“Pob lwc.” the elder of Saint Joseph’s had wished me, after his strange warning. I presumed he meant for my first Mass to be held, as traditional, at Midnight on Christmas Eve. It went well, the service, with a fuller than expected attendance, to see the ‘new man’, I presumed.

Later, sat still in just the candle light, I sighed, thinking I’d found a final home. It was then that the Bwgan Fawr sighed too. A man of middling years, he seemed, from one of the middling centuries, but as translucent as chip paper fat.

He pointed at the great Southern entrance way. “I’m trapped. I cannot cross alone. Would you? Could your flesh carry me across the boundary?”

I held out my hand, but we swapped places as he insistently led the way to the portal. I was light headed, beside myself, when he crossed. Then as my clasped fingers were about to feel the cold air, they were stopped, as if by a deep oaken door. The spirit’s grip broken, I saw the weight of his vessel slump before me. I rushed, but was held from reaching it. Reaching me. Every chapel must have its spirit, the old man had said.