The Loney is a stretch of the Lancashire coast, sparsely populated, where strangers stand out. It is Easter weekend, and a group of visitors descend on The Moorings, an old, neglected house available for let. The group have been here before, it is a regular event, the faithful of St Jude’s church on a pilgrimage of sorts that will take in a visit to a local shrine.
It is not exactly Lourdes, but Mary Smith holds out hope for a cure to her teenage son’s mutism. Her faith is not shared by her other son, the unnamed narrator of the tale, who finds himself the de facto minder of his brother. And for this trip, there is a new vicar, Father Bernard, the old one, Father Wilfred, having recently died a death no-one talks about.
This main strand of the narrative is told in retrospect, the boy now a man in a time when a news item causes him to look back with concern. His recollections go back to this fateful weekend, and beyond to earlier times when he and Andrew were even younger, and Father Wilfred ruled the vicarage.
Things happen. Strange things happen, incompletely explained, but believable, nevertheless. The atmospheric setting clings to the page, and the interplay between the genteel but warring pilgrims is delicious. More sinister are the few residents of the Loney who slip in and out of the mist, by turns threatening and friendly. Are they intent on harm or good? And if good, at what price?
Where, how, and why
each strand of the story will pan out keeps the pages turning right to the end.
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