The Fourth Door

This story came to me in a dream earlier this year. A MR James-esque tale.

The Fourth Door by Jonathan Morris

My first sight of the church was as it emerged from the trees, that cold, blustery winter morning. I’d had to park a few hundred metres away, where the lane ended in a small, muddy copse, mainly used by drivers to execute a three-point turn when they realised they had taken a wrong turning. There was nothing else there but a few stone walls and window frames, all that remained of the village, and some rusting white goods that had been fly-tipped over the years. I found the vicar waiting for me, which reassured me that I had found the right place. He was an elderly man but how elderly it was hard to say; his face was lined, his eyes heavily lidded, the cheeks sunken, which could have meant he was looking good for a man in his eighties, or looking bad for a man in his fifties. He greeted me with a sort of rehearsed friendliness. It had taken a great deal of persuasion to get him to agree to meet, and I got the impression that his main wish of our meeting was to get it over with.

The persuasion had taken the form of emails, expressing my interest in visiting the derelict church of Saint --. His first response had been to refuse, and his second response had been to claim that it wasn’t safe. This whole area suffered from subsidence, so there was a danger of falling down a sinkhole or the church roof falling on top of us. His third response was to imply that there was some legal obstruction to a visit, because of some uncertainty over who owned the land. However, I eventually wore him down, with a combination of gentle enthusiasm and by implying that my reason for wishing to visit the church was of an academic nature, on behalf of one of our country’s esteemed educational institutions. That was, I suspect, what tipped the balance. He could refuse a mere hobbyist, but not a researcher from Oxford or Cambridge. Of course, I was not, but as I emphasized my detailed knowledge in our correspondence he could be forgiven for coming to the wrong conclusion.

After we exchanged pleasantries, he led me through the woods through what remained of the church path. The air was still and, when he wasn’t talking, the only sound was the crunch of frosted leaves and the snap of twigs. He did spend most of the time talking, however. He seemed to have taken on the role of tour guide, and spent the five-minute walk recounting the history of the church and the village. My contribution to the conversation consisted of a few easily answered questions and interested noises. I didn’t pay much attention to what he said, not because the subject didn’t interest me, but because there was nothing he could tell me that I didn’t already know. In fact, I knew a great deal more than he did, but I kept that to myself; he was enjoying the role of expert and might have been offended to have it taken away from him. Besides, he was literally going out of his way, and I had no wish to create the impression that his attendance was not appreciated.

The history of the church and its village followed a familiar pattern. A settlement in the area wasn’t recorded in the Domesday Book but the church was believed to be Norman, which meant that there was a settlement of a couple of dozen houses or so by the end of the twelfth century. There hadn’t been an archaeological survey or the area, but certainly by the time church records were available – the sixteenth century – there were still only two score houses in the area. It was around this time that the church underwent extensive renovation, or rebuilding after it had fallen down. This, in my experience, was fairly common with so-called twelfth-century churches; there may have been a church on the same site back then, the foundations might date back that far, but simply due to the nature of the materials – stone and wood – the buildings tended to succumb to the elements over time, and rubble flint would give way to stone conglomerate to clay mortar, to cut limestone blocks, to bricks.

In this case, the limestone would have been sourced locally, as one of the main industries of the village was quarrying, and by the seventeenth century there would have been several kilns turning the stone into quicklime used for construction in the surrounding towns and villages. According to records, that was when the village would have been at its height, with over fifty inhabitants. However, along then came the industrial revolution, with factories producing quicklime and a shift to mass-produced building materials, so the village went into decline. Of the course of the nineteenth century all the villagers moved out, with their homes falling into ruin and with the local flora quickly reclaiming all the gardens and roads, until all that was left to show there had ever been a village were a few walls and window frames, as I mentioned. And the church.

When we passed between the remains of the lych gate and the church finally came into view, its appearance was much as I had expected. This wasn’t a disappointment; on the contrary, I liked being proved right. The church was box-shaped with a fortress tower and what seemed like an intact roof, although the tiles were covered in moss and lichen. The design was Norman, but it had been almost entirely rebuilt during the middle-ages; the roof tiles, for instance, were Tudor, and the windows were ornamented in the gothic style. As far as I could see, the glass was intact, a testament to the durability of the lead latticework. The walls had also been replaced with limestone blocks, although I was interested to see that the lower sections retained the Norman rubble flint. The way churches were rebuilt over the centuries meant they consisted of distinct horizontal layers from successive architectural eras, rather like the strata in sedimentary rock.

