They were playing a CD of plainsong. She smiled. The gentle voices of the monks were soothing, wafting gently between the exhibits; just what she needed. A plaque near the entrance stated: The Somerset Tradition and described the whole story, pretty much as she had read it the night before, but of course as a quaint curiosity, not fact. Obviously. Further into the exhibition a glass case was labelled, ‘An Ancient Church Built By No Human Skills…’ So, it was all here. Slowly she made her way round the glass cases staring at the history of the abbey which had been, so famously and horrifically, destroyed by Henry VIII in 1539 after the abbot was hanged on the top of the Tor on trumped up charges of concealing the abbey’s treasure from the king’s representatives. It was all fascinating, but it was the earliest history she had come to see: the actual origins as far as they were known, of this holy place described by St Patrick as ‘this holiest earth’.

The site of Glastonbury Abbey was a huge thirty-six acres, according to the ground plan they had given her at the ticket office, of beautifully tended grounds, with what remained of the once great abbey standing stark and fragmented, the ruined walls neatly strengthened, situated towards the northern edge of the site.

Letting herself out of the museum, she headed towards the Lady Chapel, unusually at the west end of the abbey instead of the east, and built, it was claimed, on the site of the little mud and wattle church, the Vetusta Ecclesia, built with Jesus’ own hands.

But why, her cynical other self, the self who had gone to theological college, put in, would Jesus have built a church here at all when he hadn’t yet invented Christianity? If he invented Christianity, which he didn’t. Not really. That was Paul. Wasn’t it? The historical Jesus was an observant, probably a strict, Jew. Maybe an Essene, that intriguing ascetic sect who had hidden the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves at Qumran. He was certainly a rabbi. A scholar. He wasn’t, couldn’t have been a student here!

With a rueful smile at the contradictions spinning in her brain, she headed towards the walkway which ran at the original floor level of the Lady Chapel, above the now gaping crypt and she stood staring at two signs in front of her describing the building of this chapel after the original abbey had been burned down in the twelfth century. After reading them she turned back to the entrance and made her way to the flight of steps which led down to the floor of the crypt which in the sixteenth century had been turned into a chapel dedicated to St Joseph. The gallery was now behind and above her as slowly she walked forward between the towering, ruined walls towards the apse where a roofed-in area covered a plain altar. A few yards away from it she stopped. She closed her eyes. Could she feel anything special on this most holy of spots? It was hard to say.

Behind her she heard voices. Three people were standing on the walkway. They too had stopped to read the inscriptions there. She could feel their eyes on her back. It was hard to concentrate, to feel any sense of the sacred. It was all so neat, so – the word to describe it wouldn’t come. Antiseptic, perhaps. Regulated. Controlled. Where was a sense of the sacred sanctuary of the druids – the place dedicated in even earlier times, so some of the books said, to the mother goddess, hence the later dedication to the Blessed Virgin. Or had it been dedicated to his mother by the young Jesus himself; and where did Gwyn ap Nudd fit in? And who was he? She found herself shaking her head, still too cynical, too hog tied by history, too bound by her own orthodoxy to make any sense of this at all.

She waited. Because of this especial holiness St Bridget, St David and St Patrick had all come here. As a place of pilgrimage it had been called ‘the Second Rome’. Domesday Book itself confirmed the gift of twelve hides of land, given by the Celtic king Arviragus to Joseph to build his church. And yet she could feel nothing.

Turning she retraced her way to the steps and almost ran from the chapel, heading out across the grass which marked the position of the old cloisters. In the distance she could see the black silhouette of the Tor behind the trees. Nothing. No feeling of sanctity. She had felt it at Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. At Dryburgh in Scotland. Why not here? Here of all places she should sense it. She felt a wave of something like panic. She was being excluded from something precious. All around her, as the day warmed up and the sun appeared, lighting up the gold and russet of the leaves on the trees around her, were people immersed in the feelings which she should be feeling.

She sat down on a bench, her hands in her pockets, her shoulders hunched. She had come here to pray. No prayers came. She had come here to feel the ancient sacredness of the land. No feelings came.

A shadow fell across her and she looked up. A figure was standing on the path close to her, a woman’s figure.

Abi!

It was a whisper, no more.

Abi!

