 
Daedalian Muse

by Jamie Crothall

Copyright 2012 Jamie Crothall

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords to discover other works by this author. or at the author's web site;

www.jamiecrothall.com
Greyfield, Devon

Greyfield is a village civil parish in the Teignbridge district of Devon, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 103. It is located between Exeter and Dartmoor National Park, just north of Ashton.

It is rumoured that the entire parish burned to the ground in the latter half of the 19th century in an unrecorded fire. The authenticity of this claim is dismissed as superstitious due to the many incidents that have originated from the estate located within the village, namely several tragic fires.

CHAPTER ONE

'Once upon a time' is a terribly cliché way to start any tale, but to tell you the truth I'm not quite sure how else to begin. It certainly is an outlandish story and deserving of a place in the annals of any fairy tale anthology, though the details and outcome might prove slightly beyond the grasp of any younger reader. Yet are not the most complex plots relayed in simple tales? The fall Man from the Garden of Eden can be told in the simple nursery rhyme 'Jack & Jill', while a complex series of temporal distortions, anomalies, and the sound basis of many turbulent theories of space-time violation can be hinted upon within the pages of Lewis Carol's 'Through the Looking Glass'. Hardly the material for a child's tale, but then again nor are half of those told by the Brother's Grimm.

My birth name is rather boring and hardly worth noting, but my father came to call me 'Tempus' – a Latin word for 'time'. An apt moniker for a sound gentleman who is always trying to poke holes in the delicate fabric, if only through thought and observation. I am what you might call an independent agent in the investigation of scientific anomalies, be it a haunting or a case of missing time. It is of my irrefutable belief that ghosts and goblins have no place in our ever-so-tangible world, as all have valid and reasonable explanations. Too often has the fantastic been favoured in pursuit of the truth simply because if is more attractive, but never have I been tempted to throw down the Principia Mathematica, hoist up the Malleus Maleficarum, and cry 'hail' to the spooks and boogeymen of fantasy. No wretch will be drowned in order to prove their innocence in the presence of my extensive studies.

Yet I digress. I began my pursuit of truth and enlightenment under the most esteemed tutelage of my father, a self-taught man of pure genius. We were a notorious pair in our small English borough, two great minds called upon when the limits of human understanding drew up against a brick wall, whereupon our assistance would surely bring it down. Solvers of problems, conjurers of thesis, and producers of postulates, we would put to rest any uncertainty with the most clear and concise of explanations. However whereas I sought to lay to waste to notions of the fantastic, my father seemed to prefer indulging our clients in their fancy. He often let them believe that the creaking of settling floorboards was indeed the wandering spirits of long-departed residents. The path to the solution, he reckoned, was best explained as easily as possible, lest the client fear that they are being conned when lumbered with the volatile verbiage of the scientific burden they had not the foresight to apply. Exterminating a small colony of termites threatening the integrity of the flooring, explained as an exorcism, was of no moral issue to him provided the problem was solved and we were paid for our services.

While I maintain that I took no pleasure from these misleading conclusions, at the same time I did not always do my best to fight for the light of truth. Fighting spirits, rather than insects, certainly gave us a greater renown and a slightly higher coinage, and often led to greater employment - greater in deed and payment. I feel it important, however, to mention that we were not con artists acting only in the pursuit of money. My father was a brilliant man who was well read on all the great scientific pursuits and methods, some of which he shared with no one but himself. To this day I do not know how he managed to cure the young Ms. Tilly's infertility, but nine months after his most secretive diagnosis she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. As for our payments, for all the rewards we did reap we had little to show for it. While I did not question how he spent our money, it was nonetheless a great source of curiosity for me. I once asked this of Mr. Phip, a distinguished gentleman he often played cards with, but he merely told me not to concern myself with such matters. The last time I asked, Mr. Phip simply handed me a twenty pound note and advised me to not worry about it, and to buy myself something 'nice'. Despite my ambivalence, I nonetheless concede that he was a truly generous man. I decided to heed his advice, for I did not want to think suspiciously of my father, the man who shared with me his great knowledge and with whom I travelled with to the ends of the borough.

The day my father died was the worst I had ever known, and it left me with a ponderous quandary. Penniless and with only half of the collective knowledge we utilized, I did not know if I had the strength of will, character, and brilliance that my father had carried us with. How could I continue on by myself? Alas I found that the question was, in fact, 'how could I not?'. For all the insight my father - my teacher - had given me, I could not dishonour him by simply disavowing all I had learned. My entire life had been spent in the pursuit of understanding. Pythagoras sang my lullabies. Louis Pasteur nursed me with his discoveries. My world revolved around Kepler and Galileo. My heart beat with the teachings of William Harvey, and my soul ached for the lingering touch of Marie Curie. Charles Babbage's resolve helped me stand up to schoolyard bullies, while Guglielmo Marconi's theories spoke to me in waves. My life revolved around my father's pursuits. In his honour I could not let that go to waste. Besides, I theorized that I might one day have a son of my own to pass my knowledge on to.

My profession and practice, however, could not continue in the Borough. The stigma of my father's methods adhered to me in ways I did not appreciate. While I give my father every respect, I did not want to continue practising his placating techniques. It was not in my interest to play to people's weaknesses, but rather help them realize their strengths. For this I would have to leave the Borough and travel to parts unknown. With only my suitcase and a cage to carry Aristotle, my feline companion, I strode out of the Borough, realizing that for all my knowledge of the ends of the universe, I had never set foot outside the regional limits. I was a pioneer, an intrepid explorer thrust into worlds unknown. It was then that I became acquainted with this thing called the 21st century, and the stark, sudden realization that, for all my knowledge, there was much that I did not know. I made my way through the monstrous and mythological city of London, making my way further south with little employment to be found. Young people once thrilled at my father's teachings, but they now drew their information from this 'internet', though I doubt that this fad will one day replace the experience that an audience with our elders brings.

I stumbled upon Greyfield, in England's southern-most parts, while reaching my own ends. I was beginning to give up hope, when it was returned to me in the form of a most endearing old lady named Mrs. Tellman, the hostess of a Bed & Breakfast that I spent my last few accumulated pounds upon. It was the type of village that did not require estate agents, for residents did not buy or sell homes, but rather passed them down from generation to generation. Mrs. Tellman occupied a moderate home, and was assisted by her son and daughter – both of whom were in their adult years and helped their mother look after the house, its guests, and the dear lady herself. With relish I savoured my last comforts of home, not knowing what hostel or shop doorway would serve as my home beyond that very night, and slept well for what could have very well been my last time. The following morning I entered the dining room to equally savour my last hot meal – a full English breakfast delivered with warmth, grace, and a morning paper. Thanking her dearly, I unfolded the local newspaper. It was a simple affair consisting of only a few pages and a single advertisement, the revenue of which was likely enough to cover the entire enterprise's overhead. The rather sensationalize headline read;

'Construction Worker Injured - Haunted Mews Strikes Again!'

I scarcely had the patience to read the entire article, but called to my hostess while my eyes scanned the room.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Tellman," I said, my voice panicked, "but do you have a telephone?"

The old lady approached me, a motherly smile upon her face which assured me that all was in hand.

"Don't worry," she said warmly. "I've already made arrangements. You are to see the mayor at noon."

With great relief I ate my breakfast, no longer my last but the first of many more, for if my audience with their elected official went well then I would be employed, for the first time, as an independent investigator.
CHAPTER TWO

The mayor of Greyfield was a stout and rather Dickens-like character animated from any of the occasionally illustrated pages of the timeless books, like a Pumblechook or a Wopsle. Complete with his overgrown sideburns, his bushel of a beard, his frosted monocle, and his own 19th century style of dress, he presided over the ostentatious town hall with all the airs and graces of a lord surveying his vast estates. He had a staff of but one, a frail woman wrapped in a shawl who was, by appearance, old enough to be his mother. Perhaps she was. She typed an article of correspondence on an ancient typewriter with the speed of someone who dreaded the pounding impact of each and every key. Ledgers were stacked upon the shelves and large spreadsheets adorned the walls, projecting the budgets of years past - some successful, and some laden with the scribbling of a red pen. Nevertheless, this man seemed to be the central 'hub' of the village's financial and legislative responsibilities. I was given the impression that this town had not seen another mayor for decades, as another more competent candidate had not yet strolled into town, and if one had then the villagers likely favoured the devil they knew.

The mayor, the distinguished Mr. Barberwart, invited me into his office, where he gave background to the events that had unfolded.

"Do you believe in ghosts, mister uh...?"

"Fugit. Tempus Fugit."

His monocle popped out of his eye as a result of his wry smile. "Ah how it does, ah how it does. Tell me, is that you're real name?"

"For all intents and purposes," I replied.

"Well then, Mr. Fugit, do you believe in ghosts?"

"I believe not in the existence of ghosts nor of ars magica," I said, testing his knowledge of Latin further.

He seemed perplexed, but not by any translation. Before continuing he opened a small wooden box that was displayed prominently upon his desk. "Do you smoke, Mr. Fugit?"

"No. Horrible business, that."

"Yes, yes indeed. Foul," he agreed as he struck a match and lit his cigar. "Our vicar is a Christian, you know."

An odd diversion in the conversation.

"Extremely convenient, I'm sure," I replied.

"Yes, yes it is. So you agree that one must have a vested interest in their own ventures. I must say, for a man who intends to hunt our ghost, I find your atheism on the subject of spirits a little...shall we say, worrisome?"

"Mr. Barberwart, if set to task I have every intention of determining the locus of this disturbance, but I will not entertain any notions of the paranormal until I fully investigate the existence of the normal. No, I do not believe in ghosts, in spooks, in zombies, nor do I endorse the notion of witchcraft, however if when all scientific study fails and I come face to face with an apparition, then I shall surely admit to what my eyes behold. In the meantime I shall not entertain the notions that this village propagates by searching under their beds for monsters until I have at least closed all the windows and served a round of warm milk."

"Mr. Fugit, your manner is appalling," the mayor proclaimed, leaning forward and stubbing out his cigar. His tone did not match the severity of his words, and no sooner had he stubbed out his cigar did he proceed to light it again. "However, as you are the only game in town and this is, of course, a voting year, then I feel inclined to give the citizens what they want. Close all the windows you like, Mr. Fugit, but for the temperament of the masses, however small the masses may be, I do require you to check under the bed on at least a few occasions. Do we have an understanding?"

The terms of the job were quite clear.

"Yes, I believe we do."

"Excellent."

I requested that he tell me about the house, or at least the remains thereof.

"Mews, Mr. Fugit."

"Mews?"

"Stables turned into residences. The history of the Morrow Estate is quite turbulent. A very bold and outspoken gene runs through the Morrow bloodline, which has led to a number of dramatic events, a few of which overflowed into the village itself."

The mayor turned in his chair and withdrew a leather-bound volume from the shelf behind him, opening it up and preparing to give me perhaps more history than I required.

"The first Morrow pre-dates our records, though that's hardly surprising as many of the residents for generations did not know how to read nor write..."

There was a cough – a clearing of throat – from the locus of the typewriter and the old woman behind it. Sufficiently scolded, the mayor changed his tone.

"Our most notable resident of the family was James Randall Morrow, who died along with his family and staff in 1867 when the entire village itself was burned to the ground."

That raised an eyebrow. "The entire village?"

"Yes, quite," he replied. "Reasons not recorded, but most likely attributed to an unattended lantern or candle. The age of electricity dawned a little later here than most, but thank God it did, hm?" He continued on. "Only one family member remained, who was abroad at the time. Once he buried his family he buried the estate as well. Greyfield Park, we now call it, and it lies beside the remains of the Mews – the stables which were retro-fitted into acceptable lodgings. Randall Wilfred Morrow, his name was. Rebuilt Greyfield from the ashes." He then proceeded to thumb through the next few pages, skimming over this family history's key points and skipping a few less-than-noteworthy entries. "Father and son, Wilfred James and James Gordon Morrow, both killed in an attack on Plymouth harbour while attempting to bolster Greyfield's trade. The Great War, that was. James Gordon Morrow's unborn son, Gordon Randall, became the final resident. Turned eighteen at the very end of World War II and was called upon to do his duty. Came back a changed man, though not necessarily for the better. A string of affairs and rather public scandals followed him. Married a woman from a prominent family in the shipping trades, but did not 'honour thy wife' quite as one should. Their last argument ended in the fire which destroyed the Mews and the last remaining trace of the Morrow bloodline."

"Fascinating."

"Quite," the mayor replied. "And there the Mews have sat, untouched since the last flame was extinguished, save for a few childish dares or drunken teens to goad each other into setting foot. Even had a few treasure seekers over the years, though they always came up empty handed. Most of the time they came up scared. Whether or not the tales bear weight is beyond me. I had always stayed away simply out of respect, however respect does not give way to progress."

"Progress?" I asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Greyfield needs to grow, Mr. Fugit. Dartmoor National Park is off limits to development, and as such new projects have been springing up around it. A few decades ago this village bustled with the news that the new M road would be passing through – something which the majority of the village welcomed as it would bring new business. Bloody thing parted like the Red Sea just a mile or two away, after Exeter. Progress passed us by once, and I won't let it do so again. I can't go tearing up Greyfield park any more than I can go tilling the soil at the cemetery, but that pile of ash and rubble serves as nothing more than fuel for superstitious rabble. It's high time it was cleared."

He finished his words defiantly and proudly, yet the sudden stop announced the impending punctuation of a 'but'. When it never came I offered it up, if only to allow him breath.

"However...?"

He waved a hand, dismissively. "Hauntings. The last few decades have been littered with them, but now that word has spread about the surveys they have suddenly become prominent again."

"Of course," I replied, somewhat self-satisfied.

"Recent 'strange happenings'," he confirmed, "or rather personified superstitions on behalf of a village who's mind-set belies the fact that the ominous ruin is no more than a gravestone." He drew in a deep breath and exhaled smoke. "It is that sentimental whimsy that sees them still standing as they are today. I dare say that such ghostly claims have always existed since the fire, but it is only now that these 'strange happenings' have become more noticeable. And violent."

And now to the crux of the matter.

"Violent?"

Mayor Barberwart hesitated before opened his top drawer and withdrew the morning paper.

"I've seen the headlines," I said, "but I assumed it was an exaggeration."

His expression then jumped volumes as he set his sharp gaze upon me.

"Tempus...it's far from exaggerated," he promised.

I was, at the time, reluctant to agree.
CHAPTER THREE

"I'm not taking my pants off for this guy."

"Mr. Coaltree, please," the young constable pleaded. "We are only asking you to show to him what you've shown us. He's an investigator."

"With which branch?" the rough, middle-aged man asked, challenging the constable's knowledge.

"The...uh...the Mayor's Office."

After mulling it over for a moment or two the reply seemed to satisfy Mr. Coaltree, if only slightly. "I suppose they patron the same tailor."

The young constable, an impeccable young man by the name of Richards, acted diplomatically, humouring Mr. Coaltree with a smile. He then turned to me as, behind him, Mr. Coaltree unbuckled his belt. "You will see the marks on his left thigh," he explained, taking out a notebook to read over his jottings and observations. "Two long lashes, as well as a small prick..."

"Hey!"

The constable cleared his throat. "As well as a small pin-prick below the knee. The trousers that he wore at the time are available to you as well, if you require."

I had stood stoic, in the background, as Constable Richards convinced the construction worker to comply, but once my cue to go about my duty and been given I stepped forth. "Thank you, constable. A most valuable service you have provided. Now, Mr. Coaltree..."

"Saul."

"Very kind," I said, appreciating his offer of familiarity. "Saul, please describe what happened to you."

He sighed, exasperated. I'm sure he had to give this story several times. "As I told the constable, and the doctor, and the site supervisor, I was attempting to get a better look inside the Mews."

"For what purpose?" I asked as I reached into my leather case. I pulled out the Nonionizer - my own home-made and slightly enhanced version of a commercially-found meter, used to measure electric and magnetic fields, only it is scaled to indicate virtually any current in the entire nonionizing electromagnetic spectrum. It is also, I must add, a tool similar to those used by ghost hunters. I saw that Mr. Coaltree was somewhat daunted by this instrument, especially when standing with his trousers down. To waylay any uncertainty I simply repeated, "For what purpose, Mr. Coaltree?"

"I'm a site surveyor for Fine Willow Landscaping," he began. "We've been contracted by the council to assess the Mews, determine how much it would cost to clear the site, and how long it would take. At this rate it's going to take yonks," he scoffed. "I'm the second mug that's been chased off by that bloody spirit, and that's not including the lads we hired to carry our equipment."

He gave a boisterous laugh at the fate of the 'lads' that were sent before them like pawns, but his revelry was cut short as the meter began to give off a series of beeps and blips.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing at all," I said, putting it away. "So how did your work bring you into the remains?"

"Well it didn't, really. I mean, I didn't know what all the fuss was about. I never believed in ghosts. Poppycock, the lot of it. So I took a break and decided to go inside, or as far inside as I could manage. There is only the western wing that really remains, and it's almost inaccessible unless you want to do some harm to yourself."

"And did you harm yourself? While entering, that is?"

Mr. Coaltree glanced up at me, his stern eye gazing upon me in a manner that made me appreciate the constable who stood behind me. "I'm not daft, lad. I didn't do this to myself. Do you think this is the kind of attention I want?" he asked, bringing attention to the fact that his trousers were at his ankles in front of two grown men.

"No, I do apologize," I humbled myself. "It is not how I intended to phrase the question." It was a lie, I confess. Sometimes the best way to uncover the truth is to provoke the subject.

I studied him for a moment, and his surroundings. He was a gruff man who was probably not as old as he looked, mostly due to a life of hard labour. His white hair was overgrown and wiry, and equally white stubble patterned his face. His clothing was likely second hand, and he stood before a worn and stained armchair, which was likely the throne to his kingdom - a run-down terraced house. His wife, or so I assumed, kept herself in the kitchen and tried desperately (and poorly) to act as though she weren't listening in on every word. I also saw a young woman, a girl in her late teens perhaps, cross the hall with a basket of washing.

"Do you have any children, Saul?"

"Cor, you must be joking," he snapped. "Horrible things, they are."

"Married, are you?"

"Aye," he said with a sneer, "and it's not by any lacking on my part that we have no children, so you can scratch that off your list."

I did not rise to the challenge or reply to his comment.

"You may pull up your trousers, Mr. Coaltree." He complied, muttering under his breath as he sat in his throne. I continued, "Any allergies? Any history of family illness?"

"Well I don't know if it's relevant, but me father was once attacked by a poltergeist."

I glanced up at him. "Really?"

"No, you flamin' idiot, but I was!!"

I drew in a deep sigh. This was going nowhere. Pulling up a chair from the nearby dinner table, I sat down across from him. "Okay, please explain what you saw. In detail."

Now he was happy, eager to get to the stories of ghosts and goblins. "Right, well I had finished up for the morning and was about to go down to Muncie's for me tea. It's a small café just across from the church. You really should go. They have..."

"Yes, indeed, I am sure it is fine."

"Well anyway, I thought I'd go have a look and see what I could see. All these daft stories about ghosts, and then Murray from the company saying he was attacked...I wanted to prove them all as poofters. So I go towards the west wing of the wreckage and start peeking through the windows and holes. Well I see something, don't I? What looks like a figure running through the gutted halls. Scared me for a moment, but then I thought that it was probably a bunch of kids playing. Well that's when I feel it - like claws lashing at my skin, trying to drag me away. I panicked, but then it bit me," he insisted, pointing to his leg with the scratches and pin-prick. "Again, could have been a wild animal of sorts, but when I turned back towards the west wing..." He trailed off, and this scoffing, sceptical man suddenly had the face and demeanour of a heretic who had just seen the face of God and was ready to repent. "The hag..." he said, and repeated it again at least twice.

"A hag, Mr. Coaltree?"

"A horrific face...not old...just....ghastly. Her face...it was as white as snow, her skin was wrinkled, torn, like a corpse. She glared at me with such hatred. She was right in front of me, on the other side of the old window. I swear my heart stopped. I fainted, I admit it. For a moment or two. I clamoured to get back to my feet, and as I did I felt a hand shove me, away from the wreckage. I didn't argue and I ran, and it'll be a cold day in Satan's realm before I set a foot near that place again. A curse, she put on me. I fear that she's here right now. She attacked me this very morning, she did."

This arose the interest of both myself and Constable Richards.

"Really?" we both said in unison.

"Aye," he said, possibly coaxed by our mutual interest. "At the break of dawn she was waiting for me. Mavis 'ere was in the kitchen, making me eggs as she always does on a Sunday, and when I woke I felt a presence holding me down. I couldn't move a muscle, by God. It was as though my whole body was being held down, and I couldn't even form the words I needed to call for help. I don't remember what happened after that. Perhaps she knocked me unconscious. I woke a few minutes later."

Mr. Coaltree looked to the kitchen, where his wife stood in the doorway looking as though she had seen his very own tormenting ghost.