Based on experience, I immediately recognised the church as being an early version of the cruciform design. Please indulge me a moment while I explain. One of the simplest shapes to build is a square; you can easily measure out right angles and sides of equal length with a piece of string. And that’s how the Normans worked, to begin with; think of the Tower of London. For churches, they would measure out a square then measure out four more, of the same size, to create an equilateral cross. Then they would measure out one more square to add to one of the branches to form the vertical part of the cross, known as the stipes. Then, simply, those squares would each form part of the church; the stipes would be the nave, while the square at the top would be the apse and the bottom of the bell tower. The two squares on either side of the centre would be, of course, the transept, named after the transom. I am simplifying hugely here, but then, so did the early Norman architects, as a matter of necessity when they designed their churches. The other thing I should mention is that in the early tradition, they would usually try to place the structure so that the apse faced the east; ostensibly to be pointing towards the Holy Temple in Jerusalem but also, of course, because that way it would get the most light. Now, this tended to be an inexact science, so the Normans would sometimes try to arrange it so that it was directed to the point where the sun rose on the relevant saint’s day but, in my experience, they would often just go with whatever was easiest to build and where the light wouldn’t be blocked by a hill or a tree. Anyway, the point of this explanation is to introduce you to the idea of the church being formed from squares. The easiest shape to build because, of course, it is symmetrical in both vertical and horizontal axes; so once you have built say, one wall with a window in the middle, all you need to do for the other sides is to repeat what you have already done. An early form of copy and paste. And that’s what the Normans did, resulting in very symmetrical, if rather repetitive, designs.

Apologies, that was rather long-winded, but I did warn you that my expertise was detailed, and when I saw the church I made observations similar to those above so that the vicar could be reassured that I was not merely an expert but a connoisseur. I also noted the medieval addition of buttresses to the design, presumably to avoid the repeat of whatever damage had befallen the original structure. Beyond that, though, I had little to say, and my companion was more than willing to fill the cold, damp and windless air with his words.

As we picked our way through brambles and stinging nettles, his commentary turned to the churchyard. I must admit, churchyards hold little interest for me, and the one surrounding the church was so densely overgrown it offered little opportunity for exploration. Most of the gravestones were covered in lichen, or had long-since had their engravings worn away by wind and rain. They were also all basic slabs or crosses, with no carvings of interest. As the village’s inhabitants had been rural workers, it was only to be expected that their memorials would be simple, and as the village had been abandoned over two centuries ago it was only to be expected that those memorials would be in an advanced state of decay. Indeed, many of them were broken, tilted or toppled, which the vicar explained was almost certainly due to the subsidence he had mentioned in his email. He said that he believed there had been limestone mine workings beneath us, and the subsidence was caused by the collapse of underground tunnels. He mentioned in passing that the final curate for the parish was buried here, and had been the last person to be buried here, but then advised me not to go looking for his grave because the ground might give way and it wouldn’t be worth looking for anyway. As my interest in the subject was slim, I was more than happy to assure him that I would heed his warning.

The entrance to the church was a limestone porch – a Tudor addition – with outer and inner doors, like an airlock. I expected the vicar to bring out a key to unlock the outer door, but he simply pushed it open, albeit with some effort to overcome the stiffness of the hinge. I asked him why it wasn’t locked. “No point,” he explained. “Nobody comes here, and even if they did, there’s nothing worth stealing”. He did have a point. We were, literally, off the beaten track, so the risk of youths breaking in and generating litter and graffiti were minimal. And even if they did, I’m not sure anyone would discover their handiwork for months if not years. My impression was that both the outer and inner doors hadn’t been opened for a long time, and that we were the first to breach the church in a decade or more.

The interior was dark, with only meagre winter light making it through the murky windows. That said, there was enough illumination to make out the basic form of the nave. There were rows of wooden structures, all cheaply constructed without any carvings or poppyheads or anything else of note. The walls were unadorned, save for some memorials and bequest boards. The font was cracked and the pulpit was carved out of solid rock. The altar was a simple wooden cross, I guessed oak given its condition and dark hue, and behind it was a windowless rood screen made of the same material, blocking the apse, but with a door in its centre, in order to maintain the symmetry of the layout; the design, as I mentioned before, being based around squares. The roof was a simple affair, a ship’s hull of hammered beams, clearly sixteenth century, but in reasonable condition; there were certainly no holes letting in any light. And the floor consisted of smooth flagstones. The air was still and somehow even colder than the outside, and the scuffle of our footsteps created a soft echo. It was entirely unremarkable, and everything I had wished for.

