “Look, even if the curse is real, I’m gonna be fine. One, it states that only someone who moves his bones will be cursed, which I’m not doing, and second, it explicitly says, “cursed be he who moves my bones.” I don’t subscribe to those pronouns.”
“I suppose,” Sally said, getting to her feet and backing away. “Carry on.”
An evil yet jovial cackle of laughter filled the room, making everyone present glance around them.
“Was that you, Eli?” Sally said, her heart beating at a million miles a second and her legs trembling like jelly.
“I’m afraid it wasn’t,” Elias said, bowing his head and shaking it. “I’m sure it was simply the wind flowing through the church.”
Sally gazed at Alice, her face completely pale. “Maybe you should recover the grave and call the whole thing off, just to be sure.”
Alice shook her head. “I’m not doing that, not when I’m this close to finding his manuscripts.”
Sally scanned the church around her. “Something tells me that sound wasn’t just the wind.”
A draught filled the room, and the laughter returned.
Sally cowered, glancing up at the ceiling above her.
“Do you even know for sure whether Cranmer was buried with his plays?” She said, shakily pouring herself a cup of tea.
Alice gawped at Sally, and shook her head. “No. It’s just a legend, but the feeling that it might be based in truth is gonna bug me for forever if I don’t double-check.”
She flicked some soil off Cranmer’s ribcage, and used her trowel to scoop under it.
Sally crossed her arms, jamming her hands into her armpits. “The Curse of the Pharaohs was true, wasn’t it? Everyone involved in that excavation died shortly afterwards in mysterious circumstances. Aren’t you worried that would happen to you?”
Alice glared at Sally. “That’s purely coincidental. Mosquitoes and illnesses were probably in the air anyway. Those guys were already gonna die whether or not they uncovered the Pharaoh’s tomb.”
Sally folded into a ball in her pew. “Fair enough.”
She placed her head under her arms, and muttered a prayer of protection under her breath.
Alice dug under the soil and was sure she struck paper.
Her eyes widened as she finely brushed a thin layer of soil aside, revealing a crumpled bit of parchment.
Alice’s mouth opened into a manic grin, and she glanced back at her doppelganger.
“Sally,” she said. “I’ve found the plays.”
Lady Cisnie sprang from her ball position and leaned over the pew in front. “So they’re real then, and haven’t disintegrated?”
Alice laughed. “It looks like it.”
Sally jumped at the sound of heavy rain patting on the windows.
She squished her eyebrows together and checked her phone.
“That’s odd,” she said, examining her screen. “We weren’t expecting a storm today.”
A loud crackle of thunder made her fall onto the floor.
Alice shrugged. “The weather forecast isn’t right all the time.”
She spun round to the grave, and carefully pried out the paper.
As she did it, Cranmer’s skeleton shifted slightly.
Alice sensed the silhouette of a man in her peripheral vision, but she shrugged it off as Elias.
She checked behind her anyway, but there was no one there.
“Huh?” She said, standing up and scanning the church. “Where’s Elias?”
Sally gawped at Alice and shrugged.
A flash of lightning and a crackle of thunder announced the return of Elias Blackwood into the church.
He ran down the nave, splashing Holy Water all over the place, and uttering a house blessing.
Sally frowned at Alice. “Eli seems certain the Curse of Cranmer’s Grave is real.”
Alice narrowed her eyes and returned to the task in hand.
The booming laugh filled the church once more, accompanied by the pit-patting of rain and the cackle of thunder.
“That isn’t the wind, Alice,” Sally said, glancing around her. “That is very much a laugh.”
A bang of thunder made her fall back into the pew.
“The question is, who’s the one laughing?”
Sally paused for a moment, as the laugher flowed through the room, and then her eyes bulged.
She recognised the stranger’s laugh, and the thought of it made her heart rattle against her ribcage.
“That’s Cranmer laughing,” she said, lunging over the pew in front towards Alice. “You’ve released the ghost of Francis Cranmer.”
Alice gazed back at Sally. “No, I haven’t. All of this is coincidental. Anyway, I’m almost done.”
The archaeologist pulled out reams of old parchment from underneath the playwright’s remains, and put them on a pile next to her.
“We know Cranmer wrote the plays, Alice,” Sally said. “Why else would he write a poem especially for his epitaph?”
Sally glanced to her left, and saw the dark figure of a man.
She screamed, and crawled along the pew.
Lady CIsnie glanced around the room, and saw Elias splashing holy water on the altar.
She gulped for air, and glanced at the mysterious stranger.
A flash of lightning lit up the figure, and Sally saw Francis Cranmer grin maliciously at her.
“Alice, you need to recover the grave immediately,” Sally said. “Cranmer’s spirit is in the room with us.”
Alice sighed. “You don’t need to be here anymore, Sally. Go home.”
“And leave you and Eli at Cranmer’s mercy? No way,” Sally said.
Alice gestured around the church. “Isn’t God gonna protect us?”
Sally gazed up at the vaulted ceiling. “Fine, I’ll leave you in peace.”
She crouched on the floor and curled into a ball.
“Most Heavenly Father, protect your sacred house and my friends from the forces of Satan, amen.”
