III - Henry
Henry
sniffed the air as they walked towards James Street. It still smelled damp and icy, but it was fresh, he couldn’t deny
that. The old man who had clambered
fearfully into the factory would have used that as an excuse to clear his head
of nonsense ideas and to stick to the wholly rational. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t tempted. The whole idea of the Cult of St. Margaret
was just so wild, so terrifying, that a part of his mind still wanted to shut
down and ignore it, to have an elderly temper tantrum and choose ignorance,
even madness, over the truth. Henry was
past that now, though, he knew. He
couldn’t go back to ignorance. He had a
responsibility to the people he was with and that meant facing the fear, facing
the unknown and the half-forgotten nightmares, and to make an end of it.
He wasn’t
sure what the others thought. Paige
seemed to understand, but what she actually thought of all that he had told her
in the factory – that he didn’t know.
Charlie was the same. The boy
was so darn quiet, it was hard to tell what he was ever thinking about. The only thing it was possible to be sure
about was that the boy was thinking, all the time. The child was almost frightening, but Henry had a sense that he
was smarter than he looked. He’ll be
fine, he thought.
Josh was
another matter all together. Henry hadn’t
had a chance to explain to him about the cult as he had to Paige and Charlie
and, now they were out in the cold air and making a move towards the city
centre, it seemed a lot harder to muster up the courage to talk about it. He wouldn’t deny it, that was a certainty,
but he couldn’t raise the topic easily either.
So they
walked on in silence and when they came to the end of the road they turned on
James Street and where once there would have been street lights and the neon
glow of a few late night off licences and tobacconists, there was only the dark
and the swirling fog and the best part of a mile to walk.
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