You may be wondering why a nonbeliever like me would be interested in churches. I suppose this is as good a point as any to explain. It began, well, with my son, Richard. When he was about two years old, he was diagnosed with a degenerative disease, its name doesn’t matter, but what matters is that my and my wife were told that he wouldn’t live to be ten, and that as time went by he would lose mobility, and lose his eyesight, and gradually would lack the energy to be awake for more than a few hours each day. This, as you might imagine, was a terrible, heartbreaking thing to face.

But face it we did. For Richard’s nine short years, we poured our love into that boy. We gave him everything that was in our hearts. We built our lives around him. And in those last few years, the most difficult, when he was restricted to bed or where we would carry him to the living room sofa or a special chair in the garden, in those last few years we made sure that we would show him no sign of our pain or our fear. We never cried in front of him, though we often cried after he had gone to sleep. He never knew that his life was going to be foreshortened. We never told him, though he must have wondered why he stopped going to school. Instead, we did everything we could to make his life worth living. We made sure that every day there would be something to make him smile. A special treat to eat, or a comedy programme or YouTube video, or a new toy, or a video message from one of his friends from school – though they became less and less frequent, as those friends moved on with their lives. So my wife and I stepped into the breach, playing games, sharing jokes, or just having jolly chats. There was always something, something so that as we put him down for the night, we could say, ‘This was the day that was special because of this’. He may not have had as many days as we would have liked, but we made sure that each and every one was the best that it could have been. And at the end of each day, I would wish him goodnight and he would close his eyes and say, ‘Night-night, daddy’. As I write these words, I can still hear him saying it.

It was towards the end of his life that I started to visit churches. At first, just the ones local to me. The reason? It wasn’t to pray, if that’s what you were thinking. I used to be an agnostic, but my son’s diagnosis made me an atheist. My reasoning was both logical and emotional. A god that could inflict such cruelty was not a god that deserved any respect. Better, surely, for there to be no god than for there to be one that could cure children of diseases and chose not to. So, yes, maybe there was some anger behind it, but the anger just gave my existing thoughts a fresh clarity. For some, grief pushes them the other way, and makes them seek comfort in faith. But it didn’t for me.

So if not to pray, what for? Because I needed silence, and there is nowhere as silent as a church. When you live in a city, there is the ever-present rumble of traffic, day and night, indoors and outdoors. Except in old churches, where thick stone walls and heavy wooden doors keep it out. The silence is pure and I found I could have peace. It wasn’t because I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I wanted the quiet to allow me to have no thoughts.

That said, my attention did wander, as I began to learn the names of the various sections and fixtures, and to note the differences in design and form. I had to keep moving to new churches, because I found that if I visited the same one more than a couple times, a well-meaning cleric would mistake me for a potential new recruit and try to engage me in conversation. Why are you here, they would ask, is there something you want to talk about? I didn’t want to seem ungrateful but there was nothing I wanted to talk about, nothing that talking would make any better. So instead, I kept seeking out new churches, the older and quieter the better. And what at first had become a sanctuary became a kind of distraction, a reason to get out of the house for a couple of hours. And then, after my son died, it became what you might call an obsession. When my son was alive and agile, he’d play a game on my phone, to track down these little Japanese aliens. You’ve gotta catch them all! Well, I’m doing that, but with old churches. The more I knew about them, the more I wanted to know about them. But nothing to do with the purpose for which they were built.

So, yes, it was an escape. And after my son died, the grief was... intolerable. My wife and I had built our lives around him and now those lives had turned to ash. There was nothing in our hearts but absence. Grief can come in many forms. It can make the world seem grey, it can make life feel hollow. It can be an ache in the stomach, a weight on your back, or a tightness around your throat. All the time, during our daylight hours and at night in our dreams. As I awoke, my first thought was always, ‘My son is dead’, and as I went to sleep my last thought was, ‘My son is dead’.

I don’t know if looking after Richard had been keeping my wife and I together. Maybe it had. But after he was gone, we had nothing in common. And grief has other effects. The love for the lost one is so great, so all-encompassing, you can’t feel love at all. One way of coping with grief is to build a wall around yourself. My wife and I built separate walls, and the end result was to keep each other out. I would visit churches and she would do her things, and soon she moved out and we divorced, and I was finally alone.