Sally swung open the front doors and screamed.
The rain was enough for the River Cignet to burst its banks, and a huge flood was flowing outside the church.
She closed the door and panted.
“I can’t go home; the church is surrounded by water,” Sally said, slipping back into a pew. “Rebury the grave, now.”
“Relax, Sally, I’m gonna be done soon,” Alice said, whipping out the last reams of parchment underneath the grave. “I’ve got all the old manuscripts out.”
“You might need to put them back, Alice,” Sally said, shakily pouring herself a cup of tea.
Alice scowled at her clone. “No way, I’m not abandoning this project after I’ve come all this way.”
“How are you not concerned by this?” Sally said, gesturing to the carnage around her. “This wouldn’t have happened if you left Cranmer’s final resting place alone.”
“Trust me, this would’ve happened whether I excavated the grave or not,” Alice said. “Francis Cranmer was not some supernatural entity with the power to cause mayhem with words.”
Alice sensed a face pressed against her cheek, making her blood run cold.
She slowly turned her head and locked eyes with Francis Cranmer.
Alice let out a blood-curdling wail and backed away from the spectre.
Sally rushed over to the altar and grabbed the gold cross atop it. “Do you believe me now?”
The archaeologist’s breath burst in and out of her. “Possibly, I don’t know.”
“Then rebury the grave,” Sally said, leaping over the dais to face Cranmer.
Checking that Lady Cisnie wasn’t looking, Alice quickly placed the manuscripts into her satchel.
She then flicked soil over the skeleton, watching it disappear into the earth.
Alice held out the cross with a wobbly arm, recoiling from Cranmer’s spirit.
“I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every Satanic power of the enemy, every spectre from hell, and all your fell companions.”
“Lady Cisnie!” Elias said, marching over to Sally and scowling at her. “You are not qualified to say those words, nor am I.”
Alice frantically placed the last remaining bits of earth over the playwright’s remains, ensuring it was evenly placed.
Sally swalled some saliva and backed away from the ghost of Cygninia’s famous son.
“In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, be gone, and stay from this creature of God,” Sally said, almost falling into the grave. “For it is he who commands you, he who flung you headlong from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell.”
“Stop that at once, Lady Cisnie,” Elias said, grappling with his Youth Pastor for the golden cross, whilst Francis guffawed at the scene. “You’re not in a place to conduct exorcisms when you feel like it.”
Alice stood up and frowned at the fighting Christians. “Could you guys help me put the gravestone back on, please?”
Elias and Sally glanced at each other, and Elias grabbed the cross from her grasp.
“Very well,” he said, placing the cross down.
Together, the three of them lifted the heavy stone and shuffled above the grave.
“You ready?” Alice said, shaking under the weight of the slab.
“Ready,” the vicar and the Youth Pastor said in unison.
Alice counted to three, and the trio delicately placed the stone over the grave.
A blinding light filled the room, and Francis Cranmer gave a piercing scream.
Then there was silence, apart from breathing.
The birds outside began to sing, and sunlight flooded in through the stained-glass windows.
Sally gazed around her, and broke into uncontrollable laughter.
“We did it,” she said, grabbing Elias and jumping up and down with him. “We’ve defeated the curse of Cranmer’s grave!”
“Yes, quite,” Elias said, grimacing at her and backing away.
Alice placed her satchel over her shoulder and wandered down the nave.
“I’m gonna go back to Kernow now,” she said, smiling at the vicar and the Youth Pastor. “Thanks for allowing me to excavate the grave, sorry for all the weird stuff that happened whilst I was doing it.”
“We are glad you enjoyed yourself,” Elias said. “But I daresay we will allow you to conduct further excavations here in the future.”
Alice grinned at Elias. “That’s fine, I was only interested in the grave anyway. I can come back as a general visitor though, right?”
“Of course,” Sally said. “You can visit whenever you want, and maybe even attend the Sunday service.”
“I’ll think about it,” Alice said.
“When you reburied Francis, did you place the manuscripts back under the skeleton?” Sally said.
“Yeah, ‘course,” Alice said, tightly hugging her satchel. “I don’t need them. Obviously Francis wrote the plays. You were right; why else would he have at least arranged for a poem to be his epitaph? In some ways the excavation was a complete waste of time.”
“I see,” Elias said, rolling his eyes.
Alice creaked open the front door of the church. “Anyway, bye, nice knowing you.”
As she opened the door wider, Sally lumbered forward.
“Be careful,” she said. “Water might flood into-“
Alice opened the door the fullest it could go, revealing the graveyard outside to be completely bone dry.
“Oh, ok,” Sally said. “Goodbye, Alice. Come back soon, I hope.”
Alice bid farewell to Darcy and Blackwood, and made her way up the path.
As she did so, she squinted from the sharp pain in her head.
Alice gently rubbed it on the way to her car, to soothe it before she could get a pack of Paracetamol.
With their visitor out of the way, Sally and Elias cleared up the church before making their way home as well.
As they did so, they both made a mental note to buy some more painkillers to combat the migraines they had come down with, and deep beneath the stone slab on the dais, low, deep laughter could just about be heard.
The Robinsonverse 