"I didn't want you to hear that," he said to her, uncharacteristically sympathetic. He then glanced up at me and the constable. "I'll never hear the end of it now," he muttered.

The girl with the washing basket emerged again for a moment, then quickly scurried off. No one took any notice.

"Right, well, I think that is all of your time that I need to take," I said, standing and holding out a hand to Mr. Coaltree. "I thank you for your co-operation with this investigation."

Somewhat rattled by the sudden end of this meeting, Mr. Coaltree stood, shook my hand, and glanced at the constable. "So what now?"

"This is an ongoing matter," Constable Richards said. "We will inform you if we need any further information. In the meantime, I would like to ask you and your good lady wife to notify us immediately if there is any change in your condition." He then turned to me. "Is that suitable to you?"

"Absolutely," I replied.

"What about the hag?" his wife, Mavis, had cried. "What if she really has followed us here? What if she comes back?"

I shook my head and smiled as best as I could to comfort her. "My dear lady, there is little to no chance that she shall bother your husband again."

Distraught and clearly unhappy with my assurance, she began to wail and tremble, telling her husband that they'd have to stay at her mother's. Mr. Coaltree did not seem to want to entertain the notion.

"Can't you do something?" he asked quite tersely. "You, a man of science, should know how to repel evil spirits." He then added, with some finality, "Anything."

Of course I had a myriad of reasons why I should not have to humour his wife so, and drew back on my resolve to show my clients the truth, rather than satiate them with symbolic gestures, but in the moment and facing the pressure of a tearful wife and her impatient husband, I must admit that I resorted to my father's tactics.

"Here," I said, rummaging through my leather bag. I withdrew a small stuffed object, sewn together with worn patches of multi-coloured but faded canvas. Mrs. Coaltree took it in the palm of her hand and examined the frayed threads. "It is an ancient artifact from the Maori Tribe, used to ward off evil spirits. Keep this by your bed, and I guarantee the hag will not return."

She sniffed, thanked me, then ran off to find a tissue while clutching the 'artifact'. In gratitude, Mr. Coaltree gave me a nod and a short punch in the shoulder. I rubbed it, thanked him again for his time, and left the premises with the escort of the constable.

"You seemed pretty confident that the hag will not return," the young man said, leading me down the front path. "How can you be so sure?"

"I've not yet sussed out what he saw at the Mews," I admitted. "I plan to take my investigations there in the morning. However I can assure you that Mr. Coaltree was not visited by the same ghost this morning, though he was, ironically enough, visited by a hag."

"You mean his wife?" the constable said with a cheeky laugh. When he saw that I did not find such humour to be appropriate he cleared his throat and allowed me to continue.

"It is an old wives tale," I said, not allowing him the chance for another wry remark. "The Old Hag is a superstitious name given to a neurological state, where one is between the boundaries of waking and sleep and their perception blurs. Most commonly one finds themselves unable to move. It is somewhat of an unlikely occurrence, but more unlikely that anyone experiences it in such a vivid manner. It has, of course, given rise to many tales of the paranormal, the most common being that it is a ghostly old hag who pins you down and terrorizes you. I feel that it has much to do with the apparent abductions by aliens, where one feels unable to move and note a strange presence in their room. These hallucinations are produced by the fear one feels, no doubt. It is an amazing coincidence that Mr. Coaltree experienced such a rare phenomenon the morning after his ordeal, but I dare say that his own paranoia was likely to have educed the episode. Textbook, Constable Richards. Our Mr. Coaltree could be a perfect case study for any psychologist."

It took the young constable a few moments to gather all the information that I had just fed him. "So...what was the artifact that you just gave his wife?"

"Hm? Oh that? It was a cat toy. It seems Aristotle hid it in my bag last night."

The young man chuckled, though I tried not to take pleasure in the deception I had laid. We had reached his patrol car, whereupon he asked me if I needed a lift anywhere. When I gave him the address of the Bed & Breakfast he seemed not that surprised.

"Mrs. Tellman's place? Well done, not a better stop in all of Greyfield. Is she still firmly in power, with only the occasional assistance from her children?" I nodded in response. "Justin and Nicolette," he said, filling in a few blanks in the information I was missing. "I went to school with them. Their father died about five years ago, and Mrs Tellman has not been the same since. Probably for the best, really."

"How do you mean?"

"Well," he said, his demeanour very candid, "let's just say that Nicolette is hardly a stranger to the men of this town, and Justin...gay as anything, he is. Recently came back from a holiday in London, and probably turned tricks all over the city."

I immediately turned cold to the constable who, I had previously assumed, was a respectable and promising lad. "Well," I scolded quietly, "if a lady's character should be called into question just for befriending the men of the village then I question your standards. Alternately, if a young man of good spirits wishes to share his love of magic and the slight of hand with the rest of London then why must it be, to you, something worthy of criticism?"

The car pulled up to Mrs. Tellman's home. I got out of the patrol car, bid the constable good day, and left him to think about what I had said to him.
CHAPTER FOUR

Though it was clearly described as a small town, the true scale of Greyfield's macrocosmic entirety was astounding. One could walk down one single street, from beginning to end, and cross town in only a matter of minutes. This was, at least, the hub of Greyfield, it's downtown district. A scattering of remote homes and general stores made up the rest. Then there was the pub, which seemed to be located where all roads in Greyfield intersected. Due to this rather simplistic layout, it was not so much difficult to find the road to the mews.

With Aristotle in tow I made my way down the small single-lane artery, taking the lead while he tagged behind. He took the time to smell the flowers and chase the insects, but always kept up with me with the faithful obedience of a canine. The weather made for a fine afternoon, and I nodded my head and smiled cheerfully to the occasional passers-by. I even withdrew my pocket watch and marked the time with a wink when I ambled past a pretty young lass, but she seemed not to notice. Perhaps they were all wary of me as, in most small towns, outsiders are met with distrust. Why the very word 'barbarian' is derived from the Greek 'barbarois', meaning 'foreigner'. Perhaps they were intimidated by the man who had come to rid their modest hamlet of it's evil presence. Or perhaps they were daunted by the rather large uninflated balloon that I dragged along the path behind me, or the small portable tank of helium that I carried under my arm. I was unable to draw a volunteer from Justin, as he was much too perplexed by what problem the constable had with his apparent travelling magic show. Not to be told that I was afraid of a little hard work, I nonetheless brought all necessary equipment with me to the site.

"Good day, sir," a chipper young voice said, nonetheless exhibiting a trace amounts of humility. I glanced up and noted a young lady crossing my path on the opposite side of the road. She, too, was carrying a heavy load. A canvas sack that I assumed to contain more dirty laundry.

"Hello!" I called, grateful for the interaction. "Tell me, am I heading in the right direction for the mews?"

"Why yes you are," she called back. We both stood on opposite sides of the road as though we feared being struck by a motorcar, though I must attest that, aside from Constable Richard's patrol car, I had yet to see any other motor vehicle in the vicinity. Both coming to the same conclusion at the same time, we each set down our heavy loads and met halfway, at the unmarked centre lane divide.

"You're the man investigating the mews, aren't you?" the young lady said with an impressed smile. I must say I was immediately taken by her aloofness and they way she shyly averted my gaze. Had she not been about ten years my junior I might have attempted to craft some words to woo her. She wore a bonnet to hold her hair and an old denim dress, all of which showed the wear of laborious tasks. Wiping the sweat-moistened hair from her bashful cheeks, she smiled as she awaited a response.

"And you're the girl from Mr. Coaltree's residence," I pointed out. "The one doing the washing."

She nodded, still avoiding eye contact.

"I thought you were his daughter," I confessed, "but was soon corrected, so I concluded that you were in their employ – a hypothesis validated by the fact that no one paid any particular heed to your presence." Fluttering the young girl's heart, I reached out and lifted her chin with my thumb and forefinger. "Actually I felt as though I were the only one there to see you at all. Such a shame."

"Perhaps," she replied, her accent flawless and free of any modern-day taint, "you indeed were. Why I might just be another spirit that haunts their household, and you in turn may be the only man with enough integrity and heart to truly set eyes upon me."

I hesitated as I replayed my every memory. Surely Mrs. Coaltree had at least glanced at her when she entered with the washing. For a moment I cursed myself for paying so much attention to the focus of my investigations.

I gave a laugh in spite of myself. "Young lady, you seek to daunt me."

She smiled, pleased with herself. "And you seek the mews. They are that way," she said, pointing in my general direction. "Myself, I wish I could help you but I've my own burdens to carry. You might ask my brother for assistance, for an able-bodied lad such as himself would surely volunteer. However I ask that you keep him away from the centre of the remains where the hauntings lay - a recommendation that I caution you to adhere to as well."

"I'll keep your caring concern in mind. Where might I find your brother?"

Again she pointed down the road, in the general direction I was headed. "He is in Greyfield Park, directly across from the grounds whereupon the ruins lay."

"Well I should make it that far, but perhaps he will be willing to assist me in setting up my equipment. Tell me, dear girl, who should I say recommended him?"

She glowed, knowing that I sought her name. She turned and headed back to her canvas sack, though she threw me a coy smile over her shoulder. "Why his sister, Mr. Fugit."

And without another word she carried on.

Reaffirming my grip on my cargo I remained true to my path, ultimately finding a clearing upon which lay a cricket green and a series of picnic tables. The park looked as though it would have been a focal gathering point for the entire village on any other day, but with the ominous remnants of the mews shadowing the grounds from beyond the small stream that divided the two scapes, the park found itself devoid of any life. If anything I would have thought the grounds to be more likely to stir up fodder for treacherous tales, simply due to the knowledge that beneath my feet lay a large grave. Whether human remains were buried along with the gutted manor I was not sure, but it was a grave nonetheless.

I decided to begin my experiments on the more appealing side of the stream, though not out of fear of approaching the wreckage. Much like any investigation it is best to start on the outside of the issue and slowly work your way to its core. Hauling my equipment to the edge or the dividing stream, I saw a young boy chasing a ball, though he had no companion to pass it to. When he saw me and my equipment his curiosity compelled him, and he left his ball to come investigate.

"What's all this?" he asked, attempting an authoritative scrutiny worthy of Constable Richards. "Have you got a license for all this?"

"And what license would I require?" I asked, barely paying him any heed.

The boy shrugged. "I dunno, but I reckon you'd need one. Tell you what, I'll not run and tell the licensing bureau for, oh...say...a tenner?"

"Blackmail's your game then, is it?" I asked. "You've already got your life of crime laid out for you and you're only seven years old."

"Nine," he insisted indignantly. He then saw Aristotle, who pounced upon his foot. "Wot's this?" he exclaimed.

"Aristotle," I introduced. "He's a bit curious."

The boy crouched down and began to pet him. "He actually follows you? Without a leash? I thought cats didn't do that?"

"Most don't," I explained, setting up a series of vials and retrieving a plastic bottle of tap water. "He's a Bombay. They're an extremely friendly and social breed."

"Well I wouldn't let my sister see it. She loves black cats. Maybe because she's such a witch."

"Well that's hardly a kind thing to say to your..."

I paused.

"Your sister...she wouldn't happen to be the lovely young girl who headed that way about fifteen minutes ago, would she?"

"No," he stated simply.

"Oh."

"She's not lovely. My sister did go by here a few minutes ago though."

So this was the strong and able-bodied lad that she promised me? Her sense of humour was quite devilish. Nevertheless I managed to coax the lad into performing a few tasks for me, as his natural curiosity took hold when he realized that I intended to inflate a large balloon.

"Who's birthday is it?" he had asked. He was of course disappointed when I told him that I wished to set aloft a balloon carrying a make-shift barometer. "Sounds lame."

"A barometer is an instrument that measures the air pressure. Lower air pressure denotes the approach of bad weather. If the air pocket in this water tube rises and spills water, we know that the air pressure has lowered."

"Can't you just turn on the TV to see what the weather's going to be like?"

"It's not the weather I'm interested in," I explained. "I want to see if the air pressure is different here as opposed to over there."

I pointed to the remains of the Mews.

"Oh."

Finally he spoke like the timid boy he looked like.

"Have you ever been over there?"

"Of course I have," he insisted. "Loads of times."

"Great, be a good lad then and set this small barometer up over there for me."

He hesitated. He paused. He panicked.

"Not right now. In a bit, yeah? I'm not done helping you here yet."

I let him off the hook, and we continued inflating the balloon and setting up the small basket that would carry my barometer. He applauded happily when it was set aloft, then quickly returned to his game of 'chase the string' with Aristotle whilst I fastened it to a secure anchor. While the lad was busy occupying my sole companion I retrieved from my leather bag a spyglass, a relic from my father's days as a sailor. Though more complex and better quality equipment was available, I preferred it's simplicity, not to mention it's sentimental value. Extending it I stood erect like a sailor at the ship's bow and surveyed all that lay before me. There was little that was notable about the remains of the Mews, aside from the unfortunate state of it's disrepair. As unfounded as it may be, I always felt a certain remorse for some inanimate objects, such as buildings, who have suffered a virtual death and were stripped of their former glory. This house, like the one beneath the soil at my feet, was once the focal point of this village, yet now all that remained were a series of pillars, columns, the remnants of doorways and a number of walls that were once the west wing. Through these broken windows and the holes in the demolished walls I could see little, as though even the daylight feared to enter.

"It's pretty cool, isn't it?" the boy chirped, then followed with a squeal as Aristotle pounced upon his hand.

"No, not really," I replied. I had already removed my jacket for the heat, and contemplated removing my vest as well. I returned my view to the mews. "The wreckage, however, is quite fascinating."

"Dare you to go over there," he said with the same devilish intent his sister bore.

I scanned the former gardens, where fountains and sculptures were overgrown with weeds and shrubs. "I just may. Tomorrow. After I have time to analyze my readings."

"You won't," he teased me, his attention still on his feline game. "Even Antony's big brother Phil won't go over there, and he used to live in London!"

I panned over to the east wing, which was just a series fallen support beams and quarter-height walls, just as overgrown. "I'm sure that is a reputable measure of his courage," I replied absently. "I do not know this Phil or Antony, but tell me boy...what is your name?"

"Jack."

I brought my line of sight back to the west wing, once again focusing on the windows that allowed little light. "And tell me, Jack...what is your sister's name?"

"My sister?" he asked, disgusted. "She's gross! What do you want with her? Besides, she's only fifteen!"

That startled me. I was aware that females seem to age much quicker physically as of late - a phenomenon I often blamed on the transmission of growth hormones injected into the livestock to expedite growth in order to meet today's high demand - but her demeanour did not reflect her age. It is not too often that my analysis and conclusions are so far off the mark. I tried to stifle my surprise and continued my observation of the remains.

"Are you sure?" I felt inclined to ask.

However before I received a response I, admittedly, gasped in horror.

"I know my sister's age, mister. I'm not stupid!"

I struggled to hold the spyglass still as I focused on an image in one of the windows. It was just as Mr. Coaltree had described. She was as white as a sheet, her hair ragged, her eyes red, and her skin in an advanced state of rigor mortis. Gasping for breath and fighting to control my senses, fearful that I might unwittingly indulge myself in the same fear-mongering fancy that so many others do when faced with an unknown. It was exactly as Mr. Coaltree had illustrated, and in the exact same place. Perhaps it was an illusion, an image, a dummy.

"My sister has all sorts of girl germs. You don't go for that sort of thing, do you?"

At first it seemed as though the apparition stared out into the void, but as I steadied my view I saw her turn and lock on eye contact with me. It was no coincidence - she saw me. Then, eliminating all possibilities I had on hand in those few moments, the visage simply dissolved and vanished into thin air before my eyes.

"Why aren't you answering?"

I stared at the empty spot for what seemed like an eternity.

"Mister? What's wrong?"

I lowered the telescope, retracted it, and began putting it along with all my other instruments hurriedly back into my bag.

"We're finished here," I said to Jack. "We can leave now."
CHAPTER FIVE

My room at Mrs. Tellman's home was now paid for by the Mayor's Office, so I had little to worry about while striving for the results that would result in my payment. It had an adequate bed, a radio, and a bathroom that was only private in that the other room it was adjoined to was not currently occupied. The most advantageous features, however, were a desk with a blotter and lamp at which I was able to make my notes, as well as the building's convenient proximity to the Greyfield Public Library. The library, I might add, was the same facility that served as the Post Office and presumably the police station, as it was Constable Richards who assigned and stamped my probationary library card.

With these tools and conveniences I was able to further my studies well into the evening, where I made notes of my observations as well as poured over a scrapbook that contained photos of Greyfield taken throughout the past century. Though it seemed to be the focal point of the village, there were very few images of the original estate, the mews, or the wreckage that it had since become.

At the knock on my door I received a silver tray containing a small pot of tea and biscuits, delivered by Justin. He was a fine young man, well groomed, with short blond hair and a rather colourful dress sense. His left ear was pierced, though I doubted he was ever in the navy. Perhaps he just wanted to give off the impression in order to make up for some self-perceived shortcomings, giving everyone else the impression that he appreciated seamen.

"Mum asked me to bring this to you," he said, setting the tray down next to a few other books I had borrowed from the constable. "She said she reckons ridding the village of Satan's evil influence must be tiring, and that a good cuppa is the best thing for it." He smirked at the words that he was probably forced to rehearse and repeat. "Hope you like chocolate bickies."

"Indubitably."

He went so far as to serve me, pouring my tea and asking me how I liked it. I noted, however, that he kept glancing over my shoulder at my scratch pad, where my own version of shorthand had scribbled a few cryptic statements, a few mathematical equations, and a crude map of the wreckage's location.

"Are you having any luck?" he asked, taking two chocolate biscuits from the tray and placing them on a small plate.

"Somewhat," I replied, in part answering his question and in part thinking aloud. I picked up my pencil and pointed at a circled area on my crude map. "There is some old farming equipment left here," I said. I paused to sip my tea, then gave him a nod of approval. "It is possible that he stumbled in the overgrowth and cut himself on a lathe and thus, in his hyper-sensitive state induced by his uncertainty, produced in his mind the possibility of a spectral assailant. I shall have to examine his clothing tomorrow to see if there are any rusted flakes present, as the blade of the lathe will have been severely weathered."

"Oh. So that's it then? Mystery solved?" Justin asked. I couldn't help but note an hint of disappointment.

"Well, I suppose that if I wanted to be thorough, and I rightly do, then I'd have to explain the pin-prick on his leg that he referred to as a bite mark."

"I should think that very few beasts have only one tooth, or would succeed in leaving only the impression of one solitary tooth, especially if it had the hold on him that he's telling everyone. Makes it sound as though he were locked in the jaws of Cerberus, he does." Then, after a moment's hesitation; "We should be so lucky."

"You are not fond of Mr. Coaltree then?" I asked. When he shook his head I pressed further. "Is he not well liked in the village?"

"Oh he is well liked," Justin said, placing his hand indignantly on his hip. "Just not by me, but then again that is only because he's decided that, as far as he's concerned, my 'type' is not welcome in Greyfield."

"Magicians?"

Justin shook his head, his exasperation showing that he had obviously grown tired with his magical practice. "No," he said impatiently. "Tempus, you don't seem to understand. I'm gay."

I leaned back in my chair and drew in a quick mental summation of the young lad. I then shook my head. "No. Not at the moment you're not. You were the other day when you were watching that program on the television, but..."

"You're not listening," he insisted, his good-natured smile barely held on by his impatience. "I'm a homosexual."

I was momentarily taken aback. Not only by his sudden outburst, but by the shame I felt in not being familiar with the term that he seemed so adamant to apply to himself. It certainly bore familiar terms, and I cross-referenced it in my mind with any other similar labels I knew. There was, of course, 'homo sapien' - Wise Man. At a stretch there was 'homo habilis' - Handy Man. Or 'homo erectus' - Upright Man? Australopithecus and Neanderthal seemed to be right out of the question. So what of 'homo sexual' - Sexual Man? I immediately surmised that this was a title that one male might give to himself when being boisterous with other males - a method of building one's ego and subconsciously vying for being the 'alpha male'. Justin, I assumed, must have been bragging about his libido.

"I see," I said, uncertain of how to respond. I reckoned that perhaps, if I wanted to be accepted and play along with this game of initiation, I should make my own such claim. "It may surprise you, Justin, but I too am, as you say, 'homo sexual'."

I tried not to be offended by how generally surprised he seemed. "Really?"

"Yes, quite. More so in my youth, when I used to associate with a pack of similar rogues as myself, but even today I have to admit that I have lived up to the title."

"You know, I thought so. Part of me figured you were. This is really quite exciting, if you don't mind me saying. There were plenty of us in London, but around here..."

"Yes, too few, I agree," I insisted. "I'm glad it pleases you so. However, you tell me that Mr. Coaltree is against those such as ourselves?"

"Extremely. He can be quite crude, actually. He was the reason I left in the first place. I decided to come back though. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of running me out of town."