My parents had died, and left me a couple of properties to rent out, so I found I didn’t need to go to work to cover my modest means, so I just focussed on my obsession. It did, after all, give me a way to fill each day. Maybe I’d have a day of research, at home on the internet or in libraries. Or I’d go on a visit, which meant travel and an overnight stay – by this point I’d ticked off any churches within day-trip distance. Travel meant packing and tickets and booking and making sure my phone was charged so that I could take photographs and all sorts of other things. You could just say it was a reason to get out of the house, because I didn’t want to be there, surrounded by memories of my dead son and my dead marriage. Maybe I should have said that. But this account is for my benefit, not yours, and I’m not going to have another chance to explain myself so I might as well do it my way here.

I used the light from my phone to illuminate some of the memorials and bequest boards, but they were of little note. I didn’t feel any impulse to photograph anything; I have a rule of only photographing unusual features, of which there were none. It is enough for me to make notes in my journal; I am not a trainspotter. That said, when we proceeded through the door into the apse I wish I had taken some photographs, as what I found there was quite remarkable.

Not that it seemed remarkable when I entered. It was a square room, at the bottom of the bell tower. The walls were stained from oil lamps, and there was a wooden table in the corner, and a mild smell of damp in the air, but otherwise the only features of note in the room were the four doors. It was laid out in perfect symmetry again, you see, with a door in the middle of each side. There was the door through which we had entered, to the west, set in the rood screen, and there were similar doors set into the three stone walls, north, east and south. All with semi-circular Norman arches, suggesting they were the products of the eleventh or twelfth century, and all made of four vertical planks of oak, held together with horizontal iron straps and with a locking bar in a basic ‘branch and twig’ design. I had seen similar doors before, so did not consider them notable at first sight, although sometimes the doors can turn out to be the oldest parts of the building, such as the doors at St Peter’s Church in Woking. Alright, I admit it; there is something of the trainspotter in me.

The apse held no interest for the vicar, who gave the impression that he wanted to get the tour over with as quickly as possible. He crossed the chamber, over the threadbare remains of a carpet, and opened the door on the left, simply by turning the wrought iron handle. It swung open with a creak. Inside, a set of stairs wound upwards. The vicar indicated for me to follow him up the stairs, and I did. The stairwell was extremely narrow and dark and the steps were little more than six inches deep. At the top, another unlocked door led into the ringing room. Save for three narrow windows, there were no features of note, though I noticed there were no steps or ladder to the belfry. When I asked why, the vicar said he thought it was because the floor above was not safe. Looking up, and seeing the gaps of light between the rotting planks, and noting the smell of damp wood, I was inclined to agree. I could make out enough to satisfy my curiosity; the bells had been removed, and the smears on the charcoal-black crossbeams suggested it was now home to birds or a colony of bats.

I took some photographs, mainly to give the vicar the impression that the ascent had been worthwhile, and then we returned to the apse. Without a further word, the vicar closed the door behind us, crossed to the door opposite and opened it, again simply by turning the handle. Inside was another set of stairs, this time twisting downwards. The vicar paused to take his phone out of his pocket and turn on the torch, before indicating that we should proceed.

This stairwell was as tight and treacherous as the one up the ringing room, and my shoulders brushed against the walls on our descent. The vicar opened another door and I followed him into a small crypt. Small enough for the roof not to require pillars of support, it was square, and of the same dimensions as the room above. The vicar stepped aside to give me access. I moved my phone-light around the room, and found the floor was carpeted in a kind of black sponge, which extended about halfway up the surrounding walls. The smell of damp was overpowering and combined with something pungent. My guess was that this chamber regularly flooded and mould had got into the flagstones. I took one step forward, feeling the unpleasant sensation of my boots sinking into something soft, then swung my torch beam around the walls. There were some indecipherable markings, and on the far side the rusted remains of some construction implements. I didn’t take any photographs, I just nodded to the vicar that I had seen enough and we returned to the stairwell, closing the door behind us, and returned once more to the apse.

I expected the vicar to then open the fourth door, but instead, he made for the door to the nave. I stopped him and asked about the other door; where did it lead? He said that he didn’t know, and when pressed, said that he didn’t think it led anywhere, it was just there for appearances. I realised his point; the presence of the fourth door meant that each side of the room was near-identical, and if it had not been present, it would have spoiled the symmetry.

Nevertheless, I had never come across any designers who had been so concerned about symmetry that they had installed a false door, so I took the opportunity to examine it. It was just like the others, with heavy, ancient beams held together by rough iron bands. And there was a locking mechanism and a handle. I turned it to lift the latch, but to no avail. The door did not move. It was, it seemed, locked, and peering closely at the edge of the door, I could see that a bolt was indeed in place, wedged into a bolthole in the doorframe. I tried pulling the door again, to see if it could even be moved, but it was solid. I turned and asked the vicar if there was a key. He shook his head, replying that if there was one it was lost, and repeated his assertion that the door didn’t lead anywhere. Behind it there would just be a stone wall. To be honest, the more categorical his denials became, the more I felt that they were the product of guesswork, and the more I pressed him on the subject. The door, like the others, was probably the oldest part of the church. Doors are built to be opened, particularly if somebody has taken the trouble of installing a lock.

