XI - Henry
They
found the furniture department without too much difficulty, although with no
lighting, no lifts and no escalators, Henry began to regret his suggestion
about halfway up to the fourth floor.
He had never been fond of
department stores and liked them even less since Irene died. Having no reason to be dragged around
looking at ladies’ clothes, crockery and curtains, he found it easiest just to
avoid altogether. Despite this, he was
surprised by how much he remembered of the store’s old layout and noted with
interest and occasional frustration
those areas which seemed to be in the same place and those which had
moved since his last visit. Fortunately
furniture wasn’t one of them.
They made their way over to a
comfortable looking roomset and Henry dropped into an armchair which looked
like it had been made for him. It was
soft and hard in all the right places and taking the weight off his bruised and
battered hip worked wonders for his mood.
Josh and Paige found spots on a matching sofa and Charlie curled up in
an accent armchair which, in Henry’s opinion, didn’t look like it belonged at
all, even in the dark.
“How long do you need to rest?”
Josh asked after a moment’s silence.
“I don’t know,” Henry replied
honestly enough, “fifteen minutes? Half
an hour? Longer?”
“We shouldn’t stay too long,”
the youth replied. He sounded
impatient, but then the young often were.
“Why?” Paige asked, “Do you
have somewhere you need to be?”
“No,” Josh replied, a little
too quickly, “but every time we go to a place and stick around something bad
happens. I’d like to leave here before
the mannequins come to life or we get attacked by some sort of escalator
monster.”
“Ghosts,” Henry said, musing.
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s ghosts you should be
worrying about here. Have you never
heard the stories of the haunted department store?”
“No.” Josh replied doubtfully.
“Neither have I,” Paige added, “what
did they say?”
“Oh, just that there were cold
patches in the older parts of the store sometimes and that, at night, the CCTV
cameras would pick up movement in the fashion aisles, clothes rippling in
breezes that could never have been there.
That sort of thing. All nonsense
of course.”
“Of course,” Paige replied, but
Henry saw her shiver slightly and he tried to suppress a laugh. It would not be kind, he knew, but the
susceptibility of the young never ceased to amaze him.
“Where should we head after
this?” Paige asked.
“I have no idea,” Henry
replied, “I’m not really sure there’s anywhere we can go.”
“Well, where would this
cult you mentioned be?”
“They could be anywhere these
days. You heard the prayed in the
factory – they’ve probably used half the buildings in the city as their chapels
and cathedrals over the years.”
“Yeah, but, I bet that, given
the chance, they would want to use something more significant than that.” Josh said.
“What do you know about them?” Paige asked, suddenly turning towards the
young man, “You didn’t mention anything to him at any point did you Henry?” she
glanced his way, then shook her head, “No, we haven’t been apart since we left
the factory.”
“I must have overheard
something, then,” Josh replied awkwardly.
Henry tried to think if he
would have had the opportunity, but then shook his head. There was no point trying to fathom out
things like that, and why else would the boy know?
“So where do you think they’d
be?” he asked instead.
“If I were one of them I’d head
right for the heart, to the old city kirk, right in the middle of everything .”
“Perhaps we should try there,
then,” Paige agreed, “maybe we can stop all this?”
Henry shifted in his chair and
agreed. “Wouldn’t that be nice.”
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