Church of St. Giles in the Fields, heading for 9pm Sunday May 5th, 1771
The Reverend had been about to be sent for when he arrived at the church: he had arrived to find a good portion of the village and a few confused strangers from amongst the inn's customers awaiting him in and around the sturdy narthex, much as peasants fleeing some neighbour's attack must have gathered awaiting the leader of their defense in centuries before. In the present, however, Cecil excuses himself about halfway through the throng before he's more broadly noticed and the general exited murmur turns to more directed calls for some folk to be let through and others to wait.
The Vicar opens the heavy door for his flock, noting the soft growl of its ancient ironwork. Widow Sexton is swiftly in with him, the older inn daughters following her lead to light candles once the first is burning from her lantern. Light spreads out from the doorway up the nave, at first pale and cold-looking in the cave of massive masonry and then warming and encircling as more and more flames reflect off the whitewashed plaster of rising arcs. People enter, bringing with them more lanterns and odd candles, the latter mostly grabbed by inn guests and villagers brought out into the throng by the commotion outside.
Tom makes it in a little after his master, having been just barely among those urged back as the Young Squire was escorted in, leaning on Arnold Swanton. Master Fox had passed him in a glitter of silvered embroidery, the unique scent of his perfume shot through with that of the fresh blood mapping some strange island across his coat in livid red. The Squire stumbles over the threshold a little, drawing in a sharp, hissed breath and directing himself to be carefully left to half-collapse in a back pew and collect himself, breathing hard.
Lucy takes her brother's hand as he steps in among the people, the unconscious use of a more juvenile grip to keep track of him speaking to the reality of her earlier fear. Beth might or might not be a fool for her tough ways, but Lucy did have a point: she
was smaller than him, so much easier to bear away.
Doctor Lovelace is also among those made way for, bearing his servant like a lost lamb into the cool and cavernous confines of the church. Polzeath slides from his shoulders as soon as he's let down; after a moment of gingerly standing on the thick masonry with no sense of hunting abyss, he takes his master's hand as though to shake it but gets no further than gripping it with both of his, the knife he's carried through all this given over to the Doctor at last. His brows knot as he tries to find some words.
"Th-thankee fur zaven me, zir," he manages, voice burred hoarse and accent strong.
"Y'knows I'd do as much fer your own zelf, I 'ope?"
Maggie is not made way for, and perhaps fortunately unheeded by most, for as she steps up into the building - feeling Trugred nearby somewhere but not
here, an anxious echo of herself - there comes as close to a genuine growl from her passenger as she's ever heard:
"Lay hands on 'er and-" Bart swallows the oath that had first come to him,
"-by George I'll bite you."
"She did this, though," Sam Smith protests, backing off. People start to notice Maggie then, a quiet pushing out a circle of wary villagers around the possible threat. Folk stare at her, their expressions closed, even Beth Collins unwilling to throw out some thread of communication. Trying to ignore them and using her vantage, Maggie notes that Robin does not seem to be present, though she'd left him at the inn. The Widow Sexton is, however, coming back close to the Vicar to discuss something.
Sam Hartman reaches the church with Stephen Collins' support, the remnant Collinses trailing him somewhere behind in a flock. The little step over the slightly raised threshold is uncomfortable, pain making it difficult for him to catch any one thought. The people who were in the inn seem to be safe, at least. He'd helped with that.
Andrew is among the last to come in, having met Henry Ragge and Mr. Rickert returning from the same mission he'd set himself at Goodie Westcott's gate. They'd been carrying the horse skull and cloth-draped supports of Trugred's festival costume and a string-wrapped earthenware jar stained dark and with rattling contents, and bore no charitable expression at their findings.
The head gamekeeper had seemed about as minded to mercy as a steel trap on reporting the midwife's abscence and taking in the news of some great disturbance at the inn.
"Mm, she were planning somethen big," he'd noted with a nod at what they bore away, but allowed that a midwife might be out at all hours on buisness, for fairness' sake. Ignoring Henry's somewhat smug looks as the trio brought their news and plunder to the church, Andrew had caught sight of what had seemed for an instant to be a wild man dragging a woman away.
Another fraction of a heartbeat had shown the unhandsome, scarred face of Carl Hooper briefly turned towards their light as he struggled to haul his mother home, doubtless to be left with enough gin to souse her asleep without killing her. It had been an innocent enough almost-interaction, but his mind returns to that feral instant of haul and struggle in the gloom even as he steps into the familiarity of the Lord's house.
Primed to receive them, perhaps, his ears pick up murmured rumours of another murder, one enacted close by in the dark. There are other murmurs, of witchcraft and its incomprehensable wants, of stones and sacrifices, of a vengeful Devil set loose by tresspass in the Wood.
Looking about from the door, Andrew sees Polzeath seemingly pressing something upon the Doctor, the Vicar stood a way up the aisle, and Tom looming over the crowd to his left. Maggie seems almost at bay, her powerful form seeming to be chained a moment by the space left about her, though it moves as she does. Sam Hartman is leaning on John Collins' eldest boy, taking some seconds to breathe. Master Fox puts his arm over the back of his pew and looks back, a twitch of concern crossing his handsome features at the sight of the black ribboned cloth and horse skull in Rickert's hands.