The consequence of this interrogation, though, was merely to sour relations between the vicar and myself. He checked his phone and said that it was time to leave, or he would be late for another appointment. I was disappointed and a little offended by his sudden eagerness to relinquish my company. I tried to apologise, saying how much I appreciated him showing me the church, but he brushed it aside. I had seen everything there was to see, he said. He added that he hoped that what I had seen was useful to my research, and, as we returned to the nave, he said that if not, I was welcome to stay on my own and continue my work. The church door was never locked, so there was no need for him to remain on the premises; he just asked that I remembered to close it behind me, to prevent animals from getting in. I agreed, shook his hand and repeated my thanks. Then, with a stiff smile, he departed.

I considered returning to the apse to resume my inspection of the fourth door, but then a another thought occurred. Before I made any further efforts to open it, I should at least be sure that it did lead somewhere, and that it wasn’t just for show. And there would be one simple way to tell. So I waited a couple of minutes, and then made my way out of the main door, through the porch and stepped outside, being careful to close both doors behind me.

Stepping out onto the path, I realised my tour of the church must have taken longer than I thought, as the sky was already growing dark and the air had grown noticeably colder and sharper on the skin. The trees surrounded the graveyard were now in silhouette and the undergrowth had been drained of colour, to become a mass of grey. If I were to remain it could not be for long or I might have trouble finding my way back to my car.

As if in answer to my thought, the sound of an engine drifted through the breeze, quickly growing faint, confirming that the vicar was on his way to his next appointment. So I was alone to begin my survey.

Using the light of my torch, I began to pick my way around the side of the church. My focus was on the ground, making sure I didn’t fall into a bush or a nettle patch, but I looked up often enough to make sure I was never more than a couple of yards from the wall. The reason being to avoid any graves, as custom and the need for drainage meant that graves would never be sited too close to the church itself. Every now and then a bramble caught on my trousers and tugged me back, and I had to twist my way through some gaps in the bushes, but it still only took me a few minutes to walk the length of the south side of the nave, then around the south transept, and then the south side of the tower itself. At each corner point, the wall was buttressed with limestone, and there was a hemispherical protrusion also made of stone, at the point where the stairwell from the crypt would lead into the apse. I continued around the side of the church to the eastern wall of the tower. And, rather to my disappointment, it turned out the vicar was correct. The wall was featureless. There was no protrusion at the midpoint of the wall to allow for any room or steps to lie behind the eastern door. There was no sign that any such protrusion had ever existed, as the masonry was all part of the original build, as far as I could make out in the increasing gloom. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I continued for the whole length of the wall and turned the corner, to see that on the northern side of the tower there was indeed a protrusion for the spiral stairs up to the ringing room. So it seemed the matter was settled. Nevertheless, I thought I would take another look at the fourth door, if only to photograph it, as a medieval curiosity; a door that only existed to maintain the symmetry. A door that led nowhere.

I took some photographs of the wall for reference, then began to wonder whether it would actually be possible to photograph the fourth door. With the daylight quickly fading, the interior of the church would now be too dark for the images to be clear. I should’ve taken the opportunity earlier. Why didn’t I? I cursed myself for not considering the fourth door to be remarkable at the time. I would have to come back another day. And, as the door wasn’t locked, I wouldn’t need the assistance of the vicar, I could visit unaccompanied.

It was as these thoughts tumbled through my mind that my attention drifted to one of the overgrown gravestones. It was smothered in white, froth-patterned lichen and worn away, the edges chipped and mossy, and in the evening shade, it was hard to make out the words engraved on it. But I could still piece them together. ‘Here lies Curate Clarence Grove, Died 1837’. As the village had been abandoned about two centuries ago, and the church at the same time, I realised that this must the last resting place of the curate, the last man to be buried here. That said, there was no indication that this gravestone was more recent, or in any better condition, than the others. I peered closely at it in the half-light, and could make out some further engravings further down the stone, but they were covered with brambles and nettles. I dug out my phone and switched on the torch, but even then it was impossible to make out a single letter. But there was certainly something written there. And so I squatted down, and began to pinch and untwist the brambles, only to immediately regret my decision as a thorn scraped my skin. To do this job properly, I would need gardening gloves, secateurs and some sort of solvent.