"I have to say I'm surprised. I would have thought that Mr. Coaltree would have been quite 'homo sexual'." I pondered this a moment. "Perhaps he prefers men?"

Justin did not hold back a strong guttural laugh, patting me on the back as though he appreciated my rumination more than any he had heard in ages. "You're a good man, Tempus," he said.

"I bet he is," a sultry voice stated.

We both turned to see Nicolette standing at my door. She leaned against the door-frame with her arms crossed, dressed in a short skirt and a form-fitting floral top. Her dark curly hair veiled her slender face and disguised her features, except for a piercing gaze.

"Justin, stop harassing the guests. They're not interested."

"Don't be so rude, Nic. Me and Tempus were talking."

"I doubt he's interested, so don't get your hopes up."

"I'll have you know that Tempus is gay too!"

The sultry young woman turned her head and pinned me against the wall with her stare. She was hardly as friendly and accommodating when her mother wasn't around. "Is this true?" she asked.

I have always found social interactions to be most curious and, above all else, exasperating. Nonetheless, given that Justin had been laughing quite boisterously upon her entry I decided to back up his story by giving a jovial laugh of my own. "Yes," I guffawed. "Quite gay."

A wry smile stretched across her features. She stepped into my room with a walk unlike anything I had seen before. "This will be a challenge."

"Oh knock it off, Nic," Justin protested. "You're not going to change him."

"Quite right," I maintained. "I am quite gay at the moment."

Her eyes lit up. "At the moment?" Then, over her shoulder she spoke flatly to her sibling. "Leave the room, Justin."

Although he seemed enraged he nonetheless complied, as though this were an act repeated one too many times for his own liking. "Don't let her get to you," he said before leaving. "She does this to all the guests."

She slammed the door shut behind him, then sauntered back over toward me. Upon reaching my desk she swivelled my chair around so that I faced her, then placed herself upon my lap, her legs straddling me on either side. I was made a bit uncomfortable, to say the least.

"If you do this to all the guests..." I began, "...then I don't see how they ever return to your establishment."

"Oh they do," she said, cupping my cheeks with her palms. "You'll see soon enough."

Nicolette leaned back, reaching into her impossibly tight skirt and nonetheless producing a small flask. I did not know what the contents were, but she poured a measure or two into my cup of tea.

"I must admit," I said, attempting to speak clearly, "that I perhaps have embellished the truth. A little."

She took my cup of tea and brought it to my lips. I was always told it was rude to dismiss the services of a gracious host, so felt as though I had little choice but to partake. Within moments odd sensations - unknown chemical reactions - filled me. Terribly embarrassing business, I assure you. After I had sipped it she did the same.

"Go on," she nudged, bidding me to continue the train of thought that had since been derailed.

"Well, that is...I am perhaps...well...not the 'homo sexual' that I have perpetuated myself to be."

"Really?" she asked, placing the cup down gingerly upon the tray. "Now why doesn't that surprise me?"

My breathing had suddenly increased, and the racing of my own heart filled my ears. "I only said it for Justin. To make him feel...well...perhaps...I..."

Her attention was fully placed upon my eyes. I locked on as they were the only thing in the room that wasn't swaying. "That," she began, "is perhaps the most kind and accommodating thing anyone has ever done. Not many men would say that to make my brother feel...well...whatever it is that he feels."

"Well I thank you for your understanding," I replied, my head lulling. "In truth, well...my experiences at...as he calls it...'homo sexuality' are...at best...relatively unremarkable. Oh...when did you get the badger?"

Her palm returned my face back towards her gaze. "Well then," she said, drawing her lips to mine. "That is the best place to start."
CHAPTER SIX

I awoke the following morning with a headache unlike any I had suffered before. Not even the time that I had accidentally knocked over my father's chemistry set and ingested his smelling salts could have led to a migraine as severe as this. Having never known the true effects of alcohol or recreational drugs, but nonetheless knowing of their repute, I immediately deduced where to lay blame. My eyes were barely able to open and absorb the minimal amount of daylight the blinds filtered in, and I patted my hand about in an attempt to find my pocket watch, which I always left at my bedside. Bringing it into focus I looked at the time. It was after nine, an ungodly hour to sleep in to if there ever was one. I immediately sat up, but the dull pain in my forehead immediately disagreed. I knew that I would have to consult Mrs. Tellman and see if she had any paracetamol to help aid my relief, yet would have to make false disclosure as to the cause of my condition. As I turned and placed my feet upon the floor, however, I made a startling realization.

I was naked.

I had never been one to sleep 'in the raw', as they say, and found myself searching my memories for any vital clues as to how I found myself in this condition. It was when I turned back to the bed, however, that I noticed the shape of a definitively female form under my sheets. It was Nicolette, and after a quick and exploratory search I deduced that she, too, was naked. Now it would not be to my credit if I said I did not panic at that moment, for I felt as though something truly inappropriate had transpired and an all-consuming sense of guilt overwhelmed me.

"Wake up," I urged her quietly, wary of laying a hand on her naked form, despite the sheet that separated her flesh from mine. I quickly stood, dressed myself as hurriedly as possible, then utilized a coat hanger as a poking device to try and rouse her. "Please," I insisted. "Before you mother comes to see why I haven't come for breakfast!"

Eventually she was roused, and sat up regardless of the fact that she was stark naked. The poor dear seemed oblivious, and probably had not yet realized. My heart went out to the girl, who's shame and embarrassment would be overwhelming, all because of my apparent actions and inability to control my nature whilst under the influence of narcotic substances.

"What time is it?" she asked, running her fingers through her hair.

"Never mind that," I insisted, throwing her blouse to her in hopes that it would be a subtle enough nudge. "We have to discuss this matter!"

"What matter?" she asked, her eyes squinting through their weariness to make sense of the buttons.

"Well my dear there is very little room for debate regarding what happened between us last night, and I insist that we think upon the severity of the situation!"

"Severity of what...?" she asked. She shook her head. "Look mate, there's only one thing that happened last night, and happened it did. Do you think you're still gay?"

"I most certainly am not," I insisted. "I couldn't be further from it!"

"Good," she chirped, her senses returning to their employ. She slipped on her blouse then searched the floor for her skirt. "It was a laugh though, wasn't it?"

"A laugh? This is hardly the time! Have you no perception of what has occurred? My dear girl, I have just sullied your honour! I have tarnished your reputation!"

"You are joking," she scoffed.

She obviously did not remember, which was perhaps for the best. I placed my hand upon her shoulder, hoping to relay my true sincerity. "Nicolette, be not afraid. Though this was hardly in our plans, I am nonetheless a man of my word and a man of honour."

"What are you talking about?"

"I will make an honest woman of you. This I promise."

"Okay, you're really starting to freak me out."

I then did what any good man would do. I went down on one knee.

"Nicolette Tellman, will you marry me?"

"Get the hell away from me, you creep!"

She shoved me, pushing clear onto my back. I caught a fleeting image of her stepping over me and rushing for the door, shouting obscenities as she left. My heart went out to her. She was obviously deeply disappointed with her actions and feeling very embarrassed by what had transpired. Nevertheless, as I vowed to her, I am a man of my word and I had every intent on making her an honest woman once more. From that moment, deny it as she may, as far as I was concerned she was my fiancée.

To take my mind from this startling turn of events I decided to return my focus to the purpose of my stay in Greyfield. Collecting my father's camera, I finished getting washed and dressed and went downstairs to the dining room. Nicolette looked as though she had been severely reprimanded for her tardiness and was rushing to have my breakfast prepared for me. To ease the tension I advised that this was not necessary, but Mrs. Tellman was insistent.

"My Nicolette must know her lot," she had insisted.

I resolved then, with those words said, that there would be no more opportune time to deliver the news to her mother. "Mrs. Tellman," I said, standing and putting my arm around Nicolette. "We have an announcement to make, and in your late-husband's absence I believe I have permission to ask of you."

"No we flamin' well do not," my fiancée insisted, pushing me away. She was obviously still quite embarrassed, so I decided to give her more time. I indulged Mrs. Tellman with my appreciation to distract her from my supposed proclamation, which she received with a humble grace.

Upon finishing my breakfast I indulged all three of my hosts in the layout of my plans for that day, to which Justin paid a remarkable amount of attention, going so far as to ask me about vested interests in my craft and the amount of physical exertion it required of me. When I told him that I was going to enter the ruins that day he seemed generally concerned for my well-being, cupping his hand over my own and wishing me well. Mrs. Tellman told me that she had ensured an extra ration of bacon in my breakfast to help give me the strength I needed. While Nicolette did not say anything I knew it was her shame that stopped her from speaking her concern for me.

Coincidentally enough, moments before leaving, Mrs. Tellman received a visitor in the form of a man in a black suit and white collar. He was introduced as the local vicar, a stalky man in his sixties who looked as though he spent a good part of his life locked in physical labour rather than administering salvation. Mrs. Tellman welcomed his visit with all the humility one would the pope, and was quick to cater to his every need. Though he seemed embarrassed by her servitude, he nonetheless took advantage of it. He was introduced as Theopolis Grisham, and he greeted me with a warm smile and a firm handshake.

"Mr. Fugit, I believe?"

"I am."

"I must say it is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance. I have heard about your exploits, past and present, through the excited praise of the townspeople."

"Exaggerated, I am sure," I replied, practising my best humility.

"Well, even legends are steeped in the truth, are they not? Nonetheless, I understand you have shown the resolve to enter the Mews today, is this not so?" I nodded. "Well then, I have come to see if you wish to pray to God Almighty for continued strength and courage, for I am sure that once..."

I held up a hand to stop him. "Mr. Grisham, with all do respect, I feel that it is not necessary. Though I admire you and all men of your position, I must nonetheless concede that I am not a man of God, but a man of science."

"An atheist?" he asked, his voice showing concern.

I shook my head. "I do not discount the belief in God, I simply to no rely on it. God is the variable in the algebraic equation that is life, and rather than revere it I feel we should strive to find it's true value. Nonetheless I accept your good wishes and esteem."

The vicar took a moment to allow his 'live and let live' resolve settle in. "Well then I must acknowledge your kind regard as well. Nonetheless, if you feel you are in danger and have no other alternative, might I give you this as a last resort?" He handed me a small vial. "Holy water, my son. It is a bit cliché, but then again so are the Devil's tired attempts to ensnare us."

Though I doubted its usefulness I did not wish to offend a man that I might later have to rely upon for information. I accepted the bottle graciously and placed it in the front pocket of my vest. At the very least it I figured might later be utilized as an excellent placebo, if I were to resort to such measures. "Most kind, Mr. Grisham. Most kind."

I left as Mr. Grisham conceded, with very little resistance, to allowing Mrs. Tellman to prepare him breakfast, the crux of her campaign being that he must have been tired in the days following a Sunday in which so many sought comfort.

I ambled back down the lane towards Greyfield Park and the subsequent ruins that accompanied it. I found little foot traffic on this day, as though everyone knew of my scheme and wanted no part of it. I encountered Jack on my travels, but he insisted that his mother would not allow him to the park, nor allow him to associate with me. He was rather taken by Aristotle once again and, hoping to appease the boy who would make a fine apprentice, I requested that he take Aristotle with him and keep him safe. I didn't trust my closest companion with just anyone, but I reckoned myself a good judge of character.

Unencumbered by weighty instruments or company in tow, I reached Greyfield Park and, finding a fallen branch that could be utilized as a good walking stick, I made my way over to the anchor of my weather balloon. I reeled it in and examined the readings, which seemed unremarkable. The current weather seemed to match what the barometer surmised. Untying the rope, I began to walk the balloon to the other side of the stream, more towards the ruins themselves. I took great care when crossing finding my footing on protruding stones and doing my best to avoid getting the cuffs of my trousers wet whilst keeping a hold of the balloon's line. I found another anchor amongst the overgrown rubble of the garden to fasten the line to, then let the balloon go aloft and hover over the mews. With that taken care of I ambled over the rubble towards the west wing. I opened the camera bag that hung over my shoulder and wound the film on, preparing to take photographic evidence of any anomaly I might find. I took a few snaps of the grounds. While I discounted the presence of spirits I was nonetheless aware of the concept of spirit photography and, I must concede, I would not be a man of science if I did not rule out every possibility. Besides, since I found few recorded images in my research I would have no choice but to fashion my own reference library.

There was a small clamour.

I immediately turned towards the decrepit pavilion, where it sounded as though something had been dropped upon its weathered marble surface. I immediately snapped a series of pictures, but then laughed in spite of my racing pulse, for it was likely only debris that collapsed due to its deterioration, or at best the actions of an animal. Convinced by my own self-mockery that all was well, and perhaps comforted by the childhood belief that all spirits are safely tucked away in the daylight, I approached the remains of the west wing. I examined the abandoned lathe, which showed traces of blood and proved my theory correct - there were no lashes from an angry spirit. But what about the alleged bite? I followed what I believed was Mr. Coaltree's path, even going so far as to discover his wallet, complete with his identification. He had never mentioned the loss previously, nor was he likely in a rush to return and retrieve it. I pocketed it and, as I stood, looked ahead. There was a blackened stone wall which was collapsed at just over my height so that the windows were not complete. I realized then that this was where Mr. Coaltree must have seen his apparition, as well as roughly being the same area where I saw my 'apparition' the previous day. Slowly I stepped towards the windows, reaching out with my walking stick and beating the grass to startle any wildlife before they had a chance to startle me. I only succeeded in conjuring a dragonfly. Leaning towards the window, I raised the camera to chest level and snapped a picture, illuminating the interior with the flash for only a split-second's time.

It was then that I felt a sting in my thigh.

I immediately turned and felt a continued series of small pelts against the front of my leg, one going so far as to sting my chest. Caught somewhere between panic and an attempt at a quick analysis, I found myself struck many times but there was no sensation that I would consider a bite. Not with a rational mind intact, that is.

I was being shot with a pellet gun.

"Stop this at once!" I shouted, shielding my face. Though it was painful it was not debilitating and I was able to walk forward defiantly against my assailant, separating myself from the remains and standing in a clearing where I hoped to ascertain the direction from with the pellets came.

They stopped.

"Identify yourself immediately!" I shouted, quite indignant about being shot, not to mention the fact that whoever it was assumed that I would be so naive as to fall for such trickery.

After a moment's silence a large stone, thrown from afar, landed at my feet.

"Oh come on now!" I sighed aloud. "This is just getting ridiculous!"

Nothing.

"I can wait all day!"

There was a moment where I could sense the assailant's resolve falter, where he was likely reluctant to concede even though he knew his ploy had failed. I looked ahead where the tree-line rustled with the breeze, expecting to see someone step forth, but I was surprised as I heard a voice call to me from my right.

"You know you really are a nincompoop!"

While I try to relay every word in its original context from my misadventures, I must admit that the word 'nincompoop' was not actually used, but another descriptive colloquialism that I care not to even replicate on paper.

I turned and saw a form approach, as feminine yet aggressive as it's voice was. There stood a young woman with long black hair, a black tank top, and camouflage trousers. She also wore heavy boots and held an air rifle with all the clout of a hardened soldier. Despite her determined stride I could tell that she was young, but it wasn't until she came closer that I made a startling realization.

"You!" I gasped.

It was the girl from Mr. Coaltree's home. Jack's sister.

"I should have known you wouldn't spook so easily," she muttered, reloading her rifle with pellets. She pumped it up then held it aimed it at me.

"I must say," I stammered, "I am quite surprised." And indeed I was! Gone were her timid clothing and aloof nature, replaced with someone who was holding me at bay with a rifle. "What on earth are you playing at?"

"I'm trying to protect this house, that's what I'm doing!"

"From what?" I asked, frustrated by her actions. "I am only trying to examine it!"

"Yeah, and when you tell them that its all okay they'll bring the contractors back in to tear it down!"

"Can we please lower the gun?" I asked warily. My legs would be stinging for days and I did not wish for further injuries.

She seemed to mull it over, but eventually conceded. "If it were anyone else I'd have shot you between the eyes by now."

"And for that I am grateful," I muttered. "What else should I expect from the lovely young girl I met only a day ago?"

"Christ," she grumbled, sitting upon a large stone chunk that was once part of a wall. She set the rifle across her legs and leaned against it. "You didn't actually buy all that 'Little Miss Priss' stuff, did you? That's just to appease my 'clientele' for my day job. Gotta earn a few quid somehow in this shite little town, don't I?"

I used my make-shift walking stick to push away some leaves and debris from a nearby stone chunk and sat down alongside her. "And do you get paid to scare off contractors?" I asked.

"Give over," she scoffed.

"So why do you go through such bother? Do you think that it should be preserved as a grave site? A landmark? You could always appeal to historical societies who would..."

"And have them turn it into a tourist attraction? No way! We can't have people traipsing in and out of here! That's one of the things I'm trying to avoid! I have to protect them."

"Them? Who is 'them'?"

"The spirits who dwell in the Mews. In the basement. I've seen them."

"You've seen them? You've been in the basement? I was given the impression that no one has got that far because..." I stopped, answering my own question. It was fear, paranoia, and as of recently, this girl's trickery that stopped people from getting too far inside.

"There is...something down there. I'm not sure what. I haven't got too close. I was too frightened, if you must know. I mean I'm brave but I'm not stupid."

"Well I must continue on with my investigation. Now if you don't mind..."

"What investigation?" she asked, jumping up to bar my path. "You can't go in there! Besides, you were asked to investigate the source of Saul's attack and you have. A rusty lathe and a girl with a gun. What's left to investigate?"

"And shall I tell them that you were partially to blame? As you said, if they feel as though the place is safe then they will call the contractors back in. Then what? And what if they decide to lay charges against you?"

"I don't know," she spat, frustrated. "It's not like I properly planned all this out, is it?"

I put my hand on her shoulder, hoping to reassure her. "What is your name? Will you tell me this time?"

She glanced up at me with eyes encircled in red. Despite her attempts at defiance, she was still just a young girl charged with youthful limitations and emotions. "You sure you're not some kind of perv?"

"I assure you I most certainly am not. Why I am a man who is engaged to be married!"

She seemed satisfied with that. "Jill," she said with a sniff.

"Jill? And your brother's name is Jack?"

"Piss off," she challenged. "Say it and act like you think I've never heard it before."

I did not even try.

"Alright then Jill, lead me down to where you've seen these spirits. I shall investigate it and then together we can deduce what it is and what we shall tell the Mayor's Office." I extended a hand to her. "Have we a bargain?"

She shook my hand. "Deal. Just be nice to them, okay?"

"I promise I shall extend every courtesy."

"Just because you don't believe in them," she asserted condescendingly, her defiance returning, "doesn't mean they don't believe in you."

"I did not say that I don't believe in spirits," I insisted as she led me around the back of the west wing, on a path I assume she kept secret. "I believe it is possible that these alleged ghosts are temporal imprints left by the living, much like a shoe will leave an imprint in the sand. Much like that footprint, however, those temporal markings are stationary, set in stone such as it were. They could not be of free will, nor can they be dispossessed spirits looking for the light that they must head towards. If that old hag that Saul and I saw are real, then..."

"So you've seen her?" Jill asked, jumping upon my words. "You've seen the burning lady?"

"I have seen the image of a woman, yes. Much like Mr. Coaltree reported her to be. Almost identical in behaviour and..."

"Just come this way," she snapped, walking in front of me and removing a large wooden board to reveal a small passageway in the wall.

Once we passed through the opening we found ourselves in a hallway with only the original support beams for a ceiling. Charred wood and decades of dust lined the walls and floors, and dead wiring hung where complete walls once covered them. I felt like I was surveying first hand the wreck of the Titanic, where one tries to reckon the former glory through the face of the horrible decay. I could actually see, from where we stood, through a number of missing walls the opposite side of the window where I had peered in - the place where the image I had seen must have stood.

"This way," she said, leading me further. We reached a door, still predominantly intact, which she opened to reveal a set of stairs. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a small flashlight, but it was not necessary. As we both peered down the stairs we saw an orange glow, something which could not be natural light. In the silence that fell amongst us I could hear what at first sounded like the bustling of a breeze, but soon came to sound like a garbled and mixed array of whispered voices. I gave my mind a moment to process the information it was bombarded with, at which point it began to toss out as many feasible explanations it could.

An unseen group of contractors conferring under a soft florescent light.

A small fire lit by vagrants seeking shelter.

A joke, upon which I was the sole target.

I stole only a moment to glance over at Jill to assess her reaction. Though she appeared quietly cautious, she did not seem overly surprised.

"Have you ever gone down there?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I just like to sit here and watch," she replied quietly. "It's usually quieter than this, but over the last little while it's getting brighter, and the voices are more...well...there's just more of them." She pointed down the stairs, which ended at a small landing before a wall, whereupon one would have to either go left or right to access the full basement. "I once saw a form drift by," she said. "It was last week. It vanished halfway across. I am so curious...I want so much to go down there and see them all...but I'm so scared that they won't welcome me."

