The Annals of Fear

The floorboards in the empty room were destroyed at one side. Large chunks and splinters lay scattered around a hole in the floor. They all eyed it cautiously, as they stepped into the room. Matt, Deontic and Century arranged themselves automatically on the far side of the area, as if the priest hole itself was the danger. Mello simply stood in the centre of the room, unpacking his violin and plugging it in. It took him a couple of minutes to tune the instrument, while the others stared impassively on. Finally, Matt asked, with a wince in his voice, "What are you going to play?"



"\'Méditation\' from Thaïs." Mello replied, mildly.



That\'s what Matt had been afraid of. "Play \'Planet Hell\' by Nightwish instead."



Mello shook his head. "That annoys me on violin. It needs electric guitar. \'Méditation\' was written for violin."



"Play it acoustically then."



Mello stared at him, but Century interupted the exchange. "You need a piano? There\'s one downstairs. I could play it."



Mello frowned. "How are you going to get a fucking piano up those stairs?"



"Do you need to play in this room?" Century persevered. "Only you could bring the violin to the piano. It being portable and all."



Mello stood poised with the violin just a fraction away from his chin. "And this is why I wanted you all to stay in the car. You have no clue what I\'m trying to do there. Otherwise you wouldn\'t come out with inane comments like this."



Deontic warned, "Don\'t argue." She kept her gaze on the hole in the floor. "Mello, I suspect I know what you\'re attempting. It will be an interesting experiment, but I doubt it will work. I\'m going to monitor the emotions in this room and their relative interactivity. I just ask that you listen to me if I tell you, any of you, that it\'s time to step away."



"I can multi-task, Deontic." Mello commented.



"Fine. But concentrate on the task that you have and see if you can recreate the circumstances that raised the entity for the band." She smiled encouragement. "Let me monitor the emotions."



"I could care less what you do."



"Out." Deontic pointed.



Matt and Century exchanged incredulous looks. Then Matt just rolled his eyes and stepped between Mello\'s glare and Deontic\'s staring. "Play the fucking violin, Mello."



Century, meantime, started musing. "That is such a strange Americanism that you picked up there. I have noticed that your accent is decidedly more American than British these days." He inspected his lollipop. "\'I could care less\' implies that this is so important to you that the only possible change in perspective is to care less about it. The British equivalent, \'I couldn\'t care less\', is far more inkeeping with the sentiment."



Mello bellowed, "Century, will you shut the fuck up please!" He clicked his tongue irritably. "In fact, all go back to the car."



Matt reached out, touching Mello\'s arm. "Play the violin." There was a tense moment, but Mello positioned the instrument under his chin and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, willing himself into the headspace to imbibe his music with emotion. Matt stepped away, but not against the wall where he had been. He stood closer to the door, just a few feet away from Mello, and pulled the camera back to take in the hole in the floor. Mello was just about to raise the bow, when Matt said softly, "Hold on, Mell." Then darted out of the door.



Mello\'s eyes snapped open. He rushed after his husband, finding him in the room opposite. "What are you doing?" The violin\'s lead had caught in the doorway and Mello\'s arm was stretched back just holding it.



Matt collected up a camera on a tripod and, flashing a smile at the Slav, hurried back with it. Mello retreated to allow him to pass. Matt dropped to his belly, lying prostrate on the floor with bit of wood sticking into him, as he lowered the second tripod into the gap. It didn\'t come close to touching the floor. "Damn."



"You\'re not going down there." Deontic cautioned.



Century passed her by, lowering his long legs into the gap and dropping to the floor below before she could intervene. "Dewi! It stinks of piss in here." He reached up for the tripod and it was lowered into his hands. "Just in the entrance here, so it can feed from the whole room?"



"Yes." Matt whispered. He glanced up as Mello, seeing what he was doing, moved the tripod in their room to take in the window and door. Its lead had to trail across the whole room to do so. "My laptop is still in Dee\'s car. I don\'t know if both are recording."



"Century." Deontic called. "Out of there."



Mello was shrugging, "We\'ll just have to trust that it is." He waited until the Welshman was out of the priest hole. "Good thinking, Matt." He checked the levels on his amplifier, having to push the plug back in where he\'d accidentally yanked it out. They all watched, as he took to the centre of the room again and lifted the violin underneath his chin. This time, he didn\'t waste much time in starting to play, too afraid of further interuptions if he didn\'t. The opening bars of Massenet\'s \'Méditation\' scratched through the air, filling the room with sound. Other than a perceptible heightening of tension and expectation in the room, nothing happened. It continued not happening through a full three minutes of the piece, until Mello played a wrong note and it threw him enough to stop. He opened his eyes, annoyed with himself.



Century coughed, "Was that the version of Thaïs where she kills God and goes out shopping for a new pair of shoes?"



Mello glared at him. Deontic raised her hands. "Mello, he\'s just had a heart attack. Century, don\'t, please."



Matt shook his head, "Mell, you had no emotional imput. As you and Deontic keep telling us, this thing is about emotions. It\'s not just the music." In front of him, Mello was looking a little deflated. "Play something that you\'re feeling right now."



Deontic was more nervous. "I think we should leave and brainstorm. I can see what Mello\'s trying to do here, but it isn\'t working."