I was about to stand up again when I noticed something in the grass by my feet, resting against my left shoe. Something with a hard, straight shape. I illuminated it with my phone and realised it was a rod of rusty metal. A key. A large, rusted iron key. I remained crouched, and reached down for it, felt it in my fingers, and then the ground gave way.

I only slipped maybe a foot or so, like treading in an unexpected rabbit hole. There was a brief sensation of loss of balance and I fell forward, into the nest of brambles, covering my face with my hands. I felt them scrape on my sleeves, but that was as nothing to the sensation that followed; a sharp, twisting, agonising pain in my left ankle. It was so strong, and so sudden that it took all the breath from my lungs. I resisted the urge to cry out, for what good would it do, and tried to lift my foot out of the hole – for that it is all that had happened, the ground had only sunk by a few inches under my weight – but with every movement the pain sharpened. I drew breath and steadied myself, balancing on my other foot, and tried to wriggle my toes. I couldn’t tell if I succeeded. If I could, then it was merely a sprain. If I couldn’t, then it was merely a break. But there was nothing ‘merely’ about the pain. It would have been less agonising if my leg had been snared in a rusty animal trap.

I took a few moments to consider my next move because any move was likely to be difficult and result in pain. First, I pocketed the key and switched off my telephone light to conserve the battery. There was no signal, not that I expected one, but if there had been a single bar I could have messaged for help. Without that, my options were limited. I could stay where I was, as the sky grew ever darker, and try to suffer the night. But nobody but the vicar knew where I was and he had no reason to return. Or I would have to make my way back to my car and then, somehow, drive to the nearest hospital, or somewhere with a phone signal so I could call an ambulance.

Despite the pain, thinking of my predicament as a problem to be solved in a series of steps was, at least, something to hold onto. But I still had the first, and most difficult, decision to make. I was in crippling pain, and every step I would make would be shaky and agonising. I could either return to the edge of the church and make my way back the way I had come. Or I could push through the brambles of the churchyard, directly towards the lych gate. That would be the shorter route, but also the more difficult and hazardous. What if I stumbled again? What if I injured myself further?

But the gate was closer. I fancied I could make the gate posts out in the darkness. And so, without allowing myself the luxury of further thought, I set off for what I thought was the gateway to the graveyard. I had to push through the brambles, step by step, each step with my left foot a blinding, searing pain, which now extended up as far as the knee. And it was joined by more cuts to my hands, to my wrists, as I forced apart the branches ahead of me.

I’m not sure how long it took me to reach the gate. By the time I got there, night had fallen and the graveyard was little more than a mass of grey. I was breathing shallowly and quickly as a way of managing the pain, and whenever it got too much, I put my weight on my other foot for a moment of relief. But I pushed on and on, and finally reached the path, and the gate. Now all I had to do was to make it back to the car.

The path had only seemed a short distance on the way out, but now I was returning through the dark, with a throbbing ankle, exhausted, my mind narrowed to a single thought, it felt like a mile. The trees formed a tunnel, their snaggled leafless branches all around me, a mass of twisting and coiling. Beneath my feet, the mud was frozen, hard and slippery. Even with two good legs, it would have been treacherous. As it was, all I could do was make my way carefully, slowly, steadily, agonisingly. Step by step, just thinking, my car is just ahead, one more step, then another.

Then my car came into sight, in the copse where I had parked barely an hour ago, an hour that had felt like a week. I staggered over to it, unlocked it, opened the door and slumped into the seat. And then I just took a breath, wallowing in the relief of being back in the familiar smell and comfort, feeling the plastic of the steering wheel beneath my fingers.

But as it no longer carried my weight and filled with blood, my twisted ankle protested, giving another skewer-sharp burst of pain. I breathed deeply, bracing myself, and closed the car door. Then I twisted myself into a position which minimised the pain, started the engine, put the car into reverse and set off.

I don’t remember much about the drive. I think my mind was in a state similar to drunkenness, as my focus was so strongly on the road that I lost all sense of time and didn’t retain a single memory. I know I must have checked the GPS and followed a route to the closest hospital. Once I had started moving, and I was on a road with other traffic, with the blinding headlights of other cars flashing by, with the blood-red taillights of the car ahead of me, the thought of halting and calling for an ambulance didn’t occur. I just had to keep on going.