It certainly sounded as though there were a collection of beings down there, corporeal or not, but conveniently enough they were removed from our line of sight. I did not know what to make of it. The whole room, or at least what we could see of it, was aglow in a haunting orange light, and upon the wall at the foot of the steps I could see something written. It was a series of black text markings which were made more visible when contrasted against the orange light.

My curiosity compelled me.

I took the first step.

Jill's hand grasped my arm, but just as immediately let it go. "Are you sure?"

I did not turn, but instead focused on the wall.

"Something is written there," I said, entranced by what could be inscribed. I took another two steps, and with each approach I felt as though I were sinking deeper and deeper into a furnace as a warmth embraced me. The flurry of hushed voices seemed to get louder as well - more panicked, more aggressive. I did not believe in spirits, good or evil, and I reminded myself this as I took another step. I stopped right there, however, not out of fear but rather caution. As rational an explanation this phenomena may have had, I still did not know if it were a danger to myself. Instead I withdrew my camera and pointed it at the wall. It was a blur, and I played with the zoom until I drew into focus. There was one word written upon the wall. The letters were backwards, as though a mirror image.

S U L A D E A D

I snapped a picture and the flash illuminated the room for a brief moment. Still looking through the lens, something white fluttered past the engraved wall. I pulled my eye away from the camera and glanced down the stairs, but saw nothing. I turned around and looked up to Jill, who's wide eyes glared down at the bottom of the steps. Clearly she had been afforded a better look at whatever had passed by, and she was, pardon the pun, as white as a ghost.

"I...I need time to analyze the photograph..." I stammered. "And perhaps," I continued, taking two steps at a time as I ascended to Jill's side, "I should come better equipped with my instruments."

With the young girl ahead of me leading the charge we fled the Mews with a hurried march, leaving only her flashlight behind.
CHAPTER SEVEN

After putting enough space between ourselves and the Mews we slowed in our pace and walked down the lane towards town. There had not been a word said between Jill and I since we fled, and it in part due to the fright and confusion, but also due to the sheer lack of any words to verbalize what had occurred.

She suddenly stopped, and I passed her by a few paces before I realized that she had. I turned to face her.

"What the hell was that??" she asked as though she had only just seen the phenomenon that occurred a quarter mile back.

"I am not quite sure," I said, my sense having returned to me and rational thought back in control. "If there was a fire then there would have been smoke. It could be that there was a gathering of people down there. After all, we did hear voices. The warmth I felt could be accredited to the combined body heat and the orange light could have been artificial. Are there any secret societies based in this area?"

"Are you dense?" she spat. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

She was right. Of course. "If they were a secret society then you wouldn't know of them, would you?"

"Tempus, you idiot, I saw a flamin' ghost and so did you!"

I shook my head. "I saw something rustle past my lens. In retrospect it could have been anything..."

"You saw it with your lens. I saw it with my naked eye. It was a ghost. It vanished halfway past the bottom of the stairs, just like before."

"Then we once again have repeating patterns. This makes it more and more likely that this is a controlled phenomenon."

"Oh just wait here," she muttered, leaving the main road and stepping into the trees that lined the path. At first I thought she sought to relieve herself, but then I saw that she was hiding her air rifle under some shrubs. She then began to unbutton her camouflage trousers when she stopped and glanced up at me angrily. "A little privacy?" she spat. I turned. "Watch for any traffic, God forbid."

A few moments later Jill came back to the road, wearing the denim dress she had worn the previous day, as well as the same bonnet the held her long dark hair. "Can't go marching about town dressed like that, can I?" she asked. "I'd scare the regular folk."

While her dress sense had reverted her nature had not, at least not for my benefit. We carried on down the road, eventually passing a few young lads with fishing poles, perhaps hoping beyond hope to catch something in the shallow stream. I felt need to warn them against approaching the ruins but I feared against acting out of hysteria. Besides, it was likely they had another spot, away from the Mews, where they were told to go. Jill's acting ability became apparent to me as she greeted the boys with the same timid grace she had allotted me the day before. After they had passed she turned to me, her smile long gone, and explained that they were the children of her clients. Normally I'd have been amused by a fifteen year old girl referring to a handful of boys clearly her senior as 'children', but my mind was hardly in the right frame for levity.

"So what do you know of the history of the Mews?" I asked, bringing the subject back into play. "Were any of the Morrows involved in odd religious pursuits?"

"You mean like that weird one that involves eating a man's flesh and drinking his blood? What's that one called? Oh I know, 'Christianity'."

"Other than that one."

"No, not that I know of. The last one was an atheist, which was pretty racy back in those days. The only sacrilegious activities he took part in was sleeping in on a Sunday morning. Now scandal he was good at, but not sacrilege. It doesn't matter though. I'm telling you there is no secret society down there. That would actually make Greyfield seem a bit interesting."

"Mr. Barberwart tells me that the fire was started in a mad rage," I started, hoping that she would finish the story with highlights not revealed by the mayor.

"This whole village was built around a fire. The entire place burned to the ground back in the 1800's."

"Yes, he told me such."

"No, I mean the whole town. Everything and everyone. The only 'survivor' was one of the Morrow son's, who came back and rebuilt it all from scratch. Every last one of the people here are descended from the workers who built their own village of tents and cabins to live out of while fixing up Lord Fancy Pants' stables."

"Fascinating. He had left out that detail."

"Yeah, well, he probably doesn't like admitting that he's descended from rabble, does he?" she muttered. "Our house has been around for a while, but I'm told it's been built on the foundation of what used to be a tailor's shop. That would explain why it wreaks of boredom."

"What about the fire that ravaged the mews?"

She gave a short laugh. "Yeah, the bachelor finally settled down, apparently. What was his name? Gordon James, Wilfred Gordon, Randall Wilfred...Christ they weren't very inventive, were they?"

"I believe it was Gordon Randall Morrow."

"Whatever. He got married and it didn't work out. Who didn't see that coming? He was in the war, so that probably made him appreciate living life to the fullest. When he had to chose a profession he picked medicine, as he saw how many lives could be saved by skilled hands in the war. Plus it sounded good, didn't it? Ain't that all that matters to this rich sods? Anyway, he gave up his bachelor ways and found a good lady wife, but he ended up shagging some of the staff, apparently. The ball and chain finds out, throws a wobbler, and throws a few of their marital gifts into the fire. One object happens to be an oil lamp. That's the story, anyway. Either way a fire occurred, and there wasn't a single survivor."

We reached a crossroads, just across from the pub - The King's Heart.

"I must go visit Mr. Grisham."

"The vicar? Why?"

"I need to speak with any resident of this village who may be familiar with its history, and he seems as though he knows Greyfield and its inhabitants quite well."

"Listen mate, I may be young, but I've been here longer than he has. Do what you like, but you're on your own. I don't like churches."

"Suit yourself. Tell me, where does your family live? Jack is taking care of Aristotle and I must collect him later."

"Is that your cat? Oh don't worry, I'll have him bring it round to Mrs. Tellman's later this afternoon. Good luck with the church thing."

We parted ways, with her taking the left and myself taking the right.

When I arrived at the church I found it to be the usual affair for such a small village, a small stone building capable of holding only a handful of parishioners, which just happened to be the town's population. The heavy door creaked as I peered in and I saw the vicar, Mr. Grisham, at the pulpit with the young Constable Richards, looking as though they were discussing grave matters. As curious as I was, I did not wish to intrude upon their affairs. I simply waited at the entrance for them to conclude their business. I examined the few small stained glass windows. There were a few that depicted several stations of the cross, but there were not enough windows to portray them all so it was an abridged version. Above the pulpit there was a larger yet more simple work depicting the crucifix surrounded by four successive rings of varying colours.

"Yes, Mr. Fugit, thank you for your patience," the vicar called, summoning me as the young constable passed. He did not acknowledge me, but it was not due to my scolding him two days prior, but rather that he looked so forlorn and preoccupied that I could have been anyone and still might not have existed. I walked down the aisle to the pulpit and accepted Mr. Grisham's hand, which he shook as though it had been more than a few hours since we last spoke. "You're back already. Tell me, what did you uncover?"

"Very little," I lied. "The Mews leaves quite a sad corpse, but otherwise I saw little to excite the senses. My investigation is far from over, however."

"Good, good," he said distantly, hurriedly.

"Is everything alright?" I asked.

Mr. Grisham smiled, attempting to confront whatever plagued him with what seemed like his usual joviality, but it was clear that he had not sufficient ammunition. He sat upon the step leading to the alter. I gauged that it would be expected and appropriate that I sit down alongside him.

"The Gallows Boys," he began. "Tyler and Taylor. Two lads. Twins. They inherited their farm from their father, Jacob Gallows - a well-respected resident who sadly passed away only two years ago. Oh I don't know the crux of the argument, but there was a dispute of rights. The land was split equally between them - I know this as I read the eulogy and the will - but they've feuded over acreage ever since. Such a wretched way to honour their father's memory. I've been told that their feuds have been heated, even violent at times, but this...I would never have suspected this."

"What has happened?"

The vicar glanced over to me, but only held eye contact for a moment. "Taylor, lad. He's killed his brother. Hit him over the head with a shovel. Quite deliberate, and quite fatal. These are large boys. There was no underestimating their own strengths. I buried their mother too, only a year ago. So tragic, yet how relieved I am that she is not hear to be given such news."

"This is horrible."

"Aye, lad. It is. I must deliver last rites to Jacob this afternoon, though I hope his soul is already on its path to salvation. As for his brother, well...that is for the law to decide, isn't it?"

Provided the 'law' in these parts was greater than the sum of Constable Richards' authority, I would have to agree.

"I shall not keep you any longer then," I said, bowing my head in my deepest sympathy. "Yet before we part might I ask you...how long have you lived in Greyfield?"

He seemed surprised by such an irrelevant question, but nonetheless offered me his answer as cheerfully as he could muster at the time. "Oh about eight years now. I was transferred here from Bromley. A bit of an adjustment period was required, as you can expect, but I've come to quite enjoy it here. Why do you ask?"

"No reason," I replied. "I'm just trying to build an appropriate snap shot of this lovely village. I thank you for your time, vicar."

I left the church alongside Mr. Grisham, who then took another direction. I decided to head back to Mrs. Tellman's establishment and see what would develop with the film and what postulates I could form given these new occurrences. Upon entry I was told by the old dear that a young boy had come around soliciting an animal, at which point Justin clarified that it was Jack returning Aristotle. "I last saw him in the back chasing butterflies," he had told me. I assumed he meant Aristotle. Satisfied with the knowledge of his safe return I went up to my room to set down my camera, remove my jacket and vest, loosen my tie, and sit at my desk to start scribbling some thoughts upon the paper before they left me in the confusion of all that had occurred.

My next duty would be to turn this bedroom into a dark room, but I decided to wait until a later hour. I had the supplies that I'd need, I just did not wish to make my alternate use of this room too apparent in case the landlady disapproved. I poured over my notes for a time until it drew near the dinner hour. I wanted to bring Aristotle in before I settled down for my meal as I'd have no time afterwards. I descended the stairs and went out into the back garden but could not see him. I called his name a few times, but to no avail. I continued to search the small garden but found no trace. I peaked under the patio, as he was like most cats and preferred enclosed spaces. The only place that was left to investigate was a small shed at the bottom of the allotment. Continuing to call his name I approached the shed and opened the door.

And I saw him.

And I apologize, but I fear I cannot explain what I saw.

It's alright, really. It was not a terribly big issue.

He was only a cat.

He was only the last companion I had left after my father had died.

He was of very little consequence.

I'm sorry. I do not wish to speak of it anymore.
CHAPTER EIGHT

"Mr. Fugit, I am enraged!"

To be terribly honest, at the time, I did not particularly care. Mr. Barberwart sought, or so it seemed, to turn his mayoral office into a debate hall, but I was hardly about to take the bait.

"You hardly seem concerned, Mr. Fugit. Three days you've had, and in three days you've turned no results! And now this murder!"

My full attention was acquired. "I hardly think that the Gallows murder can be accredited to my lack of findings, Mr. Barberwart, and I must say that you expect expedient results in a matter that you cannot comprehend! The scientific method takes time, good sir. If you wanted a charlatan to dole out quick answers then you came to the wrong person!"

The mayor put his hands out defensively, suddenly assuming a resigned tone. "Ours is a small town, Mr. Fugit. A small town with a small purse. Mrs. Tellman charges a nominal fee, but even that running tab severely affects our forecasted budget."

"Then perhaps," I countered, "you should allot a large lump sum in future budgets for 'Strange Occurrences'. Until then I must discourteously inform you that it is not my problem, but your own."

To this he had no reply, rather he gruffly re-lit his pipe and panned down over some paperwork at his desk. "It seems as though young Mr. Gallows, living, will be transferred to a county prison in the morning. Our vicar, Mr. Grisham, will be permitted to take his confession, but beyond that he is to receive no visitors."

"They are not allowed?" I asked.

"I have been advised against it. He is quite aware of his crime, but offers no explanation. He is horrified as to why he committed such a deed, and seems to have more questions for us than we do for him. He has suffered through various lines of inquiry, and it was suggested that we apply no additional pressure, lest we further his state of mental distress. He is the county's puzzle to solve now - we are only to hand him over."

"And at who's advice was this?"

"The vicar," Mr. Barberwart offered. "While criminal psychology is not in his profession, I do feel it is sound advice." His thoughts turned back to the Gallows boys. "It is really quite disheartening. Their father was a close friend of mine. It makes me all the more proud of my own son, I tell you."

"Your own son?" I asked. "And what is his profession?"

"You've already met and dealt with him," he said with a proud, fatherly smile. "The constable."

Now there are reasons as to why Constable Richards would have a different last name from his father. A failed marriage and subsequent re-marriage, a step-son treated as a first born son, or even a change of name so as not to relay family bias when in public capacities. Either way it was of no concern to me at the time. Dismissed from the Mayor's Office, I left the small city hall to find Jill waiting for me outside.

"Did you tell him anything?"

"Nothing at all," I muttered.

"Good," she said, then punched me lightly in the shoulder. "Thanks."

She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, which were hardly as militant an appearance as the day before, but still a difference from her usual disguise. "Not working today?" I asked, descending the stairs and checking the time on my pocket watch.

"Nah. Day off. Where ya going?"

I did not answer her question. "Tell me something," I said, speaking without turning. "Where is your brother?"

"I don't know. Why?"

I closed my watch and placed it back in my pocket. "I would very much like to have a talk to him about the condition in which things should be returned."

She hesitated. "What's he done?"

I explained to her, in as little detail as necessary, but as much required to get the point across. Her face dropped, and for the first time she actually looked like a girl of only fifteen. "I...I don't know what to say..."

"Then say nothing," I replied shortly, "other than where he is. I will not take it upon myself to punish him, but I do wish to confront him. Nine years old or not, he must learn to confront his transgressions like a man."

"Give me a chance," she insisted. "Give me a chance to find him, to talk to him...and I'll come and get you. Okay? I just...this just sounds so unlike him."

"Young lady I assure you it was."

It was then that she challenged me, but in the given situation, and to her credit, she took no enjoyment in it. "Are you not the one who said that all possibilities must be weighed before jumping to conclusions?"

I sighed deeply, angry at the irrational course my emotions led me upon. "I'll be in the pub," I said, pointing needlessly to it. "I need to take a census of the locals and their attitudes. You will find me there."

She thanked me for my allowance of time, then ran off to find him, acting as her brother's keeper.

I entered the King's Heart at noon hour to find it bustling with life, or at least as close to it as Greyfield came. With about eight patrons the small establishment was filled to capacity, and the barman looked as though he had never been so busy. It was both a daunting and a relief to see new faces, for it only offered more information and more stories to tell. The general hum of conversation, however, immediately ceased when I entered the establishment. Was it that they were working class men and felt as though I invaded their sanctuary? Or perhaps was it because I was the stranger in town and thus associated with the Mews and all of it's frightful mystery?

"Oi! Tempus!"

Never did I ever suspect to be relieved to be beckoned by Mr. Coaltree, but amongst the sea of staring eyes it was suddenly glad to be at least familiar with one set of them.

"Ah, Mr. Coaltree, just the man I was looking for," I called, attempting to resume a calm and casual outlook.

The hum of conversation picked up once more. As I took a place at the bar alongside him he ordered me a duplicate of whatever it was he was drinking. I knew that, in order to maintain social civility, I would have to take at least a few sips, but after the other night's fiasco I had intended to swear off of alcohol for good.

"How has the leg been?" I asked.

"Recovering nicely," he said gruffly. "I'll be back to work in no time." For this he did not sound too pleased.

"And has the artifact been successful in warding off the spirit that assailed you?"

"Aye it has," he said, thumping my chest with the back of his hand. "Saved me from two old hags, that did. By the way, what do I owe you for that?"

"Oh think nothing of it," I insisted quietly. "It's of no use to me. Not anymore."

A drink arrived before me. "Here, get this down you." He then looked to the bartender. "Stick that on me tab, will you?"

"Oh, that reminds me," I said, saved from sipping the brew. I reached into my coat pocket and withdrew Mr. Coaltree's wallet. "I found this and I suspect that you'd be missing it."

Mr. Coaltree's expression was indescribable, as though he could not believe my audacity. He held it up for all to see, and spoke aloud to address the entire pub. "Not only does he waltz into the bowels of Hell, but he brings back me wallet for me!"

Suddenly the crowd of strangers became my friends, cheering me on and patting me on the back. It was as though I had suddenly become a sports star and everyone wanted to know what my secret was. I did not really intend to address them all, but it kept me away from my pint and I was able to work a few questions into each conversation, such as what each individual's occupation was and on what part of town they resided. I didn't acquire much new or useful information, however. They were all simple tradesmen with simple lives, hardly likely to form or be inducted into any secret society or sect. The Freemasons, maybe, but hardly anything so far underground that they had to literally dig themselves out.

"So the little man makes good, hm?" a voice called.

We all turned and saw a woman standing at the entrance to the pub.

"Nicolette, my most esteemed betrothed, please join us," I invited.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh don't start that again. It's just not funny."

"Betrothed?" Mr. Coaltree asked. I wasn't sure if it was the word he didn't understand or the context I used it in.

"Oh never mind that," she sighed, taking her place alongside him, at his right. "Buy me a drink, will you?

"Whatever you like," he said, fawning over her in a manner that was not appropriate for a married man, especially over a woman who was promised to another.

"Hang about you lot, hm? I've got to go freshen myself up." She then excused herself and went into the lady's room.

I noted Mr. Coaltree as he watched her walk away. "Cor, that don't come for free, do it?" He was joined in his chortling by a number of others. He then looked to me. "How has it been, staying at Chateau de Bonk?"

"I assure you I have no idea what you mean," I said coldly. "She has been the picture of grace and humility. We are to be married, I'll have you know."

Everyone fell silent once again. It was as though they were waiting for me to explain, but as I opened my mouth to do so they all erupted into monstrous laughter.

"Tempus, that's a flamin' good one," he said, thumping me on the back. I spit out whatever small amount of ale I had graciously sipped. "Now be honest, there's only one reason why people stay at Mrs. Tellman's place. Have you got to know Nicolette a little better yet?"

"Yes," I said indignantly. "Quite well, actually."

The small crowd whooped as I was apparently back in their favour. I wanted to remain in their good graces in case I needed more information, but their social patterns were quite difficult to understand.

"I have to say, I'm impressed. I thought you were a bit like her brother, if you know what I mean."

Ah, the typical male banter. I thought it best to play along.

"Oh I am not too far unlike Justin," I insisted. "I've come to know him quite well, too."

Then there was silence. Mr. Coaltree looked to me with an almost fatherly concern, leaning over to speak to me in confidence. "Tempus...you realize that he's a homo, right?"

"Of course I do," I said, emulating their banter as best I could. "But tell me, my good man...aren't we all just a little bit 'homo sexual' too?"

Ufologists often lay claim to accounts of something called 'missing time', an occurrence where someone suddenly realizes that time has past and they have no recollection or memory of what happened for its duration. These researchers believe it is due to alien abduction, whilst others feel that it happens to block out traumatic memories. The third explanation is that the occurrences that transpire during these 'blocked out' phases are just so mundane and uneventful that the brain neglects to encode them into it's long term memory. Though I doubt that I was visited by aliens in my missing time, I am nonetheless at a loss for explanation, sufficed to say that I awoke a half an hour later outside the pub, around the side and laying amongst the garbage bins. It was only the concerned and panicked voice of Jill that roused me from my unconscious state.

"Tempus! Oh my God, what happened?"

I opened one eye first, peered about, then the other followed. I immediately stood, assuming my usual stoic posture, and brushed myself off as best I could. "Nothing of any concern," I said a little too quickly. "Let us away from here." I led her down the lane, towards the other end of town and where I assumed she lived.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked, brushing off the back of my jacket. "It was those blokes in the pub, wasn't it?"