"Maybe if I try the piano." Century gestured towards the door. "I could play something Welsh and traditional. \'Land of my Fathers\' or something. \'Men of Harlech\'. \'Myfanwy\'."



Mello spat out, "You said it wasn\'t Welsh! You said it had Welsh flavouring, but it wasn\'t Welsh! I\'m going on the whole basis that it\'s not Welsh!"



"Mello." Deontic clasped her hands together, her body language pleading or in prayer. "You\'re getting irritated. Let\'s reconvene..."



He raised the violin to his chin again and started to play. It was the \'Ave Maria\'. Century shook his head, "This definitely needs pi..." But Matt made a jabbing motion with his hand to silence the teenager. His gaze was intent upon the blond. Century took the hint and stopped talking.



Mello\'s world had closed in on himself. His eyes shut tightly, he played with exquisite attention the first tune that he had ever learned on violin. All the fear and anger was channelled into a plea for Mary to hear him. Around and around he went, starting again as soon as he had finished the musical prayer, until the temper changed and it was worship pure and simple. He could not have invested any more emotion. He gave it all. The others could only watch on, observing the him, the room, the world outside the window. Suddenly they heard Mello\'s voice, "Zdravo Marijo." It held a touch of panic and gulping sob followed it. Mello\'s eyes snapped open. He hadn\'t spoken. It happened again. "Zdravo Marijo." And Mello stopped playing, looking around himself, making it obvious that he wasn\'t speaking. On red alert, the other three listened, watched and waited. It didn\'t come again.



Little by little, the tension dropped away. It eased further as Mello switched off his amplifier and they all looked at one another. Deontic was the first to speak. "That sounded like you."



"It was my voice, but I didn\'t say anything. I was playing this."



"What was said?" Century prompted.



"Hail Mary." Mello laid the violin back into its case and took a bar of chocolate from his jacket pocket. "Ave Maria, zdravo Marijo, they both mean the same thing. Hail Mary. It\'s the beginning of a prayer."



"Say the prayer."



Mello nodded. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." They all looked around themselves, waiting. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. "



Nothing happened.



Matt shook his head. "It needs the emotion. You don\'t feel it so much in English."



"I do!" Mello protested.



"When you\'re in deep shit, you\'re not saying it in English. The snippet that we just heard, while you were playing, wasn\'t in English." Matt smiled, reassurance. "Was that some kind of recording? Did you actually say it, just like that, while you were in here?"



Mello nodded. "I blessed the whole house, didn\'t I? With holy water." It occurred to him to feel a little guilty about that, after all, it wasn\'t so long ago that he\'d rejected the Catholic Church and all of its teachings.



"Crying?"



Mello glared, then shrugged. "It\'s trying to freak me out. We\'re on the right lines."



Deontic was shaking her head. "No. It\'s emotion. It\'s not Welsh and it\'s not Catholic. It\'s emotion."



"We know, Deontic!"



Matt sniffed. "Say it like you said it when you were trapped in the cellar."



Mello fixed his gaze onto his husband. He didn\'t bother asking how Matt knew that he\'d said it. It was a deduction and a lucky guess. Mello thought about it. He hadn\'t said it. He\'d got as far as zdravo Marijo, then broken down. Just as he\'d just heard. Then Nathalie had arrived. He nodded. "You\'re right. It\'s the emotion. Music just heightens emotion. It\'s no more about the music than it\'s about Wales or Catholicism. However, the latter is closer. It is something to do with religion, because those killing themselves are doing so in places of worship." His eyes were drawn back to the hole in the floor. "It was a priest hole. Possibly consecrated to God. It\'s been desecrated. Is that enough to explain the wrath of...?" He paused. His thinking had become too Old Testament. His God didn\'t behave like that. "But it\'s not Christianity per se. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Pagans, they\'re all killing themselves. It\'s deity in general. Religion in general. Spirituality."



"Elen Llwyddog." Century submitted.



"What?"



"When I was little, my Taid told me that if I was ever in trouble out there," he gestured to take in the window, "I was to call upon Elen Llwyddog. It worked. I got as far as a Sarn Elen and then Mr Roberts rescued me."



"Taid?"



"Grandfather."



"And Elen..." Mello faltered at the surname. "She\'s a Goddess?"



"In a manner of speaking." Century considered the thoroughly Celtic interweaving of fact and fiction, reality and myth, then settled upon, "Yes, she is."



"I didn\'t know that you are a Pagan."



Century frowned. "I\'m not. I\'m an Aethist."



"Yet, in extremity, you called upon a Pagan Goddess for help."



Century pondered the question. He\'d called upon her because his Taid had told him to. It had helped. The facts, put together like that, felt awkward. "Yes, but..." He sucked on his lollipop. "Doesn\'t mean that I\'m a tree-hugger."



Matt became very still. His gaze unfocused. When it snapped back, it was to ask, quietly, "Mello, can I see the casefile again please?"



Mello looked surprised, but nodded. "Let\'s make Deontic\'s day and go downstairs." He stared in askance at Matt, as he collected up his violin and amplifier. "What is it?"



"Just a thought. I need to see the casefile."



"Ok." They filed out, leaving the cameras running. Mello added, conversationally, "It looks like I have to go to Plan B anyway and when that kicks in, you lot really aren\'t coming into this house with me."