The Sin Eater by Sarah Rayne

which was, as Declan said, a time when anyone might be anywhere and no one would be particularly looking for them. Declan’s mother said it was sad altogether when a boy could not be staying at home, and must be off stravaiging into the village, dinnerless. When Declan said he hadn’t any appetite today, she scooped an apple and a wedge of freshly baked soda bread from the table and made him pocket both.
    The path winding up to the watchtower was steep and narrow. Colm and Declan had walked past it hundreds of times, but neither of them had ever climbed to the very top of it.
    The gentle May warmth no longer cast a scented balm on the air and the sky held the bruised darkness that heralded a storm. Far below, the Atlantic flung itself against the cliffs, and if the
sidhe
were abroad today they were in a wild and eldritch mood.
    For the first half of the climb the watchtower was hidden from view by the rock face, but as they rounded a curve in the path, it reared up, a black and forbidding column against the sky.
    â€˜It looks,’ said Declan, pausing to stare at it, ‘as if it’s leaning forward to inspect us, d’you think that?’
    â€˜You read too many books,’ said Colm, but he too looked uneasily at the stark silhouette.
    â€˜Someone’s looking down out of that window,’ said Declan.
    â€˜It’ll be Nick Sheehan, crouching up there like a spider watching a couple of flies approach his lair.’
    â€˜There’s a door at the centre,’ said Declan as they drew nearer.
    â€˜Did you think your man flew in and out of the place by the windows like a winged demon?’ demanded Colm. ‘Or that it was the door-less tower where Rapunzel was imprisoned?’
    â€˜I thought I was the one who read too many books,’ said Declan.
    The door was a low one, slightly pointed at the top like a church door, set deep into the stone walls, the surface black with age, but the huge ring handle gleaming in the sulky storm-light. As they drew nearer, the door opened, doing so with a slow deliberation that held such menace Declan thought it would not take much to send them helter-skelter back down the slope and be damned to being revenged. Then he remembered they were doing this for Romilly and that Father Sheehan was a libertine and a seducer of young girls, and he took a deep breath, and went forward at Colm’s side. Even so, for a wild moment he thought he would not be surprised if they found themselves confronted with Lucifer himself, holding the door wide and bidding them, with honeyed and sinister persuasiveness, to step inside.
    It was not Lucifer who was standing in the doorway of the watchtower, of course, although on closer inspection it might, as Declan had once said, be one of his apostles.
    Nicholas Sheehan. The man who, according to local legend, had once been a devout priest, but who some deep dark cause had forced to this lonely eyrie.
    At first they thought he was younger than they had expected, but as they drew nearer they revised this opinion, and thought he was considerably older. Colm said afterwards that it was impossible to even guess his age, and he might be anything from thirty to sixty. His hair was dark and his face lean and even slightly austere. There was the impression that he might enjoy good music and wine and interesting conversation, and this was the most disconcerting thing yet, because if you have ascribed the role of unprincipled seducer and devil-befriender to someone, you do not want to discover that person has an appreciation of the good and gentle things in life.
    â€˜Good day to you,’ said Nicholas Sheehan, and smiled so charmingly that Declan and Colm almost smiled back. But the smile doesn’t reach his eyes, thought Declan. They’re the weariest eyes I ever saw.
    â€˜You’re a long way from Kilglenn,’ said Father Sheehan, leaning against the door frame of the ancient watchtower. ‘And it’s a fair