"Did you find Jack?"

"Yes," she said, reluctant to change the subject on two counts. "I had a good talk to him. I really don't know what happened to him, Tempus. He acknowledges what he's done, but he doesn't know why."

This sounded too familiar. "Was he...repentant?"

She perhaps found it odd to hear me use such a religious term, but nonetheless replied. "Yes, actually. He's been sobbing his eyes out all morning, apparently."

"Good."

She looked up at me, shocked.

"What I mean," I clarified, "is that the Gallows lad was unrepentant."

"My mother told me about that," she said with a gasp. "It was completely out of the blue, too. I mean, they argued, but they had never threatened each other. Not like that." She stopped me, placed a hand on each shoulder, and looked me in the eye. "I'm very sorry, Tempus. If I had thought for a moment that he was capable then I..."

I shook my head. "It is of no great concern."

She retracted her hands and crossed herself, lowering her gaze to her feet.

"I think you're lying. I had a guinea pig once. I called him Guinea Pig. You know, to avoid any sort of confusion. I had wanted to call him Archimedes, but me mum said that it was too difficult for me. Too difficult for her, more like."

"Archimedes?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know. You must know. Born in 200 BC. Discovered water displacement. Strutted about naked shouting 'Eureka'. Invented a slew of anti-Roman war machines. Archimedes' Screw. Archimedes' Claw. Archimedes' Bloody Great Ass-Tearing Death Device. You know him, right?"

It was actually 287 BC, but I give the child credit for trying.

"Of course," I said, flabbergasted. "I'm just surprised that you seem to know so much about him."

"Yeah, well, I used to think science was cool until they started ranting on about the periodic tables. I like the earlier discoveries, back when they were simpler to understand. We had to do a project on a historical scientist. Everyone was doing Einstein or Alfred Nobel. I dug through a few then decided to go old school and learned about Archimedes. He's keen. Anyway, this guinea pig, Guinea Pig his name was, and he had a run in with our cat and..."

"It's alright, Jill," I said, patting her shoulder. "You've cheered me up."

"Have I?"

"Definitely."

We walked in silence for a moment, until the question begged to be asked.

"I attest to having my own favourites, but if you had to liken me to one such historical figure, who would you suppose?"

We walked for a moment before she answered.

"Ever hear of Henry Cavendish?"

A man who measured electrical current through electrodes attached to his body and estimating the degree of pain.

I sighed.

"I liked you better when you were toting a rifle."
CHAPTER NINE

When I had the time the following morning to return to my film I found that they did not develop properly. Whether it was a disturbance that affected the film, a spiritual presence that was imprinted, or my own error based on the fact that my father was the one who always developed the film I was not sure. Nonetheless I had no tangible evidence except for the word 'Suladead' scribbled on my blotter. I was quite disappointed, and was trying to work up the courage to make another attempt inside the Mews, in part to take new photos and in part to see if I dare dive further into the unknown. I was faltering in my resolve, admittedly fearing that which was unknown to me, and was thankfully saved by two interventions. One was the memory of my father, who feared nothing, and the other was a visitation by Jill.

She knocked at my door and entered, bewildered by the trays of developing fluid, the sheets that were stripped from the bed and hung over the curtains, and the lines of string that stretched across the room, hanging spoiled images.

"Good morning," she said, dressed in what I would refer to as her 'work clothes'.

"Ah, Jill, what a welcome sight."

"I don't get that too often," she said. "I'd have been up sooner, but your landlady forced me to eat a second breakfast."

"She is a dear. Tell me, did Nicolette take any offence to another young lady visiting my quarters?"

She seemed confused by the question. "No...she didn't say anything. She looked tired and hung over, tell you the truth."

I shook my head and made a mental note that I should have to help her deal with her addictions, as I wanted our union to have a good clean start. Nonetheless...

"I am thinking of returning to the site."

"Good. You just saved me the trouble of trying to convince you. I borrowed this," she said, handing me a small device unlike anything I had ever seen. It looked vaguely like a camera, but...

"What is this?"

"A digital camera. Tell me you haven't seen one before."

"I haven't," I admitted.

"I'll teach you along the way. Get your vest on, mate. Let's go."

We followed our usual path, stopping along the way so that Jill could pick up her air rifle and stash away her dress. She insisted that the rifle was 'just in case', and I must say I did not attempt to dissuade her. She had worn a black t-shirt and shorts under her dress, and with her hair tied back in a pony tail and her hiking boots on she looked more as though she were ready for a jungle expedition. She was obviously enjoying the sense of adventure more than she was focusing on the sense of danger, which made me question her inclusion, but to be honest I wanted another person with me. Not out of fear, otherwise I'd attempt to find someone bigger or stronger, but rather because she seemed to have a rational mind and, despite her superstitions, I would trust her eyewitness account, or at least more than I would trust that of anyone in this village.

Over the stream, through the rubble, and into the wreckage, we found ourselves standing once again before the door that led to the basement. Jill holding her 'digital camera' and myself holding her air rifle, we each took a deep resolving breath and, with a nod to each other for good luck, I reached out and opened the door.

I dare say we were a little disappointed.

While the area was not devoid of anomalies, it nonetheless did not bare any of the unexplained mystery. Gone was the warm orange glow. Gone was the hum of a hundred hushed voices. There even seemed to be a chill, rather than a warmth, radiating from below.

"Perhaps...perhaps it was all in our minds..." I theorized.

She shook her head. "No. No we saw something."

I picked up the discarded flashlight, for though it was dimly lit I had no idea how many darkened corners I'd have to beware of. I took a few steps down and stopped, pointing at the landing.

"Get a picture of that," I said, directing her to the wall where the word 'Suladead' was once displayed. It seemed to be gone, or at the very least obscured by the lack of illumination.

"I've got enough room for about two hundred pictures," her voice said shakily behind me. "I'm taking pictures of everything!"

I swallowed my fears and quickly descended to the bottom. I heard Jill gasp, possibly thinking that I had tripped, but in truth I felt as thought I had to force myself down to the bottom before that inherent superstitious streak managed to make it's voice heard. Facing a blank wall I immediately pointed the gun left, then right. There was nothing but darkened corners of an old musky basement.

"It appears safe," I whispered. As she slowly descended behind me I examined the wall. The letters were gone, but I could see vague markings on the wall. "It's been washed clean," I commented quietly. She snapped a few pictures. I moved on.

As I came around the right side of the staircase I found the basement to look no different than most others. There was old furniture and storage boxes, some damaged by the fire and some only damaged by time. Cobwebs and mould dominated over all. Little daylight made it this far, so I turned on the small flashlight. Though it helped very little, the occasional flash of the camera managed to illuminate corners of the layout for a split-second in time. We were also able to look at the illuminated photograph on the small screen of her 'digital camera', which proved to be most valuable. She snapped an image of the southern end, and the display showed only an old bed-spring propped up against the wall. We scuttled along further, and she took a picture of the eastern end. The display showed a wine rack, which might have still been of value if the bottles were all intact. The small beam of the flashlight was growing weak, and by this point very little daylight aided us. For our own safety I considered turning back and returning better prepared, but as the flash of Jill's 'digital camera' burst I caught a quick glance of an entryway into another area. We looked down at the image displayed.

A figure, stood in that entryway, stared back at us.

As Jill screamed in fright, dropping the camera, I immediately reacted, albeit a bit rashly. I pointed the rifle and fired. I heard the pellets 'ping' against the far wall, beyond the entry. I had fired four shots in quick succession whilst Jill scampered about to retrieve her camera. Once she had recovered it her hands clutched onto my arm. She gasped the words 'oh my god' over and over again. My heart beat well beyond it's normal rate. Every hair upon my body stood on end. I had to remind myself that it was in this hyper-sensitive state that simple things are often and erroneously attributed to the supernatural.

"Take more pictures," I said in more of a gasp than a request. I saw steam arise from my breath. Perhaps the chill was not just down to the fear after all. In as quick as a succession as her device would allow Jill snapped pictures, panning a complete revolution and illuminating every corner. There was nothing.

"Go back to that picture," I whispered.

"Sod that, let's get out of here!"

"It looked like a centurion. Roman. It doesn't make sense."

"Ghosts don't make sense, Tempus, and neither does our staying here."

"There's a door over there."

"Oh God Tempus, you're a slasher's wish come true."

"Stay close to me."

"Like I'm going anywhere else."

"Take a picture over there."

"I'm too afraid to look."

"Right there."

"Here, you look."

I looked at the camera display. The door was only a few feet away, and we were approaching at an angle. Curiosity compelled me when my better sense told me to leave and seek better provisions.

"Can you hear that?"

"Oh my God."

"It's a humming sound."

"Oh my God oh my God."

"I think I see a light."

"Oh my God oh my God oh my God."

"Right here."

We rounded the corner. A figure fluttered past us then vanished into thin air. Jill shrieked, but I stared on ahead. I nearly lost all sensation in my arm as she gripped it so tightly, but upon taking sight of what I too saw I felt her fingers loosen, if only slightly.

It was a wall of sheer pink light. Radiating a warm luminescence that was not seen nor felt only a few feet back, this opaque wall seemed to emanate a soothing sense of ease. Our rapid breaths, which seemed to synch themselves together, both eased to the point where the gaps in-between created an almost deafening silence.

Through this wall of light I was able to see vague shapes and forms, like figures who flickered in and out of existence, but were never truly tangible, at least from this side of the wall. Another figure fluttered past us, jumping out of the wall before vanishing into nothingness. We had both gasped as it soared out to our left, but as we turned back to the wall we saw another lunge at us. It was a man dressed in tanned hides wielding a sword, and he roared out in a distant cry as he charged between us. We each dashed in opposite directions to avoid him, but though we were not quick enough to completely escape contact we nonetheless felt nothing. He passed through us, thrust his sword as though the subject of his assault were behind us, then he too vanished into thin air.

"Tempus, what the hell..."

Hell. I dare say that thought crossed my mind - a gateway to another realm - but I quickly beat it away with other such ludicrous notions. There was, as always, a rational explanation. I looked off to the right, where a few odds and ends that were once stored in these quarters were kept. I found a curtain rod, and reached over to pick it up. Holding it like a spear, I slowly lunged it forth, into the pink wall of light. There was no disturbance, no ripple as though passing through water. No disturbed apparitions. When I withdrew the rod it was perfectly intact.

"Is it okay?" she asked.

"It's perfectly fine," I commented. "It's not even warm."

I looked at the rod, then at the wall.

"Oh don't tell me you're even thinking of..."

I reached my hand out, towards the wall. I can't say I was giving my actions much planning, however I did note that I volunteered my right hand. Seeing as I am left-handed, I considered this a rather strategic piece of subconscious contingency planning. Shaking slightly in both anticipation and uncertainty, I plunged the sacrificial limb through the field of light.

"Anything?"

I shook my head. I felt no sensation whatsoever. I could still see my hand through the wall, but it was vague and very faint. I moved my fingers and I could see the corresponding movements on the other side.

"Okay, now pull it out," she pleaded.

I looked to her, then to the wall.

"Tempus, don't you dare," she gasped. Not only was she concerned for my safety, but I daresay she didn't want to be left on her own. "Please! It's not worth it!"

I paid no heed, which I in retrospect was selfish towards her sense of vulnerability.

I took a deep breath.

I closed my eyes.

I took a step forward.

As I passed through I exhaled, for it was only at that moment that I considered the fact that the void I so bravely entered might have been vacuous. A moment of fear, wherein I was too caution to either inhale nor further exhale, soon gave way to the instinctual need for breath. Fortunately this did not prove problematic.

It was an odd sensation of absolutely nothing. Darkness engulfed me, but that was mainly due to the fact that my eyes were shut. I heard no sound, not even the slightest shuffling of my own feet. My clenched eyes unveiled a landscape that almost defied description, though I shall diligently attempt to do so. I turned to assess the wall of light I had penetrated, however it was no longer pink but largely transparent. Whilst on the other side I could barely see through, on this side I was able to see quite clearly back. It was like being on the other side of the mirror. Jill held herself, an uneasy glance cast out of the corner of her eye. Yet she did not move, not even to tremble. It was as though she herself had become one of her images taken on her 'digital camera'. I turned back to the vista before me and took it in. Below my feet and just before me was a concrete floor, the very foundations of the Mews with it's ceiling above me. To my left was a rolling field with clear blue skies above, whereupon a herd of sheep hovered. To my right was a small road upon which a man led an ox cart to amble, warily watching the crimson dusk clouds. Each landscape merged into the other so that I could not tell where one began and the other ended. Despite the fact that these landscapes were summer scenes, I was nonetheless frigidly cold. My senses, I assure you, were struggling to piece it all together. I dared to step forth, and as I did so the image of the cellar before me shifted, changing to a battlefield where I found myself in the midst of a fray, in which Anglo-Saxon warriors clashed. I cried out in fright, the sound of my own voice sounding miles away and only clearly heard a few moments later, as though I had shrieked to the far ends of the earth and back. With a staggering step backwards the image of the cellar returned, and I was once again standing before the frozen image of Jill.

To my left, however, was the disturbing image of a lady having relations with a young man, who pinned her up against the wall. I shook my head as I took in the image, but as I steadied myself and sidestepped ever so slightly, it quickly returned to the image of the sheep.

One thing was made clear - if I wanted to make it back, I had best not move from my position. As I took in my surroundings I wished that I had Jill's 'digital camera', for I wondered if modern technology could possibly capture an image that defied every rule of space and time that was yet known and theorized. The shepherd came to tend to his flock on my left, while on my right the ox cart had reached the horizon and a gang of young rogues had passed him, perhaps making their destination the very place he left.

I could let my intrigue govern me any further. I had taken a bold step without forethought nor planning, and had pushed my luck far enough. I feared for Jill's safety as well, as her immobile form was quite disconcerting. I moved off to her left so that I would re-emerge away from her, lest I stumble or fall. My mind wrought with causality, I felt as though I were about to walk into a pane of glass, but the dishevelled laws were in enough upheaval to allow such an act go unscathed. I closed my eyes and stepped forward.

Once again the darkness of the cellar engulfed me.

"Holy crap! Tempus, are you okay?"

I was startled by the realization that I was. "Quite," I replied. Aside from the racing pulse, which I checked against my watch with my finger to my neck, I was quite alright. "Fascinating," was all that I could say. "Just...fascinating."

She came over to me, patting me over as though to make sure I was intact. "It's a dimensional door or something. A gate. It has to be."

A plausible theory, but nonetheless...

"What do you mean, 'it has to be'?" What could she have seen to lead her to that conclusion?

"Tempus, the moment you went in over there, you came out over here. Your leg had only just vanished when your arm came out in this very spot. It was like you walked right through one door and came out another. It's a portal or something! The cake is not a lie! It was instantaneous!"

Her commentary upon pastries and teas was confusing to me at the time, and even now in retrospect, however it was hardly my focal point. "Instantaneous?" I repeated, wondering if I had heard her correctly. "Jill, I was in there for at least five minutes."

She looked at me blankly.

"That's impossible."

"Show me your watch."

She lifted her arm. I withdrew my pocket watch and placed it alongside her digital timepiece.

"Hm," I quipped. "It seems I was wrong. I was actually gone for four minutes. And thirty seconds, to be exact." I showed her my watch. "My watch is three minutes and twenty seconds fast."

"What do you mean...?"

"Our watches were out of synch by only ten seconds. I know this because your watch beeps on every hour, and on our journey here I happened to look at my watch and noted that it struck the hour ten seconds before mine."

She looked at me blankly. It was not that she didn't understand, but rather that it was far too much to grasp in the confusion of the moment.

"Dear girl, it seems as though one of us has defied the conventions of time."
CHAPTER TEN

I sat at my desk, impatiently waiting.

We maintained a quick pace back to town, at which point Jill and I parted ways. She told me that she would come to my place shortly, and that she had to go home and, as she said, 'upload to her laptop'. I assumed this meant that she wished to change her pants, which I felt that, given the extreme circumstances, I could have easily found myself in that very same position.

I had a slew of notes before me, but I scanned over none of them. I simply found myself staring out blankly, remarkably recalling how I walked through that wall of light and unveiled an entire world wherein space and time were of little consequence. Not only did I have to try and reckon what I had seen, but I had to attempt to explain it as well. If not to the Mayor's Office, then to myself at least!

There was a knock at my door. I had to apologize to Justin when I seemed disappointed that it was only him.

"Mother says that you were as white as a sheet when you returned. She reckons a nice cuppa will fix that." He shrugged. "The fall of the entire British Empire was cushioned by a cup of tea, by her reckoning."

"Yes, thank you, set it down over there."

He placed the tray, but he lingered as though there was something he wanted to say. Or hear me say.

"Is there a problem?" I asked dismissively. This was perhaps the first time I treated any of my hosts as mere staff, but I had the excuse of being significantly distracted.

"There's been talk..." he began, but never finished.

"That is of little shock to me," I muttered, pouring my own tea, "but please, delight me."

"Well...they say that you made...sexual advances to a large group of labourers in the middle of a crowded pub." He sat down on my bed and looked to me with a scrutinizing eye. "Is this true?"

"It most certainly is not!" I exclaimed, standing. "That is perhaps the most preposterous misrepresentation of the truth that I have ever heard! I merely sought to join their banter! Clearly they have complex rules for their social engagements, which is superfluously inane considering their low mental capacities and simple cattle-like existence!"

"Tempus..."

"What?"

"You don't know what 'homosexual' means, do you?"

I released any shred of anger I had and returned to my seat.

"No," I conceded, for alas the greatest cross for any man of science to bare is the admission that doesn't understand that which should, perhaps, be simple. "I haven't a clue."

Justin chuckled to himself. "Magicians, good moods...you led me on a wild goose chase. Tempus being 'gay', being 'homosexual', means that I like other men."

"Well so do I. I don't see how that..."

"Romantically. Physically."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I see."

"Have you never heard of that?"

I coughed nervously. "Well of course I have. I am well aware of the concept," I insisted. "History is alive with such notions, and the artwork to prove it. I am aware, as it made for some uncomfortable excursions to museums and galleries with my father, I assure you. Obviously it is just the terminology that eluded me." Then, uncertain how it would be received, I offered; "My father warned me of such men."

"Did he now?"

"And you are...one of these...?"

He nodded almost sympathetically.

"You're not going to...you're not going to bite my pillow, are you?"

Justin let out a laugh of absolute jollity. "Oh blimey Tempus, I think you're father has given you a few wrong ideas about a few things. No, I shall not bite your pillow. I am of no more threat to you than I am to Saul Coaltree. He's the one I'd worry about if I were you. Closed-minded git. Him and that flamin' copper, Matthew."

"Constable Richards?" I clarified. "The mayor's son?"

"Yeah, and the mayor too. Wanted to enact some local bylaw restricting the presence of 'our kind' in these parts, until he realized that it would violate a few basic human rights. It's not easy being a queen in a small village, Tempus." He saw my look of puzzlement. "And by 'queen'," he explained, letting one wrist go limp, "I mean a flaming homosexual."

"And what does Mr. Grisham think of this?" I asked, not so much as a judgement but as a line of inquiry.

"The vicar? He takes the diplomatic road and tries not to speak on the subject, but the Bible makes it's stance quite clear. The vicar handed out some questionnaire last Sunday, apparently. 'Ten Questions to Determine Your Soul's Path' he called it. Said we could see for ourselves just what we require in life in order to make it to Heaven."

"Intriguing," I mused. "And have you completed it?"

"Yes, mother" he sighed, rolling his eyes and flipping his short crop of hair in a very feminine manner. Clearly it was not at his own behest that he did so, nor was it by his own volition that he attended Sunday service. "You answer each question with a number. One for 'not important' and five for 'very important'. We're supposed to hand it in by tomorrow so he can have them all returned to us this Sunday. Just like homework, this is. Kind of exciting though, I guess. We're all excited to see what it'll say, even if only for a laugh, but he's asked that we not share the results with anyone."

"Most intriguing," I said. "I have to say, Justin, for a 'homosexual', you seem quite...normal."

"Well that's the most well-intentioned stereo-type that anyone has ever said to me," he said, patting my chest. He stood to leave. "Listen, if you see my sister about on her travels, let her know that she's on dinner duty tonight."

"I've not seen my lovely fiancée since this morning," I admitted.

To this he laughed. "You're a riot, Tempus. Don't ever change." As he left he added, "You're a straight arrow in a backwards world, you are."

As he left the room and the silence returned his words nonetheless echoed in my mind.

A backwards world.

I felt as though I had stepped through to the other side of the mirror.

I was a fool. I was a damned fool.

I looked at the word on my blotter. 'Suladead'. I had racked my mind trying to think of any language in which 'sula' might translate into something tangible. It could indicate a municipality in Norway. A city in Honduras. A genus of seabirds. A river in eastern Europe. A village in Slovakia. It is even a curse word in Romanian, referring to the male genitalia, but unless someone was threatening to kill that part of my body it didn't make much sense. None of that mattered now. I had discovered the connection.

