Unholy Rites by Kay Stewart, Chris Bullock

remedies have harmful side effects if not taken properly. That’s why I removed them when I made the cottage ready for you.” She lifted her parcel onto her lap. From its shape, Arthur assumed Liz was returning books she’d borrowed. To his surprise, she pulled out three of his mum’s scrapbooks and laid them on the coffee table.
    Arthur picked up the one on top. The label on the spine said 1990–1992. “What are you doing with these?”
    â€œEthel brought them with her the night of the Imbolc ceremony. I presume there was something she wanted to show me, but the others were arriving by then, and so I put the scrapbooks upstairs in my study till later. She seemed agitated by Pat’s news of James Marple’s appointment, and who can blame her. Pat has been open to other religious traditions, but not so Marple, I fear. When we started the ceremony we all calmed down, until Ethel felt too ill to continue.”
    Liz rose from her chair and walked to the uncurtained windows, where she stood gazing out into the dark. Arthur picked up his pipe and sucked on the stem. Patricia Wellcome had also mentioned his mum’s opposition to Marple. Perhaps the reason lay in the scrapbooks, and Liz knew what it was.
    â€œThen what happened?” he asked, sipping wine without tasting while she told her story. His mother had refused to let anyone call Dr. Geoff, insisting she could perfectly well walk the short distance home accompanied by the Ellison boy, who was upstairs doing his homework. Stephen returned while they were blessing the candles. He went straight upstairs, so they assumed everything was all right. When he came down for the Feast of Milk, he said Ethel was resting when he left her.
    â€œAfter the others had gone, I went round to check on her,” Liz said. “It was too late.”
    Arthur couldn’t believe what he had heard. “She’d had a stroke, she was feeling ill, and finishing your blasted ritual was more important than seeing that she was properly cared for?”
    â€œStephen is a very responsible boy. He would have told us if she’d still felt unwell. As to the ceremony, your mum insisted that we go ahead with it. It’s dangerous to leave a ritual unfinished; no one can have any idea where the energy created by it might go.”
    Again Liz seemed to be slipping across the line between sanity and obsession.
    â€œIt’s dangerous, all right. You and your pagan rituals killed my mother. She wasn’t interested in all this before she came back here. Now the bookshelves are full of it.”
    â€œI understand why you are upset, Arthur, but you’re wrong to blame me for Ethel’s interest in paganism. It was the well dressing that got her started. She began looking into its history, and that’s where it led her. I wouldn’t know about the scrapbooks, because I haven’t looked at them. They didn’t belong to me.”
    Moving to the door, Liz wrapped her shawl around her head and shoulders, then hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. Her face had lost its earlier animation, and she looked old and tired. “Ethel held the first of the well dressing workshops in her garage, and it’s been used for petalling the main panel ever since. Given the way you feel, you may prefer that we move elsewhere.”
    Too bloody right, Arthur thought. Then something stopped him from accepting her offer. He would never get anywhere in unraveling his mother’s secret if he cut off contact with the community. “Of course you must use the garage,” he said. “It’s what my mother would have wanted.”
    â€œThank you, Arthur,” Liz said. “Trust me, you won’t regret it.”
    Could he trust her though, Arthur wondered as he watched her walk into the darkness. He had only her word for what had happened the night his mother died. She wanted him to think his mum had taken the scrapbooks to her for