The Dark Rider Book One: Snow, Time, Bones

Part 23: The Last Part

The summer evening passed in a slow, bad dream for Warren. He suspected it was like pushing through the heavy sludge of a nightmare for all of them. Gran had been the one to help Iain into a standing position and support him into the kitchen, where she let him collapse into a chair. Warren followed, legs like lead poles, his mind a jungle in a fog. He felt useless.

    "What's happened?" Gran said. Her voice was harder and more direct than usual, her eyes bird-keen. Warren imagined her giving his father a talking-to when he was a small boy, after bullies beat him up in the school playground. "Tell me what happened, right from the beginning of it, bachgen."

    "It was... it was Jones who said it. The postman. He came past on his bike, when everyone was upstairs, and he... he said..."

    "Said?"

    "He said he saw George with a woman. Her."

    "Which woman?"

    "The Lady of the Lake," Warren murmured.

    "What?" Iain looked at Warren askance, his hair sticking in all directions from the manic action of his fingers along his scalp. "What?"

    "Nothing. Just thinking out loud."

    "Warren, if you know something–"

    "No point talking about it now," Gran said, shuffling into the hall and picking up the phone. "Now, we call the police. Talk later."

    Over the faint sound of her voice on the phone, Warren climbed the stairs and checked the landing. There was no sign of the Dark Rider having been there, let alone any hint of his defeat. No burns or scars on the carpet, no soot or lingering crow feathers in the corners, nothing marking the paint on the walls. Not even a smell. It was as if he had woken from one dream into another. His star wasn't lying on the floor anywhere. It must have been consumed in King Ythr's downfall.

    He trod softly into the bedroom, holding his breath. He knew not what for. The dent from George's body was still pressed into the blankets on the top bunk. He hadn't made his bed. He never did.

    Weary. He pulled himself up and burrowed under the duvet.

    What felt like five minutes later, someone was patting him on the foot - his father, calmer now but still drained of colour, apart from his pink-rimmed eyes. The light outside was disappearing below the horizon. Somewhere, a crow squawked.

    "War? Are you...?"

    "I'm OK." He sat up.

Iain sank onto the bottom bunk, his gaze lost in leagues of carpet.

"Are the police coming?" Warren had to know.

    "They're downstairs. If you want to, erm, compose yourself, then come down and answer what they need to ask you... that would be, ah..."

    "Yep." He dropped over the side and onto the floor, his pulse roaring in his ears. Were they going to blame him for what happened? What had happened? If he'd just chased the Lake-Witch away, that morning on his birthday, if he'd only refused to accept the star, told her to get lost, to find somebody else...

    There was perfect silence as he descended. No small talk. It was all so serious.

    Two police officers, one male, one female, sat side by side on the sofa like a game of spot-the-difference. The man was younger by at least twenty years, with a shaved head and tiny, bud-like ears. The woman was taut, lined, her mouth set in a severe, thin crease, her skin the ruddy brown colour of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors in all weathers. Gran was in her chair. Warren's father rustled into place in the doorway.