"Tempus, you've got to see these!" a voice called, launching me out of my chair. Jill entered the room with a black book-shaped object and a cup of tea. Obviously she could not get past Mrs. Tellman without having something thrust into her hand.

"It seems we both have discoveries," I quipped. "By all means, you first."

She opened the book and placed it upon my desk. A screen sprang to life. It was a portable microcomputer.

"Fascinating," I gasped. I had to wait as a few screens flashed by, but she was soon able to produce a screen full of small images, each one able to be enlarged with the click of a button.

"They're all here," she said excitedly. "Even the freaky guy in the corner." She enlarged the image and we were once again confronted with the warrior who had nearly frightened us to death when he first appeared on film - the one I attempted to shoot. "There's even a few I didn't notice. Even at the bottom of the stairs. Check this out." She enlarged an image of the stairwell, where I was able to see a ghostly hand protruding through the wall, unseen to us at the time. "Tempus, they were everywhere!" she gasped. "What do you suppose it means?"

"I'm not sure," I admitted, "but I think we've been warned to stay away."

"Having a bloody great warrior charge at us with a sword was a bit of a warning, but somehow I'm guessing that you're referring to something a little more complex."

"Suladead," I repeated, pointing to the writing on my blotter. "It's not a word. Well it is, but not really."

"Okay. Wanna run that by me again?"

"Did you know that Leonardo DaVinci kept a notebook? All of his thoughts and inventions, many of which were far ahead of his time, all written down. The strange thing about it is that the majority of them were written backwards. Why would a man do such a thing?"

"To encrypt it?" she offered.

"Surely a man of his brilliance could have found a more effective way to encrypt something than using a method a child with a mirror could figure out."

"Not that I don't find this interesting, but...what's you're point?"

I took my pencil and wrote another word beneath 'Suladead'. I wrote the whole thing again, only backwards.

"Daedalus."

"Speaking of a child's game..." I muttered, clearly vexed at my amateurish oversight.

She looked at my writing with her head tilted. "Ain't he, like, Hercules' version of the Joker?"

I smiled at her attempt. "In base depictions he was painted as the troublesome villain, but in Greek mythology he was in essence another DaVinci. A skilled artist and inventor. He created the infamous Labyrinth for King Minos in order to imprison his wife's son, Asterion - the Minotaur. Daedalus was later imprisoned in a tower with his son, Icarus, for the king feared that Daedalus would bring knowledge of this Labyrinth to the public. Unable to escape by land or sea, Daedalus forged his most infamous creation - wings for he and his son, feathers held together by wax, in order for them to flee through the skies. Daedalus knew his son to be rather brash, and issued Icarus a warning."

"What was that? 'You're not Superman'?"

I shook my head. "My son, do not fly too high lest the sun will melt the wax nor too low for the sea's spray will weigh down the feathers."

I gave her a moment, but she did not quite seem to understand.

"So basically what it's saying is that in order to solve the mystery of this haunting we have to make sure we oh Christ I have no idea what the hell that means, Tempus."

"I believe this is a general warning to others, or perhaps a reminder to one who might forget. A cautionary clue to keep on one's course, for straying too far either way will result in certain death."

She stared at me for a moment, unsure of how to respond and pondering upon how close she might have come to her own death while in the depths of the Mews. She had not the chance to speak again when the sound of Justin's frantic cry split the cold silence.

"Tempus!!!"

My eyes widened. I had never heard a voice so distraught, so frightened, so dismayed. I immediately ran down the stairs to the front door, where he impatiently awaited me to follow him out into the darkening skies of the early evening.

"Justin, whatever is the matter?"

He ran frantically down the path, but collapsed halfway down it's length to his knees, sobbing hysterically. I tried calling him several times, asking him what was the matter, but he could not possibly respond. I received my answer, however, when I looked down the end of the front path.

There lay Nicolette, my fiancée, laying at the front gate. Blood ran from her nose and eyes, and she did not move.

Not even to breathe.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

Though the funeral would not be for a few days, and Sunday was two days away, there was nonetheless a small service held at the church to mark the passing of young Nicolette's life. Not many came, though perhaps if her repute was as ill as indicated then the male mourners likely did her memory a service by staying away. The vicar was kind enough to take Justin and the distraught Mrs. Tellman in to comfort them and help them find solace in the words of God. While these words gave me no real solace, I attended all the same in order to show my support, as well as to show my respect to the woman that was, for a time, to be my wife and the mother of my children. I sat in a pew a few rows back, giving a respectable distance, and left myself to my own thoughts while the actions of Jesus were relayed and somehow meant to be of comfort.

After they had left the vicar came and sat down next to me. I must say I did not even note his presence at first, and it was not until he spoke that I became aware.

"T'is a funny old thing, this world," he began. "We tell ourselves that a divine reward beyond our imagining awaits us at the end, yet when one of us passes on we lament their loss, and fear our own demise as well. In the end what are we but a gaggle of panicky fools wary of receiving our own just reward?" He patted my knee in a fatherly fashion. "Care to speak your mind?"

I did not intend to unburden my sole to this man, a receiver of confessions, but alas I found that my weighted mind was too much to bare.

"I would have cared for her, you know," I insisted. "She would have made a fine wife, and I a fine husband. We had no plan to marry, but when circumstances advanced beyond our control, well...what choice had I to do but the right thing?"

Mr. Grisham smiled warmly. "You are a man of great integrity," he said. "Far more so than any other in this village. Your actions did not require you to be chained to a woman you knew little of, but it is a credit to you that you were willing. Nicolette did not have to die in order for you to be free of her, Tempus. She was never your burden to begin with."

Hardly the words you'd expect of a holy man, but comforting words nonetheless.

"Thank you, vicar."

He chuckled to himself. "Well that is the first time I've ever heard you refer to me as that. Perhaps we are making headway." He sighed deeply to himself. "Oh I don't know, what kind of day are we living in? Petty crime is on the rise, and now two murders in one week?"

"Is there to be no investigation?"

He shook his head and held up his hands. "There's no need. Just like with the Gallows boys, we've had a full and total confession. It was Saul Coaltree."

"Indeed?"

"Aye. He said she rejected him and he simply reacted."

Had this happened after I had left the pub? If I had not acted so foolishly and been able to stay could I have averted such a disaster? I suddenly felt partially responsible, although I had no hand in her actual murder.

"I'm as busy as the police are, it seems," he said. "I've received more confessions in this past week than I can possibly recall! This is barely fitting of Gravesend, let alone Greyfield. Never seen anything like it in all my days," he concluded, shaking his head.

I raised my head and turned to him. "How long have you been...in service?"

He chuckled at the awkward phrasing of my question. "I've been in God's service a whopping fifty one years now. Not a bad record for an old fool, hm? Fifty one of my eighty three years doing His good work - I reckon that shall grant me safe passage, don't you? That is if you believe in said passage, that is."

"I don't know what I believe anymore, vicar."

"Aye, I've been there more times than I care to admit. At times like this I prefer to ask myself the same question, time and again. Do I wish to put my faith in what I can see, or what I can believe? I would imagine that the same would hold true for you."

I thought about it, and at the time I agreed. I still do, at times.

I found myself, some time later, at Greyfield Park, laying upon the green and looking not at the Mews across the stream, but rather the clouds overhead. Jill sat alongside me, clearly fidgety and unprepared to be sitting so idle.

"I thought we were going ghost-busting," she pouted. "I came prepared and everything." She gestured to a backpack that was bulging with content. Flashlights and additional batteries, I'd suspect. "What's the deal?"

"Did you know that a woman gives birth to a baby every eight seconds?"

"Wow," she muttered. "We really should stop her."

I paid no attention to her jest. "It has always been a firmly held belief of mine that, when a child is born, for the first eight seconds of his life he is in fact the newest human being on the planet and, for those mere seconds, the absolute pinnacle of human evolution. The most absolute and indisputable example of all our species has to offer. I don't know if I am so certain of that anymore."

"Provided this leads to a plan to exterminate some ghosts, explain."

"We view time as a horizontal line, and we assume that every current second represents the ever travelling tip of that spear that plunges headlong into the unknown and un-occurred. Yet what if we are not the trail blazing pencil that defines the line, but rather differential points along an already sketched path? If time is a line from Point A to Point B, who is to say that Point B hasn't already been determined, and we are only occupying a small space midway through to that goal? Mere filler in this cosmic puzzle."

She responded to my commentary with a deep and insightful "Huh".

"I dispute the existence of God because I refuse to believe that our lives are predetermined, and that we are all living an elaborate play that has already had it's beginning and end scripted. Perhaps there is little difference between science and religion after all, save but their approach."

"I brought a halogen light. Ghosts hate halogen light, don't they?"

I sighed, rolling my eyes as I sat up. "And what exactly is it you suggest we do?"

"I have no idea. That's your department. I'm just here to back you up."

"Need I remind you of how terrified you were yesterday?"

She sighed impatiently. "That's because we weren't prepared." She then reached into her backpack and pulled out a string of garlic. "Check it out! Pretty sweet, eh?"

"I have no intention of entering that cellar again until I feel I have a better understanding of what is down there. I took too grave a chance yesterday, jumping into something that could well have been the result of excessive radiation for all I knew, simply because it intrigued me. Everything we saw, or thought we saw, could be no more than hallucinations caused by damage to our neural cortex."

She gasped. "Is that possible?"

"Perhaps."

"So is that why we're looking at clouds? Doing fluffy white Rorschach tests?"

"To think, something which I am having trouble doing right now."

"Hey, you invited me."

"I don't recall that."

"You would have eventually."

I shook my head dismissively. I then pointed to my partially deflated makeshift weather balloon. "I'm here to take some readings.

"What's that going to tell us?"

"If that wall did separate flowing time from frozen time, then the air itself would have been displaced. Much like Archimedes' discovery of water displacement, in a sense. If you somehow replace a compressed litre of water in a bathtub with a litre of tea, that tea will eventually distribute itself throughout the rest of the bathtub, diluting itself into the water. However that water will not be pure water anymore. It will be tainted."

"Kinda like peeing in the pool, huh?"

"Just follow me," I said as I walked down the length of the park and headed toward the stream. "High air pressure brings warmer weather, as it is compressed. If you recall, the closer we got to the disturbance, the colder it became. I'm merely looking for sudden deviations in air pressure both near and far from the epicentre of the disturbance." We crossed the stream and reached the debris upon which I had anchored my weather balloon. I reeled it in. "It's been a day or two since I tested the relative pressure over the park, but the weather has been pretty constant, and I am only looking for a slight indication."

Jill helped me pull down the balloon, whereupon I looked at the gauge and compared the readings to what they read over the park earlier.

"Different?"

I nodded.

"This is hardly conclusive, but it does back up a theory."

"So now what?"

"Well..." I began, but trailed off. I really wasn't that sure.

"Oh God, Tempus look!"

Jill had gasped and jabbed her fist into my shoulder as she pointed. I looked across the overgrown garden before us and towards the west wing. In the window, as I had seen before, stood the same visage of the decrepit woman. She seemed to gaze emptily outward, scanning the grounds, then began to dematerialize. The exact same process as before, in an identical repeated pattern.

"My God..." Jill gasped. "What...what does this mean?"

"It means," I replied, "that we will have to pay another visit to the constable."
CHAPTER TWELVE

Despite my earlier critiques over some of his personal peccadilloes, Constable Richards was an upright man who oversaw his duties with great pride and diligence. Upon reaching his office we found him sitting at his desk, not a single button unfastened and not a single crease in his shirt. His epaulettes proudly proclaimed his rank in short numbers, and his Custodian Helmet, sitting upon his desk and perfectly in line with the front door, gleamed as though he had just polished it's proud 'ER' insignia. Upon the wall behind him was a list of wanted criminals, which comprised of mug shots so dated that they must have since died of old age. Behind a greeting smile the young man's scrutiny beheld an eye that seemed to question ever visitor's intentions and past criminal record. He also stamped library cards for a young boy who had just checked out a series of books involving a talking steam locomotive.

"Ah, good morning Mr. Fugit," he greeted, curt but courteous.

Withdrew my pocket watch and glanced at the time. "Good afternoon, actually," I corrected. Perhaps I may a bit rigid, but I felt that the time was not something to be trifled or mistaken.

"Actually, it is 'good morning'," Jill corrected me, and she didn't seem to mind doing so in front of others. She then nudged me. "You're still three minutes fast, remember?"

I shut my eyes for a moment and consumed my patience. "Thank you, Jill."

"How can I help you, Mr. Fugit?" the constable asked, obviously hoping to get to the issue of my presence. He shut the boy's last book and handed them to him. "Back by next Friday this time, alright?" he insisted. Perhaps he would use the threat of imprisonment as a fine for a tardy return. He returned his attention to me. "If you are here to speak to Mr. Gallows then I am afraid that he is no longer present."

"And what of Mr. Coaltree?"

"He is still refuting visitation on the advice of his lawyer."

I glanced down at my watch, still vexed by it's misrepresentation. "And who might his lawyer be?" I asked, challenging him just in case it be a ruse.

"Mr. Reese," he replied indignantly. "The butcher."

I snapped my pocket watch shut and placed it back into my vest pocket. "Indeed. Mr. Richards..."

"Constable Richards."

"Yes. Constable Richards, I am in need of information that perhaps you, in both of your capacities, could provide."

"Go on," he said, suspiciously.

"I require the original specs for the Mews, no doubt drawn upon it's revival. Should they still exist then I would suspect that they would be housed either here or at your father's office."

"You are correct, Mr. Fugit. They are housed here, as are the original plans for a few of our other notable estates, however I am afraid that they are not available to the public."

"Well I must then correct you," I retorted, "for I am not the public, rather I am in the employ of the Mayor's Office."

"They are extremely old, Mr. Fugit, and not to be trifled with. They cannot simply but unbound and opened every time someone wishes to have a look to satisfy their curiosity."

"How do you think the distinguished Mr. Barberwart would feel if he discovered that his most reputed representative of the law had done his best to hinder my progress in a matter personally laid out by his own charge?"

The constable gave me a stare that was not becoming of a man in his position. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "In the back, top shelf. By the computers."

I bid him good day as I bypassed his desk and entered the small and sparsely populated library. There were only a handful of shelves, most of which were only waist height, but at the very back wall there were a number of steel racks, atop of which were a number of rolled up sheets of paper. If they were not for public viewing then they were hardly kept secure.

"Oh wow," Jill cooed. "Vic 20's! These things are ancient!"

"Never mind those useless devices," I muttered. I had always viewed microcomputers as a passing fad and had yet to be convinced of their usefulness. "Help me search through these. One of them has to be for the Mews."

We pulled them all down and unleashed a cloud of dust, inducing coughing fits on both our parts. Once the cloud had settled we set about examining ever label, attempting to read the faded pencil writing identifying the structure it represented. When this failed we resorted to opening every one and determining which building it was.

"Hey, this one is my house," she chirped, folding it out on the table. It was a rather simple drawing of a small detached home that was, it would seem, built upon the foundations of what was once a blacksmith's forge. "I bet they kept the swords and spears in my room."

"This might be it," I said, helping her roll up her own blueprint before she was prepared to, making space for the item of interest that we had come for. "This is a layout for the entire estate of Lord Morrow," I explained. "Amazing condition, I must say. Perhaps a copy of an original." I pointed at the larger structure. "This here is where Greyfield Park now lies." I moved my finger over to a smaller design. "And I assume that this is the Mews, or at least the stables and servant lodgings as they were at the time."

"Well it's going to be a bit different now, isn't it?"

"Perhaps, but like the house in which you dwell, the foundations should remain virtually unchanged." There were several reams of paper with this particular plan, and I flipped through a few until coming to a breakdown of the several levels of the stables. "Here," I said, pointing to the basement level. The staircase was depicted, as well as the wall it led to, necessitating one to go either left or right, around the staircase, to enter the main cellar.

"If the stairs lead straight to a wall," Jill asked, illustrating my thoughts exactly, "then how did they manage to store all those large boxes and barrels down there? It's kind of a tight corner, isn't it?"

"Exactly," I remarked. "There must be another entrance for storage." My finger traced our path from the day before, leading around the staircase, through the main cellar, and around a corner to where the entryway to the disturbance lay. It was another large storage area, but the drawings indicated a storm door at the opposite end. "We must find this door and enter from the opposite end," I determined. "Perhaps we might find something conclusive on this side."

"And if we don't?"

I pondered that notion, then simply shrugged. "I'll go back inside, only this time tethered and with your camera."

She withdrew said camera and took a few snaps of the drawings so that we would have no trouble finding the location of the storm-door. When she was done I began rolling the papers up tightly, but as I did so I felt the impression of a small and slightly more thick piece of paper set between the sheets. As I fluted the pages a number of small postcards and photographs fell out. They all bore a slight curl as they had been rolled up for decades.

"What's this?" Jill asked, reaching down and picking up a postcard with various notations. "God, did everyone have bad handwriting back then?"

I snatched it from her in excitement and gave it my scrutiny. It seemed to be an eyewitness account of the fire, although it was difficult to determine which blaze they reference - the estate or the mews? I looked at another card, baring a different style of handwriting, and read of an eyewitness account of a servant attempting to jump from a window, but suffering a fatal fall.

"There's some pictures," she noted, and began picking them up, one by one. Very poor quality black and white photos showed a blaze in progress. I looked at the back on one such photo and it was marked '1953'. "It must be the Mews," she said. "I doubt they'd have had a camera on hand back in the late 1800's for the Estate. Not in this little village, anyway." We looked at each photo as she picked them up from the table. One showed more of the fire as it engulfed the east wing. Another showed people attempting to dowse the flames with mere buckets of water. Another depicted a body laying in the grass, perhaps the servant who attempted to leap to safety. Each image made the tragedy seem as though it happened only yesterday, for until I saw these images I had only ever known the Mews in its current state.

I picked up the last photo, which had fallen face-down upon the table. Written on the back was simply 'Lady Morrow'. I turned the photo over.

We both stopped breathing, as though the library had become a vacuous void.

It was the same haunting image we had seen in the window of the Mew's remains. In this photo, a woman gazed emptily out the window whilst the building blazed about her. She seemed distant and resigned, like a witch who accepted the fires at the stake. How anyone could stand so stoically while suffering such a fate was beyond comprehension.

"She...she must have wanted to die..." Jill gasped. She could look at the photo no longer, and flipped it face down on the table. I was, I admit, grateful for her actions as it broke my hypnotic trance that I had, for a second time, held with the lady's devoid eyes.

"...this is most astounding..."

"I gotta pee."

"...it is also most perplexing..."

"I'm shaking. Look at me. I'm shaking."

I glanced over toward the entrance. The constable was not at his desk nor was he in sight. I quickly pocketed the photos and cards, then continued to roll up the floor plans of the Estate. I had only committed theft twice in my life, each time in aid of completing an intricate puzzle, but it gave me a deeply dishonest feeling nonetheless.

"Tomorrow morning," I said. "We shall go there first thing in the morning. Prepared."

"What? Tomorrow morning? Why wait?"

"Because. We don't with to rush these things. We have to be prepared. We have to be..."

"You're scared, aren't you?"

"I most certainly am not."

"It's okay, I'm terrified, but we can't let that stop us."

"We need to be prepared."

She did not say anything, but lifted up her over-stuffed backpack and gave me a look that seemed to question my short term memory.

"We need tools. We might have to dig our way to the storm door, or move some heavy objects."

"We'll swing by the Gallows farms on the way. They're not using their shovels and spades anymore, that's for sure."

"Young lady, that is hardly appropriate."

She opened her mouth to offer another impatient excuse, but as she did so a scream was heard from the front of the library. It was a deep bellow, partly in horror and partly as an offensive ploy against a would-be offender. I immediately arose and rushed to the front foyer of the library/police precinct and found Constable Richards upon the floor, attempting to stand while grasping his bloodied shoulder. Looming over him, looking like a man possessed by the devil himself, was Justin. He held a butcher knife which he held raised, prepared to strike again.

"Justin!" I called, unable to believe my eyes. "Good Heavens lad, what are you doing?"

His head shook like a man snapped out of a trance. He looked to me in fright, then down to the man beneath him. His features dropped as though it were he himself who was being threatened. The young lad looked again to me, as though he were about to ask me 'why', rather than vice versa, but by that point the young constable had regained his footing and lunged himself at the young homosexual, bringing him to the ground and disarming him. Showing a mark of bravery herself, Jill quickly scuttled forward and retrieved the blade, thus assuring that it could not be used again by either party.

Although he was the initial assailant, I couldn't help but feel for young Justin, who looked frightened and bewildered by what had transpired, as though he had been unjustly attacked. Given his choice of lifestyle he was probably accustomed to unjust treatment, and I might have thought his attack to be a response to the narrow-minded beliefs and legislation that the constable and his father the mayor shared.

