“Out of my way!” I tried to push past them, but two of the blades flashed upwards and were at my throat before I could take a step.

“How dare you threaten me; I am your priest. I could have you flogged for this.”

But the Owl Masters didn’t move. Deep behind the masks I glimpsed the flicker of eyes watching me.

“What is going on in the church? This is the house of God. If you violate a sacred building, God will smite you down and damn you for all eternity.”

I fumbled for the cross about my neck and held it up in front of their faces. “I command you in the name of…”

I sensed someone behind me and in the same instant saw one of the Owl Masters gesture with his sword. I half turned, but too late to prevent myself being seized on either side by powerful hands and dragged towards the dancers.

“How dare you lay hands on a priest! I will have you arrested for this.”

But the men only laughed. They knew the threat was an empty one. They had my arms pinioned behind my back. How could I punish them when I couldn’t even identify them, for they were both dressed in white shrouds, their faces concealed behind grinning wooden masks and hair of straw.

“You must join the dance, Father,” one of them said. “Else the dead will think you don’t welcome them.”

“Let me go,” I yelled, struggling to get out of their grip, but it was no use. I found myself pushed and pulled round the circle with the other dancers. A priest’s strength is no match for burly villagers, strong as oxen from years of labouring in the fields.

Ducking under the upraised dancers’ arms, an Owl Master entered the ring and strode across to the fire in the centre. He was holding a straw figure in his arms, about the size of a child. The straw figure was more than large enough to contain the corpse of little Oliver. They meant to destroy it, burn it to ashes. And without a body what hope was there of resurrection for the boy on the Day of Judgement?

“No! No!” I screamed. “Not an innocent child.”

The Owl Master turned his head in my direction, raising the straw figure high in his arms, as if delibrately taunting me, then he tossed the effigy into the flames. The straw smouldered and burst into flames. An unpleasant, pungent stench began to mingle with the wood smoke, heavy and soporific. But it was not the smell of flesh. Some herb or leaves must have been stuffed inside the straw figure, something that was sending up clouds of dense smoke.

I felt light-headed, almost dizzy. I found that I had ceased to struggle. I no longer had the will to do so. The beat of the drum grew louder, until it seemed to be coming from inside my head. I found my feet obeying its rhythm, stamping with all the other feet; it was impossible to do otherwise.

Shapes moved between the dancers and the fire. They were insubstantial at first, so blurred that I thought what I could see were our own shadows, but they couldn’t be. Across the far side of the circle I could see the shadows of the dancers on the ground, cast by the firelight, but the shadows were behind the dancers and moving with them. We were circling like the sun, towards the right, but whatever was in the centre of our ring was moving in the opposite direction, against the sun. I shook my head, trying desperately to draw in the night air and clear my brain, but my thoughts only became more fuddled. Then the shapes began to solidify.

They were not shadows moving in the circle. They were people. Barefoot girls with thick ropes about their necks were dancing with ancient men, whose beards hung grey to their gnarled feet. Old women with cobweb veils moved stiffly beside pale young men with bloodstained shirts. Old crones, their twisted nails gleaming yellow as old bones in the moonlight, grasped the hands of children with sunken black hollows where their eyes should have been. They lifted their hands as they circled the fire, and all their fingers were webbed. More and more of them joined the circle, rising up from the ground, slipping out from between the branches of the yew trees, slithering from between the cracks in the stone tombs. The dead of Ulewic were being called back.

The flames of the fire rose higher, red and yellow snakes striking at the stars. The drum beat quickened. The stamping grew louder. We were circling faster and faster, until the faces of the dancers opposite were a blur of mouths and eyes. I clung to the hands that were holding me in the dance. My fingers were locked rigid; I could not let go.

There was a huge bang and a flash of blinding light. The circle broke. Men were falling and stumbling, knocking into one another. For a moment I was blinded; the flash was seared onto my eyeballs. Then the villagers began pointing up at the round tower of the church. Blinking hard, I gazed upwards too.

One of the Owl Masters was standing on the flat roof of the tower, silhouetted black against the moon and stars. His long cloak swirled out about him in the breeze. He stretched out his hands over the churchyard, holding what looked like a rolled piece of white cloth. He raised the bundle in his hands, high above his head.

“Through blood we renew our strength. Through death we renew our life. Through destruction we renew creation. Through fire we make all things fertile.”

“Through fire we make all things fertile,” the villagers echoed in the churchyard below.

On the top of the tower the Owl Master’s cloak billowed up behind like wings. “I call upon Cernunnos to give him spirit. Triple Goddess, Blodeuwedd the virgin, Anu the mother, Morrigu the hag, I call upon you to give him substance. Taranis lord of destruction, Yandil lord of darkness, Rantipole lord of rage, I call upon you to awaken the Owlman! Awaken the Owlman! Awaken the Owlman! Ka!”

The Owl Master let the pale cloth he was holding unfurl in the wind. I could just make out two vertical lines, written on it in crimson, on which were many horizontal slashes and marks. Above the lines a circle was divided into four, and below the lines, a triple spiral. I could make no sense of what I saw. I heard people crying out in fear. I thought it was the marks on the cloth that they were afraid of. Then with mounting horror, I realised it was not the bloodred marks; it was what they were inscribed upon. That was not a cloth the Owl Master held in his hands, but a flayed skin, a human skin, the size and shape of a small child.

I’d scarcely had time to register what I was seeing when a new cry went up from the crowd of villagers. A trickle of smoke was coming from the church door. For a moment I thought they’d set the church on fire, but then I realised it was not coming from the inside of the church itself. Smoke was writhing out from the gaping cunt of the old hag carved above the door.

At first the smoke was white but as more and more poured out in a steady stream it began to turn black. Now it was taking shape-the head of a monstrous bird, then huge wings as wide as the church tower. The thing rose in the night air, hovering above the church. Even as we watched, it was swelling, becoming denser and darker, blotting out the stars.

The villagers, standing mesmerised, now began to scream and flee. Everywhere men scrambled to get out of the churchyard, throwing themselves over the walls, not caring where they landed or how, in a frenzy to get as far away from the demon as they could. As if their screams had broken the spell which had transfixed me to the spot, I found myself stumbling and running towards the gate.

I did not look back.