𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞┃ Anthony Lockwood┃2┃

Chapter Fifty Six - The Other Side

"Maybe there are some people about." Lockwood said softly. Neither of them had spoken for a while. When they did, neither of them wanted to raise their voices. They didn't know why. "I thought I saw someone walking down that side-track from the quarry. You know, just beyond the cairn."

"You want to go back, see who it was?"

"No. No, I think we should just get on."

Lockwood and Nola walked more quickly after that, their boots clicking on the frost-hard road. They crossed the silent forest and came to the wooden footbridge over the little stream.

Said stream was gone. The bridge spanned a dark, dry channel of black earth that wound off among the trees. Lockwood shone his torch beam on it, the light frail and flickering.

"Lockwood." Nola said. "Where the hell is the water?"

He leaned against the railing, as if weary. He shook his head, said nothing.

Nola could hear her voice cracking with panic. "How can it have just... disappeared? I don't understand. Have they dammed it suddenly?"

"No. Look at the ground. Bone-dry. There's never been any water here."

"But that makes no—"

He pushed himself upright, his hand rasping as it pulled free of the rail. Ice particles glistered on the fingers of his glove. "We're almost at the village." He said. "Perhaps there'll be answers there. Come on."       

But when they came down from the lane, the village had changed too. Never exactly well-lit, the cottages around the green were suddenly entirely dark. Their shapes merged in the half-light, and could scarcely be seen. The green itself was filled with shifting coils of mist. Above the agents, the church tower blended with the pewter-black sky.

"Why are all the lights off here too?" Nola said.

"Not just off." Lockwood whispered. He pointed. "Look by the church. The ghost-light has gone."

It was true. True, and it made no sense. On the little mound beside the church, there was an empty space. The rusted, disused ghost-lamp hadn't just gone. There was no trace of it ever having been there at all.

Nola didn't say anything. Nothing made any sense, not since they had come out of the institute. A creeping, pervading wrongness hung over everything: in the cold, the silence, the soft, pale light, and the terrible sapping solitude of it all. But, it numbed her too. It was hard to think.

"Where is everybody?" The girl murmured. "Someone should be around, surely."

"It's after dark – they're all at home. And George and the others will be safe inside the inn." Lockwood's voice didn't carry any conviction. "We know that half of the village is deserted, anyway. We shouldn't expect to see anyone."

Nola's full bottom lip quivered. "So, we go to the inn?"

"We go to the inn."

But the inn, when they reached it, was as dark as all the rest. Its sign was blistered with frost. The door swung open to the touch and a faint stale smell came from the black interior. Neither of them wanted to go inside.

They walked back out onto the green and stood there, wondering what to do. When Nola looked down, she saw that where her boots protruded beyond frozen drapes of the spirit-cape, the leather and steel caps were white with ice. Their capes were almost solid; they creaked whenever they moved. Then, she noticed something else. Thin grey smoke was rising from Lockwood's cape, drifting away into the dark air. The surface flickered, as if with heatless flames.