Yet if that were the case, then why did he appear so terrified before he had a chance to inflict the final blow?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I was kept for some time at the library for questioning, as I was, as they called me, a reliable witness. Despite the fact that I told them that I did not see the initial attack, nor did I even see young Justin enter the library, they still sought to keep me on hand for their own investigative purposes. Jill was dismissed soon enough, and I had to take her aside and make her swear unto me that she would not approach the Mews without me by her side, to which she eventually conceded. I therefore stayed with the Constable Richards, later accompanied by Mr. Barberwart, a young girl named Stephanie Crane who was a practising nurse and the closest thing the village had to a doctor at the time, and Mr. Grisham the vicar. It was this collective of authoritative officiating bodies that handled the scene, interrogating young Justin and tending to the constable's injuries.

"You are facing grave ramifications, Mr. Tellman," the mayor said, pacing back and forth and tapping his cigar ashes upon the ground. He did not so much as stride but wobble as he paced. "You have not only assaulted another human being, but a lawman at that. Have you no excuse for your actions?"

"I don't," he whimpered. "I really don't."

The constable sat upon his desk and had his shirt removed whilst the young nurse tended to his wound. He hissed with pain before chiming in his theory. "That's London for you. Spends a few months mixing with his kind and they put him up to all sorts. This is their work! Stabbing out authority so they can live freely!"

"A quite literal interpretation," I mused, "but I nonetheless find it odd that this young man, who has been nothing but the picture of grace under fire given his disposition, would suddenly act now." I turned to Justin, regretful that I had to act as one of the mob but nonetheless playing to their strengths. "Was it the remorse for your sister that charged your emotions so?"

"No!" he insisted tearfully. He tried to lift his hands in a plea of innocence, but the were handcuffed together behind the back of the chair. "It's nothing to do with that!"

"I doubt his kind feel remorse," the constable spat.

"Then by all mean, why don't we throw him into the river and see if he floats," I snapped. My criticism was not properly appreciated, for rather than take offence at my scathing analogy of his convictions he instead seemed to consider whether or not my suggestion was a valid option.

"Mr. Fugit, Mr. Richards," the mayor said, attempting to calm us both. At least he had the professional air to take familial ties out of this equation. "Let us calm ourselves, hm? Tempus, my good man, I think the constable fears that perhaps you side too much with the man who was caught, quite literally, red handed." He gestured to the blood stains that adorned both Justin's and the constable's clothing.

"I do not question what my eyes behold, but I am not always sure that what we see is the clear and total truth. Young Justin seems bewildered by his action. Do you not find this odd?"

He gave my question the respect of pondering upon it. "As was the Gallows boy."

"Yes, as was young Jack," I added.

"Little Jack?" the mayor asked, gesturing the height of a young boy to ensure that he hadn't misheard. "What has he done?"

I shook my head. "Nothing so rash that it deserves the involvement of the law. I have dealt with it. Nonetheless, confusion upon committing a uncharacteristic crime is becoming more akin to a trend, would you not agree?"

"Perhaps I might be of assistance," the vicar, Mr. Grisham said, breaking his silence and stepping forth, placing himself alongside Justin. "This young lad has come to me before, seeking comfort in the Lord when he felt as though his lot in life has led him down a path most separate than others. Perhaps if I take his full confession he may feel...alleviated enough to reflect and speak more clearly upon the subject."

"Aye," said the mayor after giving it much scrutiny. He then gestured to his son, the constable, who in turn threw his set of keys to the vicar. "The cells are down the hall, vicar. If you'd rather wait, the constable will be available soon to accompany you."

"I have no reason to fear this lad," Mr. Grisham said, lifting Justin's bound arms over the back of the chair. He then led him to the area where the alleged cells lay. "Is Mr. Coaltree still here?" The mayor nodded. "Excellent. He would not speak to me earlier, but perhaps now he might allow me to take his confession as well."

"You provide an invaluable service, vicar," the mayor said. Though his words might have been heartfelt, he was clearly only adding them for civility at the time. Mr. Barberwart then turned back to the rest of us. "This...this is unlike anything this village has ever faced," he lamented. "All since the rise in sightings at that blasted wreckage. We should have just brought in a bulldozer and taken our chances."

"This is not connected to the hauntings, father," the constable spat. The look on the mayor's face clearly showed his displeasure at the familial familiarity whilst in an official capacity. "These crimes and murders did not start until Tempus Fugit set foot into town."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said yourself you were dissatisfied with his progress! And now these murders? Perhaps he seeks to distract us with thuggery to hide the fact that he knows no difference between a charlatan and a ghost!"

"That is quite enough!" Mr. Barberwart said, raising his voice like the bark of a dog. The young nurse looked panicked, caught in the middle of a debate that was beyond her capacity and station. Noting her concern he dismissed her. When calm returned, he continued. "We are not living in the dark ages and I will not see this turned into a witch hunt. We will not throw blame at one another because we fear the unknown. Have faith in the services I have provided for this village for the past twenty five years! I know a charlatan and a shyster when I see one, and I also know how to dismiss someone from their post when I feel that they are not completing their job to the required specification. Mr. Fugit will continue, constable, and he will leave the punishment of common criminals to us. Are we understood?"

It was clear that these words, though spoken to the constable, were nonetheless meant for both of us to adhere to. Constable Richards, in response, slammed his hand down on his desk in protest and then marched off, supporting his slung right arm as he headed towards the cells. Mr. Barberwart shook his head and sighed, the grief of a father who felt as though he had disciplined his son one too many times. With that he left, and I followed soon after.

I ambled down the lane towards Mrs. Tellman's Bed & Breakfast, preparing to break the news to her that she might have lost another child, though in not so terminal a manner, for I doubt she had yet been told. I marked the time. It was two thirty. I beg your pardon, two twenty seven. I wondered where Jill might be, and if she heeded my request to stay as far away as possible from the Mews. I saw her brother, Jack, cross the road before me. He was chasing a frog, a game worthy of a lad's life, however I feared for the frog's fate should it be captured. Was I neglecting my own rationale, that perhaps there was some strange, if not unlikely, reason as to the cause of his actions? He stopped midway across the road, giving up his chase as he saw me. He made no attempt to come to me, nor to leave. I saw a great sadness and shame awash his face. Caught between the limitless reserves of reason and the confines of emotional bias, I did not know what to do or say.

Constable Richards' patrol car pulled up alongside me. Although I was relieved for the distraction, I was nonetheless wary. It was clear the young constable was not happy with my progress or presence, and his dogs were only called off by his father's objection. It concerned me as to what business he had, out in the streets, with only the troubled young lad as a witness. Warily I took the two steps necessary to stand alongside the vehicle. He had leaned across to open the passenger door for me.

"Get in."

I peered inside. It was Jill behind the wheel. I did as she said.

"Fabulous," I commented, closing the door behind me. "The constable is clearly vexed with me, but you are obviously still in his good graces. How kind of him to lend you his patrol car." I turned to her with a sudden concern. "Are you not too young to drive, though?"

She rolled her eyes. "Buckle up, Fugit," she said firmly. "We're going to the Mews before anyone else gets killed."

While I applauded her for formulating her own theories, I nonetheless had to question her conclusion. "How do you postulate that..."

"I don't know, but no one was getting killed until we started poking about. I think we should assume, for the sake of assumption, that its all connected. Hold on." I was too busy questioning her conclusion to heed her warning, and found my face pressed right against the passenger window as she took a corner sharply. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. "Second time driving."

"You...you did not borrow this vehicle with the constable's permission, did you?"

"Not exactly."

"Jill I am appalled! Theft of a motor vehicle is criminal enough, but a police vehicle? Why on earth would you commit such a crime?"

"I needed it to get away from the church as fast as I could."

"Oh dear God," I muttered, placing my face in my palms. "Tell me, do you at least feel remorse for your indulgent and illegal actions?"

"Oh yeah. Loads."

"Dare I ask what you were doing at the church?" I asked. "I thought you had coined a condemning term for such places."

"Well I certainly wasn't praying. Fox."

The car swerved and send up a cloud of gravel as she sought to avoid the animal, nearly killing us in the process. Once she gained control she reached into the back seat and retrieved a small folder.

"I was checking out the vicar's office."

"You did what?"

"Listen, I wanted information on some of these people that were going about stealing, maiming, and killing, and the only thing they all have in common is that they freely admit to their crime and give their confession to the vicar. I thought he might have some sort of journal or record, and since he was busy with you lot I thought it would be the best time."

"While I don't protest to know the ways of the vicarage, I do very much doubt that they keep journals of the confessions they received. It is a sacred rite share by the confessor, the receiver, and God, apparently."

"Well yeah, I know that now, don't I? I didn't know that thirty minutes ago though. I did find that though, so you might want to shut up and have a flip through. We're almost there."

Despite my need to scold the girl for her sudden bout of rash behaviour, I decided to trust her judgement and open the folder. It contained sheets of handwritten paper, all looking relatively similar. Each one, however, began with a different name, and by the looks of it they were the names of various townspeople.

"What are these?"

"Test results," she said flatly. "All nicely written and evaluated before the tests are even handed in."

"You mean the questionnaire?"

"You've heard of it?" she asked, glancing over at me. "Ten simple questions to determine your soul's worth, or what not. He handed them out last Sunday, and we're suppose to hand them in by today so he can have everyone's private and confidential report on Sunday."

"Well perhaps these are the reports of those who handed them in early."

"Nuh-uh. I got my questionnaire on Sunday and I haven't bothered filling it out, but low and behold, mine report is in there."

"I thought you did not appreciate the church," I could not help but ask.

"I don't. Me mum makes me go. That's why I hate it so much. I'm sorry, but you are completely missing the point."

"Perhaps he is lazy," I mused, flipping through them. "Nonetheless, I do not think it is appropriate that we read these personal records, nor to I approve of your methods of..."

I trailed off, which garnered her closer attention.

"What's wrong?"

"They're all the same."

"Yeah, it looked like he followed the same format."

"No, they are all completely identical in their wording. Pull over. I cannot read whilst riding as a passenger."

Jill pulled off of the main road and onto a small dirt lane, out of sight. I then got out of the patrol car and leaned upon it's roof, reading the report. It was for Stephanie Crane, the young nurse I only just met. It told her, as it did the others, that she was a good person who is, at times, vulnerable to the common sins such as pride and jealousy, and that it was important that these not rule one's life. It also told her that she was perhaps a bit too demanding of other people, but that is nothing that one cannot change in themselves. Jill was clearly awaiting my input, so I read aloud the final line.

"Fear not, for yours is a truly devoted soul which is on a clear and present path to salvation, a path only occasionally obscured by your easily distracted desires for shallow fulfilment. You're ambitions are noble, but they can be somewhat unrealistic. Keep true to God, praise Him every Sunday, and confess your sins before they become burdens and you will one day know the glory of His kingdom."

"Sounds like propaganda to me."

"I'm sure it applies to the young Stephanie, though."

"I'm kinda surprised to hear you say that."

"I'm sure it applies to you, too."

"Huh?"

I placed the report back in the folder. "Have you ever heard of the Barnum Effect?"

She pondered it for a moment. "Barnum. Weren't he the circus bloke. 'A sucker born every minute' and all that?"

"Yes indeed. He not only believe that people were easy to fool, but that some people wanted to be fooled. It is the age old question of divination and those who believe it. Give a vague enough answer that is open to interpretation and the recipient will quite happily believe it and feel as though they've received some profound, and perhaps arcane, foreknowledge. When Croesus of Lydia asked an oracle whether or not he should launch an attack on Persia he was told that 'a mighty empire would fall'. Armed with that knowledge, he went to war."

"It was his empire that fell, wasn't it?"

I nodded. "Yes, but the oracle, nonetheless, was correct. Typical practice, really \- if you want someone to feel as though you are offering them great insight into their character, ensure that three quarters of your delivery has desirable information that any rational person would like to think of themselves, and one quarter of it contains undesirable information to counter-balance the presentation. As long as your overall message is not too specific, people will believe that your mass-produced message was designed just for them. It is a pareidolia."

"It does what to children?

"A pareidolia, Jill. Random stimuli that takes on a meaningful interpretation." Then, for recent relevance, I added; "Such as looking for shapes in the clouds."

"Okay," she said, accepting my explanation, "but why is he doing it? To secretly play a joke on the town? To cut back on some of his work?"

I shook my head. "No. I would imagine he is trying to subtly spread a common message."

"Go to church?"

"No, " I said as we got back into the vehicle. He wants us all to confess."

Jill scoffed as she started the engine. "Yeah, and? I mean, he's a priest!"

"Vicar."

"Whatever. It's his job to take confessions. Why be so secretive about it? Is he a freakin' pervert or something?"

I admit I had pondered that notion, but it would not add any significance to any other loose end. "It's not his suggestion that disturbs me," I muttered quietly as I mused, "but rather the urgency behind such tactics."

A moment's silence divided us.

"He's pushing for confessions just as odd crimes are happening!" Jill exclaimed, excited by her own conclusion.

I smiled knowingly, then pointed forward to the road ahead.

"Let us find out why."

She squealed excitedly, then caused the wheels to equally squeal as the car lurched ahead. "You got it, Batman!"

"...what?"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The patrol car pulled up alongside the entrance to Greyfield Park, at which point we sought to abandon the vehicle, though only after Jill retrieved her backpack and a shovel from the trunk. We then hurried across the field, over the stream, and towards the wreckage. Navigating based on the image of the floor plan drawings on her camera she led us around the back of the west wing, beyond our previous point of entry. The spot, we found, had been overgrown and covered with dirt, perhaps washout from excessive rainfall. I helped her lift a few large planks of splintered wood, the watched as she used her steel-toed boots to kick away a few stones and mortar. Then, as I continued to peruse the vicar's notations, she began to dig.

"So...what else ya got?" she asked, puffing away.

"Not much," I replied. "There is a lot of gibberish here. Garbled text. Could be a cipher."

"Cipher?"

"A model of encryption. What may appear as nonsensical text could actually be a code that requires a decryption key. The most basic involves running the letters of the alphabet against a reverse sequence. The letter in the forward alphabet is then replaced with the letter of the reverse alphabet. A becomes Z. B becomes Y. There are other simple methods of encryption, such as substituting a letter with the thirteenth letter down the line of the alphabet. In that case the A becomes..." I hesitated for a moment. "...N. You get the idea. It's really quite simple. Childish, really."

"So...why's he trying to hide what he's written?"

"That's the interesting thing," I said, flipping the page to look at the back, where it continued. "It doesn't look like he's encrypting text, but decrypting it. He has a few scribblings underneath, notes about pulleys and wheels. I think he was attempting to translate something."

"A bit hot out...wouldn't you say?" she asked, removing another load of dirt.

"Yes, quite," I replied. I removed my handkerchief, wiped my brow, then returned it to my pocket. Her next shovel load of dirt landed near my feet. Wary of another such error, I brushed off my trouser leg and took a step back. "Be careful, please."

She muttered something, but I care not to guess what it was, nor would I care to write it down. "So...what are the wheels and pulley's for? Seriously...what the hell is this guy up to? Is he...inventing torture machines...for the people who confess horrible crimes?"

"Or more to the point, is it all related? I would hate to see ourselves waylaid from our course by lesser conundrum."

It was then that I caught sight of a word amongst this encrypted text that rang a few reminiscent bells.

Orffyreus.

Jill struck a hard surface.

"I found the door."

"Marvellous," I said, checking my pocket watch. "We've still some time then before the evening sets in."

"You know you really are a..."

"Come now, let us open the door."

She cleared the rest of the dirt, at which point we both reached down and lifted the handles. It took some effort, and I know that young Jill was likely afraid that she would not be able to manage, but with my assistance we were able to open the doors. It gave way with a sudden crack, sending her back and falling into her freshly moved pile of dirt. I offered her a hand, but she refused, probably embarrassed by her fall. Once she was back upon her feet we stood at the edge and looked down. It was a darkened staircase, much like the conventional stairs, but this one led us much closer to the disturbance. I deduced this easily as there was a dim pink light emitting not far away. Accepting a flashlight from Jill I led the way down through the storm door that had not been used in at least fifty years.

While this storage area of the cellar was quite large, we almost immediately came face to face with pink wall of light, which was now turning into a slightly darker shade. My new-found knowledge of the basement layout enabled me to postulate how large the disturbance was, yet I had no way of determining its interior volume, or whether it complied to the dimensions of the area it occupied.

"I want to go in," Jill said, though it sounded as though she spoke against her very own judgement.

"I don't think that's wise."

"Are you going in?"

"Of course."

"And how is that wise when it isn't for me?"

I sighed. Putting my hands on her shoulders, I turned the girl around and opened her backpack. "How many lengths of rope do you have?"

"Two," she chirped.

"Alright. Fine. On your head be it. Just ensure you fasten yourself to something, lest we get lost in the void."

Taking my lead she tied one end of the rope around her waist and the other to one of the support columns. We tested the security of each others knots and, once satisfied, we both stood side by side before the wall. Jill seemed to be having second thoughts and, although I had done this once already, my nerves were being tested.

"Do you wish to hold my hand?" I asked.

"I dunno," she said in an unintentional whisper. "Do you want to hold mine?"

With neither responding we held out our hands, locking our fingers. I gave her a quick reaffirming squeeze, at which point I led us in the first footfall forward. Once we stepped through I immediately looked to Jill, who had closed her eyes just as I had upon my first entry. I squeezed her hand once more, hoping to indicate that all was well. Warily she opened her eyes and looked about. I did not say much nor lead her anywhere at first, for I knew that it was a lot to take in and I wanted to allow her a moment to absorb what she saw before I began to bombard her with facts and theories.

Before us was the cellar, only it was in good repair and filled with bales of hay and other such supplies. An elegant lady, likely the mistress of the house, was having relations with a young farmhand amongst the hay, while to our left and right, merging seamlessly, were wide vistas upon which both large animals and hominids with low sloping foreheads roamed. Jill glanced over to me, then back behind us where the old fire-damaged cellar could be seen through what looked like a long curving window which arched in each direction, lost into the horizons.

"Where are we?" she asked. She was startled to find that her voice was almost formless, as though in a vacuum. Her question travelled quietly down the lengths of the vista, then came soaring back moments later, albeit in subdued volume.

"We are experiencing condensed time," I explained, allowing a moment for my words to be relayed. "Time does not exist here. Every moment that ever transpired on this spot is collected into one moment, in one singularity. Past and present, all as one. Null time."

She looked around again, watching the mistress and the farmhand fix their clothing, as well as seeing the cavemen club a small bipedal mammal to death.

"Cool."

"Time did not pass for me here, though my watch still operated. That is why I seemed to be gone only a moment to you, when in truth I inhabited this space for a few minutes. We could spend a year in here and emerge having only been gone an instant."

She hesitated, undoubtedly comparing our communication with a poorly dubbed foreign film, or some other pop-culture reference. Upon collecting my entire statement, or drawing an apt conclusion from the pieces she gathered, she rallied her own thoughts.

"Would we age?" she asked.

"I am not sure," I admitted. "While my watch continued to operate, I do not know if our cell structure would continue to self-substantiate. I suggest we do not linger in order to find out, however. It could be dangerous to stay here too long, and I lack the proper instrumentation to discern our safety."

Having said that, I was in no great rush to return. I took a step forward, as did Jill, and as we did so every scene changed. Cavemen were replaced with primitive traders, and the mistress and farmhand were replaced with cattle. It was a very disorienting experience, having every step you take alter your reality and surroundings to such a degree. We held each others' hand for safety and support, as the disorientation threatened us both. I continued, uncertain of whether our steps within the void were to be limited by the dimensions of the basement. Logically we would have to reach something tangible at some point. Our ropes were slowly becoming taut when something came into view. We saw two figures approach us \- mirror images of ourselves which looked back through a lucent surface. My first conclusion was that we had reached the opposite perimeter of the void, however as I scanned the distance to my left and right I realized that the curve of the wall was convex. It was curving the same way as the wall we had passed through. This was not the opposite end, but rather another wall on the path to the centre of the disturbance.

I noted that our breathing became shallow, and I was not sure if it was due to the excitement and uncertainty, or whether it was due to the thinner air. I turned to Jill and gestured back, to where our ropes expanded out and seemed to vanish into a blue sky. The signal was clear and she complied. Like two deep sea divers walking upon the ocean's surface, we slowly and cautiously made our way back, thrusting ourselves through the intangible glass wall.

We both required a moment to regain our breath and our senses, leaning against the concrete wall and wheezing. I had not spent as long in the field last time and did not expect such a suffocating sensation to overwhelm us.

"Are you alright?"

She coughed and hacked, but nonetheless raised one thumb, which I assumed was an indication that she was coherent.

"...what..." she attempted to speak long before she was prepared to, "...the hell...was that all about?"