But somehow I made it to the nearest hospital. I drove into the ambulance bay, halted, and opened the door. Immediately a porter appeared, ready to admonish me, but when he heard my cry of pain, he realised I was there as a patient and brought out a wheelchair. I remembered holding his upper arms as I was lifted into it, even as the blood rushing to my ankle set off another flush of agony. But I had the presence of mind to press my car keys into his hand, telling him to park it somewhere, anywhere, before I was wheeled into the warmth and light and antiseptic of the corridor and allowed myself to lose consciousness.

*    *   *

I was in the hospital for four days. Over that time, the doctors and nurses admonished me for walking with a broken ankle. My protestations that if had not walked I would still be in the graveyard, probably dead of exposure, did not elicit sympathy. Instead, the fact that I had then gone on to drive just elicited further admonishment. What if there had been an accident? What if I had had to brake suddenly?

Aside from these conversations, the four days passed slowly. I had no visitors and little email correspondence. I thanked the vicar for his tour of the church and asked if he would be willing to accompany me on a return visit, and received no reply. I moved my photographs into folders on the cloud, dated and labelled, then spent the rest of my time researching churches for future visits. But they all seemed rather unremarkable in comparison to my most recent visit. They had architectural features, they had histories, but there would be little to be learned from visiting them in person. I would only be doing so out of habit. And the thought occurred to me, as I perused the photographs of churches, that perhaps I had made the first step of ending the addiction. Perhaps it was time, at last, to move on, and rebuild my life.

It was with that thought that I packed my sports bag with my dirty clothes, laptop and other belongings, preparing to leave the hospital to return home. But as I opened the bedside drawer and picked up my keys, my wallet and my phone, my fingers came upon something else. Something cold, and rough, and metal. In my pain and my recovery, it had completely slipped my mind. The key I had found in the graveyard. It weighed heavily in my hand, and that weight transferred itself to my thoughts. It would be several hours’ drive to my house, and if I were to make a second visit to the church, as I knew I must, that would be another day or two of travelling, with an overnight stay. Better that I should make my return visit now. It was early afternoon, it would still be daylight when I got there. I checked my laptop for any message from the vicar, but there was none, but it didn’t matter. I had already resolved to go back and finish what I had started. Despite my left foot being in plaster, I would be able to drive, and the roads were quiet, so I wouldn’t be taking a risk. And it would be better for me to make a short drive and find somewhere to stay overnight than to attempt the long drive home. The doctors and nurses couldn’t admonish me for that.

After an unremarkable drive, I pulled into the small, muddy copse and parked in the same spot. Five days of intermittent rain had turned the ground into a wet sludge, but not so deep that I had any worry of the car being stuck. It did, however, make it a little difficult to walk to the lych gate with my left ankle in plaster. But I barely noticed the occasional jab of pain. I was more taken by a sense of nostalgia, even though it had only been a few days since my previous visit. But such was the trauma of that visit, and such was the strangeness of seeing the church and graveyard in clear daylight, that I felt as though I had been away for a month or a year. The place, which had become merely a jumble of images in a dream, was ahead of me in perfect clarity, the cold, damp air full of the scents of wet grass, earth and tree-bark. I could make out the approximate route through the brambles I had taken on my departure. I couldn’t see the gravestone where I had fallen, but that was of no concern. My interest lay in the church, and that was a simple walk along an only partially overgrown path. It only took a few minutes – maybe forty or fifty twinges in my left ankle – before I reached the door and turned the handle. It took more effort than expected, the bolt being heavier than I remember, the door being stiffer, but at last it swung open and I stepped into the cool, silent, damp darkness within, the scuffle of my steps on the flagstones the only sound to be heard, all other noises deadened by the ancient stone walls.

Enough light was making it through the grubby glass to send thin beams down into the nave. It was just as I remembered it, though my memory felt like only a sketch against the weight of the reality. The walls were rubble flint, stained with the residue of oil lamps, there was a wooden table in the corner, the threadbare remains of a carpet on the stone floor, and the air smelt of damp rot. And, on the four sides of the room, were the four doors. The one through which I had entered, and three more set into stone walls beneath Norman arches. Doors made of oak, with horizontal iron straps and locking bars in a branch-and-twig design. North, east and south. North, leading up to the ringing room. South, leading down to the cellar. And east.

I ran my fingers over the wood, as though to remind myself of its solidity. Feeling each gnarl, smoothed-out by age. Then I looked down to the keyhole. Feeling a strange heaviness in my heart, as though troubled by a memory, I crouched down and peered through it. There was only darkness. Then I took out the key I had found, and slipped it into the hole of the lock. It found no obstruction. I turned it, feeling the teeth of the key biting the teeth of the lock. For a moment I thought the key was wrong, or the lock was jammed, but then it gave, and the key turned a full rotation. The door was unlocked.