‘Mora?’ Abi leaped to her feet.

She had gone. There was no-one on the path at all.

‘Mora?’ Abi turned slowly around, straining her eyes into the sunshine. ‘Where are you?’

Nothing.

Kier drew his car up onto the gravel outside Woodley Manor and sat staring through the windscreen at the oak front door with its elegant, square Georgian porch and frame of scarlet Virginia Creeper. A road atlas lay open on the seat beside him. For several seconds he remained motionless. The house seemed deserted. There was no sign of any cars around; no people that he could see. He sighed. This was a lovely place. No wonder the bishop had chosen it as a retreat for Abi, where she could recover her sense of balance and her faith. Even here in the car he could feel the peace reaching out to him. Groping for the door handle he pushed it open and climbed out. When he rang the doorbell there was no answer. From somewhere deep inside the house he heard dogs barking but no-one came to the door. Maybe he should have phoned. But he had wanted to surprise her and have the chance to convince her that he wanted nothing but her happiness and wellbeing. He wandered round to the side of the house and found a courtyard area with a range of ancient outbuildings, and what looked like a couple of garages. Still no cars. So be it. He would have to come back later. He reached into the car for the map. He had been given the address of Ben Cavendish, her spiritual advisor. Perhaps he should go and see him first.

This time Athena took Abi to a different coffee shop. This one was opposite the Tribunal. As they sat on the comfortable green sofa, teapot and cups on a small tray in front of them, Abi was conscious of the other woman studying her face. She smiled uncomfortably. ‘I meant it when I said I needed to buy a book on crystals. I need to know more about them.’

‘So you couldn’t work it out on your own?’

Abi shook her head. ‘I can use it in that it has switched something on. I see these visions. I see -’ She hesitated. ‘Mora. She’s called Mora. My druid priestess. She is trying to speak to me. Just now I went to walk round the abbey and she was there. She came and stood right beside me. She cast a shadow…’ Again she stopped and shrugged. She reached out for her cup. ‘She shouldn’t cast a shadow if she’s a ghost. Surely that much we know about ghosts.’

‘And you spoke to her?’

Abi nodded. ‘Well, perhaps I was less than conversational. She gave me a fright! But I called out her name.’

‘And did she react?’

Abi shook her head. ‘She had already gone. Disappeared.’

Athena picked up her own cup and sipped thoughtfully. ‘So you need to know how to speak to her?’

Abi nodded.

‘It seems to me, it is nothing to do with the crystal. It is your own doubt and fear which are getting in the way.’ Athena set down the cup. ‘Is it possible the thought of making contact with another world like this is something you cannot bring yourself to believe in? You have set your own credibility limit.’ She leaned back into the sofa, sitting sideways so she could watch Abi’s face. ‘Or do I mean credulity?’ She shook her head. ‘You know what I mean.’

Abi smiled. ‘I do, and I would say that is undoubtedly one of my problems. The trouble is trying to reconcile what is actually happening here and what I believe is possible.’ She still hadn’t mentioned the priest bit. It was too big a deal. Bound to be. ‘So, how can I reset my parameters?’

Athena laughed. ‘My dear, I think that is for you to do. All I can suggest is that you give yourself a good talking to and logically confront what is going on. Look at what is real – have you been to the Tribunal tourist centre across the road, for instance? Upstairs there is a wonderful little museum. They even have an Iron Age canoe over there. That is the reality behind what you are seeing. Study it. Let yourself feel. Does anything come. Does it make a difference, looking at all this as archaeology rather than myth? Then see how you feel about what has happened with your ghosts and decide whether, logically, you can readjust your belief systems.’

Abi shook her head. ‘I fear that is easier said than done.’

‘I doubt it. If you were too disbelieving you would have dismissed all this as rubbish the first time it happened and shut down. I’ve seen people do that here. Glastonbury makes things happen for people. There is something in the air!’ she sighed. ‘They come, all excited and eager and waiting for some wonderful spiritual experience, then when – and if – it happens they go into free fall. It’s so sad.’

‘I sense there are no half measures here. One is either a Believer or a non-Believer in the Glastonbury experience.’ Abi was watching a group of women who had walked in. They went straight to the counter, helping themselves to trays. ‘You can tell by the way they dress,’ she added absent-mindedly.