"My best assumption," I began, taking yet another deep breath of full and fresh (albeit dank) air, "is a Tipler Cylinder."

"Yeah, I just saw a caveman, Fugit. Tipler thingies are going to require a little bit more explanation."

"Dante described Hell as circular, expanding outward with nine successive rings, each one acting as it's own territory and abode for punishing certain crimes. The worse the sin, the closer ring to the centre you spend eternity in. The Tipler Cylinder, in essence, is much the same, only there are four rings. The first ring is the one we inhabit every day - Forward Time. Time flows forward, and everything is as it should be. The second ring is the one we just encountered - Null Time, a place where time does not exist, or rather it is all accumulated into one single moment. The next ring, the one we faced but withdrew from, is perhaps the most interesting \- Reverse Time. A place where the entire flow of time retracts, from the Big Bang when the universe was created to the Big Crunch at which it will all once again retract into the same singularity. Time flows forward, but yet it is believed that once it is finished, the line of time will loop around, a complete three hundred and sixty degree turn, and complete itself once again, only in reverse. A time line where people are born from the dead and return to the womb. A time where things are forgotten rather than discovered. A place where things are raised from the ashes."

"Sounds snazzy. Mostly."

"The fourth ring is referred to as the Deadly Zone, a place where nothing, not even time, can exist. It is, as its name suggests, an anomalous aberration and a clear example of chaos. It is the only thing that separates us from the centre, where the cylinder itself lies, spinning with almost unlimited mass and speed, distorting space and time."

"This...this is so not what I was expecting..."

"As I have always claimed, what one's eyes behold is not always a clear definition of what one sees. For every unexplained event there is always a clear and scientific explanation, no matter how ostentatious it may be."

"So all these hauntings...all the ghosts that I wanted to protect..."

"Where never truly ghosts, or at least not as you define them to be. They are merely temporal imprints, echoes of the past. I would theorize that as the field grew stronger over time the apparitions grew stronger. As we saw in the cellar, some were able to leave the null-time zone and substantiate themselves for a few moments before dissolving. The ghostly image of Lady Morrow on the main floor was just an extraordinary projection that managed to sustain itself, repeating it's historical impression indefinitely, or as long as the field maintained its strength."

"But why?" she asked, and rightly so. "Who would build such a thing?"

"Never mind the who and why," I replied. "I'm more interested in uncovering the 'how'. In order to operate, the Tipler Cylinder must spin with a nigh-infinite speed and mass in order to distort time and create the ripple effect that gives births to these subsequent rings. How is this so?" I asked, fearing that I would never know the answer. "Who can conceive and perpetuate such a thing."

To which a voice replied; "I can."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The vicar, Mr. Grisham, knelt before us, his hands clenching a rosary and locked in prayer. As he finished his benediction he lowered the rosary, and the field behind us seemed to glow a stronger shade, turning nearly red. He then stood, weakly returning to his knees and brushing off his trousers. While he seemed to greet us with his usual congenial demeanour, we were at a loss for words or actions. Had he followed us to this place, or was he, as he suggested, the architect of this disturbance as well as its caretaker.

"It is terribly unfair in its notion, realizing that you will one day cease to exist, wiped from earth's clean slate. What treasures await us in Heaven, and yet what of us who are not yet prepared to receive them? I was never alone in the fear that led me to deplore the idea of leaving this mortal coil, yet unlike everyone one else I actually sought to do something about it. It was an achievement worthy of praise. A discovery worthy of commendation. Well, let's be honest lad, it was damn well worth bragging about, but as the good book says, modesty at all times, hm?"

We did not respond.

"I found the merging of those two dysfunctional entities, science and religion, and utilized the tool I needed to make my experiment work - the infinite weight of sin. Mankind is ripe with feelings of guilt and the will to do bad things, and it is just a matter of learning to exploit those feelings and transfer them into the valuable commodity that, over time, I have collected. Be it a petty theft of a murderous crime of passion, people always feel a weight lifted from their shoulders when they confess their sins to me, and I, in turn, transfer that weight upon the central locus of my scheme - a crucifix. A tad predictable, but it serves its purpose. This modern age is a veritable breeding ground for ill will and torrid behaviour. Collective minds are easily open to suggestion, whether it be through subtle coercion planted through a comforting conversation or outright manipulation and hypnotic suggestion. The world was my oyster! For the past fifty years I have been administering faith and absolving people's sins, but there's no age like the modern age to really get the ball rolling."

I shook my head. "This is inconceivable. How can religious theory affect or alter scientific law? How can the unseen and immeasurable weight of sin tear apart space-time? It is all so preposterous! Why, even if you did collect the nigh-infinite mass required to make the cylinder work, how could you possibly find a device to provide the overwhelming speed of the rotational requirement?"

To this he simply smirked and replied, "Orffyreus."

The implications were bewildering, but alas Jill did not seem to bare understanding.

"...who?"

"Johann Bessler," I asserted. "By his cryptic name he is known as Orffyreus. In the 18th century he presented his first model of a self-moving wheel, subsequently creating larger models until he unveiled one that was nine feet in diameter and could lift a weight of 4 pounds. It is said that he built one as large as 12 feet in diameter, but he locked it away for fear of someone stealing his invention. In the end, out of sheer paranoia, he destroyed his wheel and took his secret to the grave."

"And what secret would that be?" she asked impatiently

"Perpetual motion."

"Oh."

"A series of papers were discovered," the vicar added, "personal notes of no obvious value, but they were theorized to contain cryptic notes and instructions on how to replicate his creation. Perhaps even perfect it."

"Absurd," I declared. "At best Bessler's wheel turned fifty revolutions per minute. Though I'm sure this could be improved with today's technology, but..."

"Mr. Fugit, never underestimate a man who has nothing but time. And patience." He shook his head and laughed, possibly at me. "You seem so quick to refute and deny that which stands right before you, a phenomenon that you yourself have experienced."

"My eyes behold what they see, but the perhaps do not see what they behold, Mr. Grisham."

He smiled at me, like a tutor pitying his student's naiveté. "Ockham's Razor, Mr. Fugit. The simplest conclusion, no matter how unlikely, is the correct one."

His point was taken, but it would be amiss if I did not clarify that his was the modern phrasing. In its true form, Ocham's theorem stated "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", which translates to "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". But I digress...

"I am sure, Mr. Grisham, that in the 14th century William of Ockham could not possibly conceive of such events, lest he reconsider his theory."

He chuckled to himself. "Mr. Fugit you are the definition of obstinate."

"And you, Mr. Grisham, the definition of charlatan."

This did not please him, but rather than appear vexed, he instead grew wistful.

"I don't know how many lifetimes ago it was, countless, that it began. The idea of death never appealed to me, you see. Why should the world exist without me? It simply would not be fair. Called to the war when I was eighteen, I was quickly demoted to a first aid camp, where skilled doctors and nurses brought me back from the brink of death. I knew then that life was precious, and when I returned home I sought an education in medicine, but it pleased me very little. Disguising myself as a consummate bachelor, I locked myself away in the Mews, the home my father had raised for himself, and spent years in quiet research. When society dictated that I take a wife I nonetheless complied, though I cared very little for her. I suppose I neglected her, which is perhaps why she began torrid affairs with every servant we had. Even the maids were not safe from her appetites, and yet when the public became aware of our strained union it was myself that was blamed for being unfaithful. I was no fool, but as a woman of great faith she nonetheless felt a great sense of shame, and she confessed to me her wrongs. The potency of that engagement was intoxicating, and at best it is quite selfish, for when one confesses they transfer the weight of their wrongs from their shoulders to another. Yet in an instant I knew how to utilize that transfer, and I knew I had a life's work ahead of me. Thirty people died in that blaze. Well, twenty nine, actually. A horrible sacrifice, but I had to erase my presence from this earth and prepare for my new life. One as a man of God."

"Dear God," was all that I could muster.

Jill scoffed. "So wait...you're saying that you're the guy? The bachelor son of Lord Morrow?"

He bowed in mock chivalry. "Gordon Randal Morrow," he said, introducing himself. "King's soldier, tinkerer of medicine, and discoverer of the greatest scientific phenomenon that the world shall never know. There have been many theories of closed timelike curves from the turn of the century - Gödel, Kerr, Van Stockum..."

"Sounds like just a bunch of angry Germans," Jill snapped.

"Frank J. Tipler, an American, would later reveal his theory to the world, but by that point I was well underway. Besides," he said with a jaunty laugh, "his version was needlessly cumbersome and contingent upon vast interplanetary mining. Absurd business, mindlessly complicated."

"'Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation'," I stated. "I'm familiar with it. I'm also aware of the fact that Tipler advocates intelligent design and viewed as a crackpot by many fellow scientists."

"And yet here we are," was the only retort that the vicar felt was required.

Begrudgingly accepting this all to be true in order to advance the argument, I anticipated the next steps of his plot. "So to finalize your experiment, you returned to the site of the Mews, a place hidden from the modern world, and a place where after a fifty year absence no one recognizes you or would have reason to suspect who you are when it is firmly held that Gordon Randall Morrow is indeed quite dead."

"At last!" the vicar proclaimed. "He understands!" He then shook his head, as though ashamed at my slow grasp of his tale. "Mr. Fugit, I get so tired of explaining this to you. Time and time again."

And with that said he produced a revolver, took aim, and shot Jill through the heart.

It is likely she died before she even hit the floor.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"What have you done!?" I cried. "Why?"

I collapsed to my knees, by her side. I was enraged. I was no man of violence, but I felt as though I could have flayed him with my bare hands. Yet though he did not necessarily hold me at bay he nonetheless still had a firm grip on his revolver, and as I came to realize, he was by no means a man to underestimate. I already had reason to suspect that he already knew my every move.

"Oh don't shed any tears for her," he said dismissively. "She is but merely an example of just how my design works, as well as a test before I utilize it myself. Did not kings at one time have official food tasters to assure them that their meals were not poisoned?"

"A disregard for human life," I spat, "but even those kings did not kill those testers for sport."

"Oh Mr. Fugit, for a scientist you are quite squeamish when it comes to serious investigation. Untie her," he ordered, pointing to where her line tethered her to the support beam. I did as told. "Entering a timeline that flows in reverse is extremely disorienting, Mr. Fugit. It is not something to be taken lightly, and it is not something you can adjust to too quickly. Imagine swimming with the current, then suddenly turning around and attempting to swim upstream. A difficult task, yet still nowhere near satisfactory in explaining the shift. Pick her up, Fugit."

Again I did as he said, lifting her gently and cradling her lifeless body in my arms. Only a few hours ago she vexed me with her excessive behaviour and impatience, but now I missed it so and only wished to at least see her breath again. I looked to the vicar with contempt, awaiting his next prompt.

"It is not as the silly sci-fi television programs and books depict it, either," he explained. "Follow me, please," he chirped as he stepped through the pinkish-red wall with very little hesitation. Warily I followed him through. It was a testament to his resolve and a credit to his story when I saw how easily he travelled from one ring to the next, from forward flowing time to null time. He wasn't in the least bit disturbed by the random images that shifted with his each and every step. "Keep up, Tempus, will you?" His voice suffered the usual distortion and delay in this plane. "Now as I said, it is by no means an easy thing to describe. You do not suddenly find yourself in a world where cars drive in reverse and people comedically regurgitate food at dinnertime. It is a parallel where your every action makes as much sense to you there as it does to you here in forward flowing time. Have you ever considered the notion that we are currently in the 'wrong' timeline? Mind the cavemen, by the way. They are quite harmless. A timeline where we are born only to die? Where our world deteriorates with age, just as our own bodies? Wouldn't it be a more utopian society if it worked in reverse? Rising from the grave? Growing young instead of old?" He stopped. "This is far enough," he instructed, stopping just before the mirror wall where our slightly distorted silhouettes stared back at us. The vicar then reached down and picked up the end of the rope that trailed from where it was still tethered to Jill's waist. "Go on then, Fugit," he urged me. "Throw her in."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Don't worry, it won't hurt her. She is dead, after all. What have you got to lose?"

Was it my trust in that he knew what he was doing, or my own blasted curiosity that allowed me to treat her body so? Did she not deserve better, only moments after her own slaying? Nonetheless, shame me as it might, I did as he said. Using what little strength I felt I had, and wary of coming into any contact whatsoever with the mirror wall, I thrust her body into the unknown. I closed my eyes and bid her a silent farewell, then cursed myself to no end.

"Excellent," the vicar chirped. "Now, how long was it? Since I shot her, that is. About three minutes?"

"And twenty seconds," I added.

"Good, good, most observant," he said, holding the end of the rope and staring blankly at the wall, like a man fishing for scientific phenomenon. He rocked back and forth on his feet impatiently as though this were the most mundane act he could possibly bare. "Waiting. It's the worst part of anything, isn't it?"

"Indeed."

"Upon entering the reverse time zone it is just a matter of waiting. Adjusting and waiting. It is like enduring motion sickness for days, but eventually you adjust, you are able to think straight once more - or think backwards, perhaps - and by that point in reverse time the phenomenon has reverted and weakened and you are able to simply get up, walk out, and assimilate with the rest of the timeline. You will be tired, weak and weary, not to mention hungry, but the orientation itself will have been achieved. It is a week of absolute hell, mind you, but in the grand scheme of things it is but an inconvenient spec of time." He looked back at the mirror wall. "Speaking of time, do you think we're safe?"

I had no idea what he meant, but I marked that four and a half minutes had passed. I nodded, then snapped my pocket watch shut.

"Excellent," he chirped. He then began to pull on the rope, attempting to retrieve her body. Though stout and able for a man in his eighties, he nonetheless had great difficulty and I found myself assisting him, if only to ascertain Jill's condition. Eventually she was pulled back through the mirror wall.

I quickly fell to my knees, turning her onto her side as she seemed to cough and gasp. Her eyes were still shut and I was not yet sure if she was conscious, but her body was reacting appropriately. She lived!

"The gunshot, you will see, is gone," the vicar illustrated. "Reverse time has healed her. She has, however, entered reverse time and just as quickly re-entered forward flowing time in under five minutes. If you think getting the bends while scuba diving is bad then you haven't a clue. I doubt she will have a rational thought in weeks, but she will recover."

I supported her upper body under my arm and held her near. She was cold, shivering, and her lips trembled and moved erratically as though her subconscious were trying to form a string of words, coherent or not.

"I suppose you think I will kill you now," the vicar said. "After all, a villain doesn't reveal his master plan unless he intends to destroy his nemesis. You do see me as a villain, don't you, Mr. Fugit?"

The truth was I did not know.

"Your fate is of little interest to me, nor are your actions. Tell the world of what I have done and achieved. It matters very little. We are, after all, going in our own separate directions from this point on. You can do little to harm me now, and vice versa. You may take your friend and associate and nurse her back to health. I do enjoy your little tete a tete's, Tempus, but I have my youth to regain, and only a little time to recoup before preparing to do it all again, albeit in reverse." The vicar sighed, as though leaving behind an old friend. He then nodded and took his leave. "Good morrow, Mr. Fugit."

And with that said, he stepped through the mirror wall and was gone.

With Jill still supported under my arm I scooped her up and stood. I turned into the direction from which my rope suspended and ran, heedless of my surroundings and the changing landscape, until I pierced the pinkish-red wall and returned to the cellar. My ears popped as the air pressure changed, and I shook off the effects of my slightly heavier movements. I placed Jill down upon the ground, no longer fearing the darkened corners of the Mews for I now understood their every mystery.

"Can you hear me?" I called softly, brushing my fingers through her hair. "Jill, are you there?"

Her head tilted from side to side, her lips quivered, and her stomach churned, but she made no conscious action or sign. I had only but to hope that what Mr. Grisham had said about her eventual recovery were true. Of course I had another issue to determine, and that was as to whether or not I wished to allow the vicar to continue this cycle he seemed to perpetuate. Was it really necessary for me to stop him? To undo murders that had already happened? That had happened time and time again? I knew that I could not let this repeat itself, but what could I do? By his own words he eluded to the notion that we had been through this before, and I seemed to act and respond precisely according to his expectations. So what could I do but defy his expectations? To act in a manner that is unlike myself and, subsequently, unlike anything he could have anticipated. I had said that I deplored religion for I did not appreciate the notion that our lives were dictated and already laid out, so I saw this as my one chance to defy such ideals as kismet and destiny. The vicar's scheme seemed to prove the existence of some unseen power, an idea that I would need time to absorb, but I now stood to defy the very fate I refused to be shackled by.

"Good morrow," I whispered to Jill, stroking her hair once more. I'd have preferred to place her somewhere where she would be found, or somewhere the wouldn't frighten or confuse her when she finally awoke, but alas I did not have the time.

I stood.

I unfastened the rope that tethered me.

I turned.

And I charged through the red wall that bore null time.

I paid little attention to the shifting images about me, or the sudden change in pressure that I had previously found so disorienting. Running at a mad pace I saw the mirror wall approach, and I immediately leaped, crashing through it and into the field of reverse time.

The sensation was far beyond anything Mr. Grisham could have possibly explained. It was like jumping headlong into the flow of Niagara Falls, not only for my body but my mind as well. The plane seemed to exist like a dark and swirling storm cloud, but whether this is because it was the way it manifested or due to the fact that my mind was simply unable to comprehend it I am still not sure. My momentum seemed frozen in mid-air. My feet did not seem to touch the ground. I flailed my arms outwards but then seemed to manifest overtop me. I moved my head to turn right but found myself looking at my feet. I gained the uncanny ability to look at my own body as though detached from all but my own eyes, as I could see my own mouth as it screamed, but no words would come. I attempted to drive myself forward, but in truth I had no idea in which direction I moved.

Then I saw it. A darkened silhouette against a grey-black nightmarish dreamscape. A solitary figure, intact, and handling the transition much better than I. Using whatever resolve I could muster I drove myself back, and found that I in turn thrust forward. My limbs flailed. My momentum increased. My ears and stomach had lost all perception. I felt my disentangled body make contact with the other, which could only have been the vicar. I felt resistance, yet somehow, inexplicably, I felt his panic. Had I control of my own mouth, I'd have smiled at his dismay. Our momentum carried us forward, and in the distance, breaking through the storm clouds, was a glowing wall of fiery orange. It loomed like the gates to Hell, and I could feel its warmth, its power, its sheer finality.

The deadly zone.

I knew that if I could spare myself I would, but at all costs I endeavoured to thrust the vicar forward, casting him into the wall of fire. My ears could register no sound, but my intangible body could feel his scream as he was cast into the realm of absolute non-being. Frantically I tried to resist, and pushed myself in all directions in order to retreat. I felt a hand singed by the wall, but I was otherwise spared. The sheer disorientation, however, was just too much to bare. My feet once again touched the ground, as did my hands, my face, my entire body. I struggled to lift myself once more. To escape. To leave this realm of absolute chaos. I had manage to stop the architect of this design, but I was unable to save myself from his works.

Unable to fight against the antithesis of my existence any longer, I collapsed into futility.
EPILOGUE

Had Mr. Grisham's schemes not come at the expense of human life, invoking sinful behaviour, and exploiting human nature, then I would have seen no reason to stop him. Conceiving such a design, orchestrating such a fantastic cross of principles, and pioneering a scientific method virtually unheard of was an accomplishment worthy of praise, but like a mythological vampire his continued existence required human sacrifice, and thus I could not, with any moral boundary, allow him to continue.

We are all beings of causality, governed by laws that dictate not only our lives, but the behaviour of the world we live in. The tell us how to breath, how to process thoughts, how to make the very blood that sustains us flow through our veins. They tell our cells how to reproduce in the womb, which will become a hand, which will become a foot. They tell us which cells remain healthy and which become cancerous. They tell us which minds develop healthily and which will have flaws that attribute to disabilities or, at times, sheer genius. It is all dictated for us. Are we fated? No, but we are imprinted. Bound by reoccurring events, but infinitely able to change our path and destiny.

Like Daedalus, the vicar - Lord Gordon Randall Morrow - fashioned wings to attain freedom from unlikely sources. Like Icarus he flew too close to the sun, and his heedlessness led to his ruin. I, however, flew too close to the sea.

I awoke some time later, tired, distressed, and hungry. It took me a while to reckon what had occurred, and the memory of it all still perplexes me. I have done my best to recant my tale in a method which makes sense to you, in a manner in which the direction and flow of your minds can process. Are we running forward, or are we travelling backwards? Is there any difference between the two, or any possible way to equate one with the other and truly compare them?

I still find it very difficult to cope with your method of thinking and behaving. This flow is so very foreign to me, but I am sure that, if I endeavour, I will manage to find my place.

In time.

Cover Image

Cover Design by Jamie Crothall

Cover Photo by Paolo Gaetano (web.tiscali.it/paologaetano), purchased and used under license through www.istockphoto.com.

Map Image

Greyfield Map created by Jamie Crothall using Microsoft Visio.