I turned the iron handle to lift the latch on the other side. I pulled but the door wouldn’t move. It was stuck solid. After all this, I wouldn’t find out what lay behind it.

Or maybe... now that the bolt was lifted, it should only be a matter of prising it open. But for that, I would need a crowbar. Or something I could use as a crowbar.

It was with these thoughts in my mind that I removed the key from the lock, and crouched down again to examine the keyhole. As before, I could make out nothing but blackness beyond. And my eye, unaccustomed to the darkness, gave the shadows a grainy texture, like an old film. But slowly, as the moments passed, I began to see something in the darkness. A stone wall. Not right behind the door, but maybe one and a half metres beyond. And not just a wall, a wall made of rubble flint, like the oldest parts of the church. It was hard to make out much more, my field of vision being limited to the keyhole, but I could see that the wall curved inwards. And then, looking down, I could see that it disappeared into the deepest, black shadow, so dark that my eyesight would never be able to penetrate it. But I knew at once what it was. It was the top of a well. I would still need to get it open, but at least I had solved the mystery of the door’s purpose.

And then I could no longer see the wall beyond the door, there was just blackness again. I assumed it was simply a failure of my sight, but then my eye felt a warm gust of air. Warm air? And there was a scent with it too, a sweet smell I couldn’t immediately identify. It was like strawberries and mint. And then I realised. It was breath. What had blocked out the keyhole was breathing through it. I was smelling, tasting its breath. I blinked against the air, then heard the faintest scuffle, the rustle of a surgical gown, and then a voice I had thought I would never hear again. “Night- night, daddy.”

I backed away from the door, unable to understand, unable to believe. What I had heard must have been an hallucination, a memory brought about from fatigue or illness. But I also knew, without any shade of doubt, that there was something on the other side of that door. Something that had blocked out the keyhole, and created a waft of sweetened air.

And then – the pain. I had forgotten my ankle in plaster, and in backing away I had put too much weight on it, and it buckled beneath me. It twisted, and with a sharp, angry bolt of agony, I fell heavily onto my left thigh, trying in vain to halt my fall with my left hand. Within a moment I knew nothing else was broken, but that I’d have bruises along the side of my leg and torso and a second pain told me that I’d bruised my left elbow too. The combined effect took the wind out of me, and I took a few moments to shift to a sitting position on my backside, facing the east door.

The door creaked and began to open.

I had unlocked it, I had unbolted it, and now... whatever it had jammed it wasn’t jamming it anymore. I didn’t care to know. I was gripped by a terror so strong it was like choking, it was like drowning, it was like leaning over a cliff-edge. The feeling of his empty bedroom, just as he left it, the absence of his life creating a new, shadowy presence. Death. Absolute, immutable, cruel, heartbreaking death. I edged away from the door on my backside, slithering, slipping, until my fingers found the rough carpet, and I could grip enough to pull myself to my feet. And then, once I had regained my balance, along with a whole new set of aches and pains, I turned and hobbled as quickly as I could to the west door. I reached it, made it through, without looking back at whatever had opened the east door and was now entering the chamber. I didn’t think to close the west door behind me, I didn’t want to spend another moment longer in the church. Instead, I lurched down the apse, ignoring the agony, to the church’s outer door, and stumbled through it, out into the cold, clear light of day. But even then I didn’t stop. I kept tumbling, half-running, down the path to the remains of the lych gate, to the muddy copse where my car was parked. Once inside, I started the engine, turned the car to face the way out, and began to drive.

 *    *   *

Police report: Mr Quinn, 20 December 2025.

Responding to concerns from Mr Quinn’s ex-wife, myself and Constable Davis visited his household at 9am. There was no response to us ringing the doorbell, so we forced open the door. This was with some difficulty as it had been obstructed by a chair and bookcase, in the manner of a barricade. Upon entering, we made our presence known but received no response. We searched the downstairs of the property, finding the living room and kitchen in a state of disarray, and finding the rear door blocked by a cupboard. We then proceeded up the stairs with some difficulty as they had also been blocked by a chest of drawers. Reaching the landing, we found the bathroom and the spare bedroom in a state of disarray, then attempted to open the door to the main bedroom. Unable to do so, we used an axe to break it down. Inside, we found that it had been blocked by a wardrobe, and that the window had similarly been covered. As a result, the room was in almost complete darkness until we switched the light on and discovered Mr Quinn’s remains, along with the handwritten account